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|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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Priorities Brendan Duke and Paul Winfrey with the Economic Policy Innovation Center discuss Republican efforts in Congress to advance President Trump's domestic agenda, which could lead to changes to Social Security and other programs. | |
| And Democratic Ohio Congressman Greg Lansman, a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, talks about the GOP budget, potential spending cuts, and Trump administration policy. | ||
| Washington Journal starts now. | ||
| This is the Washington Journal for May the 13th. | ||
| This morning, the president is in Saudi Arabia on a multi-day trip in the Middle East with the goal of securing business investment deals for the United States. | ||
| Part of his day so far, including being formally received by the Saudi Crown Prince and a meet and greet with business executives. | ||
| This comes after the president and his team announcing a temporary trade deal with China with hopes that major trade differences between the two countries can be resolved in the 90-day period. | ||
| Those topics up for discussion as we start the program today. | ||
| And here's how you can comment on either the China deal that was announced or the president in the Middle East. | ||
| 202748-8000 for Democrats, 202748-8001 for Republicans, and Independence 202748-8002. | ||
| If you wish to text us this morning, you can do that too at 202-748-8003. | ||
| You can always post on our social media sites, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN. | ||
| You can do so on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| The LA Times highlights some of the details when it comes to the trip in the Middle East, adding that the president bringing with him a phalanx of business leaders for a Saudi U.S. Business Summit Tuesday. | ||
| That includes BlackRock Chief Executive Larry Fink, OpenAI's Sam Altman, Palantir Technologies Alex Karp, Tesla's Elon Musk, and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg. | ||
| The heads of other major firms, including IBM, Boeing, Qualcomm, and Alphabet, will also attend. | ||
| The White House Artificial Intelligence and Crypto Czar David Sachs also already in Riyadh. | ||
| This LA Times story saying that the president will attend that summit with Gulf leaders on Wednesday and then travel to Qatar on the same day, ending the trip in the United Arab Emirates. | ||
| It will be there where he will receive more gifts, the UAE, pledging $1.4 trillion in U.S. investment packages over the next decade. | ||
| That's from the LA Times. | ||
| The Associated Press follows a little bit more on that meeting that will take place on Wednesday as the president travels, saying that he will join a gathering of members in the Gulf Cooperation Council made up of Beiran, Kuwait, Oman, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates before leaving. | ||
| The story adding that Saudi Arabia and fellow OPEC plus nations have already helped their cause with Mr. Trump early in his second term by stepping up oil production. | ||
| Mr. Trump seeing cheap energy as a component to lowering costs and stemming inflation for Americans. | ||
| That's the aspect of the Saudi trip again. | ||
| This comes a day after the president announcing that U.S.-China tariff deal that the White House with several respondents with several of his key members responding to that, the BBC picking up, asking what does it mean? | ||
| At the end of the day, this is from the BBC saying that both the U.S. and China confirmed a reduction in tariffs they imposed on each other following that initial escalation by the president. | ||
| The deal involves both nations canceling some tariffs altogether and suspending others for 90 days by May the 14th. | ||
| And that result will be additional U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports. | ||
| That's the extra tariffs imposed on the recent standoff will fall from 145% to 30%, while recently hiked Chinese tariffs on some imports will fall from 125 to 10%. | ||
| So those two things happening in the last couple of days, the president in Saudi Arabia today, the announcement of the China, the temporary trade deal with China. | ||
| And you can comment on both of those. | ||
| Again, the lines 2027 8-8,000 for Democrats, Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Here is the president before leaving on that trip to the Middle East talking about the trade deal. | ||
| In addition, yesterday we achieved a total reset with China after productive talks in Geneva. | ||
| Both sides now agreed to reduce the tariffs imposed after April 2nd to 10% for 90 days as negotiators continue on the largest structural issues. | ||
| And I want to tell you that a couple of things. | ||
| First of all, that doesn't include the tariffs that are already on, that are our tariffs, and it doesn't include tariffs on cars, steel, aluminum, things such as that, or tariffs that may be imposed on pharmaceuticals because we want to bring the pharmaceutical businesses back to the United States, and they're already starting to come back now based on tariffs because they don't want to pay 25, 50, or 100 percent tariffs. | ||
| So they're moving them back to the United States. | ||
| I spoke to Tim Cook this morning, and he's going to, I think, even up his numbers, $500 billion. | ||
| He's going to be building a lot of plants in the United States for Apple. | ||
| And we look forward to that. | ||
| I really do look forward to that. | ||
| But the talks in Geneva were very friendly. | ||
| The relationship is very good. | ||
| We're not looking to hurt China. | ||
| China was being hurt very badly. | ||
| They were closing up factories. | ||
| They were having a lot of unrest. | ||
| And they were very happy to be able to do something with us. | ||
| And the relationship is very, very good. | ||
| I'll speak to President Xi maybe at the end of the week. | ||
| We have some other things we're doing. | ||
| Announcement was yesterday. | ||
| You can see that complete announcement on our website and our video app, Brenda in California Democrats line. | ||
| You're up first this morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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Now agree to reduce the tariffs. | |
| Hello. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| What I wanted to say was I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm just saying that I just listened to them talking about health care and the drug deal that they made. | ||
| And I really hope the Democrats don't drink the Kool-Aid because on its face, it sounds very good. | ||
| I work in healthcare, so I understand it a lot that by them increasing the costs in other countries, I know the president believes that they're going to drop the costs here, but you know, that's never happening. | ||
| I don't believe that they're going to drop the costs here. | ||
| They're just going to make other companies pay more, and the drug companies are going to make more. | ||
| And if you work for a drug company, that's probably a good deal. | ||
| But if you don't work for a drug company and work for a public health system like I do, it's going to be terrible. | ||
| I mean, we're already reeling based on some of the policies that he's trying to put in place. | ||
| Everybody's unsure about everything to do with Medicaid. | ||
| We have a bunch of people, at least in the city where I work, in San Francisco, that probably are going to lose their coverage. | ||
| Then what? | ||
| You can't have all these people out there with no coverage. | ||
| So then that's going to put a huge burden on all these individual cities to come up with money or system like we have healthy San Francisco to cover cases. | ||
| That's Brenda there in California, the BBC going further. | ||
| And as far as the trade deal that was announced yesterday, adding that what goods do the U.S. and China trade with each other? | ||
| They ask, in a word, lots. | ||
| In 2024, the biggest category of goods exported from the U.S. to China were soybeans, primarily used to feed China's estimated 440 million pigs. | ||
| The U.S. also sent pharmaceuticals and petroleum. | ||
| Meanwhile, China exported large volumes of electronics, computers, and toys. | ||
| The biggest category of U.S. imports from China is smartphones, accounting for 9% of the total. | ||
| A large proportion of these smartphones are Apple phones that are made in China. | ||
| However, the U.S. buys much more from China and sells $440 billion and then sells it at $145 billion, which is something that Mr. Trump has been long unhappy with. | ||
| His reasoning in part for introducing those tariffs and higher ones on countries which sell more to the United States than they buy is to encourage U.S. consumers to buy more American-made goods and increase the amount of tax raised in boosting manufacturing jobs. | ||
| Sarah joins us on our Republican line, either on the, again, on the trip to the Middle East that the president currently is on, this China trade deal announced yesterday. | ||
| Sarah from Maryland, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi there. | |
| My name is Sarah. | ||
| I'm one of the few Republican households in our state in Maryland. | ||
| And I wanted to let Republicans know in other states how dismayed we are at watching our representatives in other states feel free to cut hard-earned benefits of federal workers. | ||
| It's pretty shocking to watch people who receive benefits themselves from the federal government talk about federal workers as if they're not hardworking people who have sacrificed to help the United States move things forward. | ||
| And cutting benefits from people who've been working for 20, 30 years is atrocious. | ||
| Okay, so, but on either of the topics of China or the trip to the Middle East, do you have something to add to that? | ||
|
unidentified
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You know, I think everything is connected in terms of the economy. | |
| It seems like everybody's looking at it as one big, giant, big, beautiful bill. | ||
| And everything is connected. | ||
| So you can't talk about one thing in isolation from other things. | ||
| You want to raise money for certain things. | ||
| You want to cut for certain things. | ||
| Going after federal workers is atrocious. | ||
| And, you know, we're lost in them. | ||
| You made that point. | ||
| And Sarah in Maryland, other people reacting to the recently announced trade deal legislatively on Capitol Hill, at least. | ||
| This is Senator Mark Warner, Democrat from Virginia, saying that don't let them pull the wool over your eyes and call this trade, quote, deal a masterful stroke of genius. | ||
| This is just another day of chaos and an administration that's jerking around lives and livelihoods with absolutely no plan. | ||
| Senator Chuck Schumer saying, sadly, it looks like China once again got the better of Trump. | ||
| Another example of Mr. Trump's chaos. | ||
| He has one policy one day, one the next. | ||
| Who knows what it will be tomorrow? | ||
| It was yesterday that Senator Schumer himself took to the Senate floor to talk about the announced trade deal. | ||
| Here he is from the Senate floor yesterday. | ||
| On tariffs, early this morning, it was reported that Donald Trump caved to Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party with virtually nothing to show for American workers. | ||
| Donald Trump has changed his mind once again on his tariffs with a new deal with China to pause most tariffs for 90 days. | ||
| Sadly, it looks like China has once again gotten the better of Donald Trump. | ||
| They've hardly had to give up a thing. | ||
| It's another example of Donald Trump's chaos. | ||
| Trump has one policy for his tariffs on one day, a different policy the next day. | ||
| One day he's pretending to be a tough guy with China. | ||
| The next day he's caving to China and getting little, if anything, in return. | ||
| Who knows what Trump's tariff policy will be in the next 90 days? | ||
| If I were a business person, I wouldn't count on what he's doing or what he says today that might be. | ||
| That probably won't be in effect in the next week or the next three weeks. | ||
| And even under this deal, tariffs are still significantly higher than they were before Trump's Liberation Day. | ||
| Businesses will continue to struggle. | ||
| Supply chains will continue to experience chaos, strain, and unpredictability. | ||
| And again, this is only a 90-day pause. | ||
| It's impossible, as I said before, it's impossible to predict what will happen next, even within the 90-day period, because Donald Trump changes his mind so quickly. | ||
| Whatever seems in front of him at the moment, he goes for. | ||
| First, he's mad at China, puts in the tariffs. | ||
| Then he gets lots of blowback, backs off. | ||
| Where will he be tomorrow? | ||
| Who the heck knows? | ||
| But businesses can't count on any reliability, only on chaos. | ||
| Donald Trump's trade war is a lose, lose, lose for American families and businesses, leaving them with increased costs and more chaos. | ||
| Senator Schumer on the floor yesterday talking about that China trade deal that was announced. | ||
| You can comment on that on the lines. | ||
| You can also comment on the president's trip currently going on in the Middle East. | ||
| A couple of related stories in the papers to both those topics. | ||
| This is from the Wall Street Journal on their main headline, Trump Family Makes Middle East Its Business. | ||
| Elliot Brown and Stephen Kalin writing that Saudi Arabia, the United Emirates, and Qatar, the three countries on the president's itinerary, stand out for their embrace of Trump Incorporated. | ||
| In the past year, Trump-branded residential towers have been launched in Dubai and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and a developer in April unveiled a Trump luxury golf resort at a state-owned project in Qatar at an event featuring Eric Trump and a Qatari minister. | ||
| Also in the story, it says that when it comes to the efforts of Mr. Trump's related businesses and relatives, in this case, sovereign and royal funds from all three states have committed more than $3.5 billion to a private equity fund run by Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump's son-in-law. | ||
| Again, that story in the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| If you turn to the pages of the Washington Post, other outlets reporting on as well with the recent news of a possible gift of a Qatari plane by Qatar to the president saying that Mr. Trump saying that he would be a quote stupid person not to accept the gift of a $400 million Boeing 747-8 and called it a quote great gesture by Qatar. | ||
| The president said he intended to use the plane for a couple of years while his administration waits for a pair of Boeing planes to be completed to the strict standards of befitting Air Force One. | ||
| A White House official said it was premature to say how long upgrades to the Qatari plane would take. | ||
| The official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymities, like others interviewed, also declined to say when the Trump administration expects to take possession. | ||
| Again, those are some side stories to not only the announcement of the trade deal, but also to the plane, to the efforts on the plane, or at least questions about the plane. | ||
| The president did take a question about that before he took off for his Middle East trip. | ||
| This was at the White House. | ||
| This occurred yesterday. | ||
| I think Qatar, who has really, we've helped them a lot over the years in terms of security and safety. | ||
| I feel they, I think they, and very, very nicely, and I have a lot of respect for the leadership and for the leader, Qatar. | ||
| And I think they knew about it because they buy Boeings. | ||
| They buy a lot of Boeings. | ||
| And they knew about it. | ||
| And they said, we would like to do something. | ||
| And if we can get a 747 as a contribution to our defense department to use during a couple of years while they're building the other ones, I think that was a very nice gesture. | ||
| Now, I could be a stupid person and say, oh, no, we don't want a free plane. | ||
| We give free things out. | ||
| We'll take one too. | ||
| And it helps us out because, again, we're talking about we have 40-year-old aircraft. | ||
| The money we spend, the maintenance we spend on those planes to keep them tippy-top is astronomical. | ||
| You wouldn't even believe it. | ||
| So I think it's a great gesture from Qatar. | ||
| I appreciate it very much. | ||
| I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. | ||
| I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, no, we don't want a free, very expensive airplane. | ||
| But I thought it was a great gesture. | ||
| And I think it was a gesture because of the fact that we have helped and continue to, we will continue to. | ||
| All of those countries, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, and others, we keep them safe. | ||
| If it wasn't for us, they probably wouldn't exist right now. | ||
| And I think this was just a gesture of good faith. | ||
| And I don't get it. | ||
| Someday it'll be like Ronald Reagan. | ||
| They decommission them. | ||
| You know, they get to a certain age. | ||
| They decommission them. | ||
| It'll go to my library. | ||
| They're talking about going to my library in years out. | ||
| But I thought it was a great gesture. | ||
| And it's something that was done by Ronald Reagan. | ||
| They actually decommissioned the plane and he put it in his library. | ||
| And it actually has made the library, I think a Boeing 707. | ||
| It's actually made the library more successful. | ||
| So it was good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And then do you plan to use the plane after you leave office? | |
| No, I don't. | ||
| No. | ||
| It would go directly to the library after I leave office. | ||
| I wouldn't be using it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| Here's Joshua in Illinois, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi there, Pedro. | |
| Yes, I'm an import and a customs professional, and I handle LCL imports, which are pallets for small business that are consolidated into 20-foot and 40-foot containers. | ||
| How do you expect small businesses to make any type of business plan within 90 days? | ||
| This is complete nonsense. | ||
| Every time you discuss or debate this topic with anybody in the MAGA movement, they start talking about using tariffs to pay their income taxes, which is nonsense. | ||
| It's complete absurdity. | ||
| Then they're also talking about bringing factories home in this last clip you talked about with Donald Trump. | ||
| If you're removing tariffs and not letting no tariffs stay in place, why would American factories bring anything home? | ||
|
unidentified
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They expect Donald Trump to change his tariff plan. | |
| I would just also recommend listening to the Fort Director from LA, Mr. Gene Saraka, talked about this deal having no effect on the bottom of his imports coming in for this year. | ||
| It's actually going to set us back. | ||
| And lastly, accepting a plane for $400 million, how do you know in the future that any decision he makes doesn't involve him putting something in his pocket? | ||
| Well, back to the first topic real quick, as far as the tariff policy, is it the idea of tariffs overall, or is it the inconsistency of the administration on the tariff policy that's that's the more troublesome for you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, tariffs are complicated. | |
| You know, when you make a trade agreement, they're supposed to be passed by legislative bodies because there's multiple stakeholders involved. | ||
| So when you have one person, you know, in this place, Trump, trying to pass a tariff thing, he's only thinking of one or two people enriching his billionaire friends while everybody else suffers. | ||
| And we're talking about small businesses here. | ||
| People that are importing pallets, they're putting things, they're doing their inventory for 30 days, maybe 60 days at the most. | ||
| There's a two-week transit time from China. | ||
| Do you think these businesses are going to be able to make any type of prediction of what their costs are? | ||
| In our business, we have something called landing costs. | ||
| That's the cost of duties, as well as any other logistic charges that you have to pay when it gets here. | ||
| These people do not understand it. | ||
| And, you know, it's hard to talk to anyone in a magnet. | ||
