| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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Including Comcast. | |
| Comcast is partnering with a thousand community centers to create Wi-Fi-enabled lifts so students from low-income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. | ||
| comcast supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers giving you a front row seat to democracy this is washington journal for saturday may 10th This week, President Donald Trump unveiled a trade agreement with the United Kingdom as talks with other countries continue. | ||
| Also, newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made his first visit to the White House. | ||
| And Cardinal Robert Prevost became Pope Leo XIV after being elected the first U.S.-born pontiff. | ||
| Those are just a few of the stories C-SPAN has been following. | ||
| And for the first hour of today's program, we're asking you, what's your top news story of the week? | ||
| Here are the lines: Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001, and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can text your comments to 202-748-8003. | ||
| Be sure to include your name and city. | ||
| You can also post a question or comment on Facebook at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Good morning, and thank you for being with us. | ||
| We'll get to your calls and comments in just a few moments, but first, wanted to give you some more information on one of those top stories I just mentioned. | ||
| That is the trade deal the U.S. made with the UK this week. | ||
| From CNBC, it says President Donald Trump on Thursday unveiled the broad outline of a trade agreement with the United Kingdom. | ||
| This deal is the first by the United States with the country whose imports were subject to new tariffs imposed by Trump in early April. | ||
| The U.S. has a trade goods surplus with the UK. | ||
| Many specifics about the deal were not immediately clear, and nothing was signed during the Oval Office event. | ||
| It says that, says the final details are being written up, Trump said in the coming weeks, we'll have it all very conclusive. | ||
| He said that the deal includes billions of dollars of increased market access for American exports, and that the UK will reduce or eliminate numerous non-tariff barriers that unfairly discriminate against American products. | ||
| That deal comes as others are underway. | ||
| This morning in Switzerland, talks between China and the U.S. are underway. | ||
| Also, from CNBC, it says that President Donald Trump indicated Friday ahead of key trade talks that he is willing to lower tariffs on China to 80%, but that level may still be higher than what investors and business leaders were hoping for. | ||
| Trump said in a Truth Social post, 80% tariffs on China seems right. | ||
| Up to Scott B. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant is one of the U.S. officials set to speak with counterparts from China at a meeting in Switzerland this weekend. | ||
| An 80% levy would be a significant reduction from the 145% tariff currently facing many Chinese goods. | ||
| However, that number could still be seen as prohibitive to trade. | ||
| It is also much higher than the 10% baseline tariff in the U.S.-UK trade agreement that was announced on Thursday. | ||
| From Thursday, it was, or I'm sorry, it was yesterday in the Oval Office that President Trump was asked about the U.S.-China trade talks. | ||
| Here's a clip from that event. | ||
|
unidentified
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What parameters have you given Scott Besson on negotiating with China this weekend? | |
| We have to make a great deal for America. | ||
|
unidentified
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Are you going to be disappointed if he comes back without a deal? | |
| No, not at all, because we already made a great deal. | ||
| We're not doing business with China right now. | ||
| You know, we lost $1 trillion last year with China, $1 trillion. | ||
| So if you're not going to do business with them, you're not going to lose $1 trillion. | ||
| But we lost. | ||
| I just want, I want China to do great. | ||
| You know, I'm very friendly with President Xi. | ||
| I have great respect for him and for China, but we can't continue to allow them to do what they did. | ||
| When I was president, they paid hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs and taxes. | ||
| And then Biden screwed it all up. | ||
| What he did to this country between the border and between all of the other problems, the wars, everything, what he did to this country should never be forgotten. | ||
| But one of the things he did is the trade was so bad and so imbalanced. | ||
| So I think we're going to come back with a fair deal for both China and us. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. Have you given Besant a number of how low you're willing to go? | |
| I have. | ||
| But I put out a number today, 80%, so we'll see how that all works. | ||
| For this first hour of today's Washington Journal, we're asking you, what's your top news story of the week again? | ||
| The Lions Democrats 202-748-8,000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| We will start with Sherman in Cardington, Ohio, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Sherman. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hey, good morning. | |
| How are you doing? | ||
| Top news story of the week. | ||
| It's the recent election of the first Pope of the U.S.'s or United States' first Pope. | ||
| A lot of people say it's American, but the previous Pope was from South America, so just to clear that up. | ||
| And it's not even close. | ||
| No one had an American Pope on their bingo card. | ||
| I can assure you, if they say they did, they were lying through their teeth. | ||
| And I guess the question that everyone should ask: who's going to tell Donald Trump that the Pope doesn't work for him? | ||
| Have a nice day. | ||
| I'm Sherman in Ohio, Paul in Nampa, Idaho, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Paul. | ||
|
unidentified
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Morning. | |
| I guess the continuance of Donald Trump, President Donald Trump, having to continue to sign more executive actions and just exactly how many attorneys are going to be thrown on the case against that particular executive action, so it'll be nullified, at least denied and delayed for, oh, probably maybe even as long as 18 months for some of these decisions. | ||
| And I think that's one of the ongoing ones every week. | ||
| The other one I would say would be what that gentleman just brought about: 1.4 billion people have Catholicism as their main religion. | ||
| And I think that's a wonderful thing to have. | ||
| It's just something that you can look forward to and know that it's not going to let you down. | ||
| And I'm not so sure about the Pontiff. | ||
| I don't know that much about him. | ||
| I know he was 69 years old, considering a lot of the other cardinals that were up for his eminency. | ||
| He was 69, he is 69, excuse me, and a lot of them were over 70. | ||
| And I noticed that I was watching one of your shows here this morning before your show came on that there were some that were even in their 50s that had gotten elected. | ||
| And I was surprised at that. | ||
| I'd never heard of one being that young. | ||
| I mean, if you get started at 50 years old as the Pope, you can be in there for a long time. | ||
| But you have a great show. | ||
| We might keep it on there so we can enjoy it. | ||
| Maybe not so early out here, but it's late for you now. | ||
| Well, thanks for getting up early to be with us, Paul. | ||
| Let's hear from Kurt in Mountain Union, or I'm sorry, Mountain Union, Pennsylvania, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Kurt. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning, Tammy. | |
| Good morning, Tammy. | ||
| First, I'd like to make a suggestion for C-SPAN to maybe recategorize their call-in lines to be more accurate. | ||
| How about employed, unemployed, and retired? | ||
| Because those are the viewpoints that appear to be shown in the call-ins. | ||
| Okay, Kurt, do you have a top story? | ||
| Top story would be the election of the new Pope. | ||
| Kurt, what does it mean to you to have an American serving as the Pope? | ||
|
unidentified
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To me, it means that it could be maybe a bad sign, depending upon how you want to look at it. | |
| Tell me more, Kurt. | ||
| What do you tell me more about those thoughts? | ||
|
unidentified
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For anybody who really reads the Bible and really pays attention to signs and things, it's not necessarily what I would call a good sign. | |
| That was Kurt in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Tim in Kentucky, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Tim. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Good morning, everybody. | ||
| I think my top story of the thing of this week is Trump is going to try to suspend or get rid of the writ of habeas corpus. | ||
| You know, this guy is stepping right into a dictatorship. | ||
| And here we all go just thinking it's all normal. | ||
| It's okay. | ||
| Does everybody really want a dictator for this country? | ||
| I sure don't. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| The guy's corrupt, and he has no regard whatsoever for the Constitution. | ||
| And that's my thing for today. | ||
| And that was Tim in Kentucky. | ||
| And Tim talking about this. | ||
| It is a headline from CNBC Trump administration looking at suspending habeas corpus for immigrants. | ||
| It says that White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller said Friday that the administration is actively looking at suspending the writ of habeas corpus, the constitutional right to challenge in court the legality of a person's detention by the government for migrants. | ||
| Miller's comments came in response to a White House reporter who asked about President Donald Trump's entertaining the idea of suspending the writ to deal with the problem of illegal immigrants in the United States. | ||
| It was yesterday that Stephen Miller made those remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
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Here is a clip. | |
| Hold on, there's a question back there first. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have two quick questions. | |
| First, you know, President Trump has talked about potentially suspending his corpus to take care of the illegal immigration problem. | ||
| When could we see that happen, do you think? | ||
| Well, the Constitution is clear, and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the written of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion. | ||
| So I would say that's an option we're actively looking at. | ||
| Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not. | ||
| At the end of the day, Congress passed a body of law known as the Immigration Nationality Act, which stripped Article III courts. | ||
| That's the judicial branch of jurisdiction over immigration cases. | ||
| So Congress actually passed, it's called jurisdiction-stripping legislation. | ||
| It passed a number of laws that say that the Article III courts aren't even allowed to be involved in immigration cases. | ||
| Many of you probably don't know this. | ||
| I'll give you a good example. | ||
| Are you familiar with the term temporary protective status or TPS, right? | ||
| So by statute, the courts are stripped of jurisdiction from overruling a presidential determination or a secretarial determination on TPS when the Secretary of Homeland Security makes that determination. | ||
| So when Secretary Noam terminated TPS for the illegals that Biden flew into the country, when courts stepped in, they were violating explicit language that Congress had enacted, saying they have no jurisdiction. | ||
| So it's not just the courts aren't just at war with the executive branch. | ||
| The courts are at war, these radical rogue judges, with the legislative branch as well, too. | ||
| So all of that will inform the choices the president ultimately makes, yes. | ||
| And a programming note for you. | ||
| On Monday, Maryland Senator Chris Van Holland will discuss the Trump administration's potential violations of due process rights when it comes to deportations. | ||
| The discussion is expected to touch on Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, the man deported from Maryland, whom Senator Van Holland visited in El Salvador last month. | ||
| That is going to be from the Center of American Progress. | ||
| You'll be able to watch that live here on C-SPAN 2 at 10.30 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| Again, that's on Monday. | ||
| You'll also be able to find it on C-SPAN Now. | ||
| That's our free mobile app and online at c-span.org. | ||
| Back to your calls asking what your top news story of the week is. | ||
| Gary in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Gary. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning, ma'am. | |
| Thank you so much for taking my call. | ||
| I was going to talk about President Trump's trade deal with the UK. | ||
| I thought, other than the Pope story, of course, I thought that was the second biggest story of the week. | ||
| And I thought that was very important for President Trump to get that done and, you know, to start working on them trade deals. | ||
| And I think he'll get it done. | ||
| And I just think he's been doing a wonderful job. | ||
| And he's been doing well, you know, as far as the border is concerned, he's been doing a wonderful job on that. | ||
| But I want to also thank you, C-SPAN, because, I mean, I watch y'all every morning. | ||
| It's the first time I've ever gotten through in like 15 years. | ||
| And I just want to thank y'all for it. | ||
| Y'all do so much to, I mean, spread democracy and let everyone be heard. | ||
| And I just want to thank you and let you thank you for letting me, what's my opinion? | ||
| You have a good day. | ||
| Bye-bye. | ||
| That was Gary in Virginia. | ||
| Scott in Roseville, California, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Scott. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Now, Juxtapose, where we have the American Pope and the American presidents is pretty important, where we could see our lives played out through other individuals, where we all live vicariously through just expelling ourselves and blaming Democrats, blaming Republicans. | ||
| It's very important that we understand that we are here for a reason. | ||
| My most important issue this week, my cousin just escaped from the hospital, post-tracheotomy, had a massive fever, was going to die. | ||
| They fixed him, and he felt he was being contained, held against his will. | ||
| My elderly mother, who cannot drive at night, went on a rescue mission and got him. | ||
| And we just had the police come by and do a wellness check to make sure he was home and safe. | ||
| And it reminded me of my aneurysm, brain aneurysm, the racquetball cyst pushing the brain out the back of my head in 2009. | ||
| I'm the son of an OP2AN, and I knew I was going to die. | ||
| And as they wheeled me into the ER to open my skull, the last thing I said was, Here I come. | ||
| God, here I come. | ||
| Faith. | ||
| So I'm totally on the Pope's side here as questioning the juxtaposition of President Trump being American and posting pictures of himself as Pope. | ||
| And then an American Pope out of Chicago, wonderful news that that happened. | ||
| But in the end, I was like, I'm ready. | ||
| Here I come. | ||
| And six hours later, I woke up and my boss's voice was the first voice I heard after surgery. | ||
| And it was her eldest daughter in the neurotrauma unit. | ||
| And I survived. | ||
| I knew I was going to die, son of an OP2AN. | ||
| I knew I was going to die. | ||
| But God kept me alive. | ||
| For what reason? | ||
| So I could be on the line today and let every single American and everybody on the planet know that God loves you no more and no less than I. I'm still here and I shouldn't be by all accounts. | ||
| So I don't hate Republicans. | ||
| I don't hate Democrats. | ||
| I don't hate Trump. | ||
| I don't have any reason to be here but to love my neighbor. | ||
| That's why I'm still here. | ||
| Scott in California sharing his story. | ||
| Rick in Nashville, Tennessee, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Rick. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| A lot of opinions this morning. | ||
| The topic, I believe you said, was the top news story of the week. | ||
| So let's just put it in perspective on my part. | ||
| I think it's trade. | ||
| You know, you go back in time, and I go back to the 60s, and I've seen the jobs dissipate in this country. | ||
| I've traveled this country. | ||
| I was in sales most of my life. | ||
| I've traveled this country all out west, some of the northeast, most and reside in the south. | ||
| And I've met people, I've seen things in this country. | ||
| I've watched, I've been in communities, small towns where the textile industry has gone, it's dissipated. | ||
| We've gotten on more of a welfare state in this country because there are no jobs. | ||
| But I think it boils down. | ||
| They talk about globalism all the time. | ||
| You know, we want to be one global economy. | ||
| And we look up one day and we find out that our jobs are gone and we are a global economy. | ||
| And I watched a show once the other night and it said about Andrew Carnegie. | ||
| If you remember the Industrial Revolution in this country, he went to England and learned more about the steel industry over there. | ||
| And he came back and that's when the steel industry was born and competed with England on their steel because they were charging us tariffs. | ||
|
unidentified
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And you know, Taylor's go back to the taxation without representation with the Boston Tea Party. | |
| But if you look all through history, they've always charged tariffs. | ||
| We charge them, they charge some. | ||
| And now we're in a situation where we go for cheap labor, and I can get it in human rights, but I won't. | ||
| In China or Vietnam or wherever, we fight these wars and we end up having cheap products in America because we are spenders by nature and we are the number one economy in the world and they do want to do business with us. | ||
| So why should Canada get a subsidy of $250 billion a year from us, but yet they have our car industry in their country shipping them back over here? | ||
| It doesn't make any sense. | ||
| So I think we're headed, Trump is going to head toward a global economy in a lot of sense because everyone is going to be able to trade. | ||
| You're going to have your own industries in your own country and you're going to trade with China. | ||
| You're going to trade with England. | ||
| You're going to trade with Vietnam. | ||
| You're going to trade with the Middle East and so on and so forth. | ||
| So really, it's a good thing because it allows with technology today for us to go even beyond. | ||
| And there's one thing that I can say that I found all across this country: people love freedom. | ||
| They want to get up every day and go do what they want to do without a government entity telling them to. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And y'all have a great day. | ||
| Bye. | ||
| That was Rick in Tennessee. | ||
| Peter in Rutland, Vermont. | ||
| I'm sorry, Vermont. | ||
| Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Peter. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| The obituary of David Just Souter, our justice who passed away. | ||
| Thank you, C-SPAN, for showing the legal immigration ceremony of the 104 foreigners on the shores of Plymouth, Massachusetts. | ||
|
unidentified
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Citizens, Republican or Democrat, must be reminded this is the only process to be a citizen of the United States of America. | |
