| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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Live. | |
| And then Scott Wong of NBC News discusses this week's congressional agenda and the news of the day. | ||
| And the Hills Brett Samuels with a preview of the week ahead at the White House. | ||
| Also, Paul Salem with the Middle East Institute discusses President Trump's visit to the region this week with stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. | ||
| Washington Journal starts now. | ||
| Join the conversation. | ||
| Good morning, everyone. | ||
| On this Monday, May 12th, the beginning of a big week in Congress as Republicans get ready to unveil its budget blueprint to make some of President Trump's 2017 tax cuts permanent, extend others. | ||
| and try to find $1.5 trillion in spending cuts. | ||
| This morning, it's your turn to join the debate in Washington. | ||
| What deserves less or more funding in the federal budget? | ||
| Democrats, dial in at 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can join the conversation in a text if you'd like to do that instead of calling at 202-748-8003 or post on facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and also on X with the handle at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| At the beginning of April, you'll recall the House passed the Senate-backed version of this budget reconciliation bill 216 to 214. | ||
| Now they are moving forward on getting a compromise bill to the president. | ||
| The Republican budget blueprint, as you recall, included $5 trillion in tax cuts. | ||
| Republicans are looking at that close to that number over 10 years, including extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts, increasing immigration and border security spending by $200 billion, as well as defense bill spending to $150 billion, and then spending cuts. | ||
| Republicans, the conservatives want at least $1.5 trillion. | ||
| Some would like more around $2 trillion over 10 years to pay for these tax cuts. | ||
| And they plan to increase the debt ceiling, the debt limit as well. | ||
| We want to get your thoughts on what in the budget deserves less or more funding. | ||
| We've received more details last night. | ||
| The chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee that oversees Medicare, Brett Guthrie, wrote in a Wall Street Journal piece in the paper yesterday, a common sense budget reconciliation bill. | ||
| My committee's legislation supports U.S. innovation, strengthens Medicaid, and ends Green New Deal-style waste, is what he says in his piece. | ||
| From the Wall Street Journal's reporting about this text, it says a section-by-section summary of the bill, which was viewed by the Wall Street Journal, includes some of the changes Republicans have weighed for Medicaid, including work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks. | ||
| But it doesn't lower the minimum share the federal government contributes to Medicaid in each state, cap person funding, federal funding in that program, or other steps some spending hawks sought. | ||
| House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie in an interview cast the changes as slowing down runaway growth in Medicaid rather than as cuts, while warning that the program is going to cost more than $1 trillion a year in the next decade if lawmakers don't rein in spending. | ||
| The Kentucky Republican acknowledged that Republicans' plan to trim Medicaid spending will likely be more politically palatable to moderates and centrists than to the conservative wing, which wanted a more dramatic winnowing of the program. | ||
| Yesterday on CBS's Face the Nation, New Mexico Governor Michelle Luhan Grisham, who is a former member of Congress, talked about potential Medicaid cuts. | ||
|
unidentified
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Your state's got the highest Medicaid enrollment per capita last week. | |
| We're hoping to get some clarity this week on what it is exactly Republicans are thinking of doing with their budget blueprint regarding Medicaid. | ||
| But I understand 70%, more than 70% of Medicaid coverage in your state comes from federal funding. | ||
| If they start to make cuts of any sort, do you have a plan to make up the difference? | ||
| Look, I think every state, including this one, is going to do everything they can to protect the people that they are serving. | ||
| And so we'll do the very same. | ||
| And in fact, we've created sort of these Medicaid and related health care state-funded programs and trust funds. | ||
| But this is very simply an effort to destroy health care as we know it, to rip it away from everyday Americans, make it more costly for everybody else. | ||
| It will close hospitals. | ||
| I think something like 432 hospitals across the country are on the edge right now. | ||
| About a third of their funding comes or more comes from Medicaid. | ||
| So you have less providers, you have fewer access points. | ||
| No state, including this one, no state can take this kind of cost shifting. | ||
| And you know, businesses then don't have employees because they don't have access to health care. | ||
| It has a huge economic factor that they aren't talking about, which is outrageous. | ||
| And I want to do one more quick point because I know we want to get to other stuff. | ||
| We had a governor who was trying to, I think, right before me, Governor Martinez, and to her credit, was looking at ways in a recession era economy in New Mexico to look to have cost savings. | ||
| They completely cut behavioral health out of Medicaid. | ||
| And more than a decade later, we are still digging out. | ||
| Providers left, contractors left, people don't have access, people died. | ||
| More drug abuse, more drug addiction, more behavioral health high-risk issues. | ||
| It is a disaster and people will die. | ||
| Children will die. | ||
| From CBS's Face the Nation, yesterday, their Sunday show with the New Mexico governor, she was reacting to news from other newspapers this morning, including The Hill, with this headline, Republicans unveil steep cuts to Medicaid in portion of Trump's tax bill. | ||
| They would slash Medicaid spending significantly by imposing new restrictions on Medicaid beneficiaries, like work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks. | ||
| But the most controversial changes floated to the program were not included. | ||
| Your reaction to that? | ||
| Does Medicaid deserve more or less funding in the federal budget? | ||
| What other programs would you either cut or add spending to? | ||
| That's our conversation this morning with all of you. | ||
| Those are the lines on your screen. | ||
| I want to get to some breaking news, though. | ||
| As you know, the Treasury Secretary and the trade representative were in Geneva over the weekend with their Chinese counterparts discussing a trade deal. | ||
| We have breaking news this morning. | ||
| And the Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, speaking to reporters, had this to say earlier. | ||
| Ed very productive talks. | ||
| And I believe that the venue here on Lake Geneva added great equanimity to what was a very positive process. | ||
| We have reached An agreement on a 90-day pause and substantially move down the tariff levels. | ||
| Both sides on the reciprocal tariffs will move their tariffs down 115%. | ||
| We had very robust discussions. | ||
| Both sides showed great respect. | ||
| It was a chance for me to meet the Chinese delegation. | ||
| The Vice Premier, I had previously had only a video call with. | ||
| Ambassador Jameson was familiar with two of the other leaders on the delegation from his previous time. | ||
| So there was very good personal interaction. | ||
| Both countries represented their national interests very well. | ||
| We concluded that we have shared interest and we both have an interest in balanced trade. | ||
| The U.S. will continue moving towards that. | ||
| The Treasury Secretary announcing U.S. and China agree to slash tariffs for 90 days. | ||
| CNBC calling that a major trade breakthrough this morning, the Treasury Secretary and the President's trade representative in Geneva over the weekend in talks with China. | ||
| This morning, we're getting your thoughts on what deserves less or more funding in the federal budget. | ||
| Where would you increase spending and where would you slash it? | ||
| Republicans, an important week here in Washington for them as they get ready to move forward on the president's what he has called one big beautiful bill. | ||
| Wendy in Rogersville, Tennessee, a Republican. | ||
| Wendy, where would you add money? | ||
|
unidentified
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Where would you cut it? | |
| Well, first of all, we need to shore up and clean out every entity in this country that poses a danger to us. | ||
| We have five borders, three ocean, two land, and they have not been secure since the 2000s. | ||
| That is something we should have accomplished the entire time. | ||
| It should have never been unsecure. | ||
| The Green New Deal, all of the World Economic Forum ideas to take over the world and take away everyone's freedom, none of that money should have ever gone to any of those entities. | ||
| Solar is not sustainable, neither is wind turbines, nor can your energy, like your power grids. | ||
|
unidentified
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You have to give power to them to make them work. | |
| And they're not feasible if you don't fund them with taxpayer money. | ||
| Taxpayers should never ever fund private sector entities. | ||
| Private companies are supposed to live and die on their own money, not ours. | ||
| Subsidies and money should be outlawed from the private sector. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Rogersville, Tennessee, Republican caller there started out talking about border security. | ||
| Sounded like he would increase funding for border security. | ||
| The Homeland Security Secretary, Christy Noam, was on Capitol Hill twice last week talking about the president's budget request to Congress for her department for the Homeland Security Department. | ||
| We covered her testimony both times here at C-SPAN. | ||
| You can find it online at c-span.org. | ||
| Here she is from Thursday answering questions about why Homeland Security froze funding approved by Congress. | ||
| Now, in the last three months, you have frozen or canceled over $100 billion in funding that was approved by Congress bipartisan. | ||
| We are talking about everything from disaster relief to grants that keep people safe. | ||
| But when my staff has requested information on the status of this unacceptable holdup, the department failed to provide any acceptable justification. | ||
| This illegal freeze, and it is illegal, is taking a real toll on communities who are waiting on the investments that Congress has delivered. | ||
| So will you commit to immediately unpausing these funds? | ||
| Well, Senator, thank you for covering a lot of topics there. | ||
| Let me touch on a few of those right away. | ||
| What the Trump administration is doing is that you have to be able to do that. | ||
| I know you have tarsened the law for the first time under the Biden administration. | ||
| I'm asking you about the funds. | ||
| Illegal aliens were prioritized over American citizens. | ||
| Now the scales of justice have been leveled and no one is treated better than anyone else. | ||
| Citizens are treated the same. | ||
| Madam Secretary is a very different criminals. | ||
| The grants that you are referencing, the grants that you are referencing have been paused and re-evaluated to make sure that they are truly being spent in the way to which they were appropriated. | ||
| Many of these grants were being diverted into things that were never intended to be. | ||
| These funds were passed on a bipartisan basis by members of the United States. | ||
|
unidentified
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Absolutely. | |
| And the Biden administration perverted them in how they used them, diverted them to facilitate illegal immigration to house people in places like the Roosevelt Hotel who held illegal criminals about $100 billion. | ||
| It is not credible. | ||
| Victims here are all the recipients who have died and lost their children. | ||
| Madam Secretary, it is not credible. | ||
| Madam Chair, it is not credible that $100 billion is used to break the law. | ||
| That just cannot be true. | ||
| And let me change this a little bit. | ||
| On the other hand, I am very concerned that DHS is now dramatically overspending funding that Congress has not provided. | ||
| If you were a CEO doing that, I don't think you'd be in your job long. | ||
| We need accountability and we need answers. | ||
| From Capitol Hill last week, an exchange there between the President's Cabinet Secretary, Christine Noam, who heads up the Homeland Security Department, and the senators, as she testified about the 2026 budget request from the White House. | ||
| If you missed anything from that hearing and you're interested, you can go to our website at c-span.org or free video mobile app. | ||
| Adding to that, from the front page of the Washington Post this morning, you heard the senator talking about freezing of funds. | ||
| Work at some labs and offices are at a standstill. | ||
| EPA, the National Weather Association programs, among others, are frozen by Doge spending limits. | ||
| At the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, key work on weather forecasting has slowed to a crawl because Commerce Secretary Howard Luttnick must sign off personally on money contracts and grants. | ||
| And at the Social Security Administration, some employees are running out of paper, pens, and printer toner because the U.S. Doge Service has placed a $1 spending limit on government-issued credit cards. | ||
| Doge attends stands for the Department of Government Agency, though it is a cabinet-level agency. | ||
| Across the federal government, Trump officials are halting a wide range of operations by defining, by declining to approve key funds. | ||
| This unofficial hold, as many activities, has incapacitated many agencies' divisions, even though they remain technically intact. | ||
| Do you agree with this type of action by the Trump administration to freeze funding and the efforts by Elon Musk and Doge? | ||
| Maria, Newport News, Virginia, Republican. | ||
| Let's hear from you. | ||
|
unidentified
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No, I do not agree with what Trump is doing on that. | |
| I find it very interesting that out of the agencies that he's cut, the Department of Defense is not one of those. | ||
| I would say the fraud, waste, and abuse would be under Department of Defense contractors. | ||
| It's interesting how he's hitting all the other agencies other than the biggest spender of government funding, Department of Defense. | ||
| All right, so Marie, that's where you would look to cut funding in this federal budget. | ||
|
unidentified
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Absolutely. | |
| Well, so let me read this for you from the Wall Street Journal and just get your reaction real quick. | ||
| Russ Vogt, President Trump's top budget official, is looking to lock in many of Elon Musk's cost-cutting efforts once the billionaire steps aside from government, a key part of his plan, steamrolling Congress. | ||
| Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, has already drawn the eye of Republicans, national security hawks, by insisting that military spending receive increases only through a procedure known as budget reconciliation as opposed to the annual budget. | ||
| Aside from the reconciliation spending, the White House budget blueprint proposed maintaining military spending at current budget levels of $892.6 billion. | ||
| So, Marie, the White House, even though the Defense Secretary testified about needing more money, the White House is saying they're going to increase spending for the Pentagon to $150 billion, but only in this budget reconciliation plan and not in the annual budget. | ||
| Do you think that's a good idea? | ||
| Freezing it at its current level? | ||
| Is that a start, in your opinion? | ||
|
unidentified
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No. | |
| No, because it's not going to change anything. | ||
| How is that going to change anything? | ||
| I mean, they've already increased spending in the Department of Defense. | ||
| So I don't know how that changes anything. | ||
| And it was a strategy because they've gone after the departments within the government that haven't been the ones that spend most of the taxpayer dollars. | ||
| I find that very interesting. | ||
| All right. | ||
| So, Marie, do you think, given what you just said, do you think we also need the federal government needs to be looking at Social Security and Medicare? | ||
|
unidentified
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No, I do not think. | |
| I think that if you want to go after fraud, like you're really saying that you want to go after, you should look at the department that spends the most amount of taxpayer dollars. | ||
| It's interesting that that's not what they've done. | ||
| They've done just the opposite. | ||
| But he can, Trump can say that he went after some of it. | ||
| But I just think, again, the strategy without going after the Department of Defense. | ||
| I think that's interesting. | ||
| All right, well, look at the pie chart. | ||
| Marie, look at the pie chart put together by the Peterson Institute. | ||
| This is the share of the federal spending by budget category, Social Security and Medicare, which are mandatory spending, Social Security making up 22%, Medicaid 10%, and Medicare 14%, meaning it gets spent. | ||
| Congress doesn't have a say. | ||
| When it comes to discretionary spending, where Congress does have a say, defense makes up 13% of the federal budget. | ||
| Non-defense discretionary spending makes up 15%. | ||
| Other mandatory spending, 16%. | ||
| That is how the federal budget breaks down. | ||
| Our question to you this morning: what deserves less or more funding in the federal budget? | ||
| Dwight in Fairfield, California, Independent. | ||
| Dwight, what do you say? | ||
|
unidentified
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Hey, good morning, Greta. | |
| Good morning, Washington Journal. | ||
| Wow, Marie just stole my thunder, Greta. | ||
| You know, I'm spot on with her in cutting the Department of Defense. | ||
| That has, the Pentagon has been the most waste and abused agency that we have. | ||
| And that 20-year war over in the Middle East, unfunded, has put us in the debt that we are in today. | ||
| So that Pentagon spending has to stop. | ||
| And they're increasing that. | ||
| There's no need to increase that. | ||
| War is not like it was when I was coming up during the Vietnam era. | ||
| All this stuff is drone and AI and all that that's going on. | ||
| It's just, like Eisenhower said, a military-industrial complex. | ||
| Now, when it comes to Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, we're going to have to cut. | ||
| There's no doubt about it because we can't sustain the expenditures there. | ||
| They need to take a look at that, and they have to straighten that out because we can't keep going on. | ||
| And I'm 72, Greta, so I am a person that's on Social Security. | ||
| But, Greta, my retirement doesn't just consist of Social Security. | ||
| I have, you know, stocks. | ||
| I had to invest money. | ||
| I had to save money. | ||
| That was a personal choice. | ||
| I couldn't live on my Social Security salary on its own, on its own. | ||
| So people got to take a look at self-responsibility again. | ||
| The government doesn't owe us anything. | ||
| They don't owe us anything. | ||
| Yes, we do pay taxes. | ||
| Well, the ones of us that do pay taxes, and they also need to take a look at the billionaires and kind of level this claim sale out as well. | ||
| But again, you know, Maria stole all my thunder. | ||
| Yes, we're going to have to cut Social Security, Medicaid, and we're going to have to live with it. | ||