| They don't get anything about tariffs, and they won't pick up a book or read anything outside of what they're being fed by the Republican Congress or their president. | ||
| This president has no idea. | ||
| I mean, every time you hear him talk, he talks about a deficit like he's losing money, but you're getting products in exchange for it. | ||
| We're not spending money. | ||
| Got it, got it, got it, got it. | ||
| Yeah, that's Joshua in Illinois. | ||
| Some other legislators reacting to the announcement yesterday that you heard about Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, saying Donald Trump's tariff chaos is shrinking the economy, jeopardizing American savings and raising prices. | ||
| And for what? | ||
| He just caved to Xi Jinping. | ||
| Congress needs to step up now and stop Mr. Trump playing red light, green light with tariffs. | ||
| Some other responses, too. | ||
| This is Steve Scalise. | ||
| It's a small print. | ||
| Apologies for that saying, but President Trump continues to deliver on his promises. | ||
| The latest developments as a trade deal with China is huge for American consumers and businesses. | ||
| Now, Republicans in Congress must lock in Mr. Trump's tax cuts to fully unleash our economy and prevent a tax hike from hitting families. | ||
| Texter this morning, Joe from Big Rapids, Michigan, giving his thoughts saying it's simple. | ||
| If Mr. Trump wants to keep the jumbo jet, then he should give up his presidency. | ||
| Adding that to the mix, Elise Stefanik, Republican from New York, saying that the president's trip, or sorry, President Trump is successfully restructuring global trade to put America first by standing up to communist China and so-called economic, quote, experts who predicted doomsday scenarios. | ||
| President Trump's vision, work ethic, and negotiation strategy are preventing, and it goes on from there. | ||
| If you're interested in reading it on X, it was Dan Goldman, the New York Democrat himself on the shows yesterday talking about the trade deal that was announced. | ||
| Here are some of his thoughts about the China announcement. | ||
| We got a lot of turmoil. | ||
| We had a lot of destroyed 401ks. | ||
| We had a lot of small businesses importing goods from China that are on the brink or have gone out of business and all to just go back to where we were. | ||
| And in fact, it's not even where we were, John. | ||
| It's still a 30% tariff, which is a tax that will be passed through to the consumers. | ||
| I represent Manhattan's historic China attempt. | ||
| And the small businesses there operate on very, very small margins. | ||
| They are not big box department stores that can weather several months of higher prices. | ||
| They are, some of them have gone out of business, and others have suffered from the volatility of the stock market. | ||
| And it's all for nothing. | ||
| We are back where we were before all of this chaos, all of this turmoil. | ||
| And it is just a reflection that there's no plan here. | ||
| There's no objective. | ||
| Nothing is actually going to come from this other than continued higher prices and uncertainty, instability, and a pullback in our economy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
30% better than 145%, though, in your mind? | |
| Well, yes, of course. | ||
| If 145% is completely untenable. | ||
| But again, this is all just a charade. | ||
| There's no objective to this. | ||
| You are not going to go back to the 1950s with our economy. | ||
| Our economy is going to move forward. | ||
| There's going to be technological improvements. | ||
| We're not going to go back to dirty coal as the solution to everything. | ||
| And the sooner we realize that what we need to do with our economy is right-size it and adjust the jobs to the new technology that's out there, the better off we're going to be. | ||
| We're never going to onshore all of the old manufacturing. | ||
| And even if we do, that's going to take years. | ||
| So the whole ostensible purpose of this makes no sense at all because it's just impractical. | ||
| And instead, it's just Donald Trump's ego and wanting to fight with Xi Jinping and show that he's bigger until he realizes he got his bluff called and he has nowhere to go. | ||
| And so then he just caves and goes back. | ||
| Representative Dan Goldman from New York commenting on the announced trade deal with China. | ||
| You can comment on it as well or the president's trip to the Middle East. | ||
| Sandy and Arizona Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| I just, this whole thing is just ridiculous. | ||
| We're out here in Arizona and he's talking about how prices are dropping and it's just horrible. | ||
| Our eggs are up to $7.99 a dozen. | ||
| And now they've started selling little miniature eggs for a dozen of $3.99. | ||
| And those are gone very quickly. | ||
| Who wants a little tiny egg? | ||
| And we've had a restaurant that has several restaurants around the valley called On the Border. | ||
| They have had to close all their stores because of what Trump is doing. | ||
| It's just horrible. | ||
| He is such a liar. | ||
| And I'm just, I am so sick of what he's doing to our United States. | ||
| And it's just scorbo. | ||
| I was watching this thing over in Saudi Arabia where a couple of those men came up to salute the Saudi Arabia president, I guess. | ||
| And they just ignored Trump. | ||
| And I thought that was just wonderful. | ||
| The president and the Saudi Crown Prince there is earlier this morning greeting not only the Crown Prince but the president at various stages as part of the formal travel, the first stop in this Middle East trip. | ||
| As you look at that, we'll hear from Dave, Independent Line. | ||
| He's in Delaware. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| A few points about what's going on. | ||
| First, I think it is a complete embarrassment that we would even consider taking a plane from Qatar. | ||
| All the Emirates and Gulf states are autocratic. | ||
| Why would we want to take a plane from them? | ||
| We can afford our own plane. | ||
| Buy one from American Airlines that they already have in service. | ||
| Buy one from Delta, from any airline. | ||
| I think it's ridiculous that we would take one from another government. | ||
| Second, President Trump is, I think, what you would call an amoral person. | ||
| He is going to promote his own interests, but in the same sense, he's amoral about American policy. | ||
| And I think that could benefit us in some ways. | ||
| For example, he negotiated directly with Hamas for the release of one of the American hostages. | ||
| If Israel's not going to make any progress with Hamas, good on him for doing that and getting an American home. | ||
| He's visiting the Gulf, not visiting Israel on this trip. | ||
| I think that's good. | ||
| It sends a message to Israel that we're not going to give them unconditional backing. | ||
| So, in that sense, I think he's promoting American interests just like he would promote his own. | ||
| Okay, let's hear from Ralph in Charlottesville, Virginia, Republican line. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, how are you doing, sir? | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| The CNN is on this administration. | ||
| They're never going to get off. | ||
| They're never going to agree to anything. | ||
| They're always citing bad news, the market, the stock market, and everything else. | ||
| They're never going to do anything to help the Republican Party along to accomplish its goals. | ||
| And that's just the way and the take of the whole thing. | ||
| So, CNN, you have to get off of it and accept it. | ||
| Donald Trump is the president of the United States, and he is doing an excellent job. | ||
| Well, specifically when it comes to either the China trade deal or the trip in the Middle East, what do you think of those things and the president's performance there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think he should have. | |
| He has tested the waters, and he knows what's going on now and what happens. | ||
| The stock market sort of plundered down a little bit, but he's trying to get a trade deal with China, and he's not there yet to what we really need, but we're still 20% above them now as far as the net trade. | ||
| And he will get it accomplished if they'll just let him do the job. | ||
| Okay, Charles is next, also on our line for Republicans. | ||
| He's in North Carolina. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, yes. | |
| I just want to let you know that as an American and Republican, that our great nation is honored by the other nation when we have a great leader to come forth and look at the world as a whole. | ||
| Yes, the world needs us. | ||
| We need the world. | ||
| But we need to get our people back to work, get our people where they can save money and get their children through school. | ||
| And I just thank God that we live in a great nation, that we see everything that's going on and nothing's here. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| So, Caller, before you go, you said there was a need to see the world as a whole. | ||
| The president talked about China yesterday. | ||
| He's in the Middle East today. | ||
| What do you think of those things? | ||
| And how do you think that benefits the United States? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, if you go back a long time ago when the United States owned the oil rigs in Saudi Arabia in the Mideast, the United States gave them back to the countries. | |
| Those countries have not forgot it, but we as Americans work with people. | ||
| That's just like into the Second World War. | ||
| Russia came into Germany to stay. | ||
| The United States came in and rebuilt and real. | ||
| So we, as a nation, need the country again, but they need us more than we need them. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Charles there in North Carolina, finishing off this round of calls, taking a look at not only the trade deal announced, but also the president traveling in the Middle East. | ||
| We will change gears and invite you to comment on those things and others in the worlds of politics when it comes to our open forum segment. | ||
| Here's how you can participate if you want to make your comments there. | ||
| 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents. | ||
| 202-748-8002. | ||
| Again, open forum is you can comment on the topics we just talked about if you want to still comment on either China or the Middle East trip or things related to that, other matters in politics as well. | ||
| If you want to make your thoughts there known, including what the caller had brought up concerning that Israeli-American hostage, Eden Alexander Hamas releasing him from Gaza, paving the way for a possible return to ceasefire talks for the war-torn enclave, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Yetana, who said Alexander's freedom had been won through military action and pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump. | ||
| Israelis gathered along a roadside at dusk on May the 12th to cheer as an eight-vehicle convoy brought Alexander, the last American held by the Islamic militant group, to a military base in the southern city of Rheem, not far from the Gaza border. | ||
| It was during his statements yesterday at the White House, the president also talking about this latest development concerning Eden Alexander. | ||
| Here's the president from yesterday. | ||
| Very happy to announce that Eden Alexander, an American citizen who, until recently, most thought was no longer living, thought was dead, is going to be released in about two hours, actually. | ||
| And he's going to be released before the eyes of Steve Witkoff, who has done a fantastic job. | ||
| I just, you know, I know a lot of people, they have a lot of talent. | ||
| I know Steve had a lot of talent. | ||
| But I know a lot of people with a lot of talent, but I had there's one that I thought had a special way about him, special personality, aside from being a good dealmaker. | ||
| Had a special way about him, and it was Steve. | ||
| Knew very little about the subject matter, who does, but he learned it in about two hours. | ||
| And he's been fantastic. | ||
| So I want to just thank Steve. | ||
| But they're going to be releasing Edon in about two hours from now, or sometime today, let's say. | ||
| And again, they thought he was dead just a short while ago. | ||
| His parents are so happy. | ||
| They're so happy. | ||
| So it's, as you know, Eden's the only American citizen who's captured and held hostage by Hamas since October 7th, 2023. | ||
| And he's coming home to his parents, which is really great news. | ||
| I mean, to me, it's big news. | ||
| They thought he was dead. | ||
| Again, that was the president yesterday. | ||
| The Wall Street Journal's analysis of the event from yesterday adds this thing. | ||
| The U.S. deal also brought domestic complications for the Israeli prime minister. | ||
| Many Israelis felt it showed Netanyahu wasn't doing enough to free hostages. | ||
| On the right, there were fears that Netanyahu would cave to U.S. pressure to sign a broader deal that would end the war before Israel had defeated Hamas. | ||
| That's the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| Again, you can bring that into open forum if you wish. | ||
| 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Tim on our independent line, he's in Maine. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Yes, thank you for ceasefire. | ||
| I'd like to engage you in some constructive criticism. | ||
| You had a gentleman on Sunday from Breitbart News who, in his interview, emphatically stated that only citizens afford a due process, and that is just blatantly false in the Constitution. | ||
| And your moderator didn't call him out on that. | ||
| And I think when we're talking about things as important as the Constitution, you really have to call these people out on such things. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Tim there in Maine. | ||
| Again, if you comment on an interview that you've seen, you can do that as well. | ||
| Again, call the lines that best represent you. | ||
| A little bit more from the Washington Post this morning. | ||
| This is their lead editorial talking about trade deal, the trade announcement from yesterday, saying that 90-day pause, by the way, which is meant to give Washington and Beijing a chance to negotiate a lasting trade agreement, does little to relieve the paralyzing uncertainty that is freezing business investment and causing financial markets to worry about tariff-induced stagflation. | ||
| That's inflation coupled with an economic slowdown. | ||
| The editorial from the Washington Post editor saying the uncertainty derives largely from the lack of any coherent policy to guide the Trump administration's trade warfare actions are taken haphazardly and without warning. | ||
| And just as the United States and China were announcing the temporary deal, for instance, Mr. Trump was also declaring that pharmaceutical companies would soon no longer be able to charge higher prices for their drugs in the United States than that they charge overseas. | ||
| Again, those one final bit about that from the Washington Post editors this morning. | ||
| That cost of drugs, though, story picked up by the Washington Times. | ||
| This is the headline, Kerry Pickett writing under that headline saying that the policy that was announced yesterday, in which the president resurrected his most favored nation policy, promising that he would cut pharmaceutical drug prices by 30% to 80%. | ||
| The policy pegs the price for a drug in the U.S. to the lowest rate charged for the same medicine in another part of the world. | ||
| Mr. Trump signed an executive order that established that the U.S. will pay prescription drug prices based on the lowest cost in another country. | ||
| He implemented the plan through an executive order for the health secretary to establish a mechanism for Americans to buy drugs directly from manufacturers at the most favored nation price, bypassing intermediaries. | ||
| That's the Washington Times if you want to pick up that story there. | ||
| Bobby in St. Paul, Minnesota, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I want to comment on the Melendez brothers. | ||
| They're having a hearing, I believe, just either today or this week. | ||
| And for those who are not quite sure what it's about, the Melendes brothers killed their parents in cold blood. | ||
| And apparently the father was sexually abusing the sons at that time. | ||
| And Mark Gurkos, I think that's the way you pronounce it, is a defense lawyer that's the leader of the band on this thing. | ||
| So I'm pretty much addressing this point to him. | ||
| I don't think they should see the light of day outside of prison. | ||
| And the reason is this. | ||
| When they came in and they premeditated this, they got the guns or guns, came in, shot the father, killed the father, shot the mother. | ||
| But the mother was still alive, and they went back out. | ||
| And at that moment in time, maybe some rational thoughts could have came in. | ||
| And then the mother was, as I said, still alive. | ||
| Come back in and say, hey, look, you know, look what we just did. | ||
| Let's call 911 and save our mother, the woman that brought us into this world. | ||
| And of course, no, we can't do that because she's a witness. | ||
| So they blew her away. | ||
| And that's the reason why I don't think they should have any type of parole or whatever they're shooting for at this particular time. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Okay, Bobby there in Minnesota giving us his thoughts this morning. | ||
| Let's hear from the that's Bobby there in Minnesota. | ||
| Again, the numbers on this open forum, 202748, 8,000. | ||
| For Democrats, 202-748-8,000. | ||
| One for Republicans. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8,000. | ||
| To Pat Fallon, a Republican there posting on the trade deal that was made yesterday, saying that the president's tariffs are giving the U.S. new leverage to use against China. | ||
| Going on to say this is a huge win for U.S. economic interests and our national security, he adds, as well as Sue Whiting texting us this morning, which you can do if you want at 2027-488003. | ||
| This is on an aspect of the China trade deal saying that do we really need to work 80 hours a week in order to have the latest high-tech gadgets, often made in China, shipped directly to our door. | ||
| Michigan, up next, this is from Sterling Heights on our Independent Line. | ||
| Ruth, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, this has to do with a lot of savings of millions to billions of dollars. | |
| You're talking about the cost of pharmaceutical medicines, which I'm a senior citizen, so it does affect me. | ||
| That's billions of dollars of savings. | ||
| Now, also about the aircraft that Saudi Arabia wants to give Trump: $480 million. | ||
| You mean to tell me that we have our presidents, Democrat presidents, Republican presidents, flying in an aircraft that's 40 years old? | ||
| Do you know that that thing could actually break down when they're up there in the sky? | ||
| And then what do you do when half the news media that are also on that aircraft, do you think they're going to survive? | ||
| Anybody that's in that aircraft ain't going to survive. | ||
| So it's time and say thank you very much, really, to Saudi Arabia. | ||
| That's a savings of $4,380 million. | ||
| So if Congress doesn't approve it, I'd have to question who in the heck is in Congress. | ||
| And yes, we do have a lot of people in the United States that are not friendly with us. | ||
| Our borders were open. | ||
| You seem to forget how many people came through those borders. | ||
| And they were not friendly people. | ||
| When you have drug cartels and everything, we really have to open our eyes. | ||
| And it's time that the Democrats, Republicans, Independents all open their eyes and start working for their country instead of for themselves and their own party. | ||
| Okay, that's Ruth there in Michigan. | ||
| Let's hear from James in Virginia, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, sir. | |
| I just wanted to say this morning, I can't understand this president Trump over there trying to make all these deals for his own good and his family. | ||
| And the Americans don't understand this. | ||
| And also, we're suffering here in the United States. | ||
| And the prices of groceries, department stores, and at the gas stations is outrageous. | ||
| And his promise to become president was he's going to change all these, do all these things for the American people. | ||
| He hasn't done anything. | ||
| He's over there fitting his pockets right now for his family right now and making deals. | ||
| And also, when would we stop this? | ||