| Thank you very much. | ||
| That was Peter, and Peter talked about the passing of former Supreme Court Justice David Souter from Fox News. | ||
| It says that the former Supreme Court Justice died Thursday at his home in New Hampshire at the age of 85. | ||
| The court announced on Friday, Justice Souter was appointed to the court by President George H.W. Bush in 1990 and retired in 2009 after serving more than 19 years on the court. | ||
| It said in a statement, Justice David Souter served our court with great distinction for nearly 20 years. | ||
| He brought uncommon wisdom and kindness to a lifetime of public service. | ||
| After retiring to his beloved New Hampshire in 2009, he continued to render significant service to our branch by sitting regularly on the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for more than a decade. | ||
| He will be greatly missed, Chief Justice John Roberts said. | ||
| And we have been showing clips and we have more information about Justice Souter on our website, c-sban.org. | ||
| If you go there, you will see something on our homepage that links to all of our coverage of him over the years. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| Let's hear from Bob in Logan, Utah, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Bob. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just, I'll make it short today. | ||
| When Trump said just real baby drill brought the price of gas down, gas here in Logan is $3.15. | ||
|
unidentified
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So I don't think that I think he's wrong. | |
| That's it. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| That's Bob in Utah. | ||
| William in Shelby, North Carolina, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, William. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, young lady. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good. | |
| I am glad. | ||
| I'd like to make several statements and expound upon those statements. | ||
| Anyhow, we will, he, him, it, I, we will try to contain our zeal and passion and choose our words wisely, for it is always the way one comes across with one's word. | ||
| Anyhow, the false worshiping that is going on today, false preachers, the false religions, false propes, false reverend doctors, the governors and senators that are falsely also ignorant without understanding. | ||
| How can you say you worship and trust God, even Father Lord Christ, and yet do not apply his words when y'all swear that they are infallible and just not understanding? | ||
| And to understand the end from the beginning and the beginning from the end, almost omni-ishi. | ||
| Well, there's a lot to cover from cover to cover and back again as a true pre-end or friend. | ||
| And all your false evangelists, you have these whispers. | ||
| There is not Democratic or Republican or Independence. | ||
| There's not this faith or this religion. | ||
| There's not an Israelite or a Jew or a Greek or a white, a black, a red, a brown, a yellow. | ||
| There's only the spirit and the world. | ||
| And all things are transpiring. | ||
| Who is our neighbor? | ||
| Well, that tree and those cats and those sharks and those mountain lions, even the weather itself is our neighbor and was created by our Creator. | ||
| And those laws were put into place to keep the balance and the true worshipers in line. | ||
| Got your point, William. | ||
| We'll go to Ira in Palm Coast, Florida, lying for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Ira. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Morning. | |
| I'm going to start out by saying the Republican Party, the mega crowd anyway, they really don't know what they're doing because they're blinded by hate and separatism. | ||
| Because anytime that they start out by defunding our best and smartest institutions, well, research and development anyway, they're putting themselves behind everybody else in the world because you can bet your bottom dollar, China, North Korea, any of these other nations, they're not defunding their research and development schools. | ||
| And these people are so blinded by hate and separatism that they don't really see what they know what they're doing. | ||
| I mean, it's ludicrous, it's stupid. | ||
| Because if you define these schools, you've put yourself behind you. | ||
| They're always hollering, make America first, make America great again. | ||
| But we're going backward. | ||
| You don't defund your best research development schools. | ||
| Because why you're saying make America great, America first? | ||
| I don't get it. | ||
| That's my statement. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Ira. | ||
| And another story making headlines this week was the new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney visiting the White House. | ||
| This story from the Associated Press. | ||
| It says that U.S. President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney faced off in the Oval Office on Tuesday and showed no signs of retreating from their gapping differences, gaping differences, and an ongoing trade war that has shattered decades of trust between the two countries. | ||
| The two kept it civil, but as for Trump calls to make, but as for Trump's calls to make Canada the 51st state, Carney insisted his nation was, quote, not for sale. | ||
| And Trump shot back, quote, time will tell. | ||
| Asked by reporters if there was anything Kearney could tell him to lift his tariffs of much of 25% on Canadian on Canada, Trump blurted out no. | ||
| Again, that meeting happening on Tuesday in the Oval Office, here is a clip from that event. | ||
| I believe it would be a massive tax cut for the Canadian citizens. | ||
| You get free military, you get tremendous medical cares and other things. | ||
| There would be a lot of advantages, but it would be a massive tax cut. | ||
| And it's also a beautiful, you know, as a real estate developer, you know, I'm a real estate developer at heart. | ||
| When you get rid of that artificially drawn line, somebody drew that line many years ago with like a ruler, just a straight line right across the top of the country. | ||
| When you look at that beautiful formation when it's together, I'm a very artistic person, but when I looked at that beautiful, I said that's the way it was meant to be. | ||
| But, you know, I just, I do feel it's much better for Canada. | ||
| But we're not going to be discussing that unless somebody wants to discuss it. | ||
| I think that there are tremendous benefits to the Canadian citizens, tremendously lower taxes, free military, which honestly we give you essentially anyway because we're protecting Canada if you ever had a problem. | ||
| But I think, you know, it would really be a wonderful marriage because it's two places that get along very well. | ||
| They like each other a lot. | ||
| Well, if I may, as you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's true. | |
| We're sitting in one right now, you know, Buckingham Palace that you visited as well. | ||
| That's true. | ||
| And having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign last several months, it's not for sale, won't be for sale ever. | ||
| But the opportunity is in the partnership and what we can build together. | ||
| And we have done that in the past. | ||
| And part of that, as the President just said, is with respect to our own security. | ||
| And my government is committed for a step change in our investment in Canadian security and our partnership. | ||
| And I'll say this as well, that the president has revitalized international security, revitalized NATO, and us playing our full weight in NATO. | ||
| And that will be part of the state. | ||
| They have. | ||
| I must say, Canada is stepping up the military participation because, Mark knew, you know, they were low, and now they're stepping it up, and that's a very important thing. | ||
| But never say never. | ||
| Ever say never. | ||
| About 30 minutes left in this first hour of this morning's Washington Journal, asking your top news story of the week. | ||
| The lines, if you would like to call in. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| Let's talk with Ed, Ocean City, New Jersey, line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Ed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, Ed O'Donnell on the Pope, there are sincere Catholic priests, nuns, and Catholics, but there are also a lot of vicious and insincere Catholic priests, nuns, Catholics. | |
| The same could be said about Protestant churches. | ||
| And the second thing is that the Catholic Church, and basically all churches now, have a 100% tolerance for alcohol, cigarettes, and gambling. | ||
| So those two issues need to be dealt with. | ||
| That was Ed in New Jersey. | ||
| Roy, Florida, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Roy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'd like to talk this morning about something in government that works. | ||
| Something that takes care of the American people and it takes care of the handicapped, the mentally retarded, it takes care of grandma and grandpa. | ||
| It takes care of orphaned children. | ||
| And that's Social Security. | ||
| And there's been some talk about why we need to cut it back, do away with it. | ||
| And that's ridiculous. | ||
| Social Security, no one pays more than $10,300 a year into Social Security. | ||
| And that's if you make $156,000. | ||
| If you make above that, you quit paying. | ||
| Well, the head of Boeing makes $33 million a year, or I think about $22 million. | ||
| Big difference. | ||
| Elon Musk, he quits paying on January 1st. | ||
| The rest of the year, he gets off scot-free. | ||
| If they were to pay their fair share into Social Security, we could do so much more with the program. | ||
| And the lies that are being told that Social Security is going to illegal immigrants and people that are 150 years old, person that's on the rolls at 150, they're on the rolls, they're not receiving the check. | ||
| It's that they can't give a death certificate for that person for some reason. | ||
| And they could go in and they need somebody to clear that problem up. | ||
| But Social Security takes care of so much with so little of our tax dollar that it'd be ridiculous to even think about getting away. | ||
| And let's let the millionaires, there's over a million of them, by the way. | ||
| A million millionaires, if they paid in, you'd double the money that's in the fund. | ||
| Got your point, Roy. | ||
| We'll go to David in Auburn, New York, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, David. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, my top story of the week is the murder trial for Tyree Nichols down in Memphis, where he was beaten to death by four police officers. | |
| And he, the trial just came out, the verdict. | ||
| Three out of the four people that beat him to death, this black man beaten to death by four black officers, were given no charges. | ||
| They were exonerated. | ||
| What a miscarriage of justice. | ||
| We've seen this before. | ||
| This is not the only time you'll see it. | ||
| But I was astonished. | ||
| I thought at least there would be some consequences to that. | ||
| We're dealing now in New York State with the beating death of a couple of different inmates. | ||
| And I'm just wondering how far they'll go with that. | ||
| Will they whitewash that? | ||
| Or will someone really pay some consequences for this? | ||
| But anyway, that was my top story of the week. | ||
| I thank you. | ||
| That's David in New York. | ||
| Katie in Alexandria, Virginia, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Katie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| My name is Katie from Alexandria, Virginia. | ||
| And I was born and raised in Arlington. | ||
| And I have a question about JD Vance. | ||
| And I have a question about Usha Vance. | ||
| And I have a question about Kash Patel being Hindu religion. | ||
| And Modi is actually a Hindu from India. | ||
| So in India and Pakistan, Pakistan is majority Muslim. | ||
| India is majority Hindu. | ||
| And as a minority Sikh religion, S-I-K-H, I feel like Kash Patel is compromised because Modi is dealing with Usha's wife from Andhra Pradesh, and Kash Patel is dealing with the Gujarat Ambani family. | ||
| And that was Katie in Virginia. | ||
| Robert in Ohio, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Robert. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, how are you doing today? | |
| I just wanted to say my of the week, best news of the week, it was about yesterday when the black mayor fought for that illegal alien woman. | ||
| I don't know why, but he don't do nothing for black people. | ||
| And, you know, it's very sickening to see that and hear that. | ||
| You know, you're a black American, but you're not going to fight for black Americans. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| That's the only thing I got to say. | ||
| And thank you, and you have a blessed day. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Robert in Ohio. | ||
| And Robert, talking about this story, the headline from the New York Times, Newark's mayor is arrested during protest over ICE Detention Center. | ||
| It says that federal officials arrested Ross J. Bakara, the mayor of Newark, on Friday after a confrontation that also involved three members of Congress at a new immigration detention facility that is expected to play a central role in President Trump's mass deportation efforts. | ||
| It says Mr. Bakara, a Democrat who is running for governor, was taken to a separate federal immigration and customs enforcement facility in Newark, where he was still being held hours after the arrest. | ||
| Alina Haba, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, who is now New Jersey's interim U.S. attorney, said that Mr. Bakara had, quote, ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security investigations to remove himself and had chosen to disregard the law. | ||
| Videos taken by protesters show Mr. Bakara being taken into custody in a public area outside the front entrance gates of the facility, which is known as Delaney Hall and is expected to hold up to 1,000 migrants at a time. | ||
| Three members of New Jersey's Democratic Congressional Delegation, Representative Bonnie Watson-Coleman, Rob Menendez, and La Monica McIver were at the building on Friday for what they said was an oversight visit and they were allowed to visit the center. | ||
| It says that Mr. Bakara was taken into custody by a team of masked federal agents wearing military fatigues while outside the gates in a driveway swarming with protesters and reporters. | ||
| Just about 20 minutes left. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| Let's hear from Chris in Alabama, line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Chris. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, how you doing? | |
| I think my main story for this week, I think the story for this week, is the new Pope, which with the amount of followers that he has, he's really the only person right now that can stand toe-to-toe with Trump and not flinch. | ||
| At least in my mind, he won't. | ||
| Secondly, I hear so many different Ways that Trump is going to do something in one day, that how can anybody understand what this person is going to do when what he's going to do is change everything in one day and then he has somebody cleaning up the next? | ||
| So that's basically it. | ||
| No answers, just questions. | ||
| Thanks a lot. | ||
| Bye-bye. | ||
| That's Chris in Alabama. | ||
| Stan in Dun Ellen, Florida, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Stan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, he's got no deal with China. | |
| He's got no deal with Mexico. | ||
| He's got no deal with Canada. | ||
| If you want to know, we're heading into a recession. | ||
| That's what the Fed said. | ||
| He can't lower the interest rates because we're this close to an accession. | ||
| If you look at the ports in California, they got nothing. | ||
| The truck drivers got nothing. | ||
| They're not unloading anything anymore. | ||
| We're this close to a recession thanks to Donald Trump. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The only thing going down is your 401k. | |
| And it's going to get worse because he says, well, if you don't have two dollars, don't worry about it. | ||
| Pretty soon you're not going to get no dolls because the shelves are going to be empty. | ||
| That's what he's doing. | ||
| He's putting us in a trade war. | ||
| Canada, people don't want to come here no more. | ||
| They hate us. | ||
| He had a deal with Mexico and Canada. | ||
| He broke that up. | ||
| That thing he's got with Britain, that's nothing. | ||
| Who's buying Rollins Rosses? | ||
| Him? | ||
| Nobody's buying it. | ||
| We're that close. | ||
| Right now, a recession. | ||
| That's what the Fed chair said. | ||
| That's why he couldn't lower the interest rate. | ||
| He's got no deals, nowhere. | ||
| I got your point, Stan. | ||
| We'll go to Aisha in Little Hawking, Ohio, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Aisha. | ||
| Oh, I'm sorry. | ||
| It's Asa. | ||
| Good morning, Asa. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I wanted to respond to the man from Florida who's talking about the dismantling of our education system. | |
| I have two grand, I have a granddaughter and a grandson. | ||
| They both are high school teachers. | ||
| And the system is going downhill because of all the laws. | ||
| Now, I'm only speaking of Ohio. | ||
| I don't know the whole country. | ||
| But the laws have changed to the point that one of my granddaughters is a history teacher. | ||
| She can't teach anything back past the Civil War. | ||
| Well, if you can't teach history back past the Civil War, there is no history. | ||
| The other grandson that teaches in a different school has problems doing anything concerning speaking about religion. | ||
| And that's part of our history. | ||
| That is part of our American system. | ||
| But he has started a program at noon when school is out for the kids' lunch. | ||
| And he calls it G Lines with Jesus, and he furnishes pizza and cookies for the kids that want to come to attend. | ||
| And they have to listen to 15 minutes talk about the Bible. | ||
| To me, that's education. | ||
| That is history. | ||
| We've had the Bible since the beginning of time. | ||
| So we know where history starts. | ||
| We know where it is today. | ||
| We need to be able to teach that. | ||
| So the guy that's talking about dismantling that system doesn't know what he's talking about because it does need to be overhauled. | ||
| Not totally dismantled, but overhauled and straightened up so where the teachers can teach. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Just a reminder to our callers: if you're on the line, if you get through and you're waiting to get on air, make sure that television is down in the background and listen through your phone. | ||
| Let's talk with Elaine in Florence, South Carolina, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Elaine. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I just have two questions that I've been waiting for someone on the media to ask the question as an observation as far as Donald Trump is concerned. | ||
| There is a medical condition that people have been discerning around, and it's called FDA, frontal lobe dementia. | ||
| And if someone would just research that, you would see and observe that he has the symptoms. | ||
| And that's one question I wish someone would just do the research and observe. | ||
| And the second question is the fact that the Supreme Court gave him full immunity on certain things. | ||
| I'm not sure exactly what that entails. | ||
| But as punishment for contempt of court, that he has just ignored all their laws and upholding the Constitution, which he says he doesn't know, which was odd in the first place. | ||
| That shows another sign. | ||
| Why as not a punishment they can't rescind his immunity? | ||