| It's a different world now, Greta. | ||
| All right. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Dwight, 72 years old on Social Security, but he chose to save money other ways for retirement. | ||
| Related to that, from CNN reporting, President Trump isn't the only one targeting federal employees. | ||
| House Republicans are pushing to cut pension benefits. | ||
| After months of contending with the Trump administration multi-pronged effort to downsize the federal workforce, government employees are now facing the possibility of another major change that could push even more of them out the door. | ||
| House Republicans are looking to make several big adjustments to federal workers' retirement benefits to help pay for the party's sweeping tax and spending cuts package. | ||
| The House Oversight Committee last week approved a plan that would squeeze $50 billion in savings out of the retirement system over the next decade. | ||
| Do you agree with that proposal by Republicans to look at pension benefits for federal workers as a way to adjust federal spending in this country? | ||
| We're going to hear, by the way, from the president this morning from the White House. | ||
| He's going to be signing an executive order this morning at the White House on health care, trying to lower the cost of prescription drugs. | ||
| He's then going to hold a news conference at 9.30 a.m. Eastern Time with the Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert Kennedy. | ||
| At around 10.30 this morning Eastern Time, the president is departing the White House for his first trip to the Middle East of his second term. | ||
| He will be traveling to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, meeting with leaders there in those countries. | ||
| We're going to talk about his trip to the Middle East in our last hour of today's Washington Journal. | ||
| Greg in Willington, Connecticut, Democratic Color. | ||
|
unidentified
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Greg, good morning to you. | |
| Good morning, Greta. | ||
| Yes, of course it's the military. | ||
| And I wouldn't call it the Defense Department. | ||
| I would call it the Department of War because of all the havoc we've caused in my lifetime, but also since 9-11. | ||
| We have spent $8 trillion in Afghanistan in Iraq alone. | ||
| Now, you can't go to Afghanistan. | ||
| And if you go to Iraq, you have to wear a flak vest. | ||
| And these countries are very dangerous for Americans. | ||
| Now, what have we done? | ||
| And this is insanity from my perspective. | ||
| But we just bombed, we spent a billion dollars bombing the poorest nation in the world, Yemen. | ||
| And we lost fighters. | ||
| Two of them dropped off an aircraft carrier. | ||
| Now, I'm no rocket scientist, but the Russians and probably Iran has a missile that cannot be stopped by our air defense. | ||
| So it's a moot. | ||
| The fact that we have aircraft carriers, it's a moot point because of the technology. | ||
| So, yes, it is absolutely, positively the military-industrial republics. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Greg Sotts there in Connecticut, a Democrat. | ||
| Alan's an independent in Massachusetts. | ||
| Alan, what do you think? | ||
| Where do we need to spend more money or spend less in the federal budget? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, my background is a little different than most of these people. | |
| I basically was a Democrat most of my life, and now I'm an independent. | ||
| I became one about when I turned about 55 and realized they didn't reflect a lot of what I valued. | ||
| I'm now 85 on July 4th. | ||
| So I grew up in a generation that knew most of the people that I knew that were adults had fought in World War II or were affected by it. | ||
| So I have a somewhat different view of reality. | ||
| Back then, nobody wanted to go to war. | ||
| The United States population was against the war. | ||
| And the consequence of that, we were very ill-prepared for fighting that war. | ||
| And the result is that when the time came, though, that military-industrial complex reacted by building more planes and more equipment than they could ever imagine could be built and saved the world as a result. | ||
| Now, today, it's easy for all of us to say that if you give up one thing, you get something else. | ||
| Well, unfortunately, every time the administration has changed, you get a difference in opinions, and money is spent on things that are questioned well many times and just wasted in others. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Alan there, an independent. | ||
| Jeff in North Carolina, Republican. | ||
| Jeff, what do you say? | ||
| Where do we spend more? | ||
| Where do we spend less? | ||
|
unidentified
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I think we need to spend more on ICE agents. | |
| ICE? | ||
|
unidentified
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I think, yeah, absolutely. | |
| Because if you're Republican, for every illegal alien that broke the law and come over here, this gets to go back as a future Democrat vote. | ||
| The Democrats have got to figure out ways to win elections. | ||
| They cheat, they lie, they steal. | ||
| And I think we need to make it a level playing field. | ||
| All right, Jeff there, a Republican in North Carolina. | ||
| Edgar is a Democrat in Houston. | ||
| Edgar, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, good morning, Gretchen. | |
| How are you doing this morning? | ||
| I believe that that chart that you just showed was misleading. | ||
| Social Security is, when you pay into Social Security, you could pay into a FICA on your paycheck. | ||
| So Social Security should be separate. | ||
| Social Security and Medicare should be separate. | ||
| and shouldn't be on that pie chart with the rest of the budget. | ||
| There's a book written that says, to whom much is given, much is required. | ||
| Now, the genius of that president who started Social Security shows us as the greatest country of America. | ||
| This is the greatest country, the richest country. | ||
| This country can take care of its people and show other countries the pattern for doing it. | ||
| The Republicans have been using that border crisis for years. | ||
| Ronald Reagan, a Republican, tried to fix it. | ||
| He gave amnesty, which a Democrat can't even mention amnesty, to over 3 million so-called illegal aliens. | ||
| But when he went to the Republican Party, his party, to do something, pass laws to stop this, to get better control of the border, his Republican Party voted it down. | ||
| That shows you that the Republican Party is just playing and using the crises at the border. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Edgar's thoughts there. | ||
| Democrat in Houston. | ||
| Some thoughts for you, from our viewers on text messages and social media. | ||
| Here's Sue. | ||
| Considering we have an aging society, investments in nursing homes and assistant living facilities make sense to me. | ||
| Provide incentives to hire and retain trained employees or help make it an affordable, realistic option for family members to care for elderly spouses, parents, or disabled siblings at home. | ||
| And J.D. Redding says, no problem is inherently deserving without scrutiny. | ||
| Infrastructure and housing needs more, $100 billion combined, for economic and social returns. | ||
| Research and development is a long-term bet worth more, but only with accountability. | ||
| And Chris on Facebook, less foreign aid is where Chris would like to see spending cut. | ||
| And Scott on Facebook, good question, but it is clear that spending is out of control, as Doge found out with USAID. | ||
| We do not need to be giving charity to foreign countries. | ||
| Charity starts at home. | ||
| Do you agree with these posts of where we should spend money and where the federal budget deserves less or more of it? | ||
| As we said at the top, it's a big week for Republicans here in Washington. | ||
| Here's the Hill newspaper. | ||
| Republicans hit crucial week for advancing Trump agenda. | ||
| House Republicans are barreling into a critical week for passing the president's legislative agenda, even as they remain far apart on a number of key hot-button issues. | ||
| The House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over taxes, and the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid policy, are both scheduled to begin debating and eventually voting to advance their parts of the so-called Big Beautiful bill Tuesday at 2 p.m., kicking off what is expected to be a pair of marathon hearings. | ||
| A number of hang-ups, however, remain. | ||
| The Ways and Means Committee has not yet reached an agreement on how to approach the state and local tax deduction cap, which has emerged as one of the biggest sticking points in the GOP's mega bill. | ||
| And the Energy and Commerce Committee, some hardline conservatives are already sounding off on how the panel decided to reform Medicaid. | ||
| The consideration comes as Speaker Johnson is pushing to pass the entire package full of Trump's domestic policy priorities by the end of next week, an ambitious timeline that largely hinges on how the two markups proceed. | ||
| Look for our coverage of those two markups tomorrow on c-span.org or on our free video mobile app, C-SPAN Now. | ||
| We're talking about what deserves less or more funding in the federal budget. | ||
| Last week, we heard from the Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, on where he wants Congress and this administration to spend more money, and that's on the air traffic control system. | ||
| Take a look at what he said. | ||
| 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. | ||
| But on top of that, we also need permitting reform, some form of clearing the deck so we don't have to deal with all of the regulation around permitting so we can actually build this quickly. | ||
| The Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announcing an upgrade to the nation's air traffic control system. | ||
| Do you agree with spending more money there in the federal budget? | ||
| At that event, he also had with him the chair of the Transportation Committee, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, and Senator Ted Cruz saying $15 billion is what they're considering putting in this budget reconciliation bill to address the needs of the air traffic control system. | ||
| Brian and Albuquerque, an independent Brian, what do you say this morning? | ||
| What's your message to these lawmakers as they consider what to spend more on and what to spend less on? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, I called in to talk about what I'd like to spend less on, and that is the nation of Israel. | |
| We have been subsidizing Israel for decades. | ||
| I looked it up as I was waiting to call you. | ||
| You know, if he divided the American national deficit by the population, every American owes about $107,000. | ||
| If we look at Israel, it's only $37,000. | ||
| So, the average Israeli or the nation of Israel has much less debt per capita than we do. | ||
| But yet, we subsidize them. | ||
| Multiple American presidents have told them to pursue a two-state solution, and they ignore us. | ||
| They are currently bombing Palestinian refugees in tents with weapons that we've provided them. | ||
| They're breaking international law. | ||
| They're engaged in ethnic cleansing. | ||
| It's despicable what they are doing. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| We need to stop subsidizing Israel. | ||
| I don't care about all the religious nonsense about them being a special nation. | ||
| You know, we don't have, we have freedom of religion in this country. | ||
| We're not a Christian country. | ||
| You know, the Jews aren't the dominant, you know, God's chosen people. | ||
| They're just another religion. | ||
| All right, Brian's thoughts there. | ||
| An independent Albuquerque. | ||
| That's where he would like this government to spend less money. | ||
| Brian, you and others might be interested. | ||
| Front page of the New York Times this morning. | ||
| U.S. and Israel show cracks in their bonds. | ||
| Michael Shearer reporting that as Mr. Trump heads this week to the Middle East for his first major foreign trip, the president has for now rejected Mr. Netanyahu's desire for joint military action to take out Tehran's nuclear abilities. | ||
| So the president, as he heads to talk to Middle East leaders in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, the New York Times writes about this division between Mr. Trump, the president, and Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel. | ||
| Front page of the New York Times, if you'd like to read more. | ||
| Speaking of the president's trip to the Middle East, front page of the Wall Street Journal and others newspapers have it as well. | ||
| Potential gift of Air Force One from Qatar brings scrutiny. | ||
| President Trump's administration is in talks with the Qatari government about accepting a luxury plane for the use as president and potentially beyond. | ||
| Under the potential arrangement, which is raising legal and ethical concerns, the plane owned by the Qatari royal family would be used as Air Force One while Trump is in office after being retrofitted by a U.S. defense contractor. | ||
| The U.S. wouldn't pay for the luxury 747-style jumbo jet. | ||
| It may then be given to the Trump Presidential Library for Trump to use after he leaves office. | ||
| That's the front page of the Wall Street Journal this morning with that story. | ||
| You can find it in other papers as well. | ||
| Let's go to Thomas in Tennessee, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Thomas. | ||
| Good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How are you? | |
| Doing well, Thomas. | ||
| What would you cut in the federal government? | ||
| What would you spend more on? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think we need to take care of people. | |
| But let me say this. | ||
| I'm 78 years old. | ||
| I've taken care of my money. | ||
| And the beauty of what's happening now is all falling on the people who voted for Donald Trump. | ||
| And it's the poorest, dumbest people in the country. | ||
| I'm educated, and I got that education through the GI Bill. | ||
| And the people that are going to suffer are the people who voted for Donald Trump and the people who didn't vote. | ||
| This is cruel, okay? | ||
| It's cruel, and I'm sorry, but this is how it is. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Thomas in Tennessee, Democratic caller. | ||
| Fred on X posts this. | ||
| When the Chinese are spending billions on defense, we have to keep up or we're not going to be a superpower in this world. | ||
| It's ridiculous to listen to these Democrats want to cut funding to our military. | ||
| We're not France or England. | ||
| Always weakness from the liberal Democrats. | ||
| Always. | ||
| That's Fred's thoughts there on where we need to spend more money. | ||
| He's calling for an increase in the Pentagon's budget. | ||
| Republicans are looking to add $150 billion to the Pentagon's budget in the reconciliation process. | ||
| That reconciliation requires only a simple majority vote in the Senate, 51, to get it over the finish line. | ||
| That is why Republicans are eyeing the president's domestic agenda in that reconciliation package. | ||
| It would include making some of his 2017 tax cuts permanent, extending others, increasing funding for the border by 200 billion, increasing the Pentagon's budget, $150 billion. | ||
| And it would include spending cuts. | ||
| $1.5 trillion over 10 years in spending cuts. | ||
| That's what the Republican leadership is looking at. | ||
| There are disagreements, though, within the party because there's the conservative faction of the party that wants to see $2 trillion in tax cuts. | ||
| Gene in New York, Democratic caller. | ||
| Gene, what do you think? | ||
| Where would you spend more? | ||
| Where would you spend less? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What I want to say is I see people saying that they want to spend money there, over there. | |
| So what I want people to understand, some people say that they want to help the people of that country. | ||
| That will never happen because, according to the Republican, helping people is socialism. | ||
| The Republican Party, they master how to lie and they master how to use religion. | ||
| So because of that, they will always tell people what they want to hear. | ||
| And when they get in power, they will always do something else. | ||
| When you master how to lie and how to use religion to your benefit, people are in trouble because you can be killing people and making those people believe that you understand their suffering. | ||
| You understand what they are going through. | ||
| So helping people will always be socialism for the Republican. | ||
| They make people believe in it. | ||
| So if helping people socialism, they don't have to help you. | ||
| The rich will always become richer and the people who are in power will become richer. | ||
| They will always spend more money for weapons because who are investing in those companies? | ||
| Not the poor people. | ||
| It's the people who are rich, the people who are making a lot of money. | ||
| All right, Gene. | ||
| I'll leave it there. | ||
| Another comment on X from one of our viewers. | ||
| Less money for DEI that treats people unequally. | ||
| More for real infrastructure like roads, bridges, and air safety. | ||
| More for defense to have leverage in our peace through strength policy. | ||
| Less for non-citizens and more for our own citizens' well-being. | ||
| Several cabinet secretaries were on Capitol Hill last week testifying about the president's 2026 budget proposal to lawmakers. | ||
| One of them was the FBI director. | ||
| He sat before House members one day, the next day before a Senate committee. | ||
| Here's FBI Director Kash Patel responding to a question about differences between President Trump's budget request and what Mr. Patel has said the department needs. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Chair, we really don't have a budget to work with. | |
| Let me ask you about your testimony the other day in the House, Mr. Director, where I think you conceded that the budget request, as skinny as it is, was really not adequate to meet the mission. | ||
| In fact, I think you testified that you would really need another billion dollars. | ||
| So would you agree that this budget that's been submitted is inadequate to meet the needs and that your testimony yesterday about another billion dollars are required to meet the mission. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is that your view? | |
| Senator, I think my view is that my view is that we will make and agree with this budget as it stands and make it work for the Operational Necessity FBI. | ||
| And as the head of the FBI, I was simply asking for more funds because I can do more with more money. | ||
| Well, look, I understand that OMB has a say in this, obviously, but I think your testimony yesterday was important and revealing that as the director, you believe that another billion dollars over and above the current level is really necessary to complete the mission. | ||
| And it does put this subcommittee in a difficult position because really that's you know, we rely on you and others to persuade the OMB and the president to submit a budget that meets the needs and requirements of the FBI. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And clearly, at least based on your testimony in the House, you don't think that that's happened. | |
| The FBI director on Capitol Hill last week, again, find the moments where he answered questions from lawmakers on our website at c-span.org. | ||
| We're talking about do you want to see an increase or decrease in different programs within the federal budget, FBI budget, do you want to see an increase or decrease there, as you just heard from the FBI director in his testimony. | ||