| They always talk about the blame game, but Joe Biden did this. | ||
| Joe Biden did this. | ||
| I wouldn't get on a plane right now because they fired everybody in the FAAs and did all this bad stuff. | ||
| And now we're paying for it. | ||
| And it doesn't make any sense for the American people to keep on. | ||
| Okay, James there in Virginia, the president in Saudi Arabia today and part of a summit there with business leaders. | ||
| The next stage of his visit there. | ||
| Earlier on, you saw him depart the plane being created by the Saudi Crown Prince, now engaged in that meeting, a dinner plan for later on today, all part of the president's Middle East trip. | ||
| Stay close to C-SPAN for more on that, as we've been talking about it. | ||
| And you can comment on it as part of the open forum if you wish. | ||
| This is Janice, Janice in North Carolina, Republican line. | ||
| Hi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I'm about to forget what I was going to say, but a lot of them Democrats need to sit down and shut their mouth. | ||
| Look at the years they're in office and what they do. | ||
| Not a thing for me. | ||
| And another thing, I don't know who it was that said something about we should turn against Israel. | ||
| If that's one of our congressmen, he needs to step down, go back to church, and read his Bible, what God says about countries that turn against Israel. | ||
| He better stay on their hands and knees and pray the United States will stand behind Israel. | ||
| That's all I had to say. | ||
| Mary is up next in Washington State, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, good morning. | |
| I'm kind of a sore throat. | ||
| I mean, but I have a couple questions. | ||
| How are you doing? | ||
| I can't get my voice up, but there's a few things I wanted to bring to your attention that was on the other day, and I didn't get on with the meme coins and the bitcoins and all that. | ||
| How are people going to get taxed? | ||
| Because they don't even know, they're not going to know what people are using those for. | ||
| And the other thing, I didn't think that they were supposed to have the bedprints or have anything to do with them since Jaham, whatever the man was that they cut up or whatever years ago. | ||
| And then on the other channel, before I turned you on, I said something about President Trump was supposed to give so many chips to the Emirate. | ||
| And I don't know if he's going to be, if they were saying something like China, but I don't pay attention to a lot of this stuff. | ||
| But I just wanted to know the other thing I thought of, and I'm not going to say anything bad about anybody because it's not helping anybody if we're all separated. | ||
| But the one thing is, you know, back in 83, they put money away, even if they took 5% of the Congress or all of the people and put it away and it drew interest because they know who to draw from. | ||
| And I understand because it's like I can wake up in the morning and one thing's going on, and then by the time I'm eating dinner, it's another thing. | ||
| It's totally turned around. | ||
| But I would think if they just took 5%, because they don't work every day. | ||
| And the thing is, I wish the Congress and the Senate and all of the people would get together. | ||
| And the one other thing, and this is the last thing, Pedro, thank you for having me. | ||
| I cannot stand the word oligarch. | ||
| That's Russian, and it drives me nuts. | ||
| We're all Americans, and I just still don't understand how I think it's muse, whatever the Tesla direct guy is. | ||
| I just can't think of it because I'm getting over a cold. | ||
| But does he have to pay tips? | ||
| I mean, not tips. | ||
| Does he have to pay taxes? | ||
| Okay, let's hear from Joe. | ||
| Joe in D.C., Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I just want to encourage everybody to really look critically and think critically about the statistics that the Trump administration is using to kind of tout their accomplishments in these first 100 days. | ||
| And, you know, I saw an article the other day about how the Trump administration released this graphic about how illegal border crossings were down like 95% in the first week of the administration. | ||
| And first of all, the downward trend in border crossings started last summer when Biden signed an executive order that related the restrictions. | ||
| And, you know, Trump's taken the credit for a lot of things that Biden has done, and that's just one of them. | ||
| But then the other thing is that just on the statistics side of it, the graphic that they showed, if you look at the data, they compared the they used that 95% by comparing the total number of encounters during the last seven days of Biden's administration with the average number of encounters from the first seven days of Trump's administration. | ||
| So they're comparing a total amount with an average, first of all, which is just like, it's just a lie. | ||
| I mean, it's not that the numbers aren't a lie, but it's a misleading representation of the numbers, right? | ||
| So just everybody's got to really look at these numbers, right? | ||
| And then the other thing is that when the first thing that Trump did as far as the immigration on day one was shut down the CBT app that allowed people to apply for legal entry into the United States. | ||
| So, you know, if you people want people, you know, I think the number one thing I hear conservatives saying when they call in about border crossings is if you want to come here, do it legally. | ||
| Well, Trump's shut down the best, you know, kind of the people's best chance of applying for legal citizenship, applying for asylum. | ||
| So, you know, I don't say it doesn't feel like they want people to come here illegally. | ||
| It feels like they don't, you know, they, meaning conservatives and Republicans, don't want immigrants coming here at all because they just shut down a pathway for legal citizenship. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| You know, look out for the way that people manipulate statistics. | ||
| Okay, Joe in D.C., this is Mary Ann in Virginia, Republican line on this open forum. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi, good morning. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I just want to say that I voted for Trump twice, the first time when he ran for office, and obviously the second time. | ||
| And while I still like the stuff that he's doing for the country, I have to admit there have been times where I cringe, especially when moments when he might say something that just sounds ridiculous. | ||
| And the other thing is that I wish that they would just move on and stop saying Joe Biden did this badly in Joe Biden because it's already done. | ||
| He already won. | ||
| He got the majority vote. | ||
| He got the electoral vote. | ||
| And there's really no need anymore to keep referring back to the past administration because it's done. | ||
| That's all I have to say. | ||
| Mary Ann there in Virginia on this open forum. | ||
| Let's hear from Bill in Pennsylvania, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hello. | ||
| I just wanted to ask a question of the American people, the President, the Congress. | ||
| And my question is, why don't the lives of Palestinians matter? | ||
|
unidentified
|
And the reason I ask that question is because so little attention is given to the horrendous situation in Gaza where people are starving, have been starving, are dying. | |
| Why don't they matter? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Bill there in Pennsylvania calling on this open forum. | ||
| And you can do the same for the next several minutes if you wish, call the line that best represents you. | ||
| One of the things to watch out for this week in three specific committees in the House side is work on the reconciliation bill. | ||
| This is part of the President's domestic package that deals with a lot of issues from immigration to tax cuts. | ||
| One of those committees is the Ways and Means Committee of the Tax Rioting Committee. | ||
| They'll debate and vote on their 2025 budget package later on today. | ||
| That will be 2:30 in the afternoon. | ||
| Some of those provisions, you'll remember, include making the 2017 tax cuts put in place under the first Trump administration permanent. | ||
| It would adjust the tax code and the child tax credit as well. | ||
| The legislation might also include some tax increases. | ||
| Those amendment votes are expected late into the evening. | ||
| It's part of the process. | ||
| And if you want to watch it happen as it plays out, you can start watching at 2:30 this afternoon live on C-SPAN 3. | ||
| Follow along on our app and c-span.org as well if you're interested in how this so-called reconciliation bill plays out. | ||
| One of the topics related to that was what happens to Medicaid funding as part of this effort. | ||
| The Washington Post takes a look at how seniors particularly could be affected. | ||
| This is the headline: potential Medicaid cuts could threaten those care, saying that the quote provider tax remains one of the top targets for drastically reducing federal spending to achieve major budget cuts. | ||
| House Republicans apparently are backing away from other consequential and far-reaching proposals for Medicaid. | ||
| And several lawmakers unveiled that language Sunday, saying they would restrict the ability of state officials to tax health care providers such as nursing homes and return the revenue to them as higher payments for Medicaid services. | ||
| The maneuver allows states to collect more in federal matching funding. | ||
| We'll have a roundtable discussion on various aspects of the reconciliation bill, including what happens to Medicaid and potentially what could happen to Medicaid. | ||
| That will be in our next segment in about less than 10 minutes from now. | ||
| Let's hear from Michael. | ||
| Michael is in Wisconsin, Democrats line. | ||
| Hello, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for taking my call. | |
| I'd love to know what people with half a functioning brain think Trump is getting in return for that big airplane, that big $40 million or $400 million airplane. | ||
| You know, the Saudis gave his son-in-law $2 billion to, you know, for a fund of his that he, a hedge fund of his, something that he has no skill whatsoever in running their, they're giving them all these gifts for a reason. | ||
| He's selling out this country behind our backs. | ||
| And we have to keep in mind that this man is a convicted felon. | ||
| So he's doing all this criminal, all these criminal things while he's in office. | ||
| And people are sitting back going, oh, he's looking out for Americans. | ||
| No, he's not looking out for Americans. | ||
| He's looking out for himself and his family, and he's lying in his pockets. | ||
| And when he gets done with this whole ordeal, this whole grift that they got going on, they will be billions and billions of dollars richer. | ||
| And I think a lot of the money that's going into this Bitcoin thing that he's got is coming from all these foreign countries. | ||
| And they're getting something in return. | ||
| And that's something I think may be a whole lot of gifts in the way of our military equipment and in the way of our information because everyone that he put into all these positions in his cabinet are saying nothing to stop him from doing all these illegal things. | ||
| They're in it with him. | ||
| They're all in on the grip. | ||
| So people better wake up and pay attention. | ||
| This man is selling us out. | ||
| From Florida Independent Line, we will hear from Tammy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hello. | ||
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I was directing towards the woman earlier who was calling about the plane. | ||
| The issue with the plane is one, they actually rebuilt Air Force One to Air Force Two during Trump's last administration. | ||
| So they have a new plane. | ||
| Number two, it goes with the caller who just came in. | ||
| The issue over the plane is this is a direct gift from the Saudi government to Donald J. Trump. | ||
| He gets to keep it when he leaves office. | ||
| Now, the Republicans got crazy upset over Biden potentially getting favorable terms and employment in exchange for meetings with his father. | ||
| At the time, he wasn't even a member of the government. | ||
| And they were talking about maybe a couple million dollars. | ||
| But it was this huge thing. | ||
| It went through months of Congress. | ||
| He wanted to throw him in jail. | ||
| But now Trump is taking at least a billion dollars personally and then $2.2 billion for his son, Kushner. | ||
| And nobody cares about that. | ||
| So for the Republicans to say anything about the Democrats is ridiculous. | ||
| From Jeff Next in Alabama, Republican line. | ||
| Oh, he's gone. | ||
| You can still call in if you wish to give your comments in the last couple moments of the open forum that we have together. | ||
| Let's try Kim. | ||
| Kim in Ohio. | ||
| Republican line, you are on. | ||
| Go ahead, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just have comments to the guy from Wisconsin that is stating that Trump is lining his pockets. | ||
| I don't know if he realizes that Trump was worth less after his first term than what he was before he started. | ||
| And I don't know where he gets off thinking all this stuff when Biden and Obama are millionaires after their term. | ||
| He needs to wake up. | ||
| Was he here during Trump's first term? | ||
| How much did Trump rip us off? | ||
| How much did he line his pockets? | ||
| How dumb people can be. | ||
| That's all I have to say to him. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| It was yesterday that the head of the Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the president, talking about the drug pricing order, the head of the secretary of HHS following up with that and the significance of the executive order signed by the president. | ||
| Here's RFK Jr. from yesterday. | ||
| We have 4.2% of the world's population. | ||
| Our country represents 75% of the revenues for pharmaceutical companies. | ||
| We spend in our country $1,126 per capita on drugs. | ||
| In Britain, they spend about $240. | ||
| They spend one-fifth of what we do. | ||
| And this is true across Europe. | ||
| And this, and the drug companies, Europeans, if you ask them, it made no sense what they were saying. | ||
| America has to pay for this innovation or it's not going to happen. | ||
| President Trump is saying to our European partners is you've got to raise the amount that you're paying for those drugs and pay for your share of the innovation. | ||
| That the United States is no longer subsidizing that. | ||
| If the Europeans raise the price of their drugs by just 20%, that is $10 trillion. | ||
| That can be spent on innovation. | ||
| And the health of all people all across the globe is going to increase because we're going to have better products. | ||
| So I'm just so grateful to be here today. | ||
| I never thought that this would happen in my lifetime. | ||
| I have a couple of kids who are Democrats, big Bernie Sanders fans. | ||
| And when I told them that this was going to happen, they had tears in their eyes because they thought this is never going to happen in our lifetime. | ||
| And we finally have a president who's willing to stand up for the American people. | ||
| Let's hear one more call. | ||
| This will be from Beverly, Beverly and Wyoming, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning, everybody. | ||
| And everybody's getting fooled. | ||
| But that's okay. | ||
| Everybody learns from it. | ||
| Trump, he has been greedy, selfish, and deceiving. | ||
| And I don't like a Trump like that. | ||
| I meant a president like that. | ||
| Dividing people is so evil. | ||
| And they just go with it. | ||
| The people need to know that they're loved and start taking care of the children and forget about all of our bad habits and start doing something for the children, like making schools safe for them and making the seniors, or having the seniors safe. | ||
| Everybody needs to be safe, but they lost common sense. | ||
| Get Geronimo's horse and see the real truth. | ||
| Okay, Beverly in Wyoming, last call. | ||
| Thank you for those of you who participated. | ||
| Several guests joining us throughout the course of the morning at 9 o'clock Eastern this morning. | ||
| We'll be joined by Democratic Representative Greg Landsman. | ||
| He's a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, one of those committees that are in charge of making decisions, especially when it comes to energy investments and Medicaid funding. | ||
| We'll talk with him about that effort. | ||
| About that reconciliation bill, we'll take a deep dive into the Republican efforts to advance President Trump's domestic agenda, including investments and tax cuts. | ||
| Two guests joining us for that, Brendan Duke from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, and then Paul Winfrey of the Economic Policy Innovation Center. | ||
| That conversation coming up on Washington Journal. | ||
| Ernest Cuneo played Ivy League football at Columbia University and was in the old Brooklyn Dodgers NFL franchise before becoming a city hall lawyer and a brain trust aide to President Franklin Roosevelt. | ||
| While on the payroll of national radio columnist Walter Winchell, Cuneo mingled with the famous and powerful, but his status as a spy remained a secret, hiding in plain sight. | ||
| All of this is the way Hanover Square Press introduces readers to Thomas Mayer's book, The Invisible Spy. | ||
| Mayer, a graduate of Fordham and Columbia, is an author and a television producer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Author Thomas Mayer with his book, The Invisible Spy, Churchill's Rockefeller Center Spy America's First Secret Agent of World War II. | |
| On this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb. | ||
| BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| As Mike said before, I happened to listen to him. | ||
| He was on C-SPAN 1. | ||
| That's a big upgrade, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
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
|
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 I saw on television a little while ago in between my watching my great friends on C-SPAN. | ||
|
unidentified
|
C-SPAN is televising this right now live. | |
| So we are not just speaking to Los Angeles. | ||
| We are speaking to the country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There are many ways to listen to C-SPAN radio anytime, anywhere. | |
| In the Washington, D.C. area, listen on 90.1 FM. | ||
| Use our free C-SPAN Now app or go online to c-SPAN.org slash radio on SiriusXM Radio on channel 455, the Tune-In app, and on your smart speaker by simply saying, play C-SPAN Radio. | ||
| Hear our live call-in program, Washington Journal, daily at 7 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| Listen to House and Senate proceedings, committee hearings, news conferences, and other public affairs events live throughout the day. | ||
| And for the best way to hear what's happening in Washington with fast-paced reports, live interviews, and analysis of the day. | ||
| Catch Washington today, weekdays at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern. | ||
| Listen to C-SPAN programs on C-SPAN Radio anytime, anywhere. | ||
| C-SPAN. | ||
| Democracy unfiltered. | ||
| Two guests joining us to talk about the House's work on efforts to pass President Trump's domestic bill. | ||
| And those experts not only with various organizations, but good backgrounds as well on this. | ||
| This is Brendan Duke joining us with the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. | ||
| He's their federal fiscal policy senior director. | ||
| He served at the White House from 2121 to 22 as the White House National Economic Council Senior Policy Advisor. | ||
| Paul Winfrey with the Economic Policy Innovation Center. | ||
| He's their president and CEO. | ||
| He also served in the previous Trump administration as the budget policy director. | ||
| To both of you gentlemen, thanks for joining us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having us. | |
| Talk about your respective organizations and where, I guess, what philosophy you hold when it comes just to the budget itself before we get into the details of what's going on this week. | ||
| Brendan Duke, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| I think the priority is in the name, which is priorities, which is that, you know, budgets are choices. | ||
| And, you know, we need to prioritize low and moderate income people who are a country with a lot of poverty, a lot of people who don't have health insurance. | ||