| Just as a punishment, because they can't do anything else. | ||
| You gave him immunity. | ||
| Take it back as punishment. | ||
| That's my question. | ||
| Thank you so very much. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Now's Elaine in South Carolina. | ||
| About 15 minutes left asking for your top news story this week. | ||
| Several callers bringing up the new Pope. | ||
| This is from this morning's Wall Street Journal. | ||
| The headline, Pope Warns Against De facto atheism. | ||
| It says that Pope Leo XIV celebrated his first Mass as pontiff in the Sistines Chapel on Friday, stressing the importance of missionary work in a world where many live in a state of de facto atheism. | ||
| It says Pope Leo XIV is the church's 267th Pope. | ||
| Friday's Mass was the first in a series of engagements from ancient rituals to worldly gatherings that will keep him busy in coming days and weeks. | ||
| On Sunday, he is set to deliver his first weekly noon blessing in St. Peter's Square. | ||
| The next day he will host journalists in the Vatican. | ||
| The formal installation Mass will take place on May 18th. | ||
| From yesterday, here is Pope Leo XIV celebrating his first Mass with cardinals in the Sistines Chapel. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Even today, there are many settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for weak people or stupid people, settings where other securities are preferred, like technology, or money, or success, or power, or pleasure. | |
| These are contexts where it's not easy to preach the gospel, where it's not easy to bear witness to the truth, where believers are mocked, opposed, despised, or at best tolerated and pitied. | ||
| Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed. | ||
| A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning and life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family, and so many other wounds that our society suffers. | ||
| Even today, there are not lacking settings in which Jesus, although appreciated as a man, is reduced to a kind of charismatic leader or a superman. | ||
| This is true not only among non-believers, but also among many baptized Christians who thus end up living at this level in a state of practical atheism. | ||
| This is the world that has been entrusted to us. | ||
| Let's hear from Rob in Port Crane in New York, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Rob. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I have two that really caught my eye this week. | ||
| The first was New York Attorney General Letitia James signing mortgage documents with her father, and she signed them as husband and wife to get a better mortgage rate. | ||
| And on those same documents, according to Next News Network, she also claimed that she was a resident of Virginia in order to get this mortgage. | ||
| So she needs to be thrown out of office. | ||
| My second one I thought was interesting was AOC and her family cashing her dead grandmother's Social Security checks for 15 years, totaling almost $600,000. | ||
| And I haven't heard anything on C-SPAN about that. | ||
| Do you think you guys could look into that? | ||
| Rob, where did you see the story? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Next News Network. | |
| Next NEXT? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am. | |
| All right. | ||
| You will look around for it. | ||
| That was Rob in New York. | ||
| Let's hear from Delia in New Jersey, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Delia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I wanted to say, you know, I didn't hear that from the pontiff, from the Pope. | ||
| I just heard that, so I will keep that in mind. | ||
| I am calling about that. | ||
| That is my news story. | ||
| As a Christian, you know, I'm a Christian African-American woman. | ||
| I was disheartened to see Italy do that with him and insert themselves. | ||
| And this is what I feel. | ||
| I feel they're inserting themselves in a wrong way into American politics. | ||
| Why do I say that? | ||
| Because they could have made a different choice, particularly seeing what's going on here in America with the border, the illegals, you know, the illegal aliens bombarding our border, which I must say also with the guy who said that from Ohio. | ||
| It's ill affecting black people. | ||
| I'm praying that that is not why Italy did what they did with him. | ||
| And we'll see. | ||
| But again, I am disheartened to see that choice. | ||
| Because here it is, you've got, you know, they chose this man who did a lot of work, missionary work over in Peru. | ||
| In fact, he spent most of his time there on the southern border. | ||
| And, you know, excuse me, in South America, he's American. | ||
| He comes from here. | ||
| And knowing what we're facing, all of us, not just black people, all of us in America from the illegal alien crisis that we are suffering here in America. | ||
| And to see them choose him, I'm wondering what their thought. | ||
| I mean, you don't have to wonder. | ||
| It's like, why would you have chosen someone who would probably be sympathetic to what they're doing, which is wrong? | ||
| Now, I don't know. | ||
| I'm going to wait and see what he does. | ||
| But it does seem to me that once again, and I say once again, that Italy or with their choice of the ponto, even after everything we did for them with the COVID, sending them all that medicine, helping them, Lord knows they suffered greatly during that. | ||
| And I don't want to say what, you know, I think they should take that into account as far as God is concerned. | ||
| Because whether it's Spain or Italy or Germany, back in 2008, when it came to choosing which or giving their opinion on who they thought should win between Barack and Hillary, they went to Barack, not Hillary. | ||
| Which I, you know, I've seen them do that in the past. | ||
| And each time those three countries back a candidate or want a candidate here in America, it was always a conservative or someone who was antithetical, who was against, or who you would say was racist against black people, just like the guy from Ohio said. | ||
| To see this black man back this fight for these people, the illegal aliens, who come here, who take more than not our jobs, who hurt black people. | ||
| I live in New York. | ||
| They said, you know, New Jersey, I'm in New Jersey right now. | ||
| I live in Harlem. | ||
| And to see what's happening in New York with the illegal aliens and how black people are suffering, whether it's giving – Mayor Adams, once again, another black, quote, unquote, black person, who is giving them $1,000 cards and all – you know, it just – I got your point, Delia. | ||
| Wanted to follow up on a topic on a story that one of the callers just brought up, the headline from Reuters to fact check Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's social security fraud claims originated on self-described satirical site. | ||
| It says that the claim that Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fraudulently redeemed her deceased grandmother's retirement benefits first emerged on a website that says it publishes satirical and fictional content, not a credible source. | ||
| That's been suggested online, referring to Ocasio-Cortez, who is popularly known as AOC. | ||
| One social media post in April said AOC has no excuse for why her family has been cashing her dead grandmother's social security checks for a decade and a half. | ||
| The fact check goes on to say that the claim was the claim was originally published on a website called the Dunning-Kruger Times, which is a self-described website of fictional and quote pure fantasy that lists itself as a subsidiary of the Americans Last Line of Defense Network, a parody satire of parody, satire, and tomfoolery. | ||
| Just about five or six minutes left in this first hour. | ||
| Let's talk with Linda in Albany, New York, Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Linda. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| My story is a CDC, that would be Center for Disease Control, reports 216 deaths nationwide, a record for pediatric influenza. | ||
| So when we had COVID, it was the elderly, but now that we have this new flu strain, it's children. | ||
| And the other associated headline that I have is New York records record of deaths from pediatric influenza. | ||
| And they're encouraging people who have children or grandchildren to mention there is a vaccine out there to protect the children because it's record numbers in New York also going back 15 years. | ||
| So I thought I would tell people that that is my story. | ||
| And thank you for listening. | ||
| That was Linda in New York. | ||
| Joe in Maine, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I just get in on Zawaiya. | ||
| My first thing is Gaza's still going on the war in Israel. | ||
| Is President Trump gonna demand retribution from Israel? | ||
| Hello. | ||
| I'm here, Joe. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Yes, my question is, is Trump going to demand retribution cash-wise from Israel? | ||
| That's my question. | ||
| I don't understand why they don't have to pay for all the military help we've given them. | ||
| And my second thing is, again, the Republicans lie. | ||
| That's all they do is lie. | ||
| So I don't want to take up anybody's more time. | ||
| You just saw they come out with lies, Fox News. | ||
| I guess it's just unbelievable. | ||
| That was Joe in Maine. | ||
| Robbie in Florida, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Robbie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| So let's see. | ||
| I want to address the gentleman about AOC, right-wingers. | ||
| You got to stop listening to the right-wing echo chamber. | ||
| It's lying to you. | ||
| Even when the lady here, the host, read it, it says satirical information. | ||
| You got reading comprehension, people. | ||
| Reading comprehension. | ||
| But as far as the Pope, the pendulum's swinging. | ||
| Again, just like here in American society, it's swinging. | ||
| But how far is it going to swing? | ||
| To the black lady who had spoken from New Jersey talking about immigration and how it's all political. | ||
| Lady, Jesus was an immigrant. | ||
| Are you going to kick him out of America? | ||
| He wanted to help the poor and the homeless and the sick. | ||
| Are you that hateful that you are against these people? | ||
| Now, 1964, black people were looking for their right to vote. | ||
| Did they do it by themselves? | ||
| No. | ||
| They needed white people. | ||
| They needed Latino people, Hispanic people, that guy from Ethiopia. | ||
| They needed a coalition to help them. | ||
| They didn't do it by themselves. | ||
| Now, if they want to go back out into the fields from where they came from and do immigrant work, go out in the fields, pick vegetables, fruit, go in construction, Trump gave you the jobs. | ||
| Go do them. | ||
| But no, they want to complain. | ||
| And that's everybody. | ||
| Second generation of Hispanics, Anglo-Saxons, everybody wants to complain. | ||
| We'll leave it there. | ||
| We have one more call. | ||
| It's a guy from St. Augustine, Florida, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Guy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking the call. | ||
| I think the issue this week is really the personal family lives and the family of four that was arrested by ICE and how many people have been arrested that are legal or that aren't really criminals, which is what Trump promised when some of us voted for him. | ||
| The other thing that I think we have to resolve is pilots have to quit the airline flying at age 65. | ||
| I think all politicians at the age of 70, and I'm 82, let the next generation come in. | ||
| And it's the same with the Supreme Court. | ||
| You've got to let the people that are mentally still with it. | ||
| And, you know, I'm older than Biden, and I'm older than Trump. | ||
| And I watched Trump for 15 years in New York. | ||
| And I wasn't impressed then. | ||
| And I'm sorry to say I'm less impressed now. | ||
| So hopefully the Congress will Get on the main line that they're supposed to be doing and bring us back to an even keel again where the Russian, the Republican Party doesn't feel like it's torn in half and afraid to say anything. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Nice guy in Florida. | ||
| Our last caller for this first hour. | ||
| Later in this morning's Washington Journal, Politico's EE News Deputy Climate Editor Thomas Frank will discuss cuts and changes to FEMA and the future of federal disaster response. | ||
| But next, Cato Institute Foreign Policy Research Fellow Brandon Buck joins us to discuss President Trump's recent proposal to send U.S. military to Mexico to help combat cartels from trafficking drugs across the shared border. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
American History TV, exploring the people and events that tell the American story. | |
| This weekend, a discussion on the history of the civil service and government workers with history professors Joseph McCartan from Georgetown University, Margaret Rung from Roosevelt University, and Eric Yellen from the University of Richmond. | ||
| On Lectures in History, a look at Native Americans and the American Revolution with Tulane University history professor Keely Smith. | ||
| She'll also discuss how the U.S. government and American society viewed various tribes during the early republic. | ||
| On the presidency, hear the story of Elizabeth Keckley, a popular Washington, D.C. dressmaker and former slave who was a confidant of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. | ||
| Exploring the American story, watch American History TV every weekend and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. | ||
| Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. | ||
| Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend. | ||
| At 3 p.m. Eastern, Dr. Robert Smith shares his book, Has Medicine Lost Its Mind, in which he argues that the medical establishment has failed to consider the importance of mental health in favor of focusing on physical health. | ||
| And at 7 Eastern, Kimberly Heckler talks about her biography of her mother-in-law, Margaret Heckler, in A Woman of First. | ||
| Margaret Heckler was a Republican member of Congress from Massachusetts, who later served as HHS Secretary and Ambassador to Ireland under President Reagan. | ||
| Then, at 10 p.m. Eastern on Afterwards, Atlantic Magazine staff writer Sophie Gilbert looks at the pop culture of the 90s and early 2000s and its impact on women and the feminist movement in her book, Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves. | ||
| She's interviewed by Jennifer Posner, author and founder of Women in Media and News. | ||
| Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org. | ||
| If you ever miss any of C-SPAN's coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org. | ||
| Videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. | ||
| These points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. | ||
| This timeline tool makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in Washington. | ||
| Scroll through and spend a few minutes on C-SPAN's points of interest. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss President Trump's recent proposal to send U.S. military to Mexico to help combat cartels is Brandon Buck, Cato Institute Foreign Policy Research Fellow. | ||
| Brandon, thank you so much for being with us this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| We will start. | ||
| Just want to give our audience a good understanding of your background. | ||
| Tell us about your background in this area. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I recently started as a foreign policy scholar at the Cato Institute. | |
| Prior to that, I completed a PhD in history. | ||
| But prior to my academic career, I worked in the IC, as they call it, the intelligence community. | ||
| I worked for the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, doing primarily counterterrorism and counter-narcotics work in Afghanistan. | ||
| During that time, I deployed off and on from 2011 to 2013, supporting Special Operations Forces and their intelligence gathering for the killing or capturing of high-value targets in Afghanistan. | ||
| Prior to my time in the IC, I also served in the U.S. military, both the Army and the Army National Guard, and also deployed to Afghanistan in that capacity as well. | ||
| As we turn to our topic, this was a headline from the Wall Street Journal: Trump, Mexico Scheinbomb, Spar Over Drug Cartels. | ||
| President Trump has previously suggested using the U.S. military to combat drug cartels in Mexico and then recently confirmed that he offered to send troops to Mexico, which President Claudia Scheinbaum did decline. | ||
| Tell us your reaction to that proposal and the challenges of using U.S. military forces. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, I mean, first off, we should just say that the fentanyl epidemic is a real crisis. | |
| It's killed thousands upon thousands of Americans, and it's really ravaged many of our communities here in the United States. | ||
| However, these proposals to use military action, particularly unilaterally, will not severely constrict the flow of fentanyl into the United States. | ||
| And they also come at the risk of significant blowback, particularly in terms of diplomacy. | ||
| I mean, if these options, if exercised, would undermine U.S.-Mexican relations when the Trump administration needs them at their strongest. | ||
| It would also risk undermining the positive steps that the Trump administration has made on this issue, vis-à-vis their relationship with the Mexican government. | ||
| And it would also risk other blowback. | ||
| It could very well scutter two big ticket items for the Trump administration in the Western Hemisphere, that of controlling illegal migration, but also it could risk undermining his ability to contain Chinese influence in the Western Hemisphere. | ||
| The image of American troops once again in Mexico would do irreparable damage to the reputation of the United States, not only in that country, but also throughout the region. | ||
| And it's not just President Trump. | ||
| Others have suggested the use of military forces, and usually they specified that it would be special forces. | ||
| Explain who that would be and what it means to use special forces versus a more conventional military force. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So the proposals that have been offered have been the use of raids conducted by special operations forces, particularly from the Joint Special Operations Command, for the purposes of either killing or capturing high-value targets associated with the cartels, but also the use of UAVs, or as we call them now, drone strikes against the same. | |
| The problem with that proposal is those that propose it often take for granted that in the past, Special Operations Forces, be they in Syria or Afghanistan or even places like West Africa, have operated in areas that were permissive environments. | ||
| And what does that mean? | ||
| That means that local governments had either signed on to their use or the U.S. military had such an overwhelming conventional presence that special forces did not have to concern themselves with having to encounter large forces that could potentially jeopardize their operations. | ||
| Some of the proposals being offered about Mexico are unilateral without Mexican support. | ||
| Now, if, God help us, if that happens, those forces could run into a position in which they are met by forces of equal size. | ||
| I mean, the cartels have shown the ability to muster large irregular forces as large as 700 and 800 fighters. | ||
| So in that capacity, the edge that a special forces team might have would be blunted. | ||
| Our guest for the next 35 minutes or so is Brandon Buck. | ||
| He is a foreign research policy fellow at the Cato Institute. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling. | ||
