| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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Charter Communications supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | |
| As Mike said before, I happened to listen to him. | ||
| He was on C-SPAN 1. | ||
| That's a big upgrade, right? | ||
| But I've read about it in the history books. | ||
| I've seen the C-SPAN footage. | ||
| If it's a really good idea, present it in public view on C-SPAN. | ||
| Every single time I tuned in on TikTok or C-SPAN or YouTube or anything, there were tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people watching. | ||
|
unidentified
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I went home after the speech and I turned on C-SPAN. | |
| I was on C-SPAN just this week. | ||
| To the American people, now is the time to tune in to C-SPAN. | ||
| They had something $2.50 a gallon. | ||
|
unidentified
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I saw on television a little while ago in between my watching my great friends on C-SPAN. | |
| C-SPAN is televising this right now live. | ||
| So we are not just speaking to Los Angeles. | ||
| We are speaking to the country. | ||
| Brett Samuels is a 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
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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 as momentous, historic, etc. | ||
| You know, 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 that news conference? | ||
| A lot of topics for them to delve into. | ||
|
unidentified
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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. | ||
| You know, 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
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Yes, 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 Samuels, what is the White House saying about why the Middle East as his first foreign, his first trip there, back there of his second administration? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, it's certainly interesting. | |
| And we should note that his first foreign trip during his first term was also to Saudi Arabia and 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 that's 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
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Thank you. | |
| 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 griffs, 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. |