| And making sure that the budget works for them is what we're focused on. | ||
| So we go through budget docs and make sure that we're protecting low and moderate income people and making sure that we can help them thrive by giving them the resources to do that. | ||
| Paul Winfrey? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We think that the economic policy of the country should be pro-growth and also pro-opportunity, making sure that low-income people, but really all Americans, have the ability to live out their version of the American dream. | |
| But one of the things that we're very worried about right now, and I suspect that my colleague on the other side of the aisle probably has the same general feelings, is that the fiscal state of the nation is not great and that we really need to do a lot of hard work over the next few months and next few years to make sure that we reset that so that we make sure that the economic prosperity that we've been able to benefit from is there for future generations. | ||
| One of those hard work efforts that you talk about are going to take place this week. | ||
| Three committees, the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the Ways and Means Committee, the Agricultural Committee working on this so-called reconciliation bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's right. | |
| Tell me what you're watching out for as it plays out this week. | ||
|
unidentified
|
One of the things that we're looking out for is to make sure that the reconciliation bill does not add to the debt, does not add to the deficit. | |
| Now, we believe that extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is going to create economic growth. | ||
| It's going to create pretty significant economic growth. | ||
| But at the same time, you know, they really do need to start bending the cost curve. | ||
| And in particular, they need to start bending the cost curve for the programs that have consistently grown faster than the economy has grown over an extended period of time. | ||
| Mainly, in that case, the Medicaid program, which has grown dramatically here over the last five years. | ||
| But over the last 59 years since it was created, it has grown faster than the economy, 45 of those 59 years. | ||
| And CBO expects it to grow faster than the economy, 25 over the next 30 years. | ||
| That's just not sustainable. | ||
| And so we need to reform the program to make sure that it's there for vulnerable Americans. | ||
| Brendan Duke, same question to you. | ||
| What are you watching out for this week? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, there's two parts of it, which is there are tax cuts that are going to add to the deficit. | |
| And at the same time, they're going to partially offset those tax cuts with cuts to Medicaid, cuts SNAP, cuts to those people. | ||
| And so at the same time, we're going to hear a lot about how we need to cut these programs to reduce the debt, to reduce the deficit. | ||
| But at the same time, we're talking about over something like $4 trillion of tax cuts, probably even more when you use real accounting because they're sunsetting things early and such. | ||
| So I think that's just the fundamental thing is that we're going to hear a lot about pleading poverty. | ||
| And that's why low and moderate income Americans need to shoulder the burden of reducing our deficit, which I agree with Paul. | ||
| We do need to put it on a downward trajectory. | ||
| But what we're talking about here is low and moderate income Americans shouldering the entire burden. | ||
| And then, again, we're not talking about reducing the deficit. | ||
| We're talking about increasing it with these tax cuts, which are very tilted to wealthy people. | ||
| So I think that connection of tax cuts tilted to wealthy people and low and moderate income Americans losing health care, paying more for groceries is what I'm looking for. | ||
| One of the things that came out, particularly when it comes to the topic of Medicaid, it's reported on the Hill, at least the working version of this week anyway, saying that the plan that's been revealed so far caters to the more moderate wing of the Republican Party. | ||
| It admits two of the biggest and most controversial proposals, a per capita cap on people who get covered from Medicaid expansion and a direct lowering of the federal matching rate. | ||
| Explain, Brendan Duke, what those are. | ||
| How does that fit into the bigger picture of Medicaid and its future? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| So first of all, I think it's absolutely insane to say that's catering to moderates, right? | ||
| We're talking about huge hundreds of billions of dollars of tax cuts to Medicaid. | ||
| What they have in here is work paperwork requirements where people have to fill out paperwork saying that they fit into categories or are working in order to continue receiving health care, as well as making it harder for states to finance Medicaid expansions. | ||
| What they didn't do is basically kind of, you know, basically set a cap on how much we spend on Medicaid and set it on a certain formula or, you know, directly go after the Affordable Care Act's financing of its expansion. | ||
| But the key thing is we're talking about $600 billion or so of Medicaid cuts. | ||
| We're talking about 9 million people losing health insurance because of those cuts. | ||
| So it doesn't really seem very moderate to me. | ||
| And again, at the same time, if we're talking about cost savings, we're talking about trillions of dollars of tax cuts tilted to wealthy people. | ||
| So that's what that's financing is people losing health insurance to pay for rich people getting tax cuts. | ||
| Paul Winfrey, what do you think about that approach? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The current Medicaid program, the current financing in the Medicaid program is broken. | |
| So for every dollar that states spend, they get $9 from the federal government for every abled-bodied person that they put on the program and $1.33 for every vulnerable person that they put on the program. | ||
| So the disabled, pregnant moms, kids. | ||
| And ultimately, what that's doing is it's shifting the priorities of states towards the able-bodied population, which is changing the way that medicine is delivered. | ||
| And we're seeing this play out across the healthcare system. | ||
| And so if we want to protect Medicaid for the truly vulnerable, we've got to fix those financing inequities. | ||
| And ultimately, I think that if you do that and you do that in the right way and you reinvest in the program for the vulnerable population, we can improve Medicaid and put it on a sustainable fiscal trajectory. | ||
| Do you think they should have went the per capita route and other things, or do you think the approach they're taking currently is a good one? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I actually don't agree with the per capita cap approach. | |
| And one of the reasons that I don't is the way in which the per capita cap actually would work. | ||
| So it would be a global cap that would encourage states to expand the program even more and put a larger burden on the federal government for ensuring, again, the abled-bodied population, because that's the only population that they were talking about putting into this per capita cap. | ||
| So no, I don't think that that would be frugal or good for the overall administration of the program. | ||
| By the way, both guests are going to be with us for the hour. | ||
| If you want to ask them questions about this effort this week on the so-called reconciliation bill, what it does for various aspects of social programs, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8002 for independents. | ||
| And if you want to text us your thoughts and questions, it's 202-748-8003. | ||
| There's more reporting requirements as far as what people are doing to gain Medicaid, more work requirements being proposed. | ||
| What do you think about those? | ||
| What ultimately does it do for those who get care, though? | ||
| And how could it affect those who get care? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, I do think that it is, it's not an unduly burden to require people to work if they're going to receive Medicaid benefits. | |
| We already require people to work to receive SNAP benefits. | ||
| They're actually strengthening the requirements around the SNAP, the food stamp requirements in the Ag Bill that was released last night and that they're also going to be marking up this week. | ||
| Again, you know, like we're talking about two separate programs. | ||
| We call it all Medicaid, but really they're two separate programs. | ||
| One program is for healthy adults without children, and the other program is for the vulnerable population, for the disabled, for pregnant moms, and for kids. | ||
| Right now, there are financing equities between the two, and we need to make sure that the program is sustainable for the truly vulnerable into the future. | ||
| And as far as that front, what about more reporting requirements for these healthy individuals that he talks about? | ||
| Where do you fall on that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so what we know is that when Arkansas did a work requirement proposal during the first Trump administration, one in four adults lost Medicaid coverage, right? | |
| At the same time, there wasn't an increase in employment, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, right? | ||
| And so the fundamental problem is that it's not just that the federal government just happens to know whether you're working and that means you meet the requirement. | ||
| You have to fill out paperwork. | ||
| You have to fill it out right. | ||
| If you're between jobs, that is a problem. | ||
| And then, you know, there are special categories like if you have a disability or a child, et cetera, where you're exempt from the work requirement. | ||
| But again, you have to fill out the paperwork and get through that. | ||
| And the evidence shows that that's why people lose the benefit. | ||
| The reason is work requirements, they save money. | ||
| The reason why they save money is people fail to qualify. | ||
| They fail to fill out the paperwork to the work requirement degree and they lose health coverage. | ||
| And especially with health coverage, I mean, I think about myself, I have health insurance. | ||
| I've had health insurance for years. | ||
| I probably should go see a doctor, and I haven't had a checkup in a while because I've been putting it off. | ||
| I just think it's kind of crazy to say people are sitting on the couch enjoying free health insurance. | ||
| It's just not how I think that, you know, it's just not how, you know, we're talking about a lot of like young, able-bodied men doing that. | ||
| I mean, young, able-bodied men going to the doctor is like not exactly something they're very good at. | ||
| One of the criticisms that Republicans have about Medicaid is because it expanded under the previous administrations. | ||
| How much did that strain the current program of Medicaid, that expansion in the states? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, I mean, I haven't looked at the state finances there. | |
| I mean, it's up to states on whether, you know, to do it. | ||
| But I think, you know, a key thing is that we should reduce the number of people without health insurance. | ||
| And I think one of the most concerning things about this emerging reconciliation bill is that under the Biden administration, we enhanced the Affordable Care Act Premium Tax Credit. | ||
| So basically the subsidies for getting health insurance on those exchanges. | ||
| But they're set to expire at the end of this year. | ||
| They're expiring. | ||
| And so millions of people are going to lose health insurance coverage. | ||
| CBO thinks about 5 million people are going to lose health insurance coverage because of that, combined with the cuts to Medicaid we're talking about. | ||
| We're talking about 14 million people losing health insurance, right? | ||
| So, you know, I think, again, you know, the Biden administration put forth efforts to help people get health insurance, especially people with small businesses, right? | ||
| Because the premium tax credits are hugely important to small business owners, to the self-employed, and we're letting those expire because we'd rather do tax cuts. | ||
| So I think that's just a fundamental misalignment of priorities. | ||
| Paul Winfrey, the CBO, does say people will lose health insurance if these proposals go forward. | ||
| What's your response to that? | ||
| What would you say to those who possibly could? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, 1.4 million of the folks who are going to lose Medicaid coverage are currently illegal immigrants, right? | |
| So they shouldn't be on the program to begin with. | ||
| A number of other people are going to be transitioning off the program, either going into Obamacare or they're going to be going into ESI or other coverages that are ultimately available to them. | ||
| Another large portion of this population are folks who are currently not in Medicaid, but that at some point in the future CBO says may be on Medicaid. | ||
| And so we just don't know, right? | ||
| And one of the consistent things that we've seen with CBO scoring over the years, especially on health care reform, because it involves such a large population and so many uncertainties, is that they've been wrong, right? | ||
| They've missed these estimates in some cases. | ||
| And so we really don't know what the ultimate coverage effect is going to be. | ||
| And so what I would encourage Congress to do is to fix the inequities in the program, to do what they can to encourage people to work who can work. | ||
| Again, these are the healthy adults without dependents, and ultimately shift resources back to the vulnerable population so that we can further sustain that program. | ||
| Our guests are with us. | ||
| And if, again, you can call the lines to ask them questions, let's hear from Tim. | ||
| Tim in New Jersey, Republican line, you're on with our guests. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you guys? | ||
| Good. | ||
| So I have a question. | ||
| And it may be a little off basis because I really don't know how the rules and laws work, ask per state and ask per federal government. | ||
| But for instance, I'm in a union. | ||
| I have great insurance here in New Jersey. | ||
| And I find myself wondering why my parents were able to add me as a kid as a dependent. | ||
| And why can't I add my adults as they get older, my parents as they get older, as dependents too? | ||
| Even if I was charged $1,000 per my parent, and maybe if Social Security covered half of that, it would incentivize people to put their elderly off of Social Security, and more on their own insurance in terms of the not Social Security Medicaid. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| In terms of that? | ||
| Like, is that even a possibility? | ||
| Is that a problem because insurance is privatized? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Tim in New Jersey, we'll let our guests respond. | ||
| Mr. Duke. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Paul's remembering healthcare guy that I mean. | |
| Okay. | ||
| I think that that's a great question. | ||
| Thanks for asking it. | ||
| Look, you know, the central component of the U.S. health care system is employer-sponsored insurance. | ||
| And many of the inequities and the problems with the current healthcare system go back to ESI and the fact that we subsidize ESI heavily through the tax code. | ||
| And until you fix some of these larger problems, then we're going to continue to channel insurance through employers, through the workplace, and then through government programs like Medicaid and Medicare and the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| But it all comes back to the way that we subsidize ESI or employer-sponsored coverage through the tax code. | ||
| Do you think Republicans generally are going to accept what the reconciliation package finally comes, or is there going to be debate within the Republican Party itself on whether they want to go, some would want to go further than others? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think there's already debate happening right now in a very public way about whether or not that they should go further. | |
| At the same time, that debate's also happening bicamerally. | ||
| You're seeing folks within the House of Representatives talk about how they would like to go further, especially in regards to Medicaid reform. | ||
| And you're also seeing senators come out now and say, like some folks are saying that some of these cuts I can't accept at all. | ||
| And others are saying, you know, we need to find many more savings. | ||
| And so there's a lot of debate right now. | ||
| I think that the bill will ultimately evolve here over the next couple of weeks. | ||
| But the reality is that the margins in the House of Representatives are incredibly small. | ||
| And so whatever ends up passing the House will likely shape whatever the reconciliation package ends up being. | ||
| Josh Hawley is one of those senators you referenced. | ||
| He put out an op-ed saying, but now a noisy contingent of corporatist Republicans, call it the party's West Wall Street wing, is urging Congress to ignore all of that and get back to old-time religion, corporate giveaways, preferences for capital, and deep cuts to social insurance. | ||
| This wing of the party wants Republicans to build our big, beautiful bill around slashing health insurance for the working poor, but that argument is both morally wrong and politically suicidal. | ||
| What do you think of those sentiments? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Like I said, I think that what Hawley needs to realize here is that the program as it is currently structured is not working, right? | |
| If you look at the 10-year cost of the Medicaid program today relative to what it was when the Biden administration, when Biden was sworn into office in 2021, it's increased by $1.2 trillion. | ||
| This is a program that we're expected to spend more than a trillion dollars within the next 10 years. | ||
| Now, I don't think that it's right nor moral to take an accounting approach to Medicaid reform, but the reality is that the fiscal trajectory of the country is just not in a good place. | ||
| We need to make sure that the budget is sustainable over the long run. | ||
| And the worst thing that can happen to the vulnerable Medicaid population is something that even looks like default, where the bond markets force Congress to enact meaningful and deep cuts very quickly. | ||
| Mr. Due to this idea of sustainability overall, Mr. Winfreys mentioned that, what do you think about this idea of making these choices to keep sustainability happening? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, we're talking about $4 trillion of tax cuts, even more when you get rid of the accounting gimmicks, right? | |
| So I think if we were having a discussion about shared sacrifice, that would certainly be one thing, but that is not what we are talking about. | ||
| We have Medicaid basically on the operating room table, and we're just talking about chopping off limbs and giving them to feed tax cuts to the wealthy. | ||
| That is what we are talking about. | ||
| I think it would be one thing if we were talking about deficit reduction. | ||
| That is not what we are talking about here. | ||
| This is not about Medicaid reform, where we're looking and saying, well, how can we make sure that other people get coverage and that sort of thing? | ||
| That would be a well-considered discussion that maybe we could have. | ||
| But this is about extracting hundreds of billions of dollars to meet an $880 billion reconciliation instruction. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So basically, the Energy and Commerce Committee, in order to do the tax cuts, basically they had to get $880 billion of savings in there, right? | |
| And so they've just been on the lookout for ways to cut people's health insurance in order to finance the tax cuts for the wealthy. | ||
| That's the entire operation here. | ||
| So I just don't think that this is about reform. | ||
| I don't think this is about the nation's fiscal trajectory because it's going to partially offset tax cuts. | ||
| So you need to, you know, I just think that we need to remember this is a tax cut discussion we're having, not a health discussion. | ||
| Okay, we'll talk about that after we hear from Tom. | ||
| Tom is in Kansas, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hello. | ||
| Yeah, my question is about this work deal on Medicaid. | ||