| And now the lines for this segment, Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| Also wanted to let you know that we have a special line for border state residents. | ||
| You can call in at 202-748-8003. | ||
| And you mentioned, Brandon, you mentioned cartels and that when we were talking about special operations, what do we know about the capabilities of cartels, their equipment, and what advantages would they have? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, not necessarily advantages, but they would have enough force multipliers to give them a somewhat equal playing field potentially, depending upon how operations were conducted. | |
| The cartels, there are purports now that they're using weaponized drones against other cartels. | ||
| They have small things like body armor, night vision equipment, the kind of equipment that the United States did not face early on in the global war on terror, but now terror groups throughout the world have access to. | ||
| So they have the ability to wage asymmetric war that in certain circumstances, particularly in a unilateral fashion, would give them a puncher's chance. | ||
| We already have callers waiting to talk with you. | ||
| We'll start with Chris in Indo, California. | ||
| It's the border state resident. | ||
| Good morning, Chris. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I'm a border state resident. | |
| I wonder if the powers of the B ever thought of bankrupting the cartels over there in Mexico. | ||
| Maybe that might be a better idea than using the military against them. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, and there are certainly efforts now, now that they've been designated as foreign terror organizations, to use the ability to interdict finances as a way. | ||
| And that's certainly preferable to, at least from my perspective, from using direct military force. | ||
| The problem is a fit and all it is incredibly lucrative for them. | ||
| The profit margins are astronomical. | ||
| So even if you can come up with a financial way to hamstring the cartels, there's still going to need to be a means to lower demand in the United States. | ||
| Throughout the drug war, primarily the U.S. government has tried to go on the supply side. | ||
| And the results for that have been mixed at best. | ||
| Wanted to follow up on something you mentioned. | ||
| And it's a headline from the Associated Press. | ||
| Trump administration labels eight Latin America cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. | ||
| That's an unusual labeling for cartels. | ||
| Explain what foreign terrorist organization, what that designation means, and who usually gets that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it's a little bit, it's been debated about how useful of a tool that will be, but one potential avenue that this opens up for the Trump administration is using what's called Title 50. | |
| Title 50 is a series of laws that govern the U.S. government's use of clandestine operations abroad. | ||
| So now that the Trump administration has designated these groups as foreign terrorists organizations, there is, some say, a legal path for him directing the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies to use clandestine force against the cartels either in Mexico or throughout Latin America. | ||
| So as far as changes for the way that the drug war is conducted, that's the biggest one. | ||
| Robert in Texas. | ||
| Good morning, Robert. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I have two questions for your guest because he has a PhD in history. | ||
| First, the first question would be: Mr. Jeffries compared January 6th to Pearl Harbor. | ||
| And since I read the book, The Rise of the GI Army by Paul Dixon, in it, he explains that FDR instituted a draft a year before Pearl Harbor, otherwise he wouldn't have had a military. | ||
| So my question is today: with 20 million illegals in the country, the second question I should say, my question is today: with 20 million illegals in the country, should we need a draft, what is the role of 20 million illegals? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Do you have any response that might be a little bit out of your realm? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I do know a little bit about the history of conscription, so I can comment on that. | |
| But at least as far as drafting illegal migrants, I don't think that that's legal. | ||
| They don't register for it like an American citizen whenever they turn 18. | ||
| So the mechanisms for conscription of those who are here unlawfully, I don't think exists. | ||
| Let's hear from Martin in Newtown, Pennsylvania, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Martin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, thanks for taking my call. | |
| I'd just like to ask: I've been one under the whole, as long as I've been alive 65 years, to believe that we should legalize drugs and treat it as a health issue, not as a criminal issue. | ||
| I don't think we'll ever solve it. | ||
| And to criminalize, I think we have to solve it as a health issue. | ||
| And I'll hang up and take my answer off the air to see what he feels about that. | ||
| It's not criminal, it's a health problem. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Well, he's not going to get an argument from the libertarian and me about drug legalization. | ||
| I think there are certainly steps that can be taken on the demand side when it comes to fentanyl or any drug for that matter. | ||
| We're probably a long way from legalization, but there are certainly harm reduction measures which can be put into place. | ||
| The U.S. government's own data has shown over the past 12 months that fentanyl ODs are down about a quarter. | ||
| We don't quite know why that is. | ||
| But if that is the result of policy changes, those can certainly be doubled down upon and seen as an alternative to using direct action. | ||
| I wanted to get your reaction to something that was written in the Atlantic Council, was written by the Atlantic Council. | ||
| It says that specifically in the cartel context, the United States may employ a quote shock and awe strategy that is similar to the first Trump administration's rapid strike military campaigns against ISIS. | ||
| The goal of this approach would be to overwhelm the cartel's forces through raids and eliminate high-value cartel targets, particularly Sicarios and mid-level commanders coordinating logistics and enforcement operations. | ||
| In such a scenario, the United States would likely provide heavy air support in order to prevent cartel counteroffensives and ensure the target cells cannot regroup or retaliate. | ||
| This may include U.S. forces embedding with Mexican Navy Special Forces. | ||
| Drone warfare may also be used to eliminate high-value cartel command centers, fentanyl production labs, and weapon depots. | ||
| You have argued that comparing cartels to ISIS isn't a fair comparison. | ||
| Explain why. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's right. | |
| I think for starters, ISIS had a raid against it more than just the United States military. | ||
| Like, we forget that in the afterglow of their defeat, at least as far as the territorial element goes. | ||
| I mean, ISIS had a raid against it, the now-defunct Assad regime, the Iranian government and all of their proxies in the region, the Turks, the Israelis to a certain degree, and also more importantly, the Kurds. | ||
| The United States did not conduct its special forces raids without their significant support. | ||
| And also, more importantly, their support in holding ground after networks were destroyed in order to prevent their regeneration. | ||
| So in such a scenario in Mexico, the question becomes, who is that follow-on force to prevent the cartels from reconstituting themselves? | ||
| And so far, it looks like it's not going to be the Mexican government because they have declined these kinds of plans even for partnered action. | ||
| And I think Mexico's own history with this should throw some cold water on the notion of force itself being used. | ||
| I mean, from 2006 to 2012, the Cairo government went pretty heavy on the cartels, captured or killed something like 24 of their 37 high-value targets and killed thousands of cartel members. | ||
| But nevertheless, the flow of drugs northward did not subside. | ||
| And if anything, violence got worse as the cartels got more fractured. | ||
| So I think before we even consider such options like direct action or even partnered action, there needs to be a clear indication of what comes after. | ||
| And so far, those who are putting forth these plans don't seem to have an answer for that. | ||
| Let's hear from Tom in Smithfield, North Carolina, line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Tom. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, yes. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| My question to the gentleman there, who seems pretty well versed on this type of thing, did the Mexican government solicit us for help, or did our government offer it to them? | ||
| And in that scenario, it seems like the cartel issue has been going on for a long time. | ||
| How influential is the cartel in, I guess, influencing or manipulating the Mexican government? | ||
| Is that an existing problem that is difficult to eradicate? | ||
| That's all I have. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, there have been several Mexican politicians who were involved with the cartels that have been indicted here in the United States. | ||
| This is strained bilateral relationships. | ||
| I think it's no secret that the cartels are influential within the Mexican government. | ||
| There are some aspects of the Mexican government, particularly the Naval Department, which are a little cleaner in this regard. | ||
| And this is why recently the United States has resumed the train and assist mission conducted by the U.S. 7th Special Forces Group, which had been broken off in the interim by ALMO, the previous administration. | ||
| So is it us or is it Mexico who has brought this relationship or is trying to repair it? | ||
| I mean, really, it's the Trump administration twisting the arm of the Scheinbaum administration using tariffs and other avenues. | ||
| There seems to be, at least from the Trump administration, some positive steps in that direction. | ||
| As I just said, there's the resumption of a limited, but nevertheless resumed train and assist mission, as well as the deployment of Mexico's National Guard to their side of the border. | ||
| And just recently, the Mexican government extradited, I think, two dozen pretty heavy-hitter cartel members to the United States so they could be arraigned. | ||
| So, again, this is an imperfect solution working through the Mexican government, but it is probably the best. | ||
| A question coming in from Text. | ||
| It's Jimbo in Bakersfield, California. | ||
| It says he's an independent voter. | ||
| It says, Does Mr. Buck think U.S. intelligence agencies might know the specific locations in Mexico where synthetic opioids are being produced? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That is an excellent question. | |
| I'm no longer read on to anything, so I can't tell you if they've actually developed any actionable intelligence. | ||
| But I think it is worth mentioning that one of the problems with fentanyl is because it is synthetic, it is so difficult to track. | ||
| We're not talking about poppy fields like opium, the kind of things that I would try to track down in Afghanistan, or even cocaine in the Colombian example. | ||
| So there's not the agricultural footprint, which makes finding it either from the air or even through human assets very incredibly difficult. | ||
| So then you have to rely on other methods, and those could be a lot more time-intensive, but also come with significant operational risks at the other end. | ||
| One of the things about fentanyl is you can make it virtually anywhere, right? | ||
| You can make it in your bathtub or in your living room in highly dense urban areas. | ||
| And so, even if you do find them, how do you put action upon them, particularly if you've dedicated yourself to military action, especially if they're in a dense urban area? | ||
| And that becomes very difficult. | ||
| Mike in Ohio, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Mike. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good day. | |
| I'm calling from Lake Skillet, Ohio. | ||
| And I'm looking at this as a reasonable critic observer going back to Ronald Reagan and Ollie North. | ||
| I remember when Ollie says this goes all the way up under the president's nose. | ||
| And that's back when he was trading machine guns for cocaine in South America. | ||
| Now, we create a problem, and then we say we're going to solve it. | ||
| And now I'm looking at this situation in Central America down there with El Salvador prison and how that came about. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And also a question about going back to Ronald Reagan. | |
| The Carlisle group was created. | ||
| And they invest in gas and pipeline exploration and military equipment and other issues. | ||
| So how does this, where we're at today, the blowback from all those covert operations, how's that affecting this problem we have today? | ||
| And what about the Carlisle group? | ||
| Explain them a little further, too, if you would. | ||
| Well, I will admit he has stumped me on the Carlisle group. | ||
| But as to the blowback of covert operations and such, this has been one of the difficult problems with waging the drug wars because now you have cartels, particularly CJNG, there's the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which has, through intermediaries, essentially received training from American Special Forces. | ||
| There have been members of the Mexican military who have defected to the cartels or who have offered up them their training that they have then received from us. | ||
| And so how do you plot a center course on waging the drug war when that is a very real problem? | ||
| And I think part of what we have to get our head around is how to limit the demand in the United States rather than continuing to attack the supply overseas. | ||
| Ronald Johnson, who has been confirmed as the ambassador to Mexico, it was during his confirmation hearing in March that he was asked about potential U.S. military actions against cartels. | ||
| I want to play a clip of that and then get your reaction. | ||
| Sovereignty is a key core principle. | ||
| I understand that the designation of the drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations reflects widespread concern and anger in the United States about the cartels and the impact of fentanyl. | ||
| Would you agree that we should not take any military action against cartels in Mexican territory without the knowledge and consent of the Mexican government? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sir, I think any decision to take action against the cartel inside Mexico, our first desire would be that it be done in partnership with our Mexican partners. | |
| That said, I know that President Trump takes very seriously his responsibility to safeguard the lives of U.S. citizens. | ||
| And should there be a case where the lives of U.S. citizens are at risk, I think all cards are on the table. | ||
| I cannot respond to what the commander-in-chief might decide based on the information he has. | ||
| I've been a private citizen for the last four years, but I think we would prefer to work with our partners in Mexico. | ||
| Let me just make an assertion, if I might, Ambassador. | ||
| You recognize Mexico as our number one trading partner. | ||
| You've talked about how we could find positive ways to further integrate supply chains, further partner with them. | ||
| We have big opportunities. | ||
| We have to balance these two. | ||
| U.S.MCA, one of the main accomplishments of the first Trump administration, the integration of our economies, Canada, U.S., Mexico, very positive. | ||
| But if we were to take action without consultation and without permission, then we are putting at real risk that. | ||
| And that's been a give and take that I hope will involve respect for sovereignty. | ||
| Your reaction to that exchange. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, there's an element here which I think we also need to reiterate, and how much of this is President Trump speaking loudly and carrying a big stick to paraphrase TR. | |
| So how much is the threat of military force just a negotiating tactic that Trump is using to leverage against the Mexican government to get some diplomatic gains? | ||
| The question is, we don't quite know. | ||
| We do know that the U.S. government has resumed UAV flights, again, drones, in Mexico, but with the knowledge of the Mexican government. | ||
| Are those drones developing targets for the U.S. military or are they developing an intelligence picture to help with interdiction on the American side of the border? | ||
| Again, we don't know. | ||
| So the Trump administration is playing its cards close to its best. | ||
| I mean, I think that the most realistic outcome is the exchange in there is coming up with contingency plans if the lives of Americans are at risk in, say, like a hostage situation. | ||
| I think if, God help us, if something like that happened, you could see a direct U.S. action in Mexico, but then it would be fairly tailored just to the extraction of those hostages and those kinds of things. | ||
| Let's hear from Tony in San Antonio, Texas. | ||
| Good morning, Tony. | ||
| Tony, are you there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Tony, go ahead and turn your television down in the background. | ||
| Okay, great. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can I start talking now? | |
| Yes, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| My question is, what if we harm some innocent bystanders? | ||
| How is the Mexican population going to React to that, we could, this sounds like the beginning of Vietnam, and we could have guerrilla warfare within our borders. | ||
| I mean, we shouldn't even go getting involved in embarrassing or killing people down there. | ||
| I mean, yeah, the opportunity for blowback is immense, especially given the nature of the fentanyl trade, the density of population, particularly in a lot of Mexican cities. | ||
| But I mean, this is probably one of the biggest concerns is blowback and is getting mired into an asymmetric war, particularly in some places of Mexico, which the cartels are fairly interwoven with Mexican society and are treated as parastate actors. | ||
| So it wouldn't be as easy as just pinstriking a few HVTs and then allowing the whole network to degrade. | ||
| So absolutely, the fear of blowback and the fear of civilian casualties is a big one. | ||
| What can you tell us about how cartels are organized and how that structure has changed over time? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, they've fragmented over time, particularly because of the Mexican government's efforts in its own country. | |
| And organizations like the Los Etas have broken up. | ||
| But again, their ability to produce fentany has not decreased despite their fracturing. | ||
| There's about a half dozen of the largest cartels in Mexico. | ||
| And this is a nationwide problem for Mexico. | ||
| And frankly, it's a nationwide problem for the United States in terms of drug use. | ||
| So again, the use of limited strikes from special operations would not solve a problem as big as two nations. | ||
| When it comes to how they're structured, it's been suggested that targeting or capturing top leaders, that's what the military focus would be on. | ||
| Would that make an impact? | ||
|
unidentified
|
In the short term, it perhaps would. | |
| But then again, just my experience in Afghanistan, we had no problems killing or capturing low-level commanders, even high-level commanders. | ||
| But the ability of the network to regenerate, it's as sure as gravity, especially if you have a pull, an economic pull, like that of the fentanyl trade. | ||