| Also, this week here in Congress, the Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy is going to be testifying about his budget before the House Appropriations Subcommittee, and that'll be on Wednesday morning at 9.30 a.m. Eastern Time. | ||
| We'll have coverage of that on C-SPAN 3 on our free video mobile app, C-SPANNOW or online at c-span.org. | ||
| We're going to hear from the health secretary this morning as well, 9.30 a.m. Eastern Time. | ||
| The President and Mr. Kennedy are slated to have a news conference. | ||
| Before that, the President expected to sign an executive order to lower the cost of prescription drugs. | ||
| Rob in Huntington, West Virginia, joins us for this debate saying, I think they need to spend more money to find tax and Medicaid fraud, just the opposite of what Doge did with its cuts to the IRS and some other agencies. | ||
| Although it would be only a drop in the bucket of debt, I think they should stop spending money trying to get to other planets and spend more trying to protect this one. | ||
| Betty in Upper Marlborough, Maryland Democratic Caller. | ||
| Betty, what do you say? | ||
| Where do you spend more? | ||
| Where do you spend less? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Greta. | |
| For me, spending less, I still have a question about the Doge Department budget. | ||
| How much is that? | ||
| They're not transparent about their budget that has been allocated for that department, even though they claim that they're trying to save money for the government. | ||
| I still don't believe it. | ||
| And my second question, it's actually my comment is full of questions because the president goes golfing every weekend. | ||
| Who puts the bill for that? | ||
| And then lastly, the subsidies for Elon Max, are they still active? | ||
| And who's funding those subsidies for Elon Max? | ||
| So that's where really I would pay my focus on instead of dismantling the Department of Education, Medicaid. | ||
| You know, people are in need. | ||
| And I agree with the governor's comments when you open the show who said people are dying. | ||
| And they talk about Africa being a third world country. | ||
| I think that's where the U.S. is heading to. | ||
| If you cut services and there is limited access of crucial human rights services, your country will lead up to being a third world country. | ||
| So that's where it will lead us as a country because all these services have been cut for no reason. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All right, Betty's thoughts there in Upper Marlborough. | ||
| Robin, let's hear from you in Maryland as well, Republican. | ||
| Robin, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| So I absolutely do not think we need to take any money away from defense. | ||
| We need to have walks slowly with a big stick, piece through strength. | ||
| I think that to save Medicare and Social Security, they need to stop the cap. | ||
| There's no reason that people making $165,000 a year don't have to pay Social Security on the rest. | ||
| I think that that would put a lot of money in the coffers. | ||
| And I also think we ought to look at Congress maybe cutting their salary, but how many aids do they really need? | ||
| I think the whole idea of saving money through fraud, waste, and abuse makes a lot of sense. | ||
| And we definitely need defense. | ||
| And thank you very much for taking my call. | ||
| All right, Robin. | ||
| Thank you for calling in. | ||
| Leonard, Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Democratic Collard. | ||
| Leonard, let's hear from you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Well, I'll be very frank. | ||
| I think the one thing that we should eliminate is NASA. | ||
| To go into space simply because it's there just seems like a huge waste of money. | ||
| I don't see any real need to do this other than we have to beat the Russians or whoever. | ||
| I don't care about that. | ||
| I care more about what's more important on earth here and now than what's in space. | ||
| And I would put more money into housing, schools, community rec centers. | ||
| I'd put more money into, especially hospitals, because not too far away from where I live, two hospitals have been closed. | ||
| I mean, the whole budget process is just so ridiculous. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Leonard, a New Jersey Democratic caller with his ideas of where to spend more money. | ||
| As we told you, a big week for Republicans in Washington. | ||
| They are set to unveil what they want to do with the president's tax proposal to make permanent 2017 taxes, extend others, along with spending cuts. | ||
| Where will they find at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts? | ||
| Here's Politico's reporting this morning. | ||
| Republicans' partial tax plan estimated to cost $5 trillion. | ||
| House Republicans released a partial text for the GOP tax bill on Friday and expected to release the full text today. | ||
| The cost far exceeds what is permitted by the budget resolution Republicans adopted earlier this year, which set the parameters for the massive package of tax cuts and extensions, energy policy, and border security investments the party wants to pass in the coming weeks. | ||
| The estimate released Saturday evening by the Joint Committee on Taxation also underscores how much hinges on the final details of the plan, which are likely to be unveiled today ahead of a scheduled Tuesday markup. | ||
| The House Republican-approved budget allows for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts contingent on the GOP able to find $2 trillion in spending cuts. | ||
| Speaker Johnson indicated last week that House Republicans are looking at a skinnier $4 trillion tax plan paired with $1.5 trillion in spending cuts. | ||
| The partial text of the tax proposal released by Ways and Means would make permanent the individual income tax rates, which are otherwise due to expire at the end of the year. | ||
| It would also extend and temporarily boost far-reaching tax benefits like the standard deduction and the child tax credit. | ||
| But this early, so-called skinny version of the tax bill is otherwise silent. | ||
| On President Trump's biggest tax priorities, he touted on the campaign trail, like his proposal to eliminate taxes on tips. | ||
| It also bears no mention of the expensive business provisions that Republicans want to restore. | ||
| We will learn more details today and tomorrow, this week in Washington. | ||
| Tune into C-SPAN, C-SPAN.org, our free video mobile app, C-SPAN now to follow as Republicans get ready to move forward on President Trump's so-called Big Beautiful bill. | ||
| Ray in Rockwood, Tennessee, Independent. | ||
| Ray, good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I've only got a few things to say. | |
| I would like for somebody, a congressman or senator or news reporter, go back and when Social Security was first started, I would like to know how much money the government has robbed from the Social Security fund to pay for Vietnam War, Iraqi war, highways, and byways. | ||
| And let's put that money back into Social Security instead of in the Defense Department. | ||
| I'm 86 years old. | ||
| When I was a young man of 20, all the hospitals was nonprofit. | ||
| But I believe it was President Nixon who started the HMOs, the Republican Party. | ||
| And what you're seeing today is the Republicans want to privatize every facet of your life. | ||
| Social Security, Medicare is already privatized because Medicare is in an HMO. | ||
| The government pays my Medicare money to my humanity insurance. | ||
| I don't carry a Social Security or a Medicare card. | ||
| I carry a Humana card, privatized my Medicare. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Ray in Tennessee. | ||
| Jim in Texas, Democratic caller. | ||
| Jim, where would you spend more? | ||
| Where would you spend less? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, first off, we need to start at the top. | |
| Lead by example. | ||
| The Air Force One, every week he goes down to Florida. | ||
| That is the most expensive plane when the wheels go up. | ||
| The security, the maintenance, the pilots, all the staff that goes with it. | ||
| You know what? | ||
| Trim it at the top and lead by example. | ||
| And he does not need to go down to Florida every weekend. | ||
| Lead by example. | ||
| And hopefully he's listening to this. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And you have a great day. | ||
| All right. | ||
| That's Jim in Texas. | ||
| I'll share this headline from People Magazine lawmaker, and this was from a recent hearing that we covered. | ||
| Blasts Trump billing taxpayers $30 million for his golf trips. | ||
| That's from People Magazine. | ||
| Texas Representative Jasmine Crockett called out the president's pricey golf weekends during a Doge subcommittee hearing on Tuesday. | ||
| This took place in early April, and you can find that on our website at c-span.org. | ||
| As we told you at the top, some breaking news this morning out of those trade negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland this weekend. | ||
| The Treasury Secretary Scott Besson, the Trade Representative Jameson Greer, there with their Chinese counterparts, CNBC's headline: U.S. and China agree to slash tariffs for 90 days in major trade breakthrough. | ||
| Listen to the Treasury Secretary from earlier today. | ||
| Very productive talks, and I believe that the venue here on Lake Geneva added great equanimity to what was a very positive process. | ||
| We have reached An agreement on a 90-day pause and substantially move down the tariff levels. | ||
| Both sides on the reciprocal tariffs will move their tariffs down 115%. | ||
| We had very robust discussions. | ||
| Both sides showed great respect. | ||
| It was a chance for me to meet the Chinese delegation. | ||
| The Vice Premier, I had previously had only a video call with. | ||
| Ambassador Jameson was familiar with two of the other leaders on the delegation from his previous time. | ||
| So there was very good personal interaction. | ||
| Both countries represented their national interests very well. | ||
| We concluded that we have shared interest and we both have an interest in balanced trade. | ||
| The U.S. will continue moving towards that. | ||
| The Treasury Secretary this morning talking about those negotiations with China in Geneva, Switzerland over the weekend. | ||
| We may hear more about that when President Trump talks to reporters holding a news conference on lowering the cost of prescription drugs at 9.30 a.m. Eastern Time. | ||
| He's likely to get asked about this breakthrough as it's being called by CNBC with China on trade as well as other topics. | ||
| We're asking you, where should we spend more or less in the federal budget? | ||
| Stephen on Facebook says more funding for taking care of the elderly, especially in home services, less funding on military bases. | ||
| Rick in Golden, Colorado, good morning to you, Republican. | ||
| What do you say? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, first thing I'd say, I think the more basic than the question you're asking is what really we should be saying is how much income is the government going to take in, let's say, and let's go to fiscal year 2026, since 2025 is kind of set, but how much money is the government going to take in in revenue? | |
| And that should be the Fed amount that you're going to spend. | ||
| And then it becomes a question of what is the priorities of how you spend that amount of money. | ||
| It's no different than you doing your own home budget, you know, which is the way that you have said it. | ||
| I have X income coming in and I have X bills and where should I cut in order to stay with a balanced budget. | ||
| So that really is the basic question. | ||
| Not where should we spend more or spend less, but what are the highest priorities set within a limit on a yearly basis budget? | ||
| Because, I mean, when you're talking $36 trillion in debt, we don't have a lot of room to increase spending on anything. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Rick there, Republican in Colorado. | ||
| Armando and Hawaii, Republican, where would you spend more or less? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Granna. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I don't think it has been mentioned, but you know, Obamacare, the subsidies are going to expire at the end of this year. | ||
| And there's 45 million Americans that are on Obamacare. | ||
| And I'm a Republican. | ||
| I voted for Trump. | ||
| But I think, you know, we need to put money into those subsidies. | ||
| And I'm just thinking of those 45 million people, Americans. | ||
| You know, I'm not thinking Republican or Democrat. | ||
| I'm thinking Americans. | ||
| We have 45 million Americans that depend on that. | ||
| So we need to put more money into Obamacare for the subsidies. | ||
| So that's my answer as far as where we need to put more money into. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Thanks for the call this morning. | ||
| We're going to take a break later on in the program. | ||
| Middle East Institute Vice President for International Engagement Paul Salem discusses President Trump's visit to the Middle East this week. | ||
| But first, Republicans are slated to start work on President Trump's domestic agenda bill. | ||
| We'll talk about that in other congressional news with NBC's news, Scott Wong. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| We want to welcome back to our table Scott Wong, who's senior congressional reporter with NBC News here to talk about the week ahead in Congress. | ||
| Got one we've been talking in our first hour about a big week for Republicans. | ||
| Explain what they're trying to do. | ||
| Greta, I think this is probably one of the most consequential weeks for Republicans as they try to advance their reconciliation package. | ||
| This is the package that includes all of President Trump's top priorities from energy to the border and most specifically tax cuts. | ||
| And so we are seeing some real movement in the last 24 hours. | ||
| These next 48 hours will be hugely consequential because we're starting to see the very key committees that are responsible for big portions of this plan start to mark up their portions of this big tax and border and energy plan. | ||
| And so Ways and Means, Agriculture, Energy and Commerce, these three big committees will begin marking up and trying to advance through their committees their portions of this plan starting on Tuesday. | ||
| What have we learned from these committees in the last 24 hours? | ||
| Let's start with ways and means. | ||
| Yeah, Jason Smith unveiled portions of his package on Friday night. | ||
| You know, not the most opportune moment for reporters to be digging through this. | ||
| What we know is that there are some tax breaks. | ||
| There's tax breaks for families, for businesses. | ||
| But I think the most significant thing is what he left out, and that was what we call the SALT cap deduction. | ||
| What's happening is that Republicans from blue states, high-tech states, have been fighting to raise the cap level of what we call SALT, the state and local tax deduction. | ||
| This is the amount of money that families in these areas can deduct from their federal tax bill, from their state and local taxes. | ||
| And so moderate Republicans have been fighting to raise that cap threshold from 10,000, the current level, significantly higher. | ||
| We've heard numbers talked about 30,000 thresholds. | ||
| We've heard Young Kim, a Republican from California, throw out a number as high as $62,000. | ||
| And so right now there's a significant fight in the party over how high they're going to raise the SALT cap. | ||
| And without doing anything, if they don't touch that cap, it's going to expire, correct? | ||
| That's right. | ||
| It will expire. | ||
| So then there would be a year. | ||
| Yes, they can go back to what they have. | ||
| That is the leverage that these SALT caucus Republicans have over the broader Republican caucus. | ||
| If nothing happens, if they don't come to some sort of agreement, and there's going to be meetings starting today in the Speaker's office with the SALT, Critical SALT Caucus members, then that SALT cap will expire and it will revert back to how it always had been, which was sort of an unlimited amount that people could deduct from their federal tax from this state and local tax. | ||
| And so, you know, this is really a critical piece of Jason Smith's tax bill. | ||
| They're saving the hardest part for last. | ||
| Also not included, according to reporting this morning in this parcel text released by the Ways and Means chair was the president's proposal for no taxes on tips. | ||
| And what does it say, if anything, right now on social security and what the president had said about social security? | ||
| That's right. | ||
| You point out that the president had listed a number of very popular priorities, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security benefits. | ||
| We don't know the answer of what's going to be in the final package because Jason Smith plans to unveil that later today. | ||
| And so there will be a large amendment to his original proposal that will answer a lot of these questions that we still have about what's in this package. | ||
| But if those provisions are left out, it's very likely, if those popular provisions are left out, it's very likely because they would cost a lot of money. | ||
| And Republicans are very concerned about ballooning the deficit even more. | ||
| These are provisions that could add to the deficit. | ||
| And so there's a real concern about what is the right balance, what stays in, what goes out of the package in order to ensure that this Republican proposal is not hiking the deficit. | ||
| Well, I would like our viewers to join us for this conversation this morning. | ||
| We'll take your thoughts and what you're hearing from Scott Wong's reporting about this week in Congress. | ||
| Democrats dial in at 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can text as well at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Just include your first name, city, and state. | ||
| Scott Wong, the reporting this morning is that this unveiling by Ways and Means committee is a so-called skinny version. | ||
| What does that mean? | ||
| Well, exactly what I just described in that only the most basic elements of the proposal have been unveiled and that Jason Smith realizes that there's still a number of issues that they need to hammer out today because they're on this such an aggressive timeline. | ||
| They're saving the toughest fights for today. | ||
| They're ready to mark up starting tomorrow. | ||
| The reason why they're on this aggressive timeline is because Speaker Johnson has said that they want to wrap up the House version, pass it through the House by Memorial Day. | ||
| So that essentially leaves us with two working weeks here. | ||
| Memorial Day is fast approaching. | ||
| I just checked the calendar. | ||
| I thought maybe it was at the end of the month. | ||
| It's actually the week before. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And so that's why they're rushing through this, trying to get this done as quickly as possible. | ||
| The other challenge is that, you know, the longer that you negotiate and don't set any deadlines, you know, the longer people haggle and try to win their argument, try to get the better negotiating hand. | ||
| And so I think the Speaker felt like he needed to start setting some deadlines in order to move the process along. | ||
| The Senate would still have to take up the package or make changes to the package. | ||
| John Thune says they want to do that by the 4th of July, another great American holiday. | ||
| And so, you know, they see this as a very patriotic package. | ||
| They're setting these, you know, holiday deadlines. | ||
| The risk, I think, for Republicans is they don't want to get too close to the end of the year to pass this package because you start getting into the election season, 2026. | ||