| They're talking about working 80 hours amount, 20 hours a week for the physically able. | ||
| I just wonder how this relates to mental disabilities, Down syndrome, autism, other stuff like that. | ||
| Are they going to consider these people able-bodied to work? | ||
| You know, their mental capacity, they might do real well, but they might have, you know, obsessive ways of doing things that wouldn't work in the normal working population. | ||
| And that was my question. | ||
| Tom in Kansas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's an important question. | |
| And it's also, you know, something that was at the heart of the consideration on how to build these work requirements within the Energy and Commerce Committee. | ||
| I mean, the short answer is that no, the work requirements would not apply to that population. | ||
| They would only apply to the healthy working age population without dependence. | ||
| Another important factor here is that the language that's currently before the Energy and Commerce Committee that I think they're voting on later today would allow states to also waive the work requirements if the economy took a turn for the worse or if there were other things that justified the waiver of those work requirements. | ||
| And so there are important considerations here that I think that really do shape the practicality of the work requirements that they're considering. | ||
| Mr. Duke brought up tax cuts with this idea of preserving the 2017 tax cuts. | ||
| Where do you fall on that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that if, look, I think that in general, the 2017 tax cuts were expansionary. | |
| They were pro-growth, pro-growth for a number of reasons. | ||
| First, they reduced the marginal rate on investment, but also they put more money in people's pockets, which increased aggregate demand. | ||
| If we increase or allow the tax cuts to expire at the end of the year, I think that it would ultimately harm the economy. | ||
| At the same time, if we look over the last 80 years of government financing, the government's brought in somewhere between 16% of GDP and 20% of GDP in terms of revenue. | ||
| At the same time, we've had lots of different types of tax systems. | ||
| We've had higher marginal rates. | ||
| We've had lower marginal rates. | ||
| We've had broader bases. | ||
| We've had fewer people who are being taxed. | ||
| The reality is that that's about as much as we bring in in terms of GDP. | ||
| But if you look at the spending side of the equation, there are something like 2,000 budget accounts that account for all of the things that the government does. | ||
| Of those 2,000 accounts, seven of them have consistently grown faster than the economy has grown since they were created. | ||
| And those include the large health care entitlements, Medicaid, and Medicare and now Obamacare where the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| And by definition, that makes those programs unsustainable in the long run. | ||
| Back to sustainability, then, especially as far as the tax cuts are concerned, then where do you fall as far as this idea of that they needed to be preserved? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so I think the reason why back in 1999, the Congressional Budget Office, it's fun to read those reports because they talk about how the debt was not just going to decline, it was going to decline below zero. | |
| And what are we going to do with a negative debt? | ||
| What does that mean? | ||
| Are we going to build a sovereign wealth fund? | ||
| And so then we just cut taxes, right? | ||
| And then we've cut taxes again in 2017. | ||
| And when you look at that, that's actually, those tax cuts are actually larger than the non-interest deficit that we have, right? | ||
| So this is about choices. | ||
| And fundamentally, the country got older, it happens, to all of us. | ||
| And, you know, we have to pay for Social Security and Medicare. | ||
| And I think that we certainly have the financial means to pay for them, but it does require more tax revenue. | ||
| And so I think that is the fundamental question we face: whether we want to preserve and maybe strengthen some of these programs that are bedrocks, I think, of our social contract, which requires more tax revenue, or if we want to, you know, keep tax revenue at 16% of GDP and cut taxes in order to get there. | ||
| And that's going to mean cuts on those programs on that program side. | ||
| So I think fundamentally that's just the question that we are going to face. | ||
| And that's something that Congress and the President are going to weigh in on is how we finance that. | ||
| And another point is that in the tax provisions in the bill, a bunch of them expire after 2029, right? | ||
| And so then we are going to face another fiscal cliff again. | ||
| And then we are going to see many of the same members of Congress then demanding cuts to Medicaid, cut to SAP, maybe other programs then. | ||
| So again, we are talking about all these temporary tax cuts that are going to create a fiscal cliff. | ||
| And then we're going to see demands to offset them again. | ||
| But then I'm sure there will be more tax cuts that we need to do on top of that. | ||
| So it's just a ratcheting down, setting up big cuts to programs that low and moderate and middle-income people rely on. | ||
| Mr. Winfrey, you want to respond to that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Look, as I mentioned, the health care entitlements as they are are unsustainable. | |
| And I think that before we ask people to pay a little bit more money through the payroll tax to pre-fund these programs, we need to look for the waste in the program. | ||
| So let me give you a couple of data points. | ||
| First, now, no one's talking about Medicare cuts right now or Medicare reform, but Medicare is another program that is unsustainable and ultimately Congress is going to have to do something about. | ||
| There was a report and I believe the Wall Street Journal just this past week about how some Medicare Advantage plans are covering Gulf memberships and paying for pet food. | ||
| There is a lot of waste in the program that needs to be clawed back here. | ||
| Let me also just give you another data point that may surprise some of your listeners. | ||
| The highest paid healthcare insurance CEO in the country runs a Medicaid managed care plan, the highest paid healthcare insurance CEO in the country. | ||
| Now, I'm a free market guy. | ||
| I believe in the profit incentive, but I don't think that people should be getting rich off of supplying people with welfare. | ||
| I don't think that that's fair. | ||
| And it just shows how much bloat in the program there is and how we need to actually take a hard look at how we're delivering Medicaid. | ||
| Two guys joining us for this discussion, Brenda Duke of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and Paul Winfrey of the Economic Policy Innovation Center. | ||
| Let's go to Linda. | ||
| Linda is in Utah. | ||
| Independent Line. | ||
| Hi, Linda. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mike, I just have like three questions. | |
| Getting people back to work sounds great and wonderful. | ||
| My daughter and husband were unemployed at different times that they both weren't working at Bundy's houses and they were looking full-time for jobs to six to seven months before they got when they both had a take a cut and they pay. | ||
| Now to get people back to work, are you going to subsidize employees to hire people, government subsidize people too? | ||
| Are we going to finance more vocational education, vocational rehab to get people back to work? | ||
| How's the plan to get people back to work when there isn't any jobs? | ||
| People work. | ||
| People are unemployed not working because they don't want to work. | ||
| They can't find jobs where they have emotional, physical, and mental problems. | ||
| How are you going to address those issues? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That is Linda from Utah. | ||
| Mr. Duke, you want to take anything to that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think those are great questions. | |
| I mean, I think fundamentally we're not talking about higher vocational training or ways to get people to find jobs. | ||
| I think that would be a worthy discussion about how to help people find jobs. | ||
| We're not having that. | ||
| We need to save money to finance tax cuts. | ||
| That's what we're doing here. | ||
| And so that's where it is. | ||
| And I think fundamentally, we're talking about paperwork requirements. | ||
| People have to fill out this paperwork, that they have a job, that they fall into these exemptions, that sort of thing. | ||
| We don't get cost savings if people actually, if people fill out that paperwork and get to keep their health insurance, right? | ||
| So again, this is a paperwork requirement we're talking about. | ||
| And I think one of the concerning things we're talking about here is, which we haven't talked about yet, is President Trump is doing these insane tariffs that are risking, pushing the economy into a recession. | ||
| He pulled back a little yesterday, but we're still got 10% across the board tariff on every country, 30% on China. | ||
| It really is putting the economy in danger. | ||
| And at the same time, we're talking about making people meet a work requirement and fill up paperwork in order to find a job. | ||
| And again, I think that's a flawed approach of putting the economy at risk while taking away health insurance if you don't have a job. | ||
| Mr. Winfrey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that there are important provisions that are in the tax law that are going to make sure that we continue to grow jobs and especially jobs in the small business sector if they are extended. | |
| So for instance, one of the really important provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 is this provision called, and it's going to sound really nerdy, but 199 CAP A. | ||
| And basically what that allows is for small businesses to get the same tax advantages that large corporations get that they pay a much lower rate. | ||
| There have been many, many small businesses in this country that have been set up since that provision was rolled out in 2018. | ||
| And if it goes away, then those jobs go away and those small businesses will close. | ||
| We know that. | ||
| The small business owners have been coming to Washington for the last few years talking about the importance of that provision as well as other provisions like R ⁇ D expensing and other things that are included in this tax law. | ||
| And so there are lots of provisions within the ways and means portion of this bill that are going to make sure that there are jobs available for folks. | ||
| Robert is joining us from Connecticut, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| My question is, and it might seem simple, why don't we stop all tax cuts? | ||
| No tax cuts to the rich, no tax cuts to me, the little guy, and then do spending cuts. | ||
| So that's my question. | ||
| Mr. Winfrey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm with you. | |
| I'm with you. | ||
| Look, I wish, and I've been talking about, I mean, Brendan and I last year were on a panel before Congress talking a little bit about this. | ||
| I wish that Congress would consider spending reductions, reductions in spending or reductions in the growth in spending, and ultimately policies that will, again, create a sustainable federal budget today and into the future, sending a credible signal to the bond markets, making sure that the price that we pay for debt at the federal level is as low as possible, but also making sure that there's capital out there that's available for folks who want to open up a small business, who want to buy a house, | ||
| who want to buy a car, who want to do other things with private debt, right? | ||
| When the public debt goes up, that crowds out capital and makes private borrowing much more difficult. | ||
| At the same time, the political momentum is what it is. | ||
| And Congress is responding to the expiration of the 2017 tax cuts. | ||
| And so one of the things that I have been promoting and that I've been encouraging them to do is to use this opportunity with the expiration of the tax cuts to also do something meaningful on the spending side. | ||
| Chip Roy, the Texas Republican, that's basically the last couple of days on Twitter X nowadays as far as talking about overall spending. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| Is he going to be one of those voices to watch? | ||
| And who else are you watching as this debate goes forward? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I think that Chip Roy has been an incredible leader in the House of Representatives, as has Lloyd Smucker and Jody Arrington. | |
| And really, there's a group of about 30 to 40 members who look at the, on the Republican side of the aisle, who look at the finances of the federal government and go, we can't keep doing this, right? | ||
| And we can't keep just extending the tax cuts because ultimately that is unsustainable as well. | ||
| It's just, it's pushing the envelope a little bit further. | ||
| And so, yeah, I think that that crew is showing a lot of strength in the House. | ||
| At the same time, we're also seeing some momentum pick up in the Senate. | ||
| Folks like Rick Scott from Florida, Mike Lee from Utah, I think Ron Johnson as well. | ||
| I mean, he has a piece in the Wall Street Journal, I think this morning or yesterday, talking about how the House doesn't go far enough. | ||
| And that's very different than the situation than we were in in 2017, where Republicans are going, you know, we can't just cut taxes. | ||
| We've also got to balance the other side of the federal budget as well. | ||
| Mr. Duke, what role do Republicans have in this fight? | ||
| So, as it's a what Republicans, what role do Democrats have in this? | ||
| That's what I meant. | ||
| What's the Democratic response or what should it be? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think, you know, trying to contain the damage. | |
| And the best they can do is just point out the trade-offs here. | ||
| Point out that we're talking about 14 million people losing health insurance under the choices that Republicans are making on health insurance here. | ||
| Talking about trillions of dollars of tax cuts to wealthy people, talking about a cut to the estate tax for basically making sure that a married couple with $30 million in wealth can pass that on to their heirs tax-free, expanding the pass-through deduction, not just extending it, but they're talking about expanding it. | ||
| Billions and hundreds of billions of dollars in business tax breaks. | ||
| And pointing out that it's real people who are going to pay this cost, that this is not shared sacrifice, that this is just basically asking low-income people to lose health insurance, to pay more at the grocery store, so that wealthy people can pay less in taxes. | ||
| So I think it'll just be identifying that connection, identifying that trade-off, and making it clear. | ||
| I think it was very unpopular. | ||
| I think two templates in Trump's first term. | ||
| There was the attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act that failed. | ||
| I think Democrats look at that as a success and want to point out those trade-offs. | ||
| Of course, they also ended up enacting the 2017 tax law later, right? | ||
| But I think that Democrats look at what happened with the Affordable Care Act, Repeal effort during Trump's first term and just pointing out those contracts hopefully can point out to Republicans, to some Republicans, that this is a bad choice. | ||
| Bob is joining us from New York City Democrats line. | ||
| You're on with our guest, Bob. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Yeah, you guys have been wonderful. | ||
| Great, great conversation here, and you just basically answered everything that I was saying. | ||
| I just want to contribute on what you were saying, what Democrats, Democrats should say. | ||
| Since the 1930s, Republicans always wanted to get rid of Medicare. | ||
| It was never part of their agenda to keep it. | ||
| And so, with this tax bill that they're putting up right now, the big beautiful bill, in the next 10 years, we're going to lose $4 trillion or now $5 trillion in deficit from this tax bill, which now they're raising the tax debt ceiling of $4 or $5 trillion to pay for the tax bill. | ||
| This president was voted in to cut the deficit. | ||
| We're never going to get to that cut. | ||
| They only cut $180 billion, and now they're looking for $80 billion, $800 billion to cut in Medicaid. | ||
| The real outlook of this whole thing is to cut Medicare. | ||
| Yes, they're not going to go ahead and touch it right now, but AARP said that Medicare will only last to 2035. | ||
| With this tax bill, it's only going to last to 2030. | ||
| So when you're saying that, everything is going to be cut before that, as you just mentioned, in 2020, 29. | ||
| So this is the whole plan to cut Medicare. | ||
| Bob in New York, Mr. Winfrey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Look, the plan doesn't touch Medicare at all. | |
| Like I said, I think that there is a reform that can be done. | ||
| Actually, there's a lot of bipartisan reform like site neutrality and things like this that folks have talked about on the Medicare reform front. | ||
| But the reality is that the message from the White House and Trump himself has been: leave Medicare off the table. | ||
| We will deal with that, or somebody, not me, will deal with that at some point in the future. | ||
| Ultimately, I think that they're going to be forced to do something about Medicare reform when the Medicare HI Trust Fund becomes insolvent. | ||
| But coming back to the Medicaid question, right? | ||
| As I mentioned, you know, Medicaid spending over the 10-year period has grown by $1.2 trillion since the beginning of the Biden administration. | ||
| If you were to freeze Medicaid spending right now, the CBO would score that as a $2.1 trillion reduction in the deficit or reduction in spending. | ||
| But the reality is that even under the proposal that's being considered by the Energy and Commerce Committee today, Medicaid spending is going to go up every year. | ||
| It's actually going to rise faster than inflation every year over the next 10 years. | ||
| They're talking about reducing the growth in spending through provisions like requiring work and other reforms along the margin. | ||
| From Nell, Nell is in California, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I am enjoying, well, let's say this first. | ||
| I'm a rhino, like a Republican in name only, and does because when Mr. Bush, George Bush, the junior, decided after 9-11 to start snooping at people's business, and I thought, well, if I'm in Brekupa, then he will leave me alone. | ||
| And then also, I think that this whole thing about agenda, that our agenda needs to be to make reparations to people who've slaved in this country and built the wealth of the southern states. | ||
| And then I think we need to give the land back to the Native people that we took it from and massacred them in some cases, although it did go back and forth, I realize. | ||
| And my little baby sister is a Trump supporter who feels that the Native people were fighting and that the white people came and settled them down or some nonsense. | ||
| But anyway, that's what I feel should be our agenda. | ||
| And I feel like Trump is super confused. | ||
| He had a brother who was mentally ill and died of alcoholism at a very young age, Fred. | ||
| And so he likes to slam on people who are coming across the board and he's talking about how they're insane. | ||
| So, and these gentlemen are obviously, you all are great in some ways, but I think you're completely deluded. | ||
| And Pedro needs to take a nap. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| A lot there. | ||
| I don't know if it directly pertains to discussion. | ||
| Let me add this to the next. | ||
| One of the sub-discussions that have been happening over the last couple of days of the reconciliation bill was this idea of salt taxes, state and local taxes. | ||
| Some people, that $30,000 cap and some people wanting more than that. | ||
| Can you tell me why this is important to the discussion and how it adds to it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think this is going to be the area where Paul and I probably have the most agreement. | |
| Okay. | ||
| So, you know. | ||