| I mean, some folks have suggested that if military forces use in Mexico, U.S. military force, this would dissuade the cartels because they're merely economic actors. | ||
| They're not ideological. | ||
| Myself and other critics of this possibility point to Mexico's own recent history with this, is that they have endured a world of violence for their entire lives. | ||
| And so where do we get the idea that somehow American violence would work where Mexican violence hasn't? | ||
| And again, the economic pull is just massive. | ||
| So the incentives for those networks to reconstitute would be ever-present. | ||
| Let's talk with Jane in St. Petersburg, Florida, Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Jane. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, thank you. | |
| I wouldn't say this is a question. | ||
| It's, well, it is a question. | ||
| But it starts in 1750 when the British were selling opium to the Chinese via India, which was a colony of Britain at that time. | ||
| In fact, my understanding is that India was producing an awful lot of opium. | ||
| And so the Chinese became seriously addicted to opium. | ||
| And there were serious wars. | ||
| And eventually, China went through a century of humiliation. | ||
| And it is my understanding now that China is a major trading partner of Mexico. | ||
| Is that true? | ||
| It is true. | ||
| Mexico is a large trading partner with China. | ||
| However, in Mexico, much like the United States, there is a fear that Mexico is too much of a trading partner with China, that it's too dependent upon Chinese imports. | ||
| So again, the military option, if we exercise it, would risk closing that open door to change, to steer Mexico further into an economic alliance with the United States and the Western world. | ||
| But I appreciate the history question. | ||
| This is good. | ||
| You are getting some history. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's right. | |
| It's today. | ||
| Let's hear from Richard in Oceanside, California. | ||
| Good morning, Richard. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I have a question for Bindon that's kind of off the wall, but it appears that he really knows what he's talking about. | ||
| And I agree that military intervention would probably not work. | ||
| But my question is, they make money off the fentanyl. | ||
| Money is the real driver here. | ||
| Money is talked, and B.S. Watson used to say. | ||
| Well, I think our current president, it comes off the wall with some weird ideas like, let's send the special forces to get these guys done. | ||
| What if we were able to, this is the question, what if we were able to convince a few of these guys to work for us for money and pay them more money than they're making from the fentanyl to fight their buddies? | ||
| Because he knows the cartels better than the cartels. | ||
| These guys are crazy. | ||
| They'll fight for any reason. | ||
| They just like to fight. | ||
| And they're going up fighting, so let them fight each other. | ||
| Just pay them off. | ||
| We've got trillions of dollars. | ||
| We've got more money in our economy than they have to, but they're making off fentanyl, get nice to go to partner with us, pitch them some money, and just pay them off to fight each other. | ||
| That's my question. | ||
| Well, that's a bold plan. | ||
| I mean, unfortunately, would that kind of money, with those payments, you know, tip the balance sheet of an already lucrative market in the fentanyl? | ||
| And my inclination is to say no. | ||
| And again, as the cartels have fractured and fought with each other, again, the flow of fentanyl and other drugs has not subsumed. | ||
| We have been talking about President Trump's suggestion of using military forces. | ||
| What other actions can the U.S. take to combat cartels and cut down on the flow of drugs coming into the country? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I mean, again, all solutions would be imperfect. | |
| These would really just be means to assuage a crisis rather than solve it. | ||
| But they could certainly step up interdiction at the border. | ||
| As you said earlier, there's indications that they're putting up air assets to gather intelligence. | ||
| Perhaps these can be used to generate actionable intelligence on interdiction so that, of course, they could use the border. | ||
| And also in this country, at least as far as it goes to law and order, like enforcing the law against your murder and all the crimes that are associated with the drug trade. | ||
| So limited efforts to stem the flow and also trying to break up the networks in the United States through the power of the law is probably our best option. | ||
| Let's hear from Paul in Lake Tahoe, California. | ||
| Good morning, Paul. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you doing today? | ||
| Good. | ||
| Okay, I got a question. | ||
| My understanding that entire economies in parts of Mexico depend on cartel money, which is our dollars going to people in Mexico. | ||
| The entire economies could fall in parts of Mexico. | ||
| Is that true? | ||
| Yeah, I mean, there was a conservative estimate that came out just a few months ago, maybe this year, that puts the number of cartel members at about 175,000, which would make it, I think, the fifth largest employer in Mexico. | ||
| I believe that's right. | ||
| So, yeah, there's a massive economic incentive for the production of drugs, particularly fentanyl. | ||
| So, yeah, it is tightly interwoven with the Mexican economy, which again makes military action all the more daunting. | ||
| And, you know, there have been other the U.S. government has tried incentives to get, say, to get people who produced cocaine in Colombia on other crops. | ||
| They tried the same thing in Afghanistan with poppies, but again, to sort of limited success. | ||
| Let's hear from Ian in Orlando, Florida, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Ian. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning, guys. | |
| First of all, I just wanted to thank you for your service, and I appreciate you being a guest on Washington Journal this morning. | ||
| I have two questions. | ||
| I've been, for as long as I can remember, seeing the war on drugs on TV, on the news, for the past something like 20, 25 years now. | ||
| And I'm just, it's amazing to me that this is still going on. | ||
| I feel like we've gone to war over a lot less. | ||
| I can't even comprehend probably the amount of lives that have been lost directly or indirectly to the cartels. | ||
| So it's just baffling to me that this has not been solved by now. | ||
| And I'm wondering why you think that this is still going on. | ||
| And on top of that, I was going to ask what you think President Scheinbaum's personal responsibility in this situation is. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, as to her personal responsibility, I'm not an expert on the intricacies of Mexican politics, so I won't pretend to know. | ||
| But she has given some indications that she's willing to plot a center course on Mexico's prosecution of the war on drugs in her own country. | ||
| Not quite as hard as Catarone, one of her predecessors, but certainly a little more assertive than Almo, the gentleman that she replaced. | ||
| And so as to the length of the war on drugs, yeah, absolutely, this has been going on in one form or another since, I don't know, mid-70s, if you want to talk about prohibition before that. | ||
| So is there going to be a final victory in the war on drugs? | ||
| Probably not. | ||
| And the problem has gotten more acute due to the synthetic nature of fentanyl. | ||
| So again, the best way to ameliorate this problem is going to be through some sort of efforts to limit the consumption in the United States. | ||
| But that is admittedly a daunting problem. | ||
| We're going to get one more call in for you. | ||
| It's Rick in Laredo, Texas. | ||
| Good morning, Rick. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I have a couple of questions and maybe a few comments. | ||
| The word says that during this time that sometimes we're cultivating our envy, and so the people, you know, they suggested to close the border if they thought it was a good idea. | ||
| But isn't closing the border also infringing on our liberties? | ||
| And this is a republic. | ||
| It's also like in the interest of the people that are now calling it a democracy in which there's no inheritance and God is kind of taken out of the equation. | ||
| Then this would Make it's another step in taking away the land from the people like a settlement, like settling and then developing the border. | ||
| It's kind of in closing it and then taking inventory and you lose your freedoms, right? | ||
| Your liberties. | ||
| I mean, yeah, there's absolutely a trade-off with militarizing the border or putting a heavier stamp on security down there. | ||
| And this is something that the people on the border feel. | ||
| I mean, they are tied to Mexico economically in the way that certainly places other spots in the United States are not. | ||
| So we have to ask ourselves, what's the trade-off? | ||
| Are we willing to put a heavier stamp on the border in order to solve some of these problems, particularly like the flow of fentanyl? | ||
| Or are we concerned about the loss of economic opportunities? | ||
| And I mean, again, there's not a final answer for that, but ultimately that is a political question. | ||
| Our guest, Brandon Buck, Foreign Policy Research Fellow at the Cato Institute, you can find his work online at Cato.org. | ||
| Brandon, thank you so much for being with us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Next on Washington Journal, Politicos, EE News, Deputy Climate Editor Thomas Frank joins us to discuss cuts and changes to FEMA and the future of federal disaster response. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
| McCarthyism, Whitaker Chambers, Alger Hiss, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Paul Robeson, House Un-American Activities Committee, the Smith Act, the Hollywood Ten, the Joint Anti-Facist Committee, the Truman Loyalty Program, the Blacklist. | ||
| Book Burning, and Communism. | ||
| All subjects of controversy during the 30s, 40s, and 50s here in the United States. | ||
| Clay Risen, a reporter and editor at the New York Times, has a fresh look at all this in his book, Red Scare. | ||
| Mr. Risen writes in his preface that his grandfather was a career FBI agent who joined the Bureau during World War II, and he recounted stories of implementing loyalty tests for the federal government in the late 1940s. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Author Clay Risen with his book Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America on this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb. | |
| BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app. | ||
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| In the Washington, D.C. area, listen on 90.1 FM. | ||
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| Hear our live call-in program, Washington Journal, daily at 7 a.m. Eastern. | ||
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss cuts and changes to FEMA and the future of federal disaster response is Tom Frank. | ||
| He is a deputy climate editor with Politico's EE News. | ||
| Tom, thank you so much for being with us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Happy to be here. | |
| We will start. | ||
| You've had a busy week, a lot going on in this area, including Cameron Hamilton, who was the acting director of FEMA. | ||
| He was fired. | ||
| Tell us what happened. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So he was fired on Thursday morning, which was a surprise to a lot of people because the afternoon before, Wednesday afternoon, he testified for about two hours on the FEMA budget before the House Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees FEMA. | |
| So it seemed from the outside to come out of nowhere, but then some people I talked to said that this was in the works for a while and that the new administrator as of Thursday afternoon said during a staff meeting on Friday, | ||
| if we can keep the dates straight, that he is about to release some memos that he had been working on for two weeks, which makes it seem like this had been in the work for a while, not just since he gave his testimony on Wednesday. | ||
| You mentioned who is now the acting administrator. | ||
| Who is that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's David Richardson. | |
| And he was in the Marine Corps for about 22 years as an officer, left in 2013, has mostly been in the private sector. | ||
| He had a brief stint for about six months at the end of the first Trump presidency, working in the Department of Homeland Security, dealing with weapons of mass destruction. | ||
| And he was appointed at the beginning of this Trump presidency to a very similar or maybe even the same job. | ||
| So he's been in the department since the beginning of the Trump administration as an assistant secretary in DHS, which of course oversees FEMA. | ||
| So he's really just, you know, changing hotel rooms, so to speak. | ||
| And you mentioned DHS. | ||
| Tell our audience or remind our audience about the role of FEMA, what the agent's responsibilities are and who they work with. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So FEMA works with everyone, basically. | |
| It is the nation's disaster agency, but FEMA likes to say that disasters are locally run, state-supported, and federally supported. | ||
| So they will say, we don't take the lead, we just help. | ||
| But it deals with disasters literally in every state and in like 90% of the counties. | ||
| So when there's a major disaster, hurricane, tornado, what have you, FEMA personnel will go in, help out with emergency operations like search and rescue, bringing in food, water, supplies, and then will help pay for the cleanup, which can take literally years and years and years. | ||
| So it's largely a checkwriting agency, but it also does provide some very crucial support in the immediate, you know, the days during the disaster and the immediate aftermath. | ||
| You just said it was kind of a checkwriting agency. | ||
| How much is the typical budget? | ||
| How much is usually allotted in the annual budget for FEMA, and what does the money go to? | ||
| What are some of the disaster relief areas that it goes to? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so FEMA has been getting around $25 billion a year, but it's been burning through that money so quickly that for the past few years, it's gotten supplemental funding mid-year in the order of 20 billion or something. | |
| So really the spending ends up being closer to $45 billion, and most of that money pays for states to rebuild utilities, roads, public infrastructure. | ||
| That's mostly what the money is spent on. | ||
| Our guest for the next 45 minutes or so is Tom Frank, Deputy Climate Editor with Politicos E ⁇ E News. | ||
| We are discussing the cuts and changes to FEMA and the future of federal disaster response. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for Tom, you can start calling in now the lines. | ||
| They are broken down regionally for the segment. | ||
| Or if you're in the Eastern or Central time zone, your line is 202-748-8000. | ||
| If you're in the Mountain or Pacific, it is 202-748-8001. | ||
| And if you have experience with FEMA, if you filed a claim or have gone through a disaster, there is a special line for you. | ||
| It's 202-748-8003. | ||
| And Tom, I wanted to go back to your point about how fast they go through their funding. | ||
| This is a headline that you had last October. | ||
| FEMA spends nearly half its disaster budget in just eight days. | ||
| Tell us a little bit more about the supplemental requests that come in when their bank has been depleted and the challenges of getting that supplemental budget passed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So the challenges these days with FEMA getting supplemental funding is that nobody really ever objects to the FEMA funding in Congress, but it gets tied in with other requests for supplemental funding, which are controversial. | |
| So there comes to be a large supplemental bill of which FEMA funding will be just a fraction and the whole package will get stalled because of a debate on policy with Ukraine or something like that. | ||
| So it's taken a while and what's happened in the last two or three years is FEMA's actually had to put on restrictions on its own spending of its own disaster budget and those restrictions have lasted a month or two. | ||
| So it's become much more political than it used to be where it was kind of a routine thing that Congress would, FEMA, the administration, would make a request and Congress would approve it because everyone in Capitol Hill wants to see FEMA get money because it gives it all to the states. | ||
| And there have been headlines like this. | ||
| This is a story from Stateline. | ||
| Trump denies disaster aids, tells states to do more. | ||
| When a state or a county, as you pointed out, 90% of them have worked with FEMA, put in a request because they've been impacted by a disaster. | ||
| What are the considerations that the White House looks at when approving or denying a request? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So let me start out by saying that the White House has total control over whether to approve or not a request for a disaster aid. | |
| So the White House can look at whatever it wants. | ||
| Within FEMA, there are regulatory considerations having to do with the damage, the dollar amount of the damage that was caused by a hurricane, tornado, what have you. | ||
| And there are certain thresholds that disasters are expected to reach. | ||
| So if the damage exceeds the threshold, then FEMA will recommend approval. | ||
| If the damage does not exceed the threshold, FEMA will recommend non-approval. | ||
| But FEMA is really acting only in an advisory role in this because, again, the way the law is written, the president can do whatever they want on this. | ||
| And there have been both states and counties that have requested funding under the new Trump administration that have been denied. | ||
| How common is that to have a request denied? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's not uncommon. | |
| I would say if you go through the last 10 years, maybe 10% or so of the requests get denied. | ||
| But sometimes what happens is a state will go through FEMA with the numbers and FEMA will say, you know, you're not close. | ||
| And so the state won't even bother to request. | ||
| So is that a denial or is that FEMA just saying, don't waste your time? | ||
| And that probably happens a lot more than anyone understands because there's no record of a governor saying, you know, we were going to and we decided not to. | ||
| And that's more common. | ||
| We have callers waiting to talk with you. | ||
| We will start with Amy in Laplanta, Maryland. | ||
| Good morning, Amy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| We're doing well, Amy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right, great. | |
| So I wanted to call in and say that I feel that FEMA and the funding for FEMA is an essential part of an American government. | ||
| And I feel that while I'm sure there are budgetary constraints and budgetary concerns, this has to be one part of the government where there is absolutely no budget. | ||
| I feel that disasters have to be handled as disasters come. | ||
| There is no way that anyone can put a price on a disaster. | ||
| We have to basically take it as it comes. | ||
| And while I understand the president's concern with maybe saving money, I feel that as long as it happened within American shores, this money and this response belong to the American people. | ||
| And this is our land. | ||
| And our land needs to be preserved. | ||
| It needs to be refocused and redone if there's a disaster. | ||
| And I feel very strongly about that. | ||