| Moderate Republicans start to get a little queasy about voting on controversial provisions. | ||
| And so they want to get this done by the summer, get this to the President's desk by summer, not have it seep into the fall and even into 2026, where you really run into campaign problems. | ||
| The skinny version, the so-called skinny version proposal is the top numbers are $4 trillion for the price of the tax cuts and about $1.5 trillion in spending cuts. | ||
| Scott Wong, another queasy proposal for moderate Republicans is what they are talking about doing on Medicaid. | ||
| Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie in the last 24 hours, giving us some details. | ||
| What did he say? | ||
| Well, that's right. | ||
| The energy and commerce proposal is much more fleshed out. | ||
| In fact, we have the entire bill essentially from energy and commerce. | ||
| And this is where we've seen a very critical fight over cuts to Medicaid. | ||
| Remember, this is the program that provides health care for low-income individuals, the elderly, disabled. | ||
| So these are vulnerable populations. | ||
| Obviously, moderates like Don Bacon of Nebraska, people who are facing tough elections, Mike Lawler of New York, Young Kim of California, who are facing very, very tough elections from Democrats, don't want to see Medicaid cut too deeply. | ||
| They believe that there should be reforms, but they don't want to see millions and millions of Americans losing their health coverage. | ||
| And what the Democrats have put out there is an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office that shows that under this plan by the ENC committee that there would be millions of Americans. | ||
| In fact, I think more than 13 million Americans, according to the CBO, over the next decade would lose their health coverage because of changes to Obamacare in this plan, and as well as cuts to Medicaid. | ||
| And so that's going to raise some real alarm, that's going to sound some real alarm bells later today when reporters such as myself start talking to some of these moderates and say, hey, are you okay with these cuts? | ||
| Look at what the CBO is saying, how many millions of Americans could lose their health insurance because of some of these changes. | ||
| And from reporting this morning from outlets covering Capitol Hill, including the Wall Street Journal, the cuts to Medicaid come from adding work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks. | ||
| That is where they're looking at making cuts. | ||
| The Energy and Commerce Chair, Brett Guthrie, says these aren't cuts. | ||
| This is the slowing of Medicaid because it's going to cost more than $1 trillion a year in the next decade if lawmakers don't rein it in. | ||
| Yeah, you mentioned work requirements. | ||
| They're calling it something else. | ||
| They're calling it community engagement requirements. | ||
| And what that essentially means is that able-bodied adults who receive Medicaid would need to, under this new plan, prove that they are contributing in some way, whether that is through work, which would be working 80 hours per month, demonstrating that they're taking education courses or going through work programs, as well as community service. | ||
| They could be giving 80 hours of community service per month as well. | ||
| And so they're sort of broadening out this idea of work requirements to something called community engagement requirements. | ||
| But that's going to be a significant change. | ||
| That definitely jumped out at me. | ||
| So Energy and Commerce Committee, when do they mark up this week? | ||
| When does Ways and Means? | ||
| All of these committees are marking up on Tuesday for Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce, 2 p.m. | ||
| Agriculture will be a little bit later in the day. | ||
| But that's why I said earlier that these next 48 hours or so is when the rubber hits the road. | ||
| We're going to see what the reaction is. | ||
| What's the reaction from moderates? | ||
| Can they stomach some of these cuts and provisions? | ||
| They're obviously very concerned about people who receive Medicaid in their home districts. | ||
| What will their reaction be? | ||
| What will the reaction be from conservatives? | ||
| Do they think that these spending cuts go deep enough? | ||
| They have said that they want to see $2 trillion in cuts overall. | ||
| This probably gets them somewhere close to $1.5 trillion. | ||
| Can they live with $1.5 trillion, even though there are some major reforms to the Medicaid program in this proposal? | ||
| And you can tune in to C-SPAN. | ||
| Go to our c-span.org, our website, or our free video mobile app, C-SPANNOW. | ||
| Look for our coverage of these committee gatherings on Tuesday tomorrow, as Scott Wong was just talking about Ways and Means Committee, Energy and Commerce, and the Agriculture Committee. | ||
| Ted in Minneapolis and Independent. | ||
| Ted, question or comment on this week ahead in Congress? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, good morning. | |
| I'd like to make a couple of comments. | ||
| First of all, on the military. | ||
| It's my understanding they haven't even looked at that as far as Scotts. | ||
| They can't seem to get an audit. | ||
| Number two, I believe in this country and around the world, we have 750 military bases, and there's only seven continents. | ||
| So why can't we cock that down, knock that down to 10 military bases? | ||
| That would put it at 70. | ||
| Number two is the Social Security. | ||
| I'm wondering about. | ||
| Why in the world can't they raise Social Security up so that everybody that's working is paying into it? | ||
| These millionaires, billionaires, people that are making immense amount of money. | ||
| And number three, why do we have a president using the White House to sell cars? | ||
| Thank you much. | ||
| All right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| Scott Wong, well, let's take the military spending part of this because Republicans are eyeing, adding to the Pentagon's budget in this so-called reconciliation bill $150 billion. | ||
| There's reporting this morning by the Washington Post that they do not want to add, though, the OMB, that is, the White House does not want to increase military spending in the annual budget for the Pentagon. | ||
| Some Republican conservatives, national security hawks, not happy about that. | ||
| Yeah, and remember that Doge is taking a look also at the Pentagon, so they're looking for efficiencies there and making some cuts. | ||
| But in terms of this reconciliation Trump agenda package, you're right. | ||
| There is an increase in military spending. | ||
| There's also an increase in border enforcement. | ||
| They're adding border patrol agents. | ||
| They're building portions of the wall. | ||
| They're beefing up wall security. | ||
| They're improving technology. | ||
| And so they are strategically, Republicans would say, putting money in the areas where their top priorities are. | ||
| They're cutting money from areas they think are inefficient or need to be reformed. | ||
| And so you're right. | ||
| Republicans control all of government here. | ||
| They control the White House. | ||
| And so they're using this process, which is purely a partisan process. | ||
| Democrats are taking part in this to spell out where exactly their priorities are and to put money towards those priorities. | ||
| And remind our viewers why reconciliation. | ||
| Describe what this is. | ||
| Why use that vehicle? | ||
| Yeah, so we are in this rare opportunity, as we've discussed before, Greta, where Republicans control the entire federal government, the House, the Senate, and the White House. | ||
| And so they are taking this opportunity. | ||
| They can do this once a budget year to push forward on their priorities. | ||
| And we call this reconciliation. | ||
| It's a fast-track budget process that allows Republicans to bypass the minority party in the Senate to avoid that 60-vote filibuster threshold and push something through with a simple majority. | ||
| So they can push it through with a simple majority in the House, and they can push it through with a simple majority in the Senate and get it to the president's desk. | ||
| They've chose to tackle these three big buckets, energy, tax cuts, and border. | ||
| They also want to raise the debt ceiling in this by $4 to $5 trillion. | ||
| That will be significant. | ||
| The president wants that off their plate because they believe that's going to be a big distraction if they're unable to raise the debt ceiling. | ||
| And they're probably right. | ||
| So they're trying to throw a lot of stuff into this one package and push through the president's agenda. | ||
| Here's a viewer from California. | ||
| Does Mr. Wong share my impression that Speaker Johnson doesn't have the votes to pass any legislation without votes from Democrats? | ||
| Will Republican Congressman Chip Roy and other Freedom Caucus members vote for any, quote, big, beautiful bill without massive spending and tax cuts? | ||
| It seems unlikely. | ||
| I think it's very, well, I will say it's very, very unlikely that any Democrats would join Republicans in this endeavor. | ||
| The person is right that Republicans have a numbers problem. | ||
| And the reason why these next 48 hours are going to be so interesting is because you have the reactions that we're going to see from the moderates. | ||
| You know, can they stomach this? | ||
| The reaction from conservatives. | ||
| Will they be okay with this level of cuts or do they want to go even deeper? | ||
| And that friction between those two factions in the Republican Party is where the challenges really lie because we're going to know very quickly whether or not Speaker Johnson has the votes. | ||
| He can only afford three Republican defections, right? | ||
| The majority is so narrow in both the House and the Senate that in both chambers they can only afford three defections. | ||
| So if four people, five people, Republicans decide to defect and say, I'm not voting for the reconciliation package, it's essentially dead in the water. | ||
| And so they have a very, very narrow majority to get this done. | ||
| Who are you watching in the House for possible defections and then in the Senate as well? | ||
| I could speak better to the House. | ||
| Obviously, these are the people that have the toughest reelection. | ||
| And I spoke to Don Bacon of Nebraska just last week, and he says, he's been saying, look, you know, I can walk away from this job. | ||
| I don't need to be here. | ||
| I have a wonderful family at home. | ||
| I have done this job for a number of years. | ||
| I've enjoyed my time here, but I don't need to run for reelection. | ||
| So he's actually mulling whether or not to run for re-election. | ||
| That could free him up to vote his conscience, you know, a little bit more. | ||
| And so Don Bacon is certainly somebody that I'm watching. | ||
| The New York Republicans are going to be key to this in large part because of the SALT component. | ||
| Nick Laloda, Garberino, Ily Stefanik, who was slated to go to the UN, was recalled back to the House and is a critical negotiator on anything having to do with the SALT component. | ||
| So people like that really, only, as I said, only a handful of individuals could derail this whole thing. | ||
| So in that sense, every single Republican becomes a critical vote. | ||
| Rebecca in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, Republican. | ||
| Welcome to the conversation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| I think the question I have right now is one of the things that was campaigned on was to reform and take the tax off of Social Security. | ||
| We now have to report that, you know, of course, as income on our tax return, and it is taxed at a certain level of, I guess, of whatever we individually are being taxed at, depending on any income or any retirement income we happen to have had saved. | ||
| We're taxed on that, too. | ||
| So do you think that the president will live up to this promise? | ||
| And also, it was kind of in the same boat with the overtime and the tips to be non-taxed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you think this is going to be a key issue? | |
| Okay, all right, we'll take that. | ||
| Question: At this moment in time, we don't know if they will do it. | ||
| We will see a final proposal from the Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith later today, we are told, ahead of that Tuesday markup. | ||
| But the caller's right. | ||
| I mean, when you look at a Social Security check, you know, these are not huge sums of money. | ||
| And so anything that's taxed out of that is a significant portion of that check. | ||
| And so for people that are living on a fixed income, senior citizens, certainly who are on a fixed income, who are dealing with rising prices from inflation, that could go a long way. | ||
| The president last week, in a phone call to the Speaker of the House, urged the Speaker to try to include a hike on taxes for the wealthiest Americans to raise the tax rate up to, I think it was 39, if I'm mistaken, 39.6% up from 37%. | ||
| He said it would be a small sacrifice for the wealthiest Americans, but I think he was urging the Speaker to do that in part so he could try to get some of these more popular populist provisions in this overall tax bill. | ||
| Unfortunately for him, the Speaker and many other Republicans said this is simply an untenable proposal. | ||
| We don't want to raise taxes on anyone in our tax cuts bill. | ||
| And so that looks to be dead in the water at this point. | ||
| The president is going to hold a news conference this morning at 9.30 a.m. Eastern Time with the Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert Kennedy, presumably on lowering the price of prescription drugs, an executive order that he's signing earlier according to the White House schedule. | ||
| Likely, it's got long, given that he now, we've seen some details from the Energy and Commerce Chair and the Ways and Means Committee Chair, he gets a question about his proposals versus what we're seeing before they go into markup. | ||
| Yeah, it'll be interesting because that is the wildcard in this entire process: what does President Trump want? | ||
| He has certainly the bully pulpit here. | ||
| He can change the course of this reconciliation package with a public statement, with a tweet, with a post on Truth Social. | ||
| And we have seen that happen before on other issues and certainly when it comes to the reconciliation package. | ||
| And so while we think things are on a course this week towards markups, you know, everything can be up in the air based on a comment from President Trump. | ||
| President Trump holding that news conference with the Health and Human Services Secretary at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time. | ||
| And you can watch it live on C-SPAN 2 on our free video mobile app, C-SPANNOW or online at c-span.org. | ||
| That will be one opportunity for reporters to ask questions about this so-called Big Beautiful bill and the President's agenda on Capitol Hill this week. | ||
| They'll also likely ask about the trade agreement and this breakthrough between China and the United States announced by his Treasury Secretary and trade representative. | ||
| The president departing the White House as well today around 10.30 a.m. Eastern Time for his first trip to the Middle East of his second term. | ||
| If he talks to reporters there at the White House before he debarts onto his military helicopter and then Air Force One to the Middle East, you can watch our coverage of that as well. | ||
| Mike in Louisville, Kentucky, Democratic Caller. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| This suggestion I would make probably will not reach the ears of those who need to hear it. | ||
| But for years we have really the wealthy have not carried their fair share of the burdens in running and funding this company, this country. | ||
| And if they're going to extend the tax cuts, it seems to me it's a totally unjust movement. | ||
| Mike, what do you think of the president floating the idea of raising the tax rate on the wealthy from 37% to 39.6%, as Scott Wong was talking about? | ||
| Would you back the president on that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would go along with that a little bit, but we're also missing the point that there's a huge amount of accumulated wealth held in the hands of a very few people in this country that goes without tax at all. | |
| In my opinion, that should be a wealth tax every year to the tune of 9 or 10 or 11 percent to even out the disproportion of wealth in the country. | ||
| And really, in my opinion, we don't have a democracy anymore because the wealthy outvote the average and poor people in the country, although the poor and average people are numerically superior. | ||
| That's my comment. | ||
| All right, Scott Juan, what do you think? | ||
| Well, I think that it was interesting. | ||
| I think a lot of jaws dropped on Capitol Hill and around Washington when we did hear about this phone call between the President and the Speaker last Wednesday, where the president floated hiking taxes on the rich. | ||
| That's typically an idea that you hear from Bernie Sanders rather than somebody like Donald Trump. | ||
| But there is this populist vein within the Republican Party now. | ||
| You know, certainly you hear senators talking about this idea, Josh Hawley, JD Vance. | ||
| There are a number of Republicans that believe that taxing the rich a little bit more will be a benefit to the broader electorate. | ||
| And so it's interesting to hear the president say things like that. | ||
| I'd be interested to hear him on the record talk in a more public way about that. | ||
| But there was instant backlash from the anti-tax types like Grover Norquist, who has been around Washington for a very long time saying that any sort of tax against the American public is simply wrong and he would probably even say evil. | ||
| And so that idea did not get very far. | ||
| And Norquist and others had allies on Capitol Hill who basically said, you know, look, if you're going to put tax increases in this proposal, we're not going to vote for it at all. | ||
| That essentially killed that idea. | ||
| And that's where it remains right now. | ||
| Martha in Morocco, Indiana, Republican? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Wong, I love your tie. | |
| Thank you so much. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, I know a little bit about this not taxing on tips because I was in the, I was a waitress my whole life. | |
| And if you don't declare your tips, and I'm 75 now, so I've been getting Social Security for a while, but you don't get much. | ||
| The young people need to declare all the tips they get so that when they get my age, you'll at least get enough to live on. | ||
| And I don't, you know, like waitresses get like, at the time I got like $2.30 an hour plus my tips. | ||
| And if you don't declare those tips, my son was a bartender and he declared all his tips. | ||
| So he gets quite a bit for his Social Security, but I get very little. | ||
| Interesting point there from Martha about then what happens to Social Security benefits later on if the president says you don't have to pay taxes on tips. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And clearly Martha understands how that affects her paycheck and her bottom line a little bit more than we do. | ||
| Although I was once a waiter at my father's restaurant, but that was a long time ago. | ||
| You know, I think these are the challenging questions and why something like this is so complicated and why it's taken Republicans so long is because there's all these competing ideas, competing factions, and it makes these types of negotiations extremely difficult when we talk about these popular ideas like no tax on tips and no tax on overtime to the salt issue to taxes on the wealthy. | ||
| Everyone has their own position on these issues. | ||
| And for Speaker Johnson, it really is, he's talked about it as herding cats or other analogies. | ||