| Purposeful question. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I appreciate it. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| So, you know, for the longest time, you know, Americans who itemize their deductions have were able to, you know, deduct, you know, basically right off from their federal income taxes, their state and local taxes, right? | ||
| In the 2017 tax law, they impose a $10,000 cap on how much you can do with that, right? | ||
| So a lot of people in, you know, some high-tax states like New York, New Jersey, California, are upset about that. | ||
| But fundamentally, the people who benefit most from that are very high-income people. | ||
| It works a few different ways. | ||
| You have to pay taxes. | ||
| You have to have federal income taxes in order to get the deduction. | ||
| You have to have a bunch of deductions in order to benefit from that. | ||
| The taxes in a lot of those states are progressive. | ||
| So it's the highest income people in those states who are paying all those taxes. | ||
| And then the value of the deduction is highest for people with the highest tax rates. | ||
| So when you look at it, look at, you know, it was actually one of the most progressive things in the 2017 tax law was limiting that deduction. | ||
| And so now we're talking about, you know, basically partially or perhaps in large part unwinding, you know, the most progressive part of the 2017 tax law here. | ||
| And I think one thing that's not appreciated is, you know, I have my problems with the 2017 tax law, but it did do some simplification. | ||
| And one of the things it did is kind of, it basically nuked the alternative minimum tax, which was basically a limit on the salt deduction through kind of a sneaky way and replaced it with this $10,000 salt cap. | ||
| We're talking about a bill that still keeps the nuking of the alternative minimum tax. | ||
| But then if you also kind of weaken the salt limit, that's like the best of both worlds. | ||
| That's a bigger salt deduction. | ||
| That would be a bigger salt deduction today than anybody got before Trump was president, right? | ||
| So I think, you know, it's a big tax debt to wealthy people. | ||
| I am concerned about the deficits that this bill implies. | ||
| It makes the budget math worse. | ||
| So I think that would, I think this bill is extremely bad. | ||
| It would make it extremely error bad if they enhanced the salt deduction. | ||
| And New York's at least Stephonic, one of those people pushing back, welcome for a higher cap, Mr. Winfrey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, the New Yorkers and the Californians have really been pushing for an increase in the salt cap. | |
| But I agree with you. | ||
| I mean, everything that you just said, you're right. | ||
| This is a piece of bipartisan that can come out of all of this. | ||
| You know, just the politics of this are that it's the blue states and blue, and in particular, rich blue congressional districts who are the biggest beneficiaries of the salt cap. | ||
| I mean, they're talking about, you know, there was a proposal that was put on the table. | ||
| Actually, I think it's the proposal that's actually in the Ways and Means bill of a $30,000 cap on the salt deduction. | ||
| You know, most middle-class families are not paying $30,000 in state and local taxes. | ||
| It's just, it's not happening. | ||
| And so you're exactly right. | ||
| It was one of the more progressive things that was included in the 2017 tax bill. | ||
| Another way that the 2017 tax bill simplified the tax code was a major increase in the standard deduction, right? | ||
| Which reduced the itemization that was happening at the federal level as well. | ||
| And, you know, I mean, I was in the White House at the time and all of the special interests came to us and went, you're getting rid of my deduction. | ||
| No, we're not. | ||
| We're not getting rid of your deduction. | ||
| All we're doing is we're increasing the standard deduction, which makes the tax code simpler and ultimately reduces taxes for low and middle income people by even more. | ||
| Let's hear from a Californian. | ||
| This is Mayoshi in Beverly Hills. | ||
| You're on with our guest, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm using my computer, so I hope there's not crazy feedback. | ||
| But this conversation is just driving me up the wall over and over and over, guys. | ||
| Listen, as far as the national debt is concerned, too bad. | ||
| This is our money. | ||
| This is the people's money that has paid into it. | ||
| You guys are clutching this money too close to your chest like it's yours. | ||
| We should not have to beg to get our money to take care of us if we're hungry, if we're sick, if we need housing. | ||
| I mean, it's just enough is enough. | ||
| We have spent money repeatedly all around the world. | ||
| What we want something is chunk change for us. | ||
| Food scams is like $6 per person. | ||
| Are you serious? | ||
| It's time for you. | ||
| This is your problem. | ||
| GMP lawmakers, you guys got to fix it yourself. | ||
| Look at where you could cut. | ||
| No more trips to Mars. | ||
| It's simple. | ||
| We don't need to take pictures from the space. | ||
| We all need to study those rocks. | ||
| $3 billion a year to Israel. | ||
| Cut that back. | ||
| Oh, talk about the military parade for his birthday, $100 million. | ||
| Cut that or pay for himself. | ||
| This airplane that he's got that he's going to take with him, the taxpayers are supposed to pay for that. | ||
| He's $1.6 billion off his cryptocurrency. | ||
| Okay, you put a lot out there for the guests. | ||
| You can respond to that. | ||
| Ultimately, you know, more fiscal responsibility, I think she's saying. | ||
| And from your background, you probably would agree on some level for that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think we agree on that outcome. | |
| Maybe disagree on how exactly you get there. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I think that the thread that she was picking up on, that's exactly right, is that this is the people's money, right? | ||
| We are ultimately, you know, talking about the people's money. | ||
| And ultimately, Congress and the president need to be good stewards of those resources. | ||
| And that's one of the reasons why it's so important to continually review these programs, make sure that we're not wasting money, and make sure that every dollar that comes into the federal treasury is being spent appropriately. | ||
| I mean, on the Congress part, I do think one part, again, that, you know, I am really worried about is Trump has enacted these enormous tax increases unilaterally without congressional sign-off, right? | ||
| And I think they're very legally questionable. | ||
| And, you know, the tariffs he's imposed is a $2,000 per family tax increase, you know, heavily tilted to low-income people. | ||
| And, you know, it's just fundamentally Congress. | ||
| You know, it's up to Congress to assert its role, that Congress is the one that has the say over what we do with tariffs. | ||
| And, you know, it's the people's money in terms of, you know, how we all spend it. | ||
| And Congress is the one that gets to decide how we tax. | ||
| And it's really concerning to me just how, you know, Congress hasn't really had any sign-off in terms of these giant tax increases. | ||
| Both have economic backgrounds, so let me throw this in the mix away from the reconciliation bill. | ||
| This just coming out, the annual inflation rate hitting 2.3% in April, less than expected. | ||
| What's the first flush reaction to that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's great. | |
| I want to look under the hood to see whether that's core or energy and food. | ||
| But I mean, people have been really concerned about prices. | ||
| I think we don't, you know, the tariffs have put a lot in the pipeline in terms of supply chain disruptions. | ||
| I think that's ultimately why President Trump backed down. | ||
| The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which get about 40% of our containerized imports, were looking at drastic reductions of what was coming into the country. | ||
| I think it's good he backed down from that. | ||
| So we're going to avoid the supply chain crunch that was in the pipeline. | ||
| But fundamentally, we've locked in a 10% tax increase on all imports. | ||
| We've locked in a 30% tax increase on imports from China. | ||
| We've locked in 25% tax increases on cars forthcoming on semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. | ||
| That is going to hit the American consumer over the next few months as businesses make decisions about what price they need to set those goods at. | ||
| Mr. Winfrey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that there's a lot of good economic data coming in for the Trump administration. | |
| I mean, inflation seems to be moderating. | ||
| That's a good thing. | ||
| I mean, as you said, we should all be celebrating this. | ||
| The jobs report last month, great for the president. | ||
| Everything's looking good. | ||
| The GDP report was not awesome, but I suspect that the GDP estimate is actually going to be revised up because they were dealing with a situation where they had missing data on inventories relative to imports. | ||
| And so once that's corrected for, I suspect that we'll see, you know, not gangbusters on economic growth, but probably a revision in the negative number. | ||
| And like I said, I think that those are all things that the Trump administration should be proud of. | ||
| From Mark in New York, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Yeah, I got a couple questions. | ||
| One is, why are we paying $18 million a weekend just for Trump to go to his golf course, aka? | ||
| That's why he does not accept pay. | ||
| But my biggest question is, I am in the impression that when we subsidize corporations, we're actually paying for corporate insurance for their employees at between $500 per person, $1,000 for two, and et cetera. | ||
| Can you answer to me if the Congress is looking at them numbers? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| You'll have to clarify that last bit. | ||
| I'm not too sure. | ||
| I don't know exactly what you're getting. | ||
| Can you try that again? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you guys had a couple of people on there about a month or two ago, and this lady was going to bring about talking about Medicare and Medicaid. | |
| And this lady was going to bring up corporations, how they receive subsidies to help subsidize their insurances for their employees. | ||
| And when I looked it up, it was like 500 per person. | ||
| The government gives a subsidy to corporations to help with their insurance for one person, and et cetera. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Thanks for the clarification. | ||
| Any takeaway from that, Mr. Winfrey? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, we were talking about it a little bit earlier. | |
| Right now, the tax code does provide a subsidy for employer-sponsored coverage. | ||
| It doesn't tax it. | ||
| If you buy the insurance through your employer, it is not taxed. | ||
| And that's a huge subsidy that working people get relative, or excuse me, working people who are offered insurance through their employer relative to everybody else. | ||
| And I actually think that there are a lot of inequities within the much larger health care system that can all trace their way back to that subsidy. | ||
| There was some desire to reform that in 2017 and the repeal and replace efforts that Paul Ryan was pursuing. | ||
| But ultimately, the industry pushed back on it because the insurers make a lot of money off of that tax subsidy. | ||
| And so they didn't want it, and they lobbied Congress to keep it out of the ultimate bill. | ||
| Mr. Duke? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, I would love to be having a health care reform discussion where we were figuring out, you know, how, you know, basically, you know, there's still millions of Americans without health insurance. | |
| I think everybody would like to improve people's health insurance. | ||
| And I just think it's, you know, it's sad that we're not having that discussion, that we're figuring out how to take from the Medicaid program and roll it into tax cuts rather than having a true health insurance reform discussion. | ||
| Barbara joins us from Georgia, Republican Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi. | ||
| How are you this morning? | ||
| Hi, thank you. | ||
| I wanted to get back to the Social Security issue. | ||
| I think Social Security would be sustainable if Congress couldn't touch any more of it and at least had to pay back some of it it sent in the last year. | ||
| That being said, Social Security doesn't pay that much. | ||
| If you're in an advantage plan and you want to, I'm not, I'm not, but if you are and you have to have an MRI, you're talking $300 to $400 out of your pocket. | ||
| And this is people that are, that's all they're getting every month. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| And to even suggest that Congress is going to keep sending money everywhere it's going now and only look at Social Security. | ||
| I understand the chunk it's taken out of the budget, but that has been there. | ||
| We are paying into that program for you to suggest that you're going to do and be using that for anything else is like a taxation without representation to us. | ||
| As far as the tariffs, everybody having a fed over these tariffs should stop and think, how did the United States of America allow one country to have this much influence over our economy that if we put a tariff on them and they have to up their prices or quit sending things in, | ||
| that everyone, almost every part of our industries here is suffering. | ||
| How did we let one country, especially one that's our enemy, get in that position? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Barbara there in Georgia there. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Let me take the last part saying how closely tied is success of reconciliation to the success of tariff policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, look, I think that, you know, the president has seen his approval rating go down over the last few months. | |
| And, you know, I'm sure the tariffs are a big part of that, that they've been, you know, very unpopular. | ||
| People's pessimism about the economy has picked up. | ||
| A lot of the, you know, the hard data has looked pretty okay so far, but a lot of the soft indicators of where the economy is headed do not look good. | ||
| So I think that, you know, a popular president finds it easier to pass bills. | ||
| A less popular president finds it harder. | ||
| And I think, you know, I think a good example is, you know, talking about, you know, taking on China where he just kind of announced this big tariff and then ended up backing down off of it rather than thinking, okay, Europe is concerned about China, Australia, you know, Canada, all of these other countries that are our allies, and figuring out a way to put the pressure on China to work together to coordinate. | ||
| Europe's also very concerned about Chinese electric vehicles, for example. | ||
| how can we work together to put pressure on China to have better trade practices. | ||
| Instead, he just put bigger tariffs. | ||
| He's threatening tariffs on Europe. | ||
| He's saying Europe is a bigger problem than China now. | ||
| And really backing down on China. | ||
| So again, he just didn't have a strategy to take this on. | ||
| And he ended up basically capitulating because he didn't have a way to actually win. | ||
| Mr. Winfrey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Look, the president has a multifaceted tariff strategy, and I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on it. | |
| I don't think that really anybody, except for the people who are in the room with the president who are helping him with this, really, you know, understand all of the mechanics of this. | ||
| I will say that one of the things that tariffs can be used for in a good way is, again, getting countries to come to the table. | ||
| And that's exactly what the president has been using them to do over the last few months. | ||
| I mean, we are renegotiating some of these trade agreements that have existed for a very long time. | ||
| He is having success. | ||
| He did that with the UK and Switzerland this weekend. | ||
| And so, you know, I think we're going to see ultimately more of that. | ||
| At the same time, and I think this is probably another area where we agree, I think that tariffs are a really bad mechanism to raise revenue. | ||
| I think that the revenue that comes in from tariffs is very volatile. | ||
| At the same time, if the Trump administration's policy on getting countries back to the negotiating table is absolutely perfect and we're able to manufacture more in America, then the amount of revenue that you're going to collect from those tariffs is probably going to be pretty minimal, right, if they're absolutely perfect. | ||
| And that's a good thing. | ||
| It's a good thing for the country. | ||
| And so how they influence the reconciliation conversation, I don't think that members are really thinking about or banking on tariff revenue to help them offset any deficit impacts that they may be considering. | ||
| And ultimately, I think that's a good thing. | ||
| As the three committees this week work on their reconciliation parts, what are you watching for the most? | ||
| What are you paying attention to? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Movement from the Energy and Commerce Committee. | |
| I think that they put in a series of good policies that need to be dialed up a bit more. | ||
| We discussed some of them, the work requirements in particular. | ||
| But there are a couple of other policies that they put in there that have been bipartisan in the past, like limiting the provider tax. | ||
| This is a scam, as Joe Biden called it. | ||
| It's something that the Obama administration talked about taking this, this is really wonky, nerdy language, but taking the safe harbor for the provider tax from 6% down to 3.5%. | ||
| All this bill does is freeze it where it is, which is a big giveaway to certain states, and in particular, the same states that are benefiting from the salt deduction. | ||
| And so turning those dials a little bit more is something I'm going to be looking at. | ||
| At the same time, this ratio between the $4.5 trillion in tax cuts to $2 trillion in spending cuts is really important to somewhere between 30 and 40 members to make sure that that ratio holds throughout the entire process. | ||
| And so it's going to be really important, and I'm going to be watching to make sure that the committees who are responsible for coming up with these spending reductions actually are delivering at the levels that they promised. | ||
| Mr. Duke, what are you watching for this week? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Things Paul mentioned. | |
| One other thing I'll mention is in the Agriculture Committee, they're taking up the SNAP bill, which was the language came out last night. | ||
| I think one provision that is going to, yeah, I think a lot of people are going to have to think about is the requirement that states pay 5 to 25 percent of the cost of SNAP benefits for the first time. | ||
| States administer the program, but they haven't been the ones paying the benefits. | ||
| That is going to be a huge change for state budgets. | ||
| I don't know if they're going to be able to pay for it. | ||
| I don't know if that means that states are going to have to disenroll from the SNAP program completely. | ||
| About half of the governors in the country are Republican. | ||
| That is a huge cost for them. | ||
| And so that's one thing you're going to really focus on, especially again, we are, you know, if a recession or something happens, we have this squeeze where more people go on a program like SNAP because they're poorer. | ||
| We see revenue in the state decline. | ||
| And unlike the federal government, states cannot run, they have to balance their budgets, right? | ||
| And so that is going to mean cuts to nutrition assistance in a recession when people can't find work. | ||
| So I think it's a deeply problematic provision. | ||
| And I think a key thing, and similar to the energy and commerce parts, governors are going to have a say. | ||
| And the fact that governors are going to have to deal with the consequences, whether they're Democrat or Republican, of the decisions being made here, of the savings that are going to finance tax cuts for wealthy people, is something that I think we're really going to have to watch. | ||
| Brendan Duke is with the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the website cbpp.org. | ||