| I don't think FEMA should have a limit. | ||
| So there was a lot of nuance to what you said, particularly using the word disaster. | ||
| And that's a legal term in federal statute. | ||
| And the question is, what is a disaster? | ||
| I don't think anyone would doubt that Hurricane Helene or the Los Angeles wildfires is a disaster. | ||
| But what about a snowstorm in Vermont that ends up costing the federal government, say, a million dollars? | ||
| Is that a disaster that should involve the federal government? | ||
| Or is that something that the state should be able to handle on their own? | ||
| And that's the debate that's going on right now in Washington and all over the country is where does the federal government set that line? | ||
| And what President Trump is in effectively saying is that he wants to move, he wants to redefine disasters in effect to mean the big stuff, the Hurricane Helenes, the Hurricane Katrinas, and not the minor flooding, the minor tornadoes, what have you, and that states should be able to handle that. | ||
| And that is a fair policy question, and it's something that's been debated for years and years. | ||
| And there is something of a consensus that the definition of a disaster today is really too liberal, and that FEMA is spending money and personnel on disasters that states should be able to happen and should be able to handle on their own. | ||
| And there have been other headlines related to states not getting their FEMA requests approved, states caught unprepared for Trump's threats to FEMA. | ||
| When a request is denied, or maybe it doesn't meet that major threshold for a disaster, where are states getting the money from? | ||
| What other sources are there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's a big question right now for states. | |
| I don't think there's any certainty about what's really going to happen because a lot is still up in the air with FEMA. | ||
| There are proposals that have been made, but no decisions. | ||
| If FEMA starts saying, well, you now have to have a billion dollars of damage instead of $100 million, states are really going to have to look to themselves because there isn't really any other source, except for local governments, counties, and cities. | ||
| And this is something you're seeing throughout the Trump administration, you know, like with food stamps and Medicaid. | ||
| And this is a small piece of a much bigger effort to shift a lot of costs from the federal government to states and localities. | ||
| Let's talk with Jerry in Florida, who has experience with FEMA. | ||
| Good morning, Jerry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| This is the first time I've ever called, but I want to let everybody know that I'm a victim of Helene, which hit about September 28th. | ||
| I'm sitting in a half-repaired house that I had to fund myself. | ||
| I still haven't got my money, which is being held by my bank servicing company. | ||
| They've got my checks that I finally got six months to the day after the storm. | ||
| I was first in line. | ||
| I had the adjuster here the first four days. | ||
| And finally, I got some money, advance money, and then I got some a little bit of money from FEMA. | ||
| But the rest of it, I haven't got it. | ||
| It's being held up by because once the check is issued, then it goes, it's signed over to the servicer and the owners of the house. | ||
| If I can interrupt for a second and try to address some of what you're saying, you know, two things that point you made are truisms that I think a lot of people don't understand. | ||
| And the first is that FEMA does not give individuals or households much money, and that's under federal law, that FEMA is not going to pay for your house to be repaired. | ||
| They're going to pay for you to be able to make it habitable. | ||
| So FEMA will pay to put a patch on your roof. | ||
| They're not going to pay to replace your roof. | ||
| And so that's where insurance is supposed to come in. | ||
| That's your insurance company's role. | ||
| But a lot of people just don't have insurance. | ||
| And for people like that, it's incredible hardship. | ||
| And it sounds like you're experiencing some of that. | ||
| And even working within FEMA and other federal agencies like the Small Business Administration, it's not an easy process. | ||
| And I've never heard anyone say that it is easy. | ||
| And there's been talk for years and years on how to simplify the process. | ||
| And it just is inherently difficult. | ||
| So you're in a tough situation. | ||
| I don't know your insurance situation, but millions and millions of people have gone through exactly what you're going through. | ||
| And the important thing to remember, and I know FEMA will say this 24 hours a day: FEMA will not make you whole. | ||
| That's not its job. | ||
| And our guest is Tom Frank. | ||
| He will be with us for the next 30 minutes or so, talking about cuts and changes to FEMA and the future of the federal disaster response. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for him, the lines, if you are in the Eastern or Central time zone, it's 202-748-8000, Mountain or Pacific. | ||
| It's 202-748-8001. | ||
| And those experiences with FEMA, I misspoke earlier. | ||
| It is actually 202-748-8002. | ||
| Those are your lines. | ||
| Let's hear from Al in Wabash, Minnesota. | ||
| Good morning, Al. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Everybody remembers Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf. | ||
| And my concern is that all these and leases that Al, we're having a hard time hearing you. | ||
| Why don't you go ahead and give us a call back? | ||
| We'll go on to Don in Brooklyn, New York. | ||
| Good morning, Don. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Hi, Don. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, I'm sorry. | |
| I would like to know a little bit more about the money to FEMA and specifically how the new administration's budget cuts, specifically Doge's cuts, have affected FEMA and what that's going to look like for their response in the future. | ||
| It's a great question. | ||
| And if you know the answer, let me know. | ||
| So FEMA's budget itself has not been affected yet because it's working off of a budget that was enacted mostly before Trump became president. | ||
| The cuts have had an effect, though. | ||
| So FEMA, like every federal agency, has lost a lot of personnel. | ||
| It lost about 200 people, probationary employees, a few months ago when the administration started firing all probationary employees. | ||
| And then a couple of weeks ago, there was a round where employees were offered basically buyouts. | ||
| And I haven't seen a number, but I've seen a lot of people who have been posting. | ||
| And it's not just the numbers, but it's the kind of people who are leaving that a lot of senior people who have been there for a while and have the experience and have dealt with disasters for a long time are leaving. | ||
| So, you know, FEMA is still a work in progress. | ||
| And I think very soon there will be some decisions made about what FEMA is going to do, when it's going to step in and help. | ||
| But for the most part up to now, it's been mostly business as usual. | ||
| Some FEMA grant programs, which are not directly related to disasters, have been cut. | ||
| And also the disaster season hasn't really started yet. | ||
| So the winter spring months are oftentimes a lull in disasters. | ||
| When the segment started, I mentioned you've had a busy week. | ||
| You've actually had a busy few months. | ||
| This was a headline on what you were just talking about back from April. | ||
| Nome offers buyouts to DHS workers. | ||
| That is on politico.org. | ||
| Let's talk with John in California. | ||
| Good morning, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes, I have a friend who has a trailer on the beach in Southern California, and FEMA is insuring the trailer. | ||
| A rogue wave had sort of wiped the trailer out once a couple of years ago, and he was given enough money to repair all of the issues that happened. | ||
| But why is FEMA continuing to insure a trailer that literally sells for $2 million on the beach? | ||
| There are a lot of people all over the country and in Congress who are asking the very same question. | ||
| So one thing to understand about FEMA is that FEMA has really like a separate wing underneath its umbrella that sells flood insurance. | ||
| So most private insurers will not cover flood damage because it's too unpredictable. | ||
| So private insurers got out of the flood damage business like a century ago, and FEMA or Congress in the late 60s created an insurance program just for flooding that was going to be run by FEMA. | ||
| So it's a regular insurance program. | ||
| The people who have policies, they pay for them. | ||
| And FEMA acts more or less like an insurance company. | ||
| It handles claims, pays out claims, and so forth. | ||
| But you're asking the right question that a lot of people are asking is that a ton of money from the FEMA flood insurance program is going to properties like your friends, which they call, people call repetitive loss properties, meaning they've been damaged multiple times by flooding. | ||
| And a lot of people, like you, are asking the question, why? | ||
| Why is a government agency paying to rebuild the same home in the same place that it probably shouldn't be? | ||
| And there have been proposals out there really by FEMA itself to try to cut off insurance for what I just called these repetitive loss properties. | ||
| It's a difficult political issue because there are a lot of people, lawmakers really, who represent places like the California coast, the Florida coast, and the New Jersey coast where people want to continue to be able to get flood insurance. | ||
| So you're asking the right question. | ||
| And as for the value of the home, you can insure anything regardless of the value. | ||
| So whether it's a $2 million home or a $10,000 home is neither here nor there. | ||
| I should note that there's actually a limit to how much coverage FEMA offers, which is $250,000. | ||
| That's the maximum payment, which is not going to get you very far if you've got a $2 million home. | ||
| Although if it's just a trailer, I suspect it can't be worth a lot. | ||
| So there are restrictions and limits to how much the FEMA flood insurance program will pay. | ||
| You mentioned that now former FEMA Acting Director Cameron Hamilton had testified on the Hill prior to being fired. | ||
| I want to play a clip from that hearing. | ||
| He was asked about the administration's plans to eliminate FEMA. | ||
| We'll talk about it on the other side. | ||
| Yesterday, the Secretary testified, Secretary Noam testified. | ||
| Quite honestly, I found her responses confusing and inadequate. | ||
| In response to my question asking her about whether or not this administration seeks to eliminate FEMA, this was her response. | ||
| And I quote, President Trump has been very clear since the beginning that he believes that FEMA and its response in many, many circumstances has failed the American people and that FEMA as it exists today should be eliminated and empowering states to respond to disasters with federal government support. | ||
| A clear answer. | ||
| Does this administration seek to eliminate FEMA? | ||
| And do you support eliminating FEMA? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Chairman, would you like me to answer the question? | |
| Please. | ||
| I'm not going to let you off that easy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Please. | |
| I'm going to give an answer first at all. | ||
| No, I completely understand. | ||
| As the senior advisor to the president on disasters and emergency management and to the Secretary of Homeland Security, I do not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency. | ||
| Having said that, I'm not in a position to make decisions and impact outcomes on whether or not a determination such as consequential as that should be made. | ||
| That is a conversation that should be had between the President of the United States and this governing body on identifying the exact ways and methodologies in which what is prudent for federal investment and what is not. | ||
| If that interests you. | ||
| Well, that's why I say it was a confusing answer, because I can only determine from that answer that FEMA as it exists today should be eliminated. | ||
| These are not my words. | ||
| Eliminated. | ||
| And so I hear your answer, and it should be between the executive and the governing body, because we are the United States Congress that makes those decisions. | ||
| Because FEMA falls under Homeland Security, does the Trump administration have the authority to eliminate the department? | ||
| And if it would have to go to Congress, what is the potential? | ||
| Is there an interest in Congress to eliminate the agency? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, wow, many questions there. | |
| So, no, I do not think a president can unilaterally eliminate FEMA, but this is a lot of wordplay going on here. | ||
| FEMA, the federal, the president can certainly stop funding FEMA and can stop approving disasters, so it can basically turn FEMA into a shell, an empty shell. | ||
| Congress, this is one of the very rare issues on which there is wide partisan agreement. | ||
| Congress loves FEMA. | ||
| They get annoyed with it sometimes, but the bottom line is that they want FEMA and they want FEMA there helping their constituents after disaster and they want FEMA there helping their states and localities pay for the disaster damage. | ||
| So a couple days ago, bipartisan members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, meaning the ranking and chairman, introduced a bipartisan sort of FEMA overhaul bill to try to get into this debate and try to Put together, | ||
| re-envision FEMA in a way that will address some of the concerns that the president has while also addressing some of the concerns that the states have. | ||
| So it would not eliminate FEMA. | ||
| It would preserve FEMA, but open the door to some of the changes. | ||
| So anyway, no, FEMA is created by an act of Congress. | ||
| FEMA spends money mostly by an act of the president. | ||
| Let's hear from Claude in Ali Vio, California. | ||
| Good morning, Claude. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I understand what you're saying. | |
| I was under the impression that FEMA was actually getting eliminated, but I understand that it's just receiving some cuts. | ||
| Nevertheless, what does that mean for like I know that affects like disasters? | ||
| So what I'm asking is what can the state do now? | ||
| What can my state of California do? | ||
| Because the federal government might not have as much support there. | ||
| So what are some acts that my state can implement in case there's like a fire or an earthquake that can make up for the lack of federal spending? | ||
| So thank you. | ||
| Well, really, two possibilities. | ||
| One, California, like any other state, can beg and lobby, which states are doing. | ||
| And the other, which is going to be more likely, is that California and other states are going to have to find its own money to pay for the costs that FEMA will not cover. | ||
| And I say will not because we don't really know what's going to happen with FEMA. | ||
| You know, FEMA had a very robust response to the Los Angeles wildfires and has agreed to pay what's going to be billions of dollars for the recovery, but that all happened under President Biden. | ||
| So, you know, California is one of the few states that actually has programs and has money and has a disaster agency and budget to take care of some of the costs that FEMA has traditionally taken care of. | ||
| But if it's another, you know, wildfire like you saw with the Eaton and Palisades wildfires in Southern California, then California is going to have to get creative on how it ends up paying for that money. | ||
| It might end up borrowing money through bonding and repaying it over 10 years, 30 years, or something. | ||
| But yeah, the states really need to start taking action now. | ||
| Let's talk with Jeff in Fort McCoy, Florida. | ||
| Good morning, Jeff. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| What does FEMA do to prevent the same kind of disaster from happening again? | ||
| I mean, for example, Florida has hundreds of millions of dollars of damage every year from storm surge, from hurricanes. | ||
| And every year it's just fixed back what was. | ||
| It's a great question. | ||
| And it's a problem that has been recognized for a while, exactly what you just said. | ||
| Flood occurs, rebuild the home, flood it again. | ||
| It's called the sort of the rinse and repeat cycle. | ||
| And so what FEMA has done is it has some grant programs that are really separate from the disaster aid that states like Florida get to repair. | ||
| And these grant programs are to do exactly what you're talking about, to prevent. | ||
| So one thing that a lot of people in Florida aren't happy about is that President Trump eliminated the canceled the main grant program that FEMA has been using and that, ironically or not, that President Trump himself signed into law during his first term. | ||
| This is a program known as BRIC, which is an acronym. | ||
| And there's another similar program that the president has indicated he's not going to fund anymore. | ||
| So there are programs out there from the federal government. | ||
| And Florida itself has its own programs using state funds or state matches or something. | ||
| And, you know, Florida has done as good a job as any state trying to prevent disaster damage. | ||
| I don't say disasters because you're not going to stop hurricanes, but you can try to stop the damage. | ||
| Let's talk with Michael and Island Park, New York. | ||
| Good morning, Michael. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Now, I live in Long Island, New York. | ||
| I live on the water. | ||
| I lived on a small island. | ||
| I actually had flood insurance. | ||
| And my call goes back to Sandy. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So the place where I live is very, very high off the water. | ||
| And we have had numerous hurricanes. | ||
| And I lived here for 50 years. | ||
| Never had a drop of water come into the house until Sandy. | ||
| Sandy was the first time it ever happened. | ||
| Now, during Sandy, what happened was I had flood insurance. | ||
| The flood insurance was in the hundreds of dollars a year. | ||
| And when the time came and people assessed the damage, they assessed the damage at less than it was going to cost to fix it. | ||
| I did get it fixed, even though that was the case. | ||
| And then I was supposed to get some other stuff to help me repair bulkheads and do other things that weren't really covered under the flood insurance. | ||
| Michael, what's your question for Tom? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the question basically has to do with the state. | |
| The states come in and somehow wind up administering the program. | ||
| And what happened was the state administered the program so badly that it was three years later there was still stuff that wasn't fixed because the state couldn't fix it on or wouldn't fix it. | ||
| The state decided it was going to change the reimbursement value of the house so that it's going to be a good idea. | ||
| So if I can interrupt for a second, just a couple things. | ||
| So sounds like FEMA did not give much value to your claim or you decided that it wasn't worth filing the claim. | ||
| And that happens every day with any kind of insurer, anywhere, car insurers and so forth. | ||
| So this is where FEMA gets into a little bit of a bind because on the one hand, it's an insurance agency basically. | ||
| It has to act like an insurance company, which means Taking a business approach and denying claims or lowballing them, which happens every day. | ||
| And Sandy, this was the superstorm that hit New York and New Jersey, Connecticut coast in October 2012, caused enormous damage. | ||