| I mean, it becomes a very, very difficult equation for him, essentially when he has this very tiny majority. | ||
| And speaking of that, this is a viewer who texts us, what stops politicians spending on partisan issues by repurposing other funds? | ||
| I wonder if he's talking about earmarks. | ||
| And earmarks have been a way for leadership to twist arms in the past when they have a must-piece piece of legislation offering a member of Congress a line item in that bill to get them to yes. | ||
| In the past it had been. | ||
| You're right. | ||
| Speakers would offer an earmark for your home district. | ||
| Maybe it's more money for your port. | ||
| Maybe it's money for a bridge in your district. | ||
| And that actually allowed leaders to be quite successful in their endeavors as they pushed major pieces of legislation. | ||
| However, in more recent years, especially in my time on Capitol Hill, there's been a big backlash to that type of wheeling and dealing. | ||
| You know, we can remember various nicknames for some of these types of proposals, Bridge to Nowhere up in Alaska, things like that. | ||
| And so we haven't seen that as prevalent in recent years, especially as you've had very, very conservative members of leadership like Mike Johnson from Louisiana, a former leader of one of the big conservative factions, the Republican Study Committee, now in the Speaker's office, Steve Scalise, obviously another conservative from Louisiana in the majority leader's office. | ||
| And so we haven't seen that type of wheeling and dealing as much as we had maybe 20, 25, 30 years ago. | ||
| Mark, Kingsport, Tennessee, an independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Wouldn't it be better to do away with all the loopholes? | ||
| I mean, the 2% hike is all right. | ||
| But if we actually took away the loopholes, wouldn't they pay more taxes? | ||
| Speaking of loopholes, in that same conversation between the president and the speaker of the House, according to our reporting and others' reporting, President Trump did discuss a significant loophole, the carried interest loophole, which provides tax breaks for people like hedge fund managers, private equity executives, | ||
| obviously popular among the very wealthy class. | ||
| And the president also said, let's try to close that loophole. | ||
| Let's do away with it. | ||
| And again, that was also met with derision from conservatives who didn't want to see any sort of hike on anyone, whether it's wealthy Americans or whether it's hedge fund managers. | ||
| They just issued a blanket statement saying we don't want to tax, you know, create tax increases on any Americans of any class. | ||
| Susan's next in Milford, Pennsylvania, Democratic caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, hi, Scott. | |
| I have a question. | ||
| Do you really think that Donald Trump was sincere when he offered the idea about raising taxes for the wealthy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you think he was sincere or was he saying it because it was too late to get really any act of work on that done? | |
| I won't speak to the president's sincerity or non-sincerity, but I will say there are people around him that did support some of these ideas and probably have been talking to the president about some of these ideas. | ||
| As I mentioned before, they're pretty popular with the overall American electorate, and the president has a good sense of where the country is on various issues. | ||
| I mean, he talks to people. | ||
| The president loves to talk to people and has a good pulse on where the country is on various issues. | ||
| I think that's why we saw him in, you know, in Las Vegas during the campaign season proposing this no tax on tips issue. | ||
| He was talking to waitresses and restaurants and waiters and restaurants. | ||
| And so I won't talk to the president's sincerity, but I think that certainly these were ideas that they were speaking about in a very serious way. | ||
| We talked about Ways and Means, which has jurisdiction, that committee over taxes. | ||
| We talked about Energy and Commerce Committee, both marking up tomorrow, Energy and Commerce with jurisdiction over Medicaid, one of the big sticking points. | ||
| The third is Ag Committee. | ||
| What are you watching for in that markup, meaning debate and vote on what they have jurisdiction over? | ||
| Yeah, I think the main reason we care so much about agriculture, in addition to the fact that they oversee farm programs and things like that that are critical to our food supply system, is they also, this committee also oversees SNAP benefits, which we more colloquially call food stamps. | ||
| These are food aid programs for low-income individuals. | ||
| And Republicans are proposing significant reforms to SNAP programs. | ||
| They do want to see cuts. | ||
| They want to reform it in a way that also requires some work requirements for individuals who benefit from these food programs. | ||
| So I think they want to raise the age to about 64 from 54 for individuals that would need to have work requirements. | ||
| They would need to work in order to receive some of these benefits. | ||
| That's a pretty significant change, especially if you're used to not having to work or you're sort of getting up there in age and you're in a comfortable place and then all of a sudden work requirements are being imposed on you. | ||
| So there will be that debate happening on the agriculture committee. | ||
| I think that's going to be the big focus and maybe where there's some friction among Republicans. | ||
| We'll go to Sal, who's in New Jersey, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How are you doing? | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I was listening to the program. | ||
| I just wanted to say two points were on my mind. | ||
| I don't understand how all these big companies, Google and Amazon, all these big corporations, I hear they don't pay no taxes. | ||
| I don't care how many jobs they give an employee. | ||
| They should pay their taxes to help the country. | ||
| I don't know why they should get away with that. | ||
| Everybody else pays taxes. | ||
| And the second point was, I'm on Social Security, and you never get an increase. | ||
| You get $12 for President Bush, $50. | ||
| The cost of living is so high, it should be given, they should give increases $300, $400 to help people live. | ||
| I'm barely paying my bills, just getting by, living in low-income housing. | ||
| Yeah, Sal, the president trying to address Social Security and how much people receive by saying he didn't want to tax it. | ||
| Would you back that idea? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| I don't think they don't take no tax out of my Social Security, so I don't see what doesn't help me one bit. | ||
| I need like $300, $400 extra in my check every month to just stay afloat. | ||
| I mean, I'm stretching it as it is now. | ||
| They give you these little $12, $24, they say cost of living is going up. | ||
| Well, that ain't doing much for me at all. | ||
| And all my friends that are on Social Security are really upset about this. | ||
| All right, Sal there in New Jersey, Republican, Sal on Social Security. | ||
| Talking about him and his friends, this is an important issue to them. | ||
| They tend to vote, too. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| Senior citizens vote in much larger numbers than young people. | ||
| And it's interesting to hear Sal's personal financial situation. | ||
| I don't think it's unique. | ||
| I think millions and millions of senior Americans are in the same predicament where they feel My paycheck, my Social Security benefit is not going as far as I thought it would. | ||
| And so these are real concerns. | ||
| These are real issues that real Americans are dealing with every day. | ||
| And his point about corporations, you hear that a lot from Democrats, that corporations need to be paying more so that everyday Americans can be doing a little bit better and feel a little bit more secure in their retirement. | ||
| Chester's in Wisconsin, a Democratic caller. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, ma'am. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
| Question or comment here for Scott Wong. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have a question. | |
| I'm sort of a Marxist and socialist. | ||
| I ran for Congress in the last election here in the first district in Wisconsin under the Green Party. | ||
| I have a simple question. | ||
| Your speaker, he mentioned the word class about two calls ago. | ||
| And I'm just wondering: if we found a way to restructure the class system to make the proletariat a little more stable against being taxed too much, wouldn't that make for a stronger society and a stronger financial structure? | ||
| That's probably a little bit outside of my realm. | ||
| I cover Capitol Hill and tend to focus more on leadership and some of the challenges that the leadership faces. | ||
| So I think I might pass on that. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| When do you expect reporters like yourself on Capitol Hill get your first time to talk to Republican leaders today? | ||
| Yeah, we're hearing that people are trickling into the Capitol this morning. | ||
| There will be meetings in the Speaker's office this morning, especially on the SALT issue, but I think on various other issues as well. | ||
| The House and the Senate will be returning from their districts in their home states later today. | ||
| And so I think in the next couple hours here, Greta, we're going to get our first reactions to some of these real concrete proposals. | ||
| Because until now, we've really been talking about a broader framework, right? | ||
| And a lot of people on Capitol Hill describe it as the budget framework is the skeleton. | ||
| And now they're starting to put meat back on the bones. | ||
| And we're really seeing the details of this reconciliation package. | ||
| And this is where things get very interesting because we're seeing Republicans making their case. | ||
| You know, we're seeing intra-party feuds and battles happening on Capitol Hill on a number of different policy issues. | ||
| And, you know, this is where things really start to get interesting. | ||
| Scott, you're one of those reporters that does real-time reporting on social media. | ||
| Where can people follow you this morning as you head up to Capitol Hill? | ||
| Yep, I'm always on Twitter, now X at Scott Wong, D.C. You can follow Scott Wong's reporting there, NBC's senior congressional reporter. | ||
| We appreciate the conversation. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| We're going to take a break. | ||
| When we come back, we will be in open forum later. | ||
| President Trump heads to the Middle East this morning and we'll discuss his trip with the Middle East Institute's Paul Salem. | ||
| That'll be in about 45 minutes. | ||
| When we come back, open forum. | ||
| Any public policy or political issue on your mind? | ||
| Those are the lines. | ||
| Start dialing in. Democracy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| Carthyism, Whitaker Chambers, Alger Hiss, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Paul Robeson, House Un-American Activities Committee, the Smith Act, the Hollywood 10, the Joint Anti-Facist Committee, the Truman Loyalty Program, the Blacklist. | ||
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|
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Author Clay Risen with his book Red Scare, Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb. | |
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| And we are back in Open Forum. | ||
| You can talk about public policy debates that are happening in Washington and as well as politics. | ||
| We'll start with the front page of the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| This story to share with you. | ||
| Potential gift of Air Force One from Qatar brings scrutiny. | ||
| President Trump's administration is in talks with the Qatari government about accepting a luxury plane for his use as president and then potentially beyond with the Qatari government, giving the plane to the Trump presidential library for Trump to use after he leaves office. | ||
| On Truth Social, the president posting this, so the fact that the Defense Department is getting a gift free of charge of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40-year-old Air Force One temporarily in a very public and transparent transaction so bothers the cooked crooked Democrats that they insist we pay top dollar for the plane. | ||
| Anybody can do that. | ||
| The Dems are world-class losers. | ||
| That's what the president posted on Truth Social on these news reports that are not just in the Wall Street Journal, in other newspapers as well this morning. | ||
| I want to share with you as well a story that you can talk about front page of USA Today, Trump's first 100 days, millions in crypto profits. | ||
| Just two of the cryptocurrency investments owned by the Trump-affiliated entities have made at least $300 million in trading fees alone on sales of his meme coin and other digital currencies since January, according to Ethics Watchdogs. | ||
| Related to that, the Wall Street Journal editorial board, the Trump family crypto business, and they write in this that readers may recall the controversy over the Clinton administration's political donors who stayed in the White House Lincoln bedroom. | ||
| More recently, Mr. Trump heavily criticized Hunter Biden for courting foreign business investors and providing access to Joe Biden. | ||
| And don't forget Hunter's sale of paintings to unknown buyers. | ||
| These columns heavily criticized those political grifts, as did Republicans. | ||
| The Trump family crypto business also looks like a political accident waiting to happen. | ||
| And they note this, that when Mr. Trump issued his meme coin days before his inauguration, he said the point was to have fun. | ||
| As we noted at the time, the venture creates political risks and ethical conflicts. | ||
| Bloomberg News last week reported that all but six of the top 25 holders of the Trump coin that have registered on the website's leaderboard have bought the coins using foreign exchanges that claim to exclude U.S. customers. | ||
| And the price tag worth about $300 billion, according to news reports, or the profit on paper for the Trump families. | ||
| Then there is also this in the Washington Post. | ||
| They take a look at this story this morning as well. | ||
| Small-time buyers of Trump coin have seen big losses. | ||
| At least 67,000 new small-time crypto investors like Davis have bet on Trump's meme coin, pouring $15 million into the volatile venture endorsed by Trump and benefiting his personal wealth. | ||
| But virtually all of them bought near the coin's peak just before the inauguration, and 80% of them have seen the value of their holdings nosedive. | ||
| The post analysis shows one buyer who spent $10,000 has already lost on paper more than $8,000. | ||
| That reporting from the Washington Post this morning. | ||
| So that's one issue that we can talk about here in open forum. | ||
| There are others as well. | ||
| The Trump administration announcing a trade breakthrough earlier this morning with China. | ||
| The president's Treasury Secretary and his trade representative were in Geneva, Switzerland negotiating, and they have come up with a 90-day pause between the two countries as they continue to talk. | ||
| Let's go to Ian though in Commerce City, Colorado, Independent. | ||
| Ian, good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I have a couple things to say. | ||
| One, I enjoy your show. | ||
| Two, with regard to your last guest, I wanted to just point out to America that the United States spends more on defense than the nine countries beneath us combined. | ||
| And when the administration talks about fraud, waste, and abuse, which is kind of gaslighting because I've seen no proof of any fraud yet, it's very irritating for me. | ||
| Number two, when they talk about DEI, yes, it's out of hand a little bit. | ||
| And it really irritates me when people talk about merit-based hiring because the reason we have these laws is it wasn't merit-based. | ||
| That's why we have the civil rights movement. | ||
| And the third thing I wanted to say is this gaslighting about illegal aliens, people calling in saying, if we just got rid of the illegals, we would balance the budget. | ||
| I mean, it's completely ridiculous. | ||
| I appreciate your time, and thanks for the show. | ||
| I really enjoy it. | ||
| All right, Ian. | ||
| Thank you for calling in and watching. | ||
| Ed in Lawrenceville, Georgia, Republican. | ||
| Good morning to you, Ed. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| You know, that last caller is a little off base. | ||
| You know, we paid, because of the Democrats, we paid twice almost to get the wall put up, which we haven't quite finished, but we are going to do it. | ||
| Now, the Democrats plan that if they take over the Senate and the House, they plan to remove the wall and let in millions more illegals. | ||
| I don't know why. | ||
| I guess they want to kill us. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| But don't forget, the Democrats are the ones that owned all the slaves. | ||
| No Republican ever owned a slave. | ||
| It was all owned by the Democrats. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Goodbye. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Clarification: on the Trump crypto coin, this is from USA Today. | ||
| Just two of the crypto investments owned by the Trump affiliate entities have made at least 300 million in trading fees alone on sales of his meme coin and other digital currencies since January. | ||
| I think I might have said $300 billion. | ||
| It's $300 million, just to clarify that. | ||
| Debbie in Hampton, Georgia, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Debbie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| We're in open forum. | ||
| What's on your mind? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I wanted to just make a comment. | |
| I'm a formal federal employee that worked for the federal government for almost 40 years. | ||
| And during that time, we couldn't take anything from contractors or someone who wanted to work for the federal government. | ||
| So for Donald Trump to be able to accept a $400 million plane, it boggles my mind. | ||
| And for them to say that this is going to be a part of the presidential library, this is going to be his own personal plane because this is who Donald Trump is. | ||
| That's just a comment I wanted to make. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All right, Debbie there in Hampton, Georgia, remarking on front page news this morning about a 747 luxury jet and negotiations with the Trump administration and the Qatari government for them to give that jet to the president while he's in the White House and then the presidential library after he leaves office. | ||
| Speaking of the White House, let's go to the lawn. | ||
| Brett Samuels is White House reporter with the Hill newspaper. | ||
| He's joining us just outside the White House this morning to talk about the agenda. | ||
| So Brett Samuels, the president this morning, we will see him. | ||
| What time and what do we expect him to be talking about? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so the expectation is that around 9:30 this morning, we will hear from President Trump. | |
| He'll be joined by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Health and Human Services Secretary. | ||
| This is expected to be this announcement that President Trump has touted is momentous, historic, et cetera. | ||
| He teased it as far back as last week as a sort of mystery announcement where he's going to talk about this executive order he's planning to sign to essentially cap drug prices to match the price of those drugs overseas and in foreign nations. | ||
| It's called the most favored nation policy is sort of the formal name for it. | ||
| So we'll see the president and the Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Roosevelt room in just a bit to sign that order. | ||