| We've also been joined by Paul Winfrey of the Economic Policy Innovation Center, their website, epic4america.org. | ||
| And to both of you, thanks for the conversation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Thanks for having us. | ||
| Coming up, we're going to meet a member of Congress, Democrat Greg Landsman. | ||
| He's a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee to talk about reconciliation matters and other topics such as energy investment. | ||
| That, when Washington Journal continues. | ||
|
unidentified
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Representative Greg Landsman joining us, Democrat from Ohio. | ||
| He serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee. | ||
| He also serves the First District. | ||
| Representative Landsman, welcome. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having me. | |
| A big week for the Energy and Commerce Committee. | ||
| What is it going to be like as a Democrat as part of the reconciliation process? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, the key for us is to make it clear to the folks in the room and people at home that this is a decision between taking away people's health care and or giving tax cuts to the super wealthy. | |
| I mean, that's the decision because we all agree that the people who need tax relief should get tax relief in this bill, farmers, small businesses, middle-class families, workers. | ||
| So we agree on that. | ||
| The question then becomes, do you give more tax giveaways to the super wealthy or in their plan, do you cut people's health care? | ||
| We would like and will fight to protect people's health care and say the people at the top should pay all their taxes and that will pay for all of the tax relief for the people who need it. | ||
| As far as the approach the Republicans are taking, it went from initially per capita caps, now more work requirements and everything else. | ||
| What do you think about that softening as it's been described in some of the publications? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think the softening is spin. | |
| They're still taking away people's health care. | ||
| I mean, millions of people are going to lose their health care. | ||
| Then, as also then, as the week plays out, then what's the specific, what's the plan then as far as the negotiations? | ||
| I mean, you have a voice, but what happens as far as how to use that voice? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're going to use every procedural mean that we have to keep them in the room and to keep the debate front and center and to force them to answer the hard questions over and over and over again, which is however it is that they want to describe their changes, it is still going to mean people lose their health care. | |
| There are three buckets, people who lose their health care outright, people whose health care will go up, the cost will go up, and they will ultimately lose their care. | ||
| And then the rest of us, when you pull that much money out of the health care system, access to care begins to diminish for most people, if not all of us, because hospitals will close their doors, doctors' offices will shutter their doors, etc. | ||
| I mean, all of a sudden, what's available becomes less. | ||
| To their approach, frequent eligibility checks, work requirements on beneficiaries, changes to the way states raise their. | ||
| What's wrong with those things per se? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So the work requirements is a paperwork thing. | |
| Everyone on Medicaid who can work is already working. | ||
| They know that. | ||
| They've done this in two states. | ||
| It did not change anything in terms of people working. | ||
| People, again, who are already working are working. | ||
| Those who can't can't. | ||
| All it did was create this paperwork, mountain of paperwork, and people didn't enroll. | ||
| That's where they saved the money, right? | ||
| And so all of a sudden, people lose their health care. | ||
| That will ultimately lead to people dying. | ||
| I mean, this is a life or death situation. | ||
| What was the other gimmick? | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| It was the eligibility checks and work requirements. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so what they're doing is they're creating all of these additional hurdles, and they know based on where they did this in Arkansas and Alabama, that people will just walk away. | |
| They don't get their health insurance, and it has deadly outcomes. | ||
| Our previous guest, one of them, has said, ultimately, this goes to the sustainability of Medicaid. | ||
| When you hear those arguments, what's the response? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| Is there a sustainability problem? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Bush, we need to change Medicaid. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, we need to change Medicaid in that we need to ensure that everyone's covered with all of the coverage they need. | ||
| And you pay for that by, one, making sure that it's the leanest possible program. | ||
| And the GAO puts out a report every year and they list out all the waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| None of that waste, fraud, and abuse is in this bill. | ||
| None of it. | ||
| So yes, there are opportunities to pursue waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| They're not doing that. | ||
| What they're doing is they're trying to save money. | ||
| And this is pretty clear. | ||
| They're trying to save as much money as they can to pay for tax cuts for the super wealthy. | ||
| Our guest is with us until 9.35. | ||
| And if you want to ask him questions, 202748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and 202-748-8002 for Independents. | ||
| You can text us your thoughts this morning at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Your committee's chair, Brett Guthrie, put out an op-ed on what's going to take place this week. | ||
| And he starts, or at least he says this in part, saying it was the Biden administration responsible for the problem, to having to impose burdensome regulations on Medicaid that jeopardize the program's long-term health. | ||
| The last president stripped away guardrails against fraud by making it more difficult for states to remove ineligible people from Medicaid enrollment and expanded coverage such that capable but unemployed adults could take resources meant for people in need. | ||
| It goes on from there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so they use a language, they use language, and you heard it there, which was people in need. | |
| They're trying to distinguish all of the people who have health care now from the people who need it. | ||
| See what they're doing? | ||
| Right? | ||
| Well, these people need it. | ||
| These people do not. | ||
| That's millions of people that they're going to rip health care away from because in their minds they don't need it. | ||
| Let's take some calls. | ||
| This is from Gigi. | ||
| Gigi is in Virginia for Representative Greg Landsman. | ||
| Gigi, hello, you're on. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Pedro. | |
| I've been on hold since the last segment, and I wanted to comment on what they were talking about. | ||
| But what I would like to say is that Medicare Advantage is a scam. | ||
| And I want people who are retired over 65 to understand Medicare Advantage is basically taking our wonderful Medicare and privatizing it and turning it into a money-making scheme. | ||
| So please do not choose Medicare Advantage when you are a Medicare recipient who's eligible to receive Medicare. | ||
| Always tell them that you want basic Medicare because the little freebies that they tell you that you're getting and they do tell you, you know, memberships to local gyms and things like that. | ||
| The reason for that is because they're privatizing Medicare and they are raising the cost on the whole population. | ||
| They're raising the cost on the taxpayer and you're not receiving the benefit that you should be receiving just for basic health care. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's all I want to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I would love to weigh in. | ||
| Gigi's 100% right. | ||
| If you're going to pick, you're about to, you're looking at all the Medicare-related options. | ||
| Medicare, the program is the most efficient and it covers the most in terms of doctors and procedures. | ||
| That is the way to go. | ||
| Medicare Advantage should not be called Medicare Advantage because it is not Medicare. | ||
| It's private insurance. | ||
| And so, you know, I don't think that Medicare Advantage should use Medicare. | ||
| They shouldn't be able to use the language unless they're complying with everything that Medicare does. | ||
| The reason why this is important is because if we got serious and we just said, look, we're not going to do Medicare Advantage anymore. | ||
| Everything goes into Medicare. | ||
| We would save so much money. | ||
| And this is where you would think folks would be like, wait, wait, wait, this is an enormous amount of savings because we waste a lot of money and people get less care on Medicare Advantage, where if you just bring it all in-house, you'll save a ton of money. | ||
| And I know this isn't Medicaid, but this is a question. | ||
| Is your intent to save money or is your intent to cover the cost of tax cuts for the super wealthy? | ||
| From Tom, Tom in New Jersey, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Yeah, how you guys doing? | ||
| Listen, I first want to say congratulations to Donald Trump, the greatest president maybe in American history under George Washington. | ||
| If he sees what he's doing, because the news won't say what he's doing for the American people. | ||
| But I have a lot of friends who are on Medicare, and I have a lot of friends on Medicaid. | ||
| And my friends on Medicaid, they're just beating the system. | ||
| So Medicaid can be cut in half. | ||
| And that's what Trump's going to do. | ||
| He's going to cut the people who don't deserve to be on the program. | ||
| It's very simple. | ||
| And that's all I want to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And the scare tactic Democrat there, your party is not even existence in 15 years. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Tom in New Jersey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so Tom is being honest. | |
| And I hope my Congressional Republican colleagues will be just as honest. | ||
| They're saying there are people who deserve to be on Medicaid, who deserve health care, and people who don't. | ||
| I do not believe that. | ||
| I don't believe that the majority of Americans believe that. | ||
| People need their health care. | ||
| You cannot take health care away from millions and millions of people and think it's going to be okay. | ||
| People will die. | ||
| Hospitals will close their doors. | ||
| Rural hospitals in particular. | ||
| It's a huge source of revenue when you take that much money out of the system. | ||
| And for what? | ||
| To pay for tax cuts for the super wealthy. | ||
| And so just to be clear, if you pay for all of the tax cuts for the folks who need it, you know, the working people, the middle class, small businesses, farmers, where we all agree, and you let the tax cuts for the top wage earners go from 38 back to 39%. | ||
| I mean, very little. | ||
| And you take the corporate rate back to not even 35%, but say 28%. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| You pay for everything. | ||
| I also think there should be a billionaire minimum tax, which would cover the cost of all of this. | ||
| And you could invest more in Medicaid and people's health care. | ||
| I mean, it's just, this is a question. | ||
| Do you make the folks who are doing so well, the Elon Musks and the Jeff Bezos and the Mark Zuckerberg, they're just sitting on billions and billions and billions of dollars. | ||
| Do you make them pay a little bit more? | ||
| Or do you take people's health care away? | ||
| You're serving a district which includes the city of Cincinnati. | ||
| From what I'm told, Cincinnati is one of those cities that deals a lot with international trade. | ||
| With that in mind, what do you think about current approaches to trade and tariff policy and the announcement yesterday from the president concerning China? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That it's more chaos, I mean, confusion. | |
| Markets, my businesses, you know, in our district, they rely on certainty. | ||
| You can't do much in an uncertain market. | ||
| It's, you know, it's just more uncertainty. | ||
| He flipped a little on the tariffs with China. | ||
| It didn't change any of our circumstances. | ||
| All he did was change the number. | ||
| He could change the number back. | ||
| I mean, this is the problem. | ||
| And so everyone is just going to stop investing. | ||
| That's what you're seeing. | ||
| And we are weeks away, months potentially from a recession of his own doing. | ||
| He did this. | ||
| He launched a global trade war without any strategy. | ||
| He just said, I'm going to put tariffs on everybody. | ||
| And instead of doing what most folks would do if they wanted to bring back American manufacturing, you secure investments from Congress to invest in American manufacturing. | ||
| You have targeted tariffs. | ||
| You get your global partners, and we had so many. | ||
| I think we still have so many, but he has turned his back on all of our allies. | ||
| And you work against China and all these other places to invest in American manufacturing, not a chaotic global trade war that creates a level of uncertainty we haven't seen since the pandemic. | ||
| Have you heard anything specifically from manufacturers in Cincinnati? | ||
| What are they saying to you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're all cutting back. | |
| I mean, the folks have reached out to us, they say we are cutting back. | ||
| And we have one company who's been doing business in our district for decades. | ||
| It's a family-owned business that they make parts for all kinds of medical devices. | ||
| I mean, they're all over the global economy. | ||
| They have an operation in China, but they do their manufacturing here in the United States. | ||
| But because it's going to be so costly to do it, they are deciding whether or not to leave Cincinnati and go to China. | ||
| Let's hear from Joe. | ||
| Joe in Illinois, Democrats line, you're on with our guest, Representative Greg Lansman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir, Representative. | |
| I got a comment first is, you know, you're talking about Medicaid. | ||
| You know, with the cuts to all the people at cash registers for going to self-check, we're going to have people, they're unemployed, and they're not going to be able to find a job. | ||
| And you also have the big industries coming back that's going to be 90% robotic, so there won't be any good jobs there. | ||
| But besides that, I'm concerned. | ||
| I'm a retired federal employee on disability. | ||
| And I'm concerned about this bill that they want to give us a voucher to pay for our health insurance. | ||
| And what would that do to me? | ||
| Well, it would just about triple my premium. | ||
| And my wife are on. | ||
| My wife and I are not wealthy. | ||
| We're at about $60,000 a year. | ||
| And I hope that you and your colleagues would look into that portion of this great, big, beautiful so-called bill that the rich Donald Trump, who could give a damn about the working person, all they're concerned about is their wallet. | ||
| So if you could look into that or give me some insight on that, I would certainly appreciate it. | ||
| And I do thank you. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| Bye. | ||
| Yeah, I appreciate it. | ||
| This is a huge concern. | ||
| People around the country, particularly our public employees, are seeing their government turn on them. | ||
| In addition to saying we're going to shrink what you have available to pay for health care, which will mean they lose their health care, we're also going to require, they are going to require a lot of our public employees to pay more of their pension. | ||
| They're taking away or at least diminishing what they could rely on for retirement. | ||
| The point is, they have decided that they are going to put forward a bill that favors the super wealthy at the expense of public employees and working people. | ||
| It is, because it involves health care, morally bankrupt. | ||
| It is also politically suicidal. | ||
| I mean, this is Josh Hawley, who is a very conservative senator, Republican senator, said yesterday, don't do this. | ||
| This is a terrible, terrible approach. | ||
| And you take people's health care away to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. | ||
| That's not going to go well for people. | ||
| And first and foremost, I'm not thinking about the politics. | ||
| I'm literally going into today and into these hearings appreciating that I'm fighting for somebody's life. | ||
| I'm fighting for their kids' lives. | ||
| I mean, I just know so many people who rely on Medicaid for their health insurance, health insurance for their children. | ||
| And when a cutback will mean they cannot take care of themselves or their children with basic health care, and they're either working, sometimes they're working multiple jobs. | ||
| And that's my fight is to protect their health care because it's a life or death situation. | ||
| However, it is clearly going to be a political mistake, in my opinion. | ||
| And most people agree for them to try to pay for tax cuts, particularly for the super wealthy, on the backs of working people who need their health care. | ||
| The president's currently in Saudi Arabia, currently now participating in a signing ceremony when it comes to business investments. | ||
| You yourself recently traveled overseas with the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, United Kingdom, Denmark, Israel, and Jordan. | ||
| What was the purpose of the trip? | ||
|
unidentified
|
To reaffirm our alliances. | |
| Those are our partners. | ||
| And it doesn't mean that the Saudis and others in the Gulf aren't or shouldn't, can't be our partners, but our partners are in Europe and the Middle East, and he flew over them. | ||
| And he's going to get a half a trillion dollar private jet. | ||
| This is the most blatant corruption I've ever seen in my entire life. | ||
| It's also a national security issue. | ||
| I mean, the Qatar is going to give him a plane. | ||
| Like, how safe is this plane? | ||
| I mean, you know, this is, he needs to say, absolutely not. | ||
| And. | ||
| And you also have his sons going around securing business deals for his dad, for their dad, using the office of the presidency. | ||
| I mean, he's getting a private jet, a half a trillion-dollar private jet because he's the president. | ||
| I mean, it is the most grotesque abuse of power and blatant corruption, plus the Trump coin, where it's essentially a Swiss bank account where you can put whatever people are just depositing money. | ||
| We don't know who's doing it. | ||
| He's making billions, billions of dollars. | ||
| And I do think that's what he cares most about, is making as much money as humanly possible off this office. | ||
| It is corrupt. | ||
| Wayne, if you were in Israel, did you have a chance to talk with Israeli leadership about what's going on in Gaza? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, of course. | |
| Every time I go to Israel, I am as frank and honest as I possibly can. | ||
| I believe deeply that there needs to be peace. | ||
| I want to be part of a generation of leaders that helps broker peace between the Palestinians and Israelis. | ||
| You've got to get Iran out of the mix. | ||
| Iran is funding Hezbollah and Hamas and the Houthis. | ||
| You get terror, these terror armies out of the Middle East. | ||
| I think you're much closer to peace. | ||
| And I want every one of these hostages home. | ||
| Obviously, yesterday was a big deal, but we need every hostage home. | ||
| And then we need a coalition of countries to work with the Palestinians to dismantle Hamas and rebuild Gaza for Gazans. | ||
| You mentioned it briefly about Eden Alexander. | ||
| Any further thought on that? | ||
| The release of Eden Alexander yesterday? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank God he's home. | |
| Let's hear from Colleen. | ||
| Colleen in California, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi, good morning. | ||
| I just want to talk with the Congressman a little bit about the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| I'm a working middle-class person, not a family, just single. | ||