| Really, it was all flood damage. | ||
| And billions and billions of dollars came from the federal government through countless different programs. | ||
| And the way a lot of these programs work, particularly with the housing program from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, is HUD basically contracts with the appropriate state agency. | ||
| So HUD gives, I mean, in New Jersey's case, it must have gotten, I don't know, $5 billion or something from HUD. | ||
| I'm not sorry, and then New York's case, same thing. | ||
| And then the state creates its own program. | ||
| So I don't know the details of what happened, but the process is famously complicated and difficult. | ||
| And it doesn't surprise me to hear that you went through a lot after a storm like Sandy. | ||
| Michelle in Louisiana has experience with FEMA. | ||
| Good morning, Michelle. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| I was under through Katrina, and as you know, they were a little late on that. | ||
| But my question was: the whole world donated to Katrina. | ||
| What happened to all that money? | ||
| Like, how does that work? | ||
| Because they just basically told us that, yeah, there were issues with that, and we'll do better next time. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| You know, Katrina was in 2005, so we're talking 20 years ago, and yes, there was a lot of private money donated to all sorts of charities. | ||
| And that's really, the charities do with it what they want. | ||
| Each charity controls it. | ||
| You know, the one exception would be the American Red Cross, which has an agreement with FEMA to take on certain responsibilities after disasters. | ||
| But that's, you know, that's one relief agency, albeit a very big one. | ||
| And after Katrina, I can only imagine how many relief charities popped up. | ||
| And they operate independently. | ||
| Dominic in Virginia. | ||
| Good morning, Dominic. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| Enjoying your perspective. | ||
| My comment, following question, is specifically related to California wildflood. | ||
| Why should I, as a taxpayer, be responsible to fund federal tax dollar through my income tax payments to a completely competent local California government in Los Angeles with their large bureaucracy that they mismanaged their forests and basically allowed the fire to go out of control, costing billions and billions of dollars. | ||
| Dominic, you're breaking up, but I think I got the question. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And it's a fair question. | |
| And it's a question that President Trump is in effect asking these days, which is what role does the federal government have in these kind of disasters? | ||
| And, you know, FEMA didn't always exist. | ||
| So until FEMA was created in the 1970s, late 1970s, there was no funding through an agency called FEMA. | ||
| So I think the idea is that some events, some disasters are beyond the capacity of states. | ||
| And that phrase beyond the capacity is actually in federal law. | ||
| So, they will say, you know, what happened in Los Angeles, it's not really a local disaster. | ||
| It's a national disaster, sort of in the same way the 9-11 terrorist attacks were. | ||
| Should New York City and state have paid for that exclusively, or was that an attack on the United States? | ||
| You certainly can argue it both ways. | ||
| And the way that the United States, at least for the past 50 years, has handled this is to have a federal role in responding to major, major events, whether they're a terrorist attack or a chemical leak or something like that. | ||
| And so it's the idea that we're in this together. | ||
| And the LA wildfires obviously were a very extreme event. | ||
| But I understand your question. | ||
| Wanted to follow up on the legislation, the bipartisan legislation that was introduced in the House this week. | ||
| One of the provisions of that bill would remove FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security. | ||
| What would that do? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it would remove FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security. | |
| Beyond that, I don't actually know. | ||
| I'm not sure anyone really knows. | ||
| So the idea is that, so when FEMA was created by President Carter in 1979, it was its own agency. | ||
| It was an independent agency that reported directly to the president. | ||
| Fast forward to the September 11th attacks, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. | ||
| FEMA was one of the agencies, along with Customs and Border and Secret Service and Coast Guard that was woven in, became part of the Department of Homeland Security. | ||
| And it was a questionable move at the time. | ||
| People still have questions about it. | ||
| So the idea is to take it out and make it its own cabinet-level agency. | ||
| I honestly don't really know. | ||
| The one person I have spoken to about this is a gentleman named Craig Fugate, who ran FEMA for the entire Obama administration. | ||
| And his line was, which I think makes a lot of sense, is that even if you are an agency administrator, several steps removed from the White House, you can have a great relation with the president. | ||
| And he said that when Obama was in office, he used to brief the president directly, go to the White House, talk to the president directly. | ||
| And at the same time, you can be a cabinet agency, a cabinet administrator, and have no relationship to the president. | ||
| So I think it all depends really on the two people, the president and the FEMA administrator. | ||
| The president obviously can call anyone he wants on the phone and get anyone to come to his office. | ||
| So I'm not sure what practical effect it would actually have, which is not to say it won't have any. | ||
| I just don't know. | ||
| And there has been a lot going on in this area. | ||
| More to come for sure. | ||
| What are you going to be keeping your eyes on in the coming weeks and months? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, well, really, what decisions, if any, are going to be made. | |
| So there is a proposal that is out there that was written actually by Cameron Hamilton, the now fired FEMA administrator, sent to the White House in mid-April that would, in effect, have FEMA respond only to what we call the catastrophic disasters, again, the Hurricane Helen's, and stop responding to lesser disasters. | ||
| So that would dramatically reduce the number of disasters that FEMA responds to, but it would still pay a lot of money because most FEMA money goes to Hurricane Helenes and Los Angeles wildfires. | ||
| And that's the question to see what the Trump administration will do about that. | ||
| I've understood that there is an effort to try to do that by June 1st, which is the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season. | ||
| So that's really the next thing, I think, to watch. | ||
| And then to watch the bill in Congress. | ||
| But it's just, it's not even, it hasn't even been introduced. | ||
| It's just a discussion bill for people to give feedback on. | ||
| So that's on a much slower process. | ||
| Our guest, Tom Frank, Deputy Climate Editor for Politicos E ⁇ E News. | ||
| You can find his work online at eenews.net. | ||
| Tom, thank you so much for being with us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
My pleasure. | |
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| We are wrapping up today's program with more of your calls in open form. | ||
| You can start calling in now lines, Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mike said before I happened to listen to him, he was on C-SPAN 1. | |
| That's a big upgrade, right? | ||
| But I've read about it in the history books. | ||
| I've seen the C-SPAN footage. | ||
|
unidentified
|
If it's a really good idea, present it in public view on C-SPAN. | |
| Every single time I tuned in on TikTok or C-SPAN or YouTube or anything, there were tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people watching. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I went home after the speech and I turned on C-SPAN. | |
| I was on C-SPAN just this week. | ||
| To the American people, now is the time to tune in to C-SPAN. | ||
| They had something $2.50 a gallon. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I saw on television a little while ago in between my watching my great friends on C-SPAN. | |
| C-SPAN is televising this right now live. | ||
| So we are not just speaking to Los Angeles. | ||
| We are speaking to the country. | ||
| Sunday night on C-SPAN's Q&A. | ||
| Former Ohio Governor John Kasich, author of Heaven Help Us, talks about the work done by religious institutions and people of faith in the United States, including combating homelessness, hunger, human trafficking, and other issues. | ||
| I do think it's not critical to count the number of times you go to church. | ||
| But at the same time, I think we need to realize that those institutions are sort of like when you think about running for office, you need a clubhouse, a political clubhouse to gather. | ||
| I look at the churches as an opportunity for people to go in there with their ideas of change in the world and to be able to find support, some material support, some psychological support. | ||
| I also believe you can get more things done working with others than just working alone. | ||
| John Kasich with his book, Heaven Help Us, Sunday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q&A and all of our podcasts on the C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| We are in open form for the duration of today's program. | ||
| You can give us a call if there's a public policy issue you'd like to discuss or highlight. | ||
| We'll get to them in just a minute. | ||
| First, I wanted to give you an update on one of the top stories that we mentioned earlier today, and that is the situation between India and Pakistan. | ||
| This is a truth social post from President Trump just earlier this morning. | ||
| It says, After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a full and immediate ceasefire. | ||
| Congratulations to both countries on using common sense and great intelligence. | ||
| Thank you for your attention to this matter. | ||
| It was in a from the Associated Press more detail. | ||
| It says that the two countries agreed to ceasefire following U.S.-led talks to end the most serious military confrontation between the nuclear-armed rivals in decades. | ||
| The ceasefire follows weeks of clashes, missiles, and drone strikes across their borders that were triggered by a gun massacre of tourists last month that India blames on Pakistan, which denies the charge. | ||
| Dozens of citizens have been killed on both sides. | ||
| We will start our open forum calls with Joe in Texas, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just got a comment, Brittany, mostly. | ||
| The other day, I think it was on truth social or either Fox News, what President Trump said that he was bringing a steel industry into the United States. | ||
| But if you fact-check on Google, he's not bringing that steel plan in. | ||
| It was coming in in 2022 in Osceola, Arkansas, by Joe Biden administration. | ||
| He didn't come in in 2024 or 25, but now he's claiming that he's the one bringing that steel coming in. | ||
| If you fact check Google, you can read it out yourself. | ||
| Exactly what he said. | ||
| When the steel comes to Saz, he will come into Osceola, Arkansas. | ||
| So, because I get tired of him getting on TV, repeating what he's doing when it's good, but when it's bad, somebody else's fault. | ||
| So, please fact-check it and read it to your audience so they'll know what's going on. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Joe in Texas. | ||
| Richard in Texas, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Richard. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| My one point this morning is on the reconciliation bill. | ||
| The Republicans are having trouble coming up with the money for it, and they're thinking of adding a tax to the upper wealthy. | ||
| But, you know, the problem as I see it is I had heard that the no tax on senior citizen income on Social Security is going to cost $1.5 trillion. | ||
| And so, I don't think they should do that. | ||
| I think that we should leave that tax in place. | ||
| Seniors, you know, are able to cover that when they tax at the upper levels of the Social Security. | ||
| So, thank you. | ||
| Good day. | ||
| That was Richard. | ||
| Let's talk with Mary in Peninsula, Ohio, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Mary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I was hoping to reach the last representative that was there discussing FEMA. | ||
| And I had to call in part of the problem with FEMA and why I think it should be cut or reallocated when the hurricane hit Florida. | ||
| And I know that there were several of them, but one of them, the FEMA supervisor on the ground, informed FEMA staff to ignore, do not assist any home that had a Donald Trump sign out in the yard. | ||
| I mean, that is insane. | ||
| Where FEMA managers are saying ignore Republicans if they have a Donald Trump sign out in their yard. | ||
| Don't give them any help. | ||
| And in North Carolina, where the floods and everything else had hit, and people were watching the news at the time, FEMA wasn't even there. | ||
| People were two weeks without seeing FEMA at all, and their homes had flushed down the rivers because FEMA was ignoring them. | ||
| But they showed up at the fires in California. | ||
| And then good old Moyorkas in charge of the whole program actually stole billions of dollars from the FEMA programs and dedicated them to illegal aliens and the housing for illegal aliens at luxury hotels in New York City and other sanctuary cities. | ||
| That's not what FEMA funding is supposed to be about. | ||
| And it is not supposed to be politically dispersed. | ||
| But that's what FEMA stands for now. | ||
| And the person you had on the air didn't mention any of those circumstances. | ||
| He wants to go ahead and act like FEMA is so fair and helpful and everything else and how anybody should dare cut funding from it. | ||
| FEMA should not be allowed to hand out money to illegal aliens. | ||
| And if they're going to go ahead and help out with emergency situations, it shouldn't depend on whether or not you're Republican or Democrat or what kind of political yard sign you have out in your yard. | ||
| FEMA and the ORCIS are corrupt. | ||
| So I am glad that they are finally going to put some restrictions on the funding for FEMA. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Mary in Ohio. | ||
| Also in Ohio, M in Dayton, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Em. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican. | |
| We are supposed to be the United States of America. | ||
| And whenever this administration and everybody that he has put into their places, none of them have any experience in what they're doing. | ||
| None of them know a thing. | ||
| They will not answer for anything. | ||
| They don't answer any questions. | ||
| It is the American public that wants to know what is going on. | ||
| Not just a Democrat, not just a Republican, and not just an Independent. | ||
| We have the right to know what they are doing to all of our departments, whether it is education, Homeland Security, no matter what it is. | ||
| We pay their wages. | ||
| With all of our taxes, that's how they get their fundings. | ||
| If they cannot do their jobs right and answer for the things that are happening right now in there, then they all need to be out of there. | ||
| The whole administration needs to be gone because if they get rid of Donald Trump, the next one in line is Vance. | ||
| And Vance is an idiot. | ||
| I don't care how intelligent he is. | ||
| He is an idiot. | ||
| And that was M in Ohio. | ||
| This is a headline in this morning's Washington Post. | ||
| Newark air traffic control loses radar contact with pilots and second outage. | ||
| The article says that radar systems at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey stopped working for about 90 seconds early Friday morning. | ||
| The second major outage in a matter of days at an airport struggling with delayed and canceled flights and stressed air traffic controllers. | ||
| The telecommunications outage occurred at a Philadelphia radar control center that guides aircraft in and out of the Newark Liberty International Airspace, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. | ||
| The outage occurred shortly before 4 a.m. and resembled an incident that occurred on April 28th. | ||
| That outage led to hundreds of delayed or canceled flights. | ||
| Five air traffic controllers also took trauma leave after the event, worsening airport staffing shortages. | ||
| Friday's outage, which experts say is linked to faulty communications equipment between the airport tower and Philadelphia Radar Approach Control Center, sparked alarm among air traffic controllers according to radio transmission. | ||
| Speaking to the pilot of FedEx Flight 1989, an air traffic controller can be heard saying, Our scopes just went black again. | ||
| If you care about this, contact your airline and try to get some pressure to fix the stuff, the controller said. | ||
| It was on Thursday that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced modernization plans for the air traffic control system. | ||
| Here's a clip from that event. | ||
| What we're going to do, so we're going to rebuild some towers, we're going to rebuild some tracons, we're going to rebuild some centers. | ||
| Not all of them, but we're going to rebuild a few of them that need to be rebuilt. | ||
| So there'll be some bricks and mortar to this plan. | ||
| However, everything else, this is really easy. | ||
| Everything else that controls the airspace is going to be brand new. | ||
| So we're going to have new telecom, new fiber throughout the system. | ||
| We are going to have brand new radios in our towers to communicate between air traffic controllers and with airplanes. | ||
| We are going to have a ground radar sensor, we'll have new radar for the ground and new sensors on our tarmacs at our airports. | ||
| So our air traffic controllers who are in the tower are looking out with binoculars to see airplanes. | ||
| If it's cloudy or rainy, the weather's bad, it becomes very challenging. | ||
| We want to have all the tools so they can see where aircraft are at the airport on their screens, on their terminals. | ||
| We hear a lot of these bumps, these scrapes that are happening at airports. | ||
| We want to make sure air traffic controllers have the tools to keep airplanes separated and we want to allow them to see that through their panels and screens. | ||
| We're going to have a new flight management system that's going to bring efficiency to the airspace. | ||
| So more people are flying, more planes are in the air now than ever. | ||
| We're going to add EBITDA's. | ||
| These are the Ubers in the air, the drones with people in them, as well as drones themselves into the airspace. | ||
| It's going to become more complicated. | ||
| This is going to allow us to better manage the airspace, to allow the airlines to better manage their flights. | ||
| So when you take off, you actually fly and you land. | ||
| You don't circle airports. | ||
| You're going to take off and you're going to fly directly. | ||
| This system will allow that efficiency to take place in the airspace. | ||
| So in essence, all the front-facing equipment for controllers, all the back-end systems for controllers, all brand new. | ||
| All new hardware, all new software is going to be built into this brand new air traffic control system. | ||
| And some of you might say, well, how are you going to do that in any reasonable amount of time? | ||
| I've told you we're going to do this in three or four years. | ||
| Well, I can't just announce it to you and say it's going to happen in three to four years. | ||
| I need help. | ||
| I can't do it by myself. | ||