| And then the president expected to hold a news conference with the Health and Human Services Secretary. | ||
| What do you think reporters are going to be clamoring to ask of the president that news conference? | ||
| A lot of topics for them to delve into. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, certainly a very, very newsy last 48 hours or so. | |
| I think, you know, certainly this tariff agreement with China, I think, will be top of mind and certainly would expect the president to get asked about that. | ||
| Obviously, we saw overnight this agreement that both sides are agreeing to lower their reciprocal tariffs that they had placed on one another. | ||
| So, you know, certainly that was good news for the stock market this morning. | ||
| We're already seeing. | ||
| But certainly I'd expect that to come up, sort of how that deal came about and whether President Trump would consider raising tariffs again if something didn't happen. | ||
| I think that will be top of mind. | ||
| Certainly this story that came out yesterday about this Qatari jet that the U.S. appears to be poised to accept to be refurbished as a new Air Force One, I think that will certainly be top of mind. | ||
| And then this order that certainly Trump has talked about and touted for a few days and that he'll be signing this morning. | ||
| I think certainly there may be some questions about whether that's going to face legal challenges, whether he'd like to see Congress pursue that legislatively. | ||
| So lots to get to for reporters this morning. | ||
| Yeah, and then of course there's the agenda on Capitol Hill as well as Republicans in the House move forward on the president's budget reconciliation proposal, his tax cuts and spending cuts as well. | ||
| Then the president later this morning heading out, departing for his first Middle East trip of his second term. | ||
| What will the president be doing? | ||
| Who will he be talking to on this trip? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so a week-long trip to the Middle East, his first sort of official trip abroad since taking office. | |
| Again, obviously, the president went to Pope Francis' funeral in Rome just a couple weeks ago, but this will be sort of his first official government business trip. | ||
| You know, he'll be in Saudi Arabia first, landing there essentially overnight, very early Tuesday morning here in Washington. | ||
| He'll also be visiting the UAE, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. | ||
| So a busy trip. | ||
| I think business, sort of business talks, business agreements, investment agreements will be sort of top of mind here. | ||
| The White House has touted that Trump is going to try and secure sort of investments from these countries. | ||
| But certainly I think this trip will also be shadowed by both that story we mentioned a minute ago, that Qatari jet story, particularly when he's in Qatar. | ||
| That will be, I think, sort of looming over this, as well as sort of the broader Middle East policy that this administration is pursuing when it comes to Israel and Gaza and Hamas, also efforts with Iran, whether this administration's interested in brokering some kind of nuclear deal there. | ||
| I think all of that, even though he's not visiting with leaders from those nations, that will all be sort of front and center and sort of coloring how this trip goes. | ||
| Brett Samos, what is the White House saying about why the Middle East as his first foreign trip there back there of his second administration? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, it's certainly interesting. | |
| And we should note that his first foreign trip during his first term was also to Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. | ||
| So some symmetry there. | ||
| But certainly, I think a driving factor here is that sort of business investment financial component. | ||
| Certainly this president ran on sort of restoring the economy, bringing investment back to the United States. | ||
| I think that's going to be a key part of this. | ||
| He'd already touted sort of investments from the Saudis earlier on in his first or in his second term, I should say. | ||
| So certainly I think that will be sort of the driving message here, and that's why he's going to these nations as his first sort of official foreign trip is because the White House wants to tout these sort of investment initiatives, these efforts to bring more investment into the United States. | ||
| Brett Samuels reports on the White House for the Hill newspaper. | ||
| You can find his reporting at thehill.com or on X at The Hill. | ||
| Brett Samuels, thank you for joining us from C-SPAN's perch at the White House this morning. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| And again, we'll have coverage of that news conference with the president and his Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time in about 30 minutes on C-SPAN 2 on our free video mobile app, C-SPANNOW or online at c-span.org. | ||
| Richard, we're in open forum in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Greta. | |
| By the way, I didn't call for the Qatari plane, but it's disgusting. | ||
| It's an absolutely disgusting event, and I hope it doesn't happen. | ||
| But I called because today, as most days, people call in and they say, you know, we got to have the rich pay their fair share. | ||
| And I would hope that you might consider responding: how much is a fair share and who is rich? | ||
| The question never seems to get answered. | ||
| It's just a perception that somebody who has more money isn't paying as much. | ||
| I'm reading right off the taxfoundation.org website, right off their website. | ||
| And the top 1%, who, by the way, are not the same people every year because people sell businesses and other things. | ||
| Top 1% pay 46% of the total tax bill, 46%. | ||
| The top 10% pay 76%. | ||
| The bottom 50% pay 2.3%. | ||
| And it shows up, for example, you had another caller saying, you know, my Social Security doesn't go far enough. | ||
| And I don't doubt him. | ||
| And you said, well, what do you think about the proposal not to tax Social Security? | ||
| And he said, well, I don't pay tax now. | ||
| And he said he lives in subsidized housing and other things. | ||
| Now, I don't begrudge that. | ||
| And I think in a just society, we need to do those things. | ||
| But for that person to come along, or any person to say, but the rich don't pay their fair share, it just defies the data. | ||
| So I would hope you would just consider asking people what the words fair share mean, what number are you talking about? | ||
| And who's rich? | ||
| All right. | ||
| I appreciate those suggestions. | ||
| Thanks, Richard. | ||
| Rick in Oklahoma, Democratic caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I just wanted to bring up this plane from Qatari that concerns the emoluments clause. | |
| Okay, they said that they're going to give this plane to our president, name it Air Force One, and let him use it to just prior to his presidency expires. | ||
| Then they're going to give it to the Trump Foundation or whatever it is. | ||
| The library. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And he's willing to. | |
| And to my understanding, our government has already retrofitted this plane. | ||
| It's a Flying Pals. | ||
| Does that not affect the Emoluments Clause? | ||
| And what are we giving guitar back for this plane? | ||
| Rick's all right. | ||
| Rick's questions. | ||
| An Oklahoma Democrat, a caller about the front page news this morning on that Qatari jet. | ||
| Another story to share with you. | ||
| This is from the Washington Examiner, an opinion piece this morning. | ||
| YouTube TV should do the right thing and carry C-SPAN. | ||
| If you are one of the many people who have cut the cable cord, you may have noticed it now difficult to enjoy the cable industry's greatest gift to our democracy, C-SPAN. | ||
| Despite repeated pressure, the largest streaming alternatives to cable television, YouTube TV, Hulu, Fubo are all still refusing to carry the channels. | ||
| C-SPAN is a volunteer gift to the public from corporate America, and we do not want to change that. | ||
| But we do encourage the streaming services to rethink their decision for the good of the country. | ||
| Washington Examiner with that piece this morning. | ||
| Donald in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, Republican. | ||
| Donald, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh my gosh. | |
| I got like a few things to say. | ||
| Number one, the crypto. | ||
| I think I believe only the United States government can print money, so therefore it's a fraud. | ||
| And number two, the C-SPAN thing. | ||
| Yeah, Comcast won't carry C-SPAN 2 and 3 at the book TV, which I love because I don't subscribe to the sports package, which I think is ridiculous. | ||
| And then as far as the health and all this, Kennedy, in 1986, I told the government to ban plastic because it's an endocrine disruptor and it causes cancer. | ||
| And number four, okay, the taxes. | ||
| There's one CEO. | ||
| He has 4 million shares of stock. | ||
| He just traded one in last year for $178 million. | ||
| And the stock is now over $200 million, or $200 a share. | ||
| So potentially he's sitting on a billion dollars. | ||
| I think, and if these stocks options are totally free and they didn't buy them, there should be like a 90, 90, 90% tax minimum. | ||
| And that's ridiculous. | ||
| All right, Donald, there with a lot on his mind. | ||
| An Illinois Republican caller. | ||
| Mel in New York, Independent. | ||
| Hi, Mel. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Just something that I think has been overlooked with the tariff situation. | ||
| Sales tax. | ||
| Sales taxes are put on durable goods, not non-durable goods. | ||
| So anybody that has children going to school when it comes to buying school supplies, everything is going to be taxed, sales tax. | ||
| Some states have higher sales taxes than others, but it's an added tax that nobody even talks about. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| All right, Mel in New York. | ||
| I want to share with you the president's post on Truth Social yesterday about the Russia-Ukraine war. | ||
| President Putin of Russia doesn't want to have a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine, but rather wants to meet on Thursday in Turkey to negotiate a possible end to the bloodbath. | ||
| Ukraine should agree to this immediately. | ||
| At least they will be able to determine whether or not a deal is possible. | ||
| And if it is not, European leaders and the U.S. will know where everything stands and can proceed accordingly. | ||
| The president said, I'm starting to doubt that Ukraine will make a deal with Putin, who's too busy celebrating the victory of World War II, which could not have been won, not even close, without the United States of America. | ||
| Have the meeting now, is what the president said on Truth Social yesterday. | ||
| The headline today in the Washington Times World section: Zelensky hopes for ceasefire with Russia starting Monday. | ||
| President Zelensky said Sunday he is hoping for a full and temporary ceasefire with Russia starting Monday, adding he would be in Turkey negotiate with the Russian president personally. | ||
| So watch for news out of that this morning. | ||
| Gary in Buffalo, New York, Democratic caller. | ||
| Gary, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm talking about NASA, the fact that it was the Trump administration that in his first administration promoted the fact that to go back to the moon on the Artemis program and that we started building up the infrastructure and the spacecraft and the boosters to do it. | ||
| And we're using like recycled space shuttle engines for it. | ||
| Now they want to cancel the program. | ||
| They want to cancel Artemis. | ||
| They want to cancel the gateway. | ||
| And then they wonder why will the Chinese put people back on the moon before we do. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| Is this an attempt by Elon Musk to want to be the shining knight of the white horse to come in and rescue them? | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All right, Gary, Gary, in Buffalo, New York. | ||
| As we told you earlier, the Republicans have a consequential week ahead of them. | ||
| They are moving forward on the president's budget reconciliation bill to make the 2017 tax cuts permanent, extend others, and find at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts. | ||
| The chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday unveiling details of how they will come up with cuts. | ||
| They need to find $880 billion. | ||
| And this is from the Wall Street Journal's reporting. | ||
| House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie in an interview cast the changes as slowing down runaway growth in Medicaid rather than as cuts while warning that the program is going to cost more than $1 trillion a year in the next decade if lawmakers don't rein in spending. | ||
| How they rein it in according to early reporting, and we will learn more this afternoon, is that they are looking at work requirements for the Medicaid program as well as other proposals to control the spending on that Medicaid program. | ||
| On Sundays, CBS is face the nation. | ||
| New Mexico Governor Michelle Luhan Grisham was asked about potential Medicaid cuts. | ||
| Here's what she had to say. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's got the highest Medicaid enrollment per capita last week. | |
| We're hoping to get some clarity this week on what it is exactly Republicans are thinking of doing with their budget blueprint regarding Medicaid. | ||
| But I understand 70%, more than 70% of Medicaid coverage in your state comes from federal funding. | ||
| If they start to make cuts of any sort, do you have a plan to make up the difference? | ||
| Look, I think every state, including this one, is going to do everything they can to protect the people that they are serving. | ||
| And so we'll do the very same. | ||
| And in fact, we've created sort of these Medicaid and related health care state-funded programs and trust funds. | ||
| But this is very simply an effort to destroy health care as we know it, to rip it away from everyday Americans, make it more costly for everybody else. | ||
| It will close hospitals. | ||
| I think something like 432 hospitals across the country are on the edge right now. | ||
| About a third of their funding comes or more comes from Medicaid. | ||
| So you have less providers, you have fewer access points. | ||
| No state, including this one, no state can take this kind of cost shifting. | ||
| And you know, businesses then don't have employees because they don't have access to health care. | ||
| It has a huge economic factor that they aren't talking about, which is outrageous. | ||
| And I want to do one more quick point because I know we want to get to other stuff. | ||
| We had a governor who was trying to, I think, right before me, Governor Martinez, and to her credit, was looking at ways in a recession-era economy in New Mexico to look to have cost savings. | ||
| They completely cut behavioral health out of Medicaid. | ||
| And more than a decade later, we are still digging out. | ||
| Providers left, contractors left, people don't have access, people died. | ||
| More drug abuse, more drug addiction, more behavioral health high-risk issues. | ||
| It is a disaster, and people will die. | ||
| Children will die from CBS's Face the Nation Sunday program yesterday. | ||
| We're an open forum talking about debates here in Washington and getting your thoughts on them as well. | ||
| This is ahead of Republicans moving forward with the president's budget reconciliation program. | ||
| That's his domestic agenda. | ||
| The House Ways and Means Committee will debate and vote on their portion. | ||
| That is expected tomorrow around 2 p.m. Eastern Time. | ||
| Energy and Commerce, which will deal with these Medicaid programs, same time tomorrow here in Washington and the Ag Committee as well. | ||
| They will be debating and voting on their portion, which includes SNAP benefits, so-called food stamps, as well as other policy debates. | ||
| And you can tune into our coverage if you go to cspan.org. | ||
| You can find more information there or free video mobile app, C-SPANNOW. | ||
| Helen in Marlton, New Jersey, and Independent. | ||
| Helen, we're in an open forum. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I hope that people are interested in what I have to say. | ||
| I used to know a research professor at Reichers University named Philip Birch, who wrote a three-volume history of wealth in America. | ||
| He told me in the 1980s, late 1980s, that the United States was going to become like a third world country with the very rich and the very poor and very few and very little middle class. | ||
| And I just wanted to remind people of what Machiavelli said, which was that a society with rich and poor and normal class will not be stable. | ||
| I think that's, I'm afraid that's where we're headed. | ||
| All right, Helen in New Jersey, let's go to Mart Texas. | ||
| Bill is watching there, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I'd just like to say that on this Medicaid stuff, you know, Mike Johnson, the speaker, has come out and said time and time and time again, but that they are not going to touch Medicaid. | |
| They're not going to touch Social Security, but they corrupt liberal media and the Democrats like they've been doing for 40 years. | ||
| They love to put out the scare tactics and all the their Johnson had already said they're going to cut people that are 29, 27 years old, sitting on the couch eating cheeseburgers that can work. | ||
| They're going to get them guys back to work. | ||
| That's the kind of people that they're going to do. | ||
| And illegals, illegals. | ||
| They want to get them that Biden put on Medicaid and drawing taxpayer money, you know. | ||
| And you don't hear nobody saying nothing about Biden and his spy balloons, his letting in 15 million illegal murderers, killers, drug dealers. | ||
| But they want to put out these scare tactics, and it's put out there a lot by the liberal media. | ||
| Bill, why would you, how do you know that 15 million people that have come into this country are all bad people as you describe them? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm not saying all of them are bad. | |
| I'm not saying that. | ||
| What I'm saying is that these killers and these drug dealers and people are coming in, y'all love to bring that. | ||
| And just like the $400 million plane, you know, I mean, that is going to be used from the United States government if it used it at all. | ||
| But is it okay then for the president to use the plane after he leaves office? | ||
| Or should it stay with the president, whoever the president? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because y'all don't want to talk. | |
| Y'all don't want to talk about the spy balloons, the illegal killers, the corrupt, you know, the illegal aliens. | ||
| All right, cool. | ||
| Bill, we covered the Biden administration the four years that he was in office. | ||
| We're going to take a break coming up. | ||
| Middle East Institute Vice President for International Engagement, Paul Salem, will be joining us to discuss President Trump's visit to the Middle East starting today. | ||
| He leaves the White House shortly. | ||
| Stay with us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us this morning is Paul Salem. | ||
| He's with the Middle East Institute, the Vice President for International Engagement. | ||
| He's also the author of Thinking Middle East, the Substack newsletter. | ||
| Let's begin with your analysis from the Middle East Institute website, the first two months of Trump 2.0 in the Middle East, hard push for elusive breakthroughs. | ||
| What are they? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, hi, Greta. | |
| It's great to be with you, and hello to everybody following along. | ||
| President Trump identified a number of goals in the Middle East. | ||
| One of them was to end the ongoing wars. | ||
| Before he took office, there was a ceasefire in Gaza and there was a ceasefire in Lebanon. | ||
| The ceasefire in Gaza has since unraveled. | ||
| Obviously, he also wanted to secure shipping in the Red Sea. | ||
| And towards that end, he has escalated military attacks against the Houthis in Yemen and gotten a ceasefire agreement from the Houthis, at least not to attack U.S. shipping. | ||
| The two big goals that he wants to achieve, one of them is a historic U.S.-Saudi-Israeli agreement, which would include Saudi-Israeli normalization and would be a continuation of the Abraham Accords that he achieved, that President Trump achieved in his first term. | ||
| That is not yet advanced. | ||
| The second big goal he wants to achieve is a breakthrough between the U.S. and Iran to stop its nuclear weaponization program and perhaps turn a new page. | ||
| Negotiations have started there, but they have not reached an end point. | ||
| His visit starting tomorrow to the Middle East, hence, is being watched very closely in the region. | ||
| President Trump departing this morning for that first Middle East trip of his second term. | ||
| It was supposed to be his first foreign trip, before an impromptu trip overseas for the Pope's funeral. | ||
| Paul Salem, the Washington Post front page frames the trip this way. | ||
| Trump's Mideast focus is business. | ||
| Your thoughts? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, certainly. | |
| Yeah, certainly a big focus of the Trump administration and President Trump himself in all matters has been about economics and largely reviving the U.S. economy as best he can. | ||
| Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries are extremely wealthy countries. | ||
| They have a lot of capital to invest. | ||
| They have a lot of energy resources. | ||
| And certainly a big part of prioritizing a trip to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf is to increase and multiply the economic deals between those countries and the U.S. Saudi Arabia has already pledged close to a trillion dollars. | ||
| The United Arab Emirates has also pledged something close to that amount of investments in the U.S. | ||
| These will be over many years. | ||
| That includes weapons purchases as well as other things. | ||
| So certainly business is a big part of it. | ||
| And that definitely includes future sectors like artificial intelligence and emerging technology. | ||
| The U.S. needs Gulf energy, Gulf capital, in order to multiply its capacities in its tech and AI race with China. | ||
| So that's definitely a big part of it. | ||
| The president leaving today, as we said, from the White House, he travels to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. | ||
| Paul Salem, why those three countries? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, those are the big, I would say, economic players in the Gulf countries. | |
| Those are the big three. | ||
| Saudi Arabia is the biggest of all of them. | ||
| That's both economically and politically. | ||
| It was Trump's first destination in his first term, and it is his first official destination in his second term as well. | ||
| Saudi Arabia is a big energy producer, spending hundreds of billions of dollars in various sectors. | ||
| Also, Saudi Arabia is effectively the leader of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which is a council including the six Gulf countries. | ||
| So Saudi Arabia is kind of the boss or the main country. | ||
| Saudi Arabia is also the host or the place where Mecca and Medina, the two holy sites of Islam, that's where the sites are. | ||
| So Saudi Arabia also carries a very large credibility and weight in the Muslim world, which is 1.5 billion people. | ||
| So if President Trump, beyond the business deals, wants to talk about peace between Saudi Arabia and Israel, certainly getting Saudi Arabia on board would be a great breakthrough. | ||
| Paul Salem, CNN was reporting earlier this morning that starting with President Obama, President Trump during his first term, then Joe Biden, and now in the second term of President Trump, those leaders all have told the Middle East leaders that to do business with the United States, they need to clean up their own backyard. | ||
| What efforts have been, what does that mean, and what efforts have been made? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'm not sure that President Trump necessarily is carrying that message. | |
| In his early couple of years, President Biden had a lot of criticism of the Gulf countries, but that kind of faded away after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. | ||
| President Trump, I don't think it's carrying that message per se. | ||
| His main sort of mission is one, to conclude a lot of business deals, including the artificial intelligence and emerging technology deals and space exploration deals that I mentioned. | ||
| Secondly, he wants to discuss the possibility of a normalization with Israel. | ||
| That will require concessions from the Israeli government in Gaza and the West Bank. | ||
| I'm not sure Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is ready for that. | ||
| And the third issue is the ongoing talks between the U.S. and Iran to get the views of the Gulf countries, to get their input as to how those talks might go and end up. | ||
| And finally, I would say a big issue and a new one is the new regime, the new government in Syria, which the U.S. has not really engaged with yet, but Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region are urging the U.S. to engage with that new government. | ||
| We are talking about the Middle East ahead of the President's trip this week. | ||
| It's a four-day trip, and we'll take your questions and your comments on it. | ||
| Here's how you can join the conversation. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You remember, you can text if you don't want to call at 202-748-8003. | ||
| As Paul Salem was talking about on the President's agenda is investment opportunities between the U.S. and Middle East countries. | ||
| There's also the Iran nuclear talks, talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia, many Middle East policies on the table. | ||
| Paul Salem, what will you be looking for when the president lands in Saudi Arabia? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, he has been sort of teasing an announcement for a few days. | |
| He's been saying that he's going to make a very, very major announcement. | ||
| Now, it's not clear what that's about, but there's some speculation that it might have something to do with the Middle East. | ||
| Obviously, if there is a major, major announcement happening before he leaves for Saudi Arabia, that would be something we'd follow closely. | ||
| I am right now in Beirut, Lebanon, in the Middle East. | ||
| I will be flying tomorrow to Saudi Arabia. | ||
| I'm not involved in any of the meetings, but I'll be there at the same time. | ||
| So, certainly watching closely. | ||
| I think what we would be watching for is the nature and the depth of the deals that are going to be announced from those various countries. | ||
| We would be watching with interest any updates from the U.S. team and the U.S. president on how they see the talks with Iran going and what the expectations of success might be. | ||
| The most maybe complicated and difficult challenge for President Trump would be to try to advance the possibility of peace and normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. | ||
| As I said, I think President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu are not exactly on the same page on that issue. | ||
| So, I think Arab leaders will be looking to see what President Trump has to bring on that. | ||
| Why are they not on the same page? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Prime Minister Netanyahu leads a very right-wing government. | |
| Opinion in Israel is extremely divided. | ||
| As you know, if you've been following Israeli politics, many in Israel have favored ending the war, getting all the hostages home, and ending the war in Gaza. | ||
| Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government have favored a continuation and now an escalation of the war, which puts the lives of the hostages at risk. | ||
| Of course, it's a very difficult decision giving Hamas, given that Hamas is still in place. | ||
| On the West Bank, Prime Minister Netanyahu and his right-wing government have offered no concessions towards the Palestinians in order to facilitate a deal with Saudi Arabia. | ||
| And if Prime Minister Netanyahu were to offer concessions, his government would likely fall and he would no longer be prime minister. | ||
| He might face legal issues because of his own personal legal issues. | ||
| So he's in a very different political situation than President Trump is. | ||
| Paul Salim is our guest here with the Middle East Institute. | ||
| He's the Vice President for International Engagement. | ||
| He also writes a Substack newsletter called Thinking Middle East. | ||
| Sharon in Silver Spring, Maryland, Democratic Caller. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I would just like to say the only business that Mr. Trump is interested in in the Middle East is the Trump Grifting Company. | |
| They are a disgrace. | ||
| Give us a break. | ||
| And if that airplane comes to Washington, then no more taxes paid by any American. | ||
| Let him cover it since he's stealing from all of us. | ||
| Grift lives in the cabinet and in the Trump family. | ||
| Disgraceful. | ||
| He should be impeached and thrown out. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Those are Sharon's thoughts there in Silver Spring, Maryland. | ||
| Paul Salem, the front page of the newspapers this morning about this offer from the Qatari government to give the president a 747 jet that he could use while president, and then it would be given to the Trump presidential library. | ||
| What does the Qatari government want in exchange? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the Qatari government has had long and deep relations with the U.S. government. | |
| The main military base of the U.S. in the Middle East is in Qatar. | ||
| Qatar relies on the United States for its security, essentially. | ||
| You know, this would be one additional way in which Qatar is buying favor with President Trump himself, with the Trump administration, in their view with the United States. | ||
| It is the case at the same time that the Trump organization, Eric Trump, was just in the Middle East cutting deals, and that certainly has raised a lot of eyebrows. | ||
| I know back in the United States, maybe in the Middle East, that's more like business as usual. | ||
| And I think Middle East leaders understand that President Trump, they know how to deal with him. | ||
| And part of that is making sure they give him a warm welcome, cutting business deals for organizations as well. | ||
| What are some of those business deals that the Qatari government has cut with the Trump family? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I've been just following it in the press. | |
| You see in the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal. | ||
| I think there's a golf course, Trump golf course being built in Qatar. | ||
| There's a tower and kind of a development project in the United Arab Emirates. | ||
| I'm not sure what private projects they are in Saudi Arabia. | ||
| Saudi Arabia obviously is a big investor in LivGulf, and that has had a long relationship with some of President Trump's golf courses. | ||
| So certainly there are relationships there. | ||
| And what about cryptocurrency? | ||
| Does the United States have an official policy agenda there in the Middle East? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I wouldn't be the person really to ask on cryptocurrency. | |
| The main issues that the Middle East is engaged with the U.S. administration, I would say, and this started during the Biden administration, is for the Gulf countries to build up their capacities in artificial intelligence, which means building data centers, processing centers. | ||
| Those data centers and processing centers require a lot of energy. | ||
| In order for the U.S. to compete with China, the U.S. doesn't have the capacity to ramp up its energy production enough over the next 10 years. | ||
| So it needs some of those centers to be in the Gulf countries, maybe other friendly countries around the world as well. | ||
| And those Gulf countries have the energy right there. | ||
| They also have the money to put into these processing centers to hook up with U.S. artificial intelligence networks. | ||
| So that's really where the AI and technology issue is most connected between the Gulf countries and the United States. | ||
| Cryptocurrency is still a very new thing in the Middle East, and it has not really been clear what the arrangements or agreements between the U.S. and Gulf countries might be on cryptocurrency. | ||
| Let's get to calls. | ||
| John in McFarland, Wisconsin, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Going back from the issue you just mentioned, where Trump has announced that he wants to focus on business now. | ||
| We see a few weeks ago, Netanyahu or a couple weeks ago, Netanyahu announced that he would not be leaving Gaza now. | ||
| Whereas about February 11th, in a meeting with the King of Jordan, Trump announced that we would be taking holding and cherishing Gaza. | ||
| These are some pretty wild swings. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But I think we've missed an opportunity because the media didn't really analyze this and didn't go into what the implications of these various schemes were. | |
| In the early 2000s, Martin Endek wrote a series of articles about making Palestine a U.S. trust territory. | ||
| And the main reason for that is because it would establish an absolute security atmosphere for peace talks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There are many other positive possibilities there, and there are some difficulties involved, of course. | |
| But I just wanted to point out how the media squanders and the Congress, these opportunities, time and again. | ||
| And I'm not saying that it's necessarily the best way to go, but it certainly should be discussed and it should be understood. | ||
| It would help people understand better the whole history of Palestine and Israel and the relationship as it stands today. | ||
| Okay, John. | ||
| Mr. Salim, your reaction. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the issue of Gaza and the West Bank are the two critical issues and any advancement for the Palestinians and any establishment of a Palestinian state. | |
| President Trump's announcement a few months ago that the U.S. would take over Gaza and that he would evacuate all the refugees was met with, I would say, shock in the region. | ||
| But I think what a lot of people missed is that he took the issue of Gaza away from Prime Minister Netanyahu and, in a sense, put it in his own pocket, indicating that in the near future, if there were to be discussions between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. and Israel on a final settlement for the Palestinians, that Trump inserted himself as a main negotiator over the fate and future of Gaza. | ||
| Now, this is another area where Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump are on different pages. | ||
| As the caller indicated, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced about 10 days ago that Israel would be going back fully into Gaza and reoccupying Gaza or most of Gaza for the long term. | ||
| So, you know, it makes the situation much more complicated. | ||
| The issue of the U.S. taking over the security of Palestine or a Palestinian entity has been floated from time to time. | ||
| But I think given where, you know, U.S. public opinion is, where Israeli public opinion is, I don't see that necessarily as a realistic solution. | ||
| The U.S. has been offering itself as a guarantor, as a broker to try to get this deal done. | ||
| Nothing, not much progress was achieved under President Biden. | ||
| I think President Biden basically followed Prime Minister Netanyahu's lead. | ||
| I think President Trump is trying to make a breakthrough, but he certainly will have to come up with a clear vision and push it through both on the Israeli side and on the Arab side and propose something that is dignified and sustainable for the Palestinians and provides security for the Israelis. | ||
| Before the president heads out for the Middle East, he's holding a news conference this morning at the White House with the Health and Human Services Secretary. | ||
| That is expected any minute now. | ||
| You'll be able to watch live coverage of it over on C-SPAN2, c-span.org, or our free video mobile app. | ||
| Let's go to Pat in Keyport, New Jersey, Republican. | ||
| Pat, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| My question is about Turkey. | ||
| What role would Turkey play, particularly with Iran? | ||
| If the president is looking for a breakthrough with Iran, what kind of relations do they have? | ||
| And what is the status of Turkey's relations with the Gulf countries? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's a very good question. | ||
| Turkey would not have a direct role in U.S.-Iranian talks and the outcome of those talks. | ||
| A country that actually might have a role might be Russia. | ||
| In the first agreement that President Obama achieved, Russia played a role in helping manage the Iranian nuclear sector and taking away enriched uranium and promising to provide uranium down the road. | ||
| So there could potentially be a role for Russia in that. | ||
| Turkey has maintained working relationships with Iran. | ||
| They have energy relationships. | ||
| They are not enemies. | ||
| They are not hostile. | ||
| If the U.S. needed an additional mediator, an additional sort of voice to chime in, I think President Erdogan could do that. | ||
| Turkey's relationship with the Gulf countries themselves used to be very bad, but in the past years they have improved tremendously. | ||
| There's now common investment and common projects between Turkey and most of the Gulf countries. | ||
| Where Turkey could play an important role is in the new order and the new government emerging in Syria. | ||
| It was Turkey that backed the group and backed the person who led the group that eventually took over power in Damascus, Syria. | ||
| That leader, that president, Mr. Sherak is his name, has promised to move Syria forward. | ||
| He's met with many leaders of the region. | ||
| He's met with many of the European foreign ministers and defense ministers. | ||
| The U.S. has not fully engaged in Syria yet. | ||
| Turkey could be very helpful in managing that engagement. | ||
| If Syria moves forward, that would be a great step forward for the region in general and reduce security risks and greatly increase economic opportunities. | ||
| Turkey also playing a role in, or at least location-wise, between Ukraine and Russia. | ||
| The Ukrainian president said he would meet personally with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Turkey. | ||
| Why Turkey? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Turkey sits on the Black Sea. | |
| Obviously, Ukraine and Russia are both on the Black Sea. | ||
| Any ship exiting the Black Sea, whether it's a Russian ship or Ukrainian ship, has to pass through Turkish waters and the Turkish security gauntlet. | ||
| So it plays an important role there. | ||
| Turkey, as well as maintained good relations with the government in Kyiv and the government in Russia. | ||
| It holds some of the cards and those relationships and can be hence helpful. | ||
| It's a neutral country. | ||
| It is part of NATO, but it has not been aligned with the U.S. and the Western countries in an all-out backing of Ukraine. | ||
| So it's more of a neutral place where the Ukrainian and Russian leaders can meet. | ||