| And it's going to take the help of the Congress to make that happen. | ||
| Part of them are here today. | ||
| So to do it in three or four years, we need all of the money upfront. | ||
| One of the problems of the past is when you give small tranches of money year over year, politics change, leadership changes, presidents change, interest changes, and it never gets built. | ||
| So I'm going to ask the Congress for upfront appropriations to give us all the money. | ||
| I'll come before the Congress every quarter and give them an update of how far we've built, how much money we've spent. | ||
| They can pressure test what's been done to do the oversight to make sure we're doing this correctly. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| Let's hear from KJ in Illinois, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, KJ. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| What a great segue. | ||
| I was trying to figure out a way to discuss an example of where DEI plays an important role in America's success. | ||
| And I can't think of a better example of the low numbers of air traffic controllers. | ||
| And now we have cut off the pipeline of smart, intelligent people of other races. | ||
| I am, you know, and this message is kind of, I hope that a Republican who feels that diversity and inclusion initiatives are failing America, they're not. | ||
| I think you've seen since Trump's coming into office, he's canceled DEI, which cancels a big pool of very smart, intelligent people from being in these positions. | ||
| And here's a place where we don't have enough air traffic controllers. | ||
| And my message would be to those that are kind of the Christian nationalists that feel like, well, only white people should have these jobs. | ||
| There aren't enough smart white people to do all the jobs. | ||
| That's why we came up with diversity and inclusion to go out to outreach to find different sources throughout the United States to take on these roles. | ||
| And this is a perfect example. | ||
| We don't have enough air traffic controllers. | ||
| We don't have enough pilots. | ||
| There aren't enough smart white people to take these roles. | ||
| Most people that I find complaining about, they're upset about DEI. | ||
| You're not even qualified for the job that you're complaining about. | ||
| You don't have the degree. | ||
| You don't have the certifications. | ||
| But guess what? | ||
| There are people throughout this country from different backgrounds that do have those certifications. | ||
| Good morning, KJ. | ||
| We'll go to Greg in Texas, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Greg. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I said I was going to never call again, but I can't help it because this show is, we need this show, and it's the only thing we got left to express our opinion because everybody cuts you off. | ||
| And that gentleman said it's perfect. | ||
| What he was saying about the DEI. | ||
| It's about when they can't go out there and compete with the rest of the country to let all these people come over here and they realize they ain't going to make it in America unless they stick together. | ||
| They keep us torn apart. | ||
| We bicker against each other. | ||
| Then we go out here and spend our money somewhere else instead of putting it in our community. | ||
| When we do, they go at us and then they say, well, they go, they hate on the investors or the people that's famous want to invest in the community. | ||
| They hate on us, but they let these other cultures come over here and build their communities up and amongst themselves. | ||
| They churches, they help each other. | ||
| They steady focusing on American citizens. | ||
| Come to my neighborhood. | ||
| You got lots of pole whites and blacks living together and complaining, but the poor whites sit here with the Confederate flags and voted for Trump and blame the people of color for the reason why the situation they in. | ||
| All this is that the people that's complaining about the fentanyl, the first time they go to Congress, go there and sue. | ||
| And it's all planned. | ||
| All of a sudden, now they got an idea how to stop Fitana when they kids and went over there and took an overdose. | ||
| They're going to blame the Mexicans and going to blame everybody else for blaming yourself as a parent because your kid was a pill popper in college, but you got a million dollars to put in your pocket, sued everybody else to make money, but let the people color. | ||
| They got to think about it. | ||
| Like now, we got a lot of inner-city problems going on with these people going out here taking out people of color. | ||
| Listen to me, taking out people of color in this country, and then they justifying these young white kids, talking about he was self-defense. | ||
| And now we got people out here taking people out because of Donald Trump to let these people pass and bill to be able to do what they want. | ||
| And they're walking up on us. | ||
| The women, especially, the black women, attacking black women. | ||
| And they got us on and they went for cell phones. | ||
| You wouldn't see. | ||
| They don't have it on National News what these white folks are doing to black folks out of the booth. | ||
| Ain't nobody buying that no more. | ||
| Y'all need to sit back and just help put this country together. | ||
| Stop blaming people color for everybody for everything that y'all was doing wrong. | ||
| Y'all the one robbing. | ||
| I got your point, Greg. | ||
| We'll go to Matt and Texas Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Matt. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| I'd just like to say that the Democratic Party, just like that man that just got off the phone right there, all they want to talk about is race and hate. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's all they want to talk about. | |
| You know, Donald Trump, he, on the First Step Act, the First Step Act, here, I think it was in 2019. | ||
| He got 5,000 black men out of prison that were wrongfully overprisoned time. | ||
| You know, they served their sentence, but they were way in for way too long. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And he got 5,000 black men out of prison. | |
| And he put Alice Marie Johnson, he got her out of prison. | ||
| And now she is, she is a black lady, a wonderful Christian black lady. | ||
| She did wrong years ago, but she spent way too much time in prison. | ||
| And he got her out. | ||
| And now he's put her in charge of helping black people and other people to get out of prison. | ||
| That's the First Step Act. | ||
| And nobody ever brings that up. | ||
| All they want to bring up is race and hate. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's all the Democratic Party is: race and hate. | |
| And I'd just like to say that if you look at who voted for Donald Trump, the firefighters, unions all voted for him. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Christian coalition voted for him. | |
| The police officers, the military, the United States Navy, the United States Air Force, the United States Coast Guard, the United States Army, all the military, the police officers, firefighters, all the great people in this country, all the great people. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Look who voted for Kamala and the Democrats. | |
| Look who voted for them. | ||
| Transgenders, terrorists. | ||
| They let murderers, killers, rapists, drug dealers come into this country. | ||
| And then when Trump tries to get them out, they just raise all kinds of billy H about that. | ||
| Got your point, Matt. | ||
| We'll go to Barbie in Nashville, Tennessee, Lion Francis, Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Barbie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I wasn't going to call in until that lady from Ohio spoke. | ||
| And, you know, I got news for her. | ||
| When a hurricane comes through, which they don't have in Ohio, there are no yard signs in the yards because the houses are gone. | ||
| So her saying that FEMA picked and choosed who they were going to help after a hurricane, that's like, that's completely insane and kind of points to where this retribution thing, | ||
| this whole thing that Trump talks about, you know, getting even and that's where the Republican Party is right now, which is like completely insane. | ||
| It's 2025 and people are still, number one, you know, supporting Donald Trump, which will wait 18 months. | ||
| In 18 months, everybody that voted for him is going to hate his gut. | ||
| I guarantee it. | ||
| Because nobody's going to have any money. | ||
| And if they have any money, they're not going to be able to spend it anywhere. | ||
| So, and all the people, the poor white people who voted for Donald Trump are going to be their Medicare, all these people, trailer people sitting in there with diabetes, they're not going to be getting their diabetes medicine. | ||
| They're not going to be able to go to the hospital, to the ER. | ||
| So, you know, it's going to hit the fan in a short while here when people are not getting the services and the money from the government that they've always gotten. | ||
| Generations and generations of Tennesseans have lived off the federal government, and they're the ones who voted for Donald Trump, and they're the ones who are going to be S out of luck in 18 months. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Barbie in Tennessee. | ||
| This morning, trade talks with China are underway. | ||
| This is a story from The Guardian. | ||
| It says U.S. and senior U.S. and Chinese officials held talks early Saturday in Geneva in a tentative first step toward defusing a trade war that is disrupting the global economy, according to China's state-owned news agency and people close to the talks. | ||
| China's Vice Premier, He Lifing, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson met after weeks of growing tensions as duties on imports between the world's two largest economies have risen above 100%. | ||
| The trade dispute combined with the decision by the U.S. President Donald Trump last month to impose duties on dozens of other countries has disrupted supply chains, unsettled financial markets, and stoked fears of a sharp global downturn. | ||
| It was yesterday in the Oval Office that President Trump was asked about the trade talks happening this weekend. | ||
| Here is a clip from that event. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Have you given Scott Besson on negotiating with China this weekend? | |
| We have to make a great deal for America. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Are you going to be disappointed if he comes back without a deal? | |
| No, not at all, because we already made a great deal. | ||
| We're not doing business with China right now. | ||
| You know, we lost $1 trillion last year with China. | ||
| $1 trillion. | ||
| So if you're not going to do business with him, you're not going to lose $1 trillion. | ||
| But we lost. | ||
| I just want, I want China to do great. | ||
| You know, I'm very friendly with President Xi. | ||
| I have great respect for him and for China. | ||
| But we can't continue to allow them to do what they did. | ||
| When I was president, they paid hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs and taxes. | ||
| And then Biden screwed it all up. | ||
| What he did to this country between the border and between all of the other problems, the wars, everything, what he did to this country should never be forgotten. | ||
| But one of the things you did is the trade was so bad and so imbalanced. | ||
| So I think we're going to come back with a fair deal for both China and us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Have you given Vesant a number of how low you're willing to go? | |
| I have. | ||
| But I put out a number today, 80%, so we'll see how that all works. | ||
| And a couple programming notes for you related to trade. | ||
| On Monday, the European Union has announced potential tariffs on the U.S. in excess of $100 billion. | ||
| Should trade talks with the U.S. fail on Monday, there will be a discussion on this and other European responses to the Trump administration's policies. | ||
| It's going to be hosted by George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. | ||
| You'll be able to watch that live at 12.30 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN on our free mobile app, C-SPANNOW, as well as online at c-span.org. | ||
| And also on Monday, former U.S. trade representatives will discuss the current global trade landscape and potential pathways forward for the U.S. and its partners. | ||
| That event is from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. | ||
| That event will be live at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| Again, you'll be able to find it on our app and online at c-span.org. | ||
| Just about five minutes left in this morning's program. | ||
| Let's hear from David in St. Paul, Minnesota, online for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, David. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I only have one thing to say, and it's about the first Republican president to steal an election, Ronald Reagan. | ||
| All of our problems are due to him and his theft from Jimmy Carter. | ||
| Thank you very much for taking my call. | ||
| Let's go to Bill in Dundon, Florida, Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Bill. | ||
| Did I say that right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, Dunedin. | |
| Dunedin. | ||
| I wasn't even close. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Dunedin. | |
| I'm calling on the Republican sister city of Sterling, Scotland. | ||
| You know, call the Republican line because it most accurately reflects my conservative values. | ||
| I'd say I'm probably best described as a fiscal conservative and a social libertarian. | ||
| And I called about when the discussion with FEMA, then there's so many rabbit holes. | ||
| And I got thinking, there's a lady called in, said, you know, nobody ever, there was no supervisor at FEMA who directed her people to ignore or look past places with Trump sides. | ||
| And I guess if you're only listening to certain, you know, to very focused news programs, you probably never hear that. | ||
| But I think there's a benefit to a broad, you know, listening and watching and reading a broad source of input. | ||
| So then you can make up your own mind what's really going on. | ||
| But to get back to FEMA, it seems to me that the states are best, and the Constitution says, it doesn't enumerate disaster relief in the Constitution. | ||
| And I think that the decisions are probably best left to the states as much as possible. | ||
| I suspect that FEMA was developed as a result of the states being unwilling to make the tough decisions to deal with the problems that they're faced with. | ||
| I think Florida does a good job with building codes and hurricanes. | ||
| And then you look at California and you look at their fires and their unwillingness to pick up the deadwood on the forest floor, which is just fuel for the fire. | ||
| And then the consequences is you have these horrific and deadly and flowing fires all over the place that probably could have been mitigated and reduced had there been maintenance on them. | ||
| So it seems to me that FEMA might be, I suspect it's a type of insurance policy where we spread the risk, you know, from certain concentrated populations to a broader group. | ||
| And if that's a situation, if that's how it's being used as almost an insurance policy, then I think that the insurer should have some type of say in the conditions under which they're insuring. | ||
| Like if there are stupid laws that say that you can't harvest the deadwood in the forest, then yeah, we'll cover you, but you've got to remove that law. | ||
| But I think really the decisions are best made when they're closer to the people and with the state. | ||
| I think it forces the state and the population to be more informed citizens and more active and involved citizens when it comes to voting and the issues and understanding the issue the closer it is to the state. | ||
| So I know it's a complicated issue. | ||
| I don't know how we're going to how it's going to end up, but those are my thoughts. | ||
| I don't think it's enumerated in the Constitution that we should be dealing with this issue. | ||
| I think we have enough going on. | ||
| And I also think that we're on the brink of an American renaissance. | ||
| I think we just need to get everybody on board to start, you know, it's not a Democrat and Republican team. | ||
| This is not the Super Bowl. | ||
| You know, our loyalty should be with what's best for this country and not you know and not loyalty to party. | ||
| So that's that's my point. | ||
| Thanks for your time. | ||
| That was Bill in Florida, Mark in Oklahoma, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Mark. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, ma'am. | |
| I want to know why our politicians in the White House, the House and Senate is not sticking up for the people by the people. | ||
| And why are we paying foreign countries to house illegal aliens and paying them $600,000 a month or whatever to house them when we could dump that in Social Security and Medicare and different programs and have it benefit the American people? | ||
| $600,000 a month. | ||
| That was Mark in Oklahoma and our last call for this morning's Washington Journal. | ||
| We'll be back tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern and 4 a.m. Pacific with another program. | ||
| Until then, enjoy your Saturday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Coming up Sunday morning, Matthew Boyle, Washington Bureau Chief for Breitbart News Network, talks about the news media, the Trump administration, and other political news of the day. | |
| And Kristen Rowe Finkmeiner with the group Moms Rising joins us to discuss public policy challenges facing mothers and families. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal. | ||
| Join in the conversation live at 7 Eastern Sunday morning on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN now, our free mobile app, or online at c-SPAN.org. | ||
| Well, up next, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant testifies before our House Appropriations Subcommittee and announces the status of trade talks between 17 U.S. trading partners. | ||
| And then Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Senate Democrats discuss the economic impact of President Trump's tariff policies on small businesses. | ||
| And later, Energy Secretary Chris Wright testifies about President Trump's 2026 budget request for his department. | ||
| Well, after several tense days of cross-border attacks, India and Pakistan have agreed to a ceasefire, according to President Trump. | ||
| He posted this on Saturday morning. | ||
| After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I'm pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a full and immediate ceasefire. | ||
| Congratulations to both countries on using common sense and great intelligence. | ||
| Thank you for your attention to this matter. | ||
| The Associated Press reports that the current confrontation between the two nuclear rivals was triggered by the massacre of tourists by gunmen last month that India blames on Pakistan, which denies the charge. | ||
| The article, however, goes on to note that multiple explosions were heard in two large cities of India-controlled Kashmir hours after the countries agreed to the deal. | ||
| C-SPAN. Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| We're funded by these television companies and more, including Buckeye Broadband. | ||
| Buckeye Broadband supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | ||
| Treasury Secretary Scott Besant testified before a House Appropriations Subcommittee and announced the status of trade talks with 17 U.S. trading partners, saying that a number of trade deals are possible in the coming days. | ||
| He was also asked about negotiations with China. |