| Interestingly, another place that was proposed previously was Saudi Arabia, which is where President Trump is heading. | ||
| We'll go to Arizona. | ||
| Sarah is watching there. | ||
| Democratic caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I'm calling from the Navajo Nation. | ||
| I just have a comment with respect to the President traveling to the Middle East. | ||
| I know that we have our challenges here, and this is regarding an economic trip, and how will that impact tribal nations across the board? | ||
| And I know that he is also getting a donation of a 747, a 400 million plus jet being donated by Qatari. | ||
| And I know a lot of communities across the country are very in a disadvantaged region just across the board. | ||
| And for a president to get a jet donated and the possibility of whether he's going to utilize that moving forward to another non-profit or for-profit purpose, I think is not right. | ||
| I know that there's a lot of struggles across the board for these high-end people to be donating stuff and just leaving the poor to get any type of benefit. | ||
| So that was just my comment. | ||
| All right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Mr. Salm. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I mean, I salute her and, you know, the indigenous populations of the U.S. | |
| I don't have an answer. | ||
| I don't think the Gulf countries, as they make the deals with the U.S., they're looking at the U.S. economy, broadly speaking. | ||
| They have always been very large investors in many, many sectors in the U.S. economy. | ||
| I'm sure those investments, obviously, they're spread across the 50 states of the U.S., but I don't have details as how they might affect native nations in one state or another. | ||
| But I would say that the general investment and trade between the Gulf countries and the U.S., all in all, is a good thing for both economies. | ||
| It leads to job creation, it leads to growth. | ||
| But beyond that, how it affects one group or another in the U.S., one would have to look at the domestic details of that. | ||
| Paul Salem, here is Steve from Tampa, Florida, in a text to us this morning. | ||
| Do you believe the part of President Trump's trip is to reinstate, reinstitute the idea of Saudi Arabia joining the Abram Accords with Israel? | ||
| You touched on this, but remind our viewers about the Abraham Accords and where does it stand? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the Abraham Accords were a set of agreements that normalized relations between Israel and four Arab countries in Trump's first term. | |
| Those countries were the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco. | ||
| The president was rightly very proud of those achievements and vowed when he won the election and while he was running for a second term that his ambition in his second term would be to bring Saudi Arabia on board. | ||
| As I mentioned, Saudi Arabia is a very influential country. | ||
| It's the biggest economy among the Arab countries. | ||
| It's one of the biggest economies in the Muslim world. | ||
| And it is the, you know, it houses Mecca and Medina, the two holy cities. | ||
| So President Trump figures if Saudi Arabia agrees to normalize with Israel, that would open the doors for other states in the Arab world and the Muslim world to normalize as well. | ||
| But as I argued, and as President Trump and his team knows, for Saudi Arabia to do that, Saudi Arabia has been very clear that it requires from the Israelis an end to the war in Gaza and a solid pathway towards Palestinian statehood. | ||
| That's something, as I said, that the current Israeli government has not said yes to or embarked on. | ||
| So that's where President Trump's challenge is. | ||
| But he has vowed that before his second term is over, he does want to achieve that breakthrough. | ||
| And I take him seriously in that attempt. | ||
| We'll go to Georgia. | ||
| Jack is watching there, Republican. | ||
| Morning to you, Jack. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, ma'am. | |
| And thank you for having this gentleman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would just like to ask, on getting the jet donated to him, does that not give him more leeway to go and help other nations and to try to keep peace? | |
| And thank you, sir, for explaining all this. | ||
| But also, I wish other people would give the man a chance to do something to try to help other nations by helping other nations more. | ||
| I would think down the road would help us. | ||
| And I would just like to thank C-SPAN for giving people the opportunity to voice their opinion. | ||
| And thank you so much. | ||
| All right, Jack. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yep. | |
| Thank you, sir. | ||
| I mean, obviously, for the President of the United States to have a plane, obviously he already has one, to have a new plane is probably not a bad thing for him to go about his business. | ||
| Obviously, the issue being raised, and it's being raised in the United States, where there is the emoluments clause and sort of a lot of legal issues about which gifts can be accepted by a president or a sitting U.S. official and under what conditions, I think that should be referred to a U.S. constitutional lawyer or something like that. | ||
| Otherwise, here in the Middle East, I mean, they're happy to give him gifts and to give the U.S. gifts. | ||
| Obviously, they want to buy influence and they want to have more of his attention. | ||
| So, I understand it from their point of view. | ||
| You talked a little bit earlier about the situation in Yemen. | ||
| What is it currently? | ||
| How has the United States become involved during the first few months here of the second Trump term? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Yemen, I mean, to try to summarize it, it's two things. | |
| First of all, Yemen is in civil war. | ||
| It has been in civil war for many, many years now. | ||
| And that has its own miseries for the population. | ||
| It's a big humanitarian disaster. | ||
| The U.S. under the Biden administration tried to mediate and negotiate an end to the civil war. | ||
| The more acute crisis from the U.S. perspective is that one of the groups in Yemen, which is the Houthis, which are a long-standing group in Yemen, which also happen to get a lot of Iranian support, have been bombing shipping in the Red Sea, bombing Israel itself ever since the war in Gaza erupted. | ||
| And that's really what the Trump administration has been reacting against, telling the Houthis to stop. | ||
| When they did not, it launched a very large and intensive military campaign against that group. | ||
| And over the past few days, the president announced that the group agreed to a bilateral ceasefire between the group and the U.S. not between the group and Israel, but between the group and the U.S. | ||
| The Trump administration is considering that a victory. | ||
| The Trump administration is also aware that if they have successful talks with Iran, that might also have positive effects on getting the Houthis to stand down. | ||
| We'll go to Jesse in Maryland, Democratic Holler. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, I have a question, Willie. | |
| Donate a plane to Donald Trump. | ||
| Jesse, we're talking about a front page newspaper, front page of the newspapers this morning is reporting that the president is in talks with the Qatari government to give him the president 747 jet as Air Force One that he would fly on while he's president, and then it would be donated to the Trump Library for his use after that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, so let's talk a little bit more about compromises. | |
| I mean, if you accept the gift while he's in Baha. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| All right, Jesse. | ||
| We'll go to Dave, who's in Goose Creek, South Carolina, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| I had a question concerning: do members of APAC register as operatives of a foreign power? | ||
| Paul Salama? | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I heard the question. | |
| I must say, I don't know the answer to that. | ||
| I don't know if they're registered as lobbyists or not. | ||
| That's a good question. | ||
| I'm out here in Beirut and in the Middle East, but I'm sure a lot of people in Washington would know the answer to that. | ||
| Mr. Sim, can you talk about the different approaches to the Middle East under President Trump versus his predecessor, President Biden? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, that's a very good question. | |
| I mean, what's remarkable is that President Trump has taken a dramatically different approach to domestic policy, obviously, than President Biden did. | ||
| And he's also taken a completely different approach to international economic relations with the tariff announcement that he's made. | ||
| And he's taken a very different approach to relations with Europe and Ukraine, with traditional allies in Asia. | ||
| So Trump has brought a sort of revolutionary different approach. | ||
| However, in the Middle East, he has not. | ||
| In the Middle East, Biden has been somewhat a continuation of Trump's first term, and Trump's second term has been a bit of a continuation of Biden's first term. | ||
| And what I mean by that, if you take the goals of Biden and Trump, they both supported Israel's right to self-defense in its war with Hamas, but they both have been urging Israel to find an end to the war with Gaza, to find an end to a war, the war with Hezbollah and Lebanon. | ||
| They have both wanted to achieve a breakthrough between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which would require statehood for the Palestinians, hence concessions from Israel. | ||
| And they have both wanted to reach a negotiated agreement with Iran. | ||
| So interestingly, whereas he's gone in very different directions in other areas, in the Middle East, it's a continuation. | ||
| I guess you could say it's a stronger continuation. | ||
| I would say he's been tougher. | ||
| He's been more aggressive. | ||
| He's devoted more time to it. | ||
| He hasn't yet succeeded, but he's now going to devote four full days of his attention to these issues. | ||
| And we'll see where that brings things. | ||
| A headline at the end of April from Reuters exclusive story by Mike Stone and his colleague Trump poised to offer Saudi Arabia over $100 billion arms package. | ||
| And Reuters reporting the U.S. is poised to offer Saudi Arabia an arms package worth well over $100 billion. | ||
| Six sources with direct knowledge told Reuters saying the proposal was being lined up for an announcement during the president's trip this week. | ||
| The offered package comes after the administration of former President Joe Biden unsuccessfully tried to finalize a defense pact with Rihad as part of the broad deal that envisions Saudi Arabia normalizing ties with Israel. | ||
| Paul Talem, can you talk about this? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, those are, I mean, in a way, slightly different things. | |
| Saudi Arabia has always been a major purchaser of U.S. arms, and the one you mentioned is no exception. | ||
| It is a big buyer of U.S. arms. | ||
| It's often complained that although the deals go through as deals, then getting them through Congress, getting them through the elaborate process between buying the arms and getting them delivered is often very difficult. | ||
| But you were mentioning the second part of your question is Saudi Arabia is asking for a defense act with the United States, which would be something like a defense treaty. | ||
| And for that to happen, that would require approval of the U.S. Senate. | ||
| And this is really what Saudi Arabia is asking for beyond the purchase of weapons, beyond the investment and so on. | ||
| It wants to lock in a kind of treaty arrangement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia that the U.S. would defend and would be involved in Saudi defense if it were to be attacked from Iran or any other place. | ||
| That requires, in order for it to pass in the U.S. Senate, most senators have said, well, if you normalize relations with Israel, then maybe we'll consider it. | ||
| We'll look into it. | ||
| So that's kind of the defense pact issue, which goes well beyond defense contracts. | ||
| We'll go to Franklin in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, Independent. | ||
| Good morning to you, Franklin. | ||
| Your question or comment about the President's trip to the Middle East. | ||
|
unidentified
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I think it's a trip to enrich himself. | |
| He plans to build resorts over there. | ||
| He's getting a billion-dollar jet. | ||
| He wants to turn Gaza into a resort. | ||
| All this is just to enrich himself even further. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Franklin, we understood the point, Paul Salem. | ||
| How will this benefit the president personally? | ||
| And do we know? | ||
| Could it? | ||
| What is the benefit for Americans? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I mean, I do think both can be true at the same time. | |
| I think it's quite clear that him and his family have been seeking to benefit, you know, in many ways. | ||
| And this includes in their dealings with businesses in the Gulf. | ||
| It included things in China previously in the United States itself. | ||
| That doesn't preclude the fact that I think he is also, and the Saudis and the Emiratis and the Qataris are working on major deals that go directly into different U.S. sectors, manufacturing, energy, oil and gas, wind, solar, artificial intelligence, technology, development in terms of housing and the rest of it, and infrastructure. | ||
| So I think both can be true at the same time. | ||
| But I do think that the relationship at the major economic level is big and is serious. | ||
| Paul Salem is the Vice President for International Engagement with the Middle East Institute. | ||
| He also writes a Substack newsletter, Thinking Middle East. | ||
| You can find his insights there. | ||
| Thank you for sharing them with us this morning. | ||
| We appreciate it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Greta. | |
| That does it for today's Washington Journal. | ||
| Thank you all for watching. | ||
| And we'll be back tomorrow morning, 7 a.m. Eastern Time. | ||
|
unidentified
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And we are live this morning at the Center for Strategic and International Studies for a conversation with seven former U.S. trade representatives. | |
| They include Michael Froman, Susan Schwab, Mickey Cantor, and Carla Hills. | ||
| They're expected to focus on changes to the international trade system and potential paths forward for the U.S. and its partners. | ||
| We do expect this to get underway shortly. | ||
| Live coverage here on C-SPAN. | ||
| Talk about the week ahead in Congress. | ||
| Got one. | ||
| We've been talking in our first hour about a big week for Republicans. | ||
| Explain what they're trying to do. | ||
| Greta, I think this is probably one of the most consequential weeks for Republicans as they try to advance their reconciliation package. | ||
| This is the package that includes all of President Trump's top priorities from energy to the border and most specifically tax cuts. | ||
| And so we are seeing some real movement in the last 24 hours. | ||
| These next 48 hours will be hugely consequential because we're starting to see the very key committees that are responsible for big portions of this plan start to mark up their portions of this big tax and border and energy plan. | ||
| So ways and means, agriculture, energy and commerce, these three big committees will begin marking up and trying to advance through their committees their portions of this plan starting on Tuesday. | ||
| What have we learned from these committees in the last 24 hours? | ||
| Let's start with ways and means. | ||
| Yeah, Jason Smith unveiled portions of his package on Friday night. | ||
| You know, not the most opportune moment for reporters to be digging through this. | ||
| What we know is that there are some tax breaks. | ||
| There's tax breaks for families, for businesses. | ||
| But I think the most significant thing is what he left out, and that was what we call the SALT cap deduction. | ||
| What's happening is that Republicans from blue states, high-tech states, have been fighting to raise the cap level of what we call SALT, the state and local tax deduction. | ||
| This is the amount of money that families in these areas can deduct from their federal tax bill from their state and local taxes. | ||
| And so moderate Republicans have been fighting to raise that cap threshold from 10,000, the current level, significantly higher. | ||
| We've heard numbers talked about 30,000 thresholds. | ||
| We've heard Young Kim, a Republican from California, throw out a number as high as $62,000. | ||
| And so right now there's a significant fight in the party over how high they're going to raise the SALT cap. | ||
| And without doing anything, if they don't touch that cap, it's going to expire, correct? | ||
| That's right. | ||
| It will expire. | ||
| So then there would be a year. | ||
| Yes, they can go back to what they have. | ||
| That is the leverage that these SALT caucus Republicans have over the broader Republican caucus. | ||
| If nothing happens, if they don't come to some sort of agreement and there's going to be meetings starting today in the Speaker's office with the SALT, Critical SALT Caucus members, then that SALT cap will expire and it will revert back to how it always had been, which was sort of an unlimited amount that people could deduct from their federal tax from this state and local tax. | ||
| And so, you know, this is really a critical piece of Jason Smith's tax bill. | ||
| They're saving the hardest part for last. | ||
| Also not included, according to reporting this morning in this partial text released by the Ways and Means chair was the president's proposal for no taxes on tips. | ||
| And what does it say, if anything, right now on Social Security and what the President had said about Social Security? | ||
| That's right. | ||
| You point out that the President had listed a number of very popular priorities. | ||
| No tax on TIPS, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security benefits. | ||
| We don't know the answer of what's going to be in the final package because Jason Smith plans to unveil that later today. | ||
| And so there will be a large amendment to his original proposal that will answer a lot of these questions that we still have about what's in this package. | ||
| But if those provisions are left out, it's very likely, if those popular provisions are left out, it's very likely because They would cost a lot of money. | ||
| And Republicans are very concerned about ballooning the deficit even more. | ||
| These are provisions that could add to the deficit. | ||
| And so there's a real concern about what is the right balance: what stays in, what goes out of the package, in order to ensure that this Republican proposal is not hiking the deficit. | ||
| Well, I would like our viewers to join us for this conversation this morning. | ||
| We'll take your thoughts and what you're hearing from Scott Wong's reporting about this week in Congress. | ||
| Democrats dial in at 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001, and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can text as well at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Just include your first name, city, and state. | ||
| Scott Wong, the reporting this morning is that this unveiling by Ways and Means Committee is a so-called skinny version. | ||
| What does that mean? | ||
| Well, exactly what I just described: in that only the most basic elements of the proposal have been unveiled, and that Jason Smith realizes that there's still a number of issues that they need to hammer out today because they're on this such an aggressive timeline. | ||
| They're saving the toughest fights for today. | ||
| They're ready to mark up starting tomorrow. |