| And it's based off of your income, of course, and it takes about 12% of your gross income, which, you know, California, $80,000 is middle-class. | ||
| So it's costing about $900 a month up to $1,200 a month just for your medical without any deductibles. | ||
| And it's really not affordable for a middle-class person. | ||
| So I think what we need to do is kind of maybe look at, can we readjust, because there's a cap on that. | ||
| If you're making $300,000, you're paying the same as the person that's making $80,000. | ||
| I think that cap needs to be adjusted. | ||
| And that'll help maybe offset a lot of these medical costs and help people because it's just really kind of tough on the middle class person. | ||
| And as far as that goes, you know, too, when this did pass the Affordable Care Act, we were told this is, you know, Americans for Americans. | ||
| And it's not. | ||
| In California, our governor has decided to put everybody on Medicaid, which is costing us a ton. | ||
| And he's up in Washington asking for some additional help because he's decided to put everybody on. | ||
| And I was just kind of wondering what the Congressman's thoughts were. | ||
| Maybe raising that cap so that people, you know, if you're making a million dollars, maybe you should be paying $20,000 a month for medical, and you'll understand what it's like to be middle class and pay that. | ||
| Thanks, Colleen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Extremely high. | |
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, Colleen, thank you. | |
| I mean, let me just speak to the cap piece. | ||
| This is why Medicaid does need to change. | ||
| We need to improve Medicaid. | ||
| We need to invest in people's health care. | ||
| I mean, right now in America, most people are struggling to make ends meet. | ||
| You know, sure, the economy looks one way. | ||
| If you're up here, it's like, well, unemployment is okay and GDP seems to be doing okay, even though it looks like we're heading into a recession. | ||
| But when you start to look at people's bank accounts, it's grim. | ||
| I mean, most people are really, really struggling to make ends meet. | ||
| And so, you know, whether it's housing, food, or health care, they are stretched very thin. | ||
| And this government does have the resources to say we can help. | ||
| You know, we can help with food assistance. | ||
| Certainly, this Congress should not go anywhere near the SNAP benefits, cutting back. | ||
| You know, this is going to play out this week too. | ||
| Cutting people's food. | ||
| I mean, it's just cruel. | ||
| It's also terrible for our economy. | ||
| It's terrible for our groceries, grocers. | ||
| It's terrible for our farmers. | ||
| It's just insane that they're doing it to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, but also health care. | ||
| Like, yes, she's right. | ||
| Like, the cap is not where it needs to be. | ||
| Like, whatever the health care costs are, if you want to, as we should be doing, work with the folks who are providing health care and trim the fat there. | ||
| I mean, most of the cost that's going up is going up because you have these bloated administrative budgets, you have overcharging, all kinds of stuff that Congress should absolutely lead on, but don't take it away from patients, from families, from individuals. | ||
| Go after these huge, enormously profitable companies, hospitals, insurance companies, and say, look, we are going to force you guys to lower costs. | ||
| We are. | ||
| And that's the approach. | ||
| I don't know why Congressional Republicans are trying to take it out on working people. | ||
| It does not make sense. | ||
| This is from Lorraine, Lorraine in New York, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Hi. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I've always been so surprised that the American public doesn't seem to understand that somewhere between like 7 and 11 percent of the people just simply cannot work. | ||
| And it's not for reasons always that you'd think. | ||
| They appear often to be able-bodied. | ||
| But as a social worker who sat with people for 36 years and heard their stories, I know that there were multiple reasons they often could not work, from physical reasons to mental, emotional reasons to accidents and injuries to deformities at birth to all kinds of things. | ||
| And the American public needs to understand we cannot just leave those people to be. | ||
| They're the homeless on our streets. | ||
| It becomes ugly. | ||
| Our society becomes ugly. | ||
| We can take care of them. | ||
| But if we privatize everything, we will lose everything. | ||
| All the mental health clinics and psych clinics and clinics that often help people who get depressed after they have all these problems, in addition to their other problems, these folks end up in bad situations and on the streets. | ||
| And our society begins to look very ugly. | ||
| When you privatize these things, guess what? | ||
| They don't make a profit. | ||
| So they end. | ||
| I remember two local mental health clinics where the county went private. | ||
| And guess what? | ||
| They don't have mental health clinics anymore because they privatize them. | ||
| And guess what? | ||
| The private guys find out. | ||
| You can't make money off of sick people, off of people who can't work. | ||
| Lorraine, thank you. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Lorraine, completely agree. | |
| I mean, it is, it's a really sad moment. | ||
| Honestly, you know, again, you can provide tax relief. | ||
| We would be ready to work with Republicans right now. | ||
| Like, if today changed, they say, hey, we're going to pull back. | ||
| I'm in the room. | ||
| I'm in the room saying, let's go. | ||
| Because it is easy to pay for tax relief for the vast majority of Americans, the folks who need it, almost everybody, and just have Elon and Jeff Bezos and the rest of them pay a billionaire minimum tax. | ||
| You change the corporate tax, you move it back to where it was previously, and the global trade war, which will help them. | ||
| And then the top wage earner, you just move it a percent or two, which is essentially just letting it expire. | ||
| And everybody who needs their health care because they get their health care through Medicaid, they can't get it through a private insurance. | ||
| They are working or they can't work. | ||
| And they do know because of Arkansas and Arizona, where they did this. | ||
| They know that every able-bodied person is working. | ||
| And the only thing that the change does is create this mountain of paperwork where people just walk away. | ||
| That's where they save money. | ||
| But they're saving money for the tax cuts for the super wealthy. | ||
| That's all they're doing. | ||
| If they walk away from the tax cuts for the super wealthy, they don't have to cut anyone's health care. | ||
| Now, you could do the waste-front abuse work that the GAO has listed out. | ||
| I just read it again. | ||
| It's all of these changes that go after the people who really do take advantage of the system. | ||
| It's usually non-American. | ||
| It's these criminals. | ||
| And the system needs to be changed to go after these folks. | ||
| And we can do it working with states, but that requires to actually focus on waste-friendly abuse and fix Medicaid as opposed to stripping or tearing health care away from millions. | ||
| One more call from Patricia in Minneapolis, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, Representative, you've got something fundamentally wrong. | |
| If the government gives an individual or business a tax cut, they aren't giving us anything. | ||
| It's ours. | ||
| It's not the government's. | ||
| We're keeping what we earned. | ||
| And President Trump is accomplishing so much. | ||
| When you went on your trip with your Democrats, you folks didn't accomplish a damn thing except spend a ton of taxpayer money. | ||
| Now, you tried to villainize President Trump, but he actually cares about the middle class. | ||
| You have done nothing. | ||
| Even you Democrats have done nothing but ruin our country. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| If President Trump cares about working people, he will convince congressional Republicans to walk away from the morally problematic, if not bankrupt, politically egregious cuts to their health care. | ||
| He can do that. | ||
| He can pick up the phone right now and say, you know what? | ||
| I care too much about working people. | ||
| Don't mess with their health care. | ||
| I'd rather see my buddy Elon pay all of his taxes because this guy, Elon, has hundreds of billions of dollars. | ||
| He's not going to miss it. | ||
| By the way, a lot of that money came from us. | ||
| He gets more tax breaks and grants and contracts than just about anybody between Tesla and SpaceX. | ||
| Sounds like Donald Trump is making sure all these trade deals include Starlink and SpaceX. | ||
| Pay all your taxes. | ||
| Leave the working people alone. | ||
| In fact, help them out. | ||
| Give them more health care, not less. | ||
| We have about a minute left. | ||
| You were elected in 2022. | ||
| Your background, a bachelor's in economics from Ohio University, a master's in theology from Harvard University. | ||
| How did you end up in Congress? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's a great question. | |
| I love economics. | ||
| I love, you know, solving problems. | ||
| You know, I think economics explains almost everything except for theology and how people, you know, what they believe in and how they work together. | ||
| And I just think between economics and theology, you know, and I was a teacher, Congress needs more people who deeply care about human beings, understand the way, you know, human behavior works out in terms of community, but also the economy, and somebody who's going to go and be part of these conversations to solve problems as opposed to play politics. | ||
| Because if we can solve all these problems, which is in our power, The sky's the limit. | ||
| This is the greatest country ever. | ||
| I mean, I want to be part of making it even greater. | ||
| Representative Greg Lansman, Democrat from Ohio. | ||
| He serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee. | ||
| Thanks for your time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| We'll finish the program with Open Forum. | ||
| And if you want to give us your call on matters of politics, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, Republicans, 202748-8001. | ||
| Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Go ahead and make those calls. | ||
| We'll take him in open forum when Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Ernest Cuneo played Ivy League football at Columbia University and was in the old Brooklyn Dodgers NFL franchise before becoming a city hall lawyer and a brain trust aide to President Franklin Roosevelt. | ||
| While on the payroll of national radio columnist Walter Winchell, Cuneo mingled with the famous and powerful, but his status as a spy remained a secret, hiding in plain sight. | ||
| All of this is the way Hanover Square Press introduces readers to Thomas Mayer's book, The Invisible Spy. | ||
| Mayer, a graduate of Fordham and Columbia, is an author and a television producer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Author Thomas Mayer with his book, The Invisible Spy, Churchill's Rockefeller Center Spy Ring, and America's first secret agent of World War II. | |
| On this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb. | ||
| BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| Non-fiction book lovers, C-SPAN has a number of podcasts for you. | ||
| Listen to best-selling nonfiction authors and influential interviewers on the Afterwords podcast and on QA. | ||
| Hear wide-ranging conversations with the non-fiction authors and others who are making things happen. | ||
| And BookNotes Plus episodes are weekly hour-long conversations that regularly feature fascinating authors of nonfiction books on a wide variety of topics. | ||
| Find all of our podcasts by downloading the free C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts and on our website, c-span.org/slash podcasts. | ||
| If you ever miss any of C-SPAN's coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org. | ||
| Videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. | ||
| These points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. | ||
| This timeline tool makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in Washington. | ||
| Scroll through and spend a few minutes on C-SPAN's points of interest. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Again, we'll finish out the program with open forum. | ||
| And if you haven't called in the last 30 days and you want to give your thoughts on politics today, 202748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8000-1 for Republicans, Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| Before we take those calls, we'll talk about National Police Week being celebrated across the United States and in Washington, D.C. Joining us for that conversation is Bill Alexander. | ||
| He is the chief executive officer for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. | ||
| Mr. Alexander, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you so much for allowing me to come on and tell a little bit about what we're doing today. | ||
| In Washington, D.C., a lot of police officers coming and walking around the nation's capital. | ||
| What's the purpose of Police Week overall, though? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The purpose of Police Week is to allow mostly law enforcement professionals from all across the country and to some degree even around the world to come together and share a moment in time to remember their fallen peers, the men and women who have died in the line of duty, and also to sort of commemorate, to gather to share the experiences of law enforcement, which occur broadly, really across the world. | |
| But mostly it's centered around us honoring and remembering our fallen officers. | ||
| So like I said, a lot of people come to D.C. for that. | ||
| What's the DC portion of the week? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, there's a number of notable events across the week. | |
| One of those is the Fraternal Order of Police's ceremony at the Capitol, which is always on the 15th. | ||
| And there's some other sub events, like yesterday there was a canine memorial service. | ||
| But most notably for us, and certainly the most public-facing event every single police week is our candlelight vigil. | ||
| We are in heavy preparations right now out on the National Mall right now preparing for the 37th annual Candlelight Vigil, again, hosted by us, the Memorial Fund, where we will read aloud the names of all 345 men and women who died in the line of duty and whose names have most recently been added to our very sacred memorial, where we honor today 24,412 men and women who have all died serving in some law enforcement capacity across the broad stretch of U.S. history. | ||
| Your organization is based in Washington, D.C. | ||
| A lot of police officers coming to Washington, D.C. Overall, how much policy that's made in Washington, D.C. affects law enforcement on the local level? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, it really does. | |
| There's just no question. | ||
| And certainly, if I look over the last five years, to some worrying degree, I feel like to some degree, too many politicians have been seeking to demonize what I still view as my peers, having retired myself. | ||
| But there's just no question that the policy that originates here in the heart of our country does have an effect on the men and women who are out on our streets trying to keep us, our families, and our community safe. | ||
| And certainly, I hope everyone here in D.C. is mindful of that as they're making policy. | ||
| But also, I hope everyone in the nation is mindful of the service and sacrifice of so many and taking, if no other time, taking this week to be thankful for those men and women who are willing and able to be out there to serve us. | ||
| When it comes to those policy matters, what would your message be to Washington overall? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Support police. | |
| There's no more foundational need in the country than law and order. | ||
| It all starts there. | ||
| Everything else in my mind is far secondary. | ||
| So please find ways to support police officers, police organizations, police agencies. | ||
| Find ways to support sheriffs and chiefs. | ||
| Listen to what it is that they need in terms of what they're asking for. | ||
| Resources, money, personnel. | ||
| Every single agency I'm aware of is vastly undermanned. | ||
| The law enforcement profession needs help. | ||
| And the profession exists to help the entire country, the communities. | ||
| And that's all they're asking for is a little bit of help. | ||
| The Washington Examiner reports this week that some of the activities of the House will specifically deal with legislation when it comes to law enforcement, including the Improving Law Enforcement Officer Safety and Wellness Through Data Act, the Leosa Reform Act, and the Federal Law Enforcement Officer Service Weapon Purchase Act of 2025. | ||
| Can you offer us a 30,000-foot view of those bills and what they're about? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, unfortunately, I can't. | |
| I'm not intimately familiar with those. | ||
| I know generally they are designed to help law enforcement across a number of those metrics. | ||
| But my week, as you might imagine, has been quite busy preparing for the vigil. | ||
| So I haven't really dived into any of those specific bills. | ||
| When you go to Capitol Hill, though, do you talk about these issues, at least legislative issues that Congress should pay attention to? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, we at the Memorial Fund are historically nonpartisan. | |
| We try not to weigh in on any specific issue beyond asking folks to support law enforcement and be mindful of those who have died in the line of duty. | ||
| When it comes to what you acknowledge, do you know that do you, will President Trump formally acknowledge the week or the activities that you're part of? | ||
| Do you know that going forward? | ||
|
unidentified
|
He has acknowledged the week. | |
| I actually invited him to come to the candlelight vigil. | ||
| And as you are likely aware, he's overseas supporting our troops. | ||
| So he was unable to attend. | ||
| But I know for a fact that President Trump has been and continues to be a very, very strong supporter of law enforcement. | ||
| The actual vigil and other activities, if people wanted to view it online, are they able to do so? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They absolutely are. | |
| We have a YouTube channel where we will broadcast the vigil live. | ||
| I can't encourage folks enough to either view the live stream or come out in person. | ||
| I know it's supposed to rain tonight, but there are few, very, very few ceremonies where you will feel the emotional impact of being in a place and space like the Candlelight Vigil every single year. | ||
| The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund is where Bill Alexander joins us from. | ||
| He's the chief executive officer. | ||
| Their website, n-le-e-om-f.org. | ||
| Mr. Alexander, thanks for your time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Thank you for helping us to tell the story. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| We'll go to open forum again. | ||
| Call the best line that represents you. | ||
| If you've called in the last 30 days, hold off from doing so today. | ||
| Let's hear from Mike in Illinois, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi. | ||
| Mike in Illinois. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, hey, how's it going? | |
| Go ahead, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I just had a comment about that the plane we got. | |
| Well, Trump got, I guess. | ||
| I just wanted to say it's about 24 years too late, and I think they still owe us two more. | ||
| Margaret up next in California, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I'm also calling about the airplane that the King of Qatar is giving the president of our country. | ||
| It's not ethical, legal, or constitutional. | ||
| And then it has to be refurnished for millions to be paid for by us. | ||
| Plus, the president plans to keep it after he leaves office. | ||
| And then that would be stealing from us, the American people. | ||
| And that's not right. | ||
| And they plan to be putting out the story that it's going to be given to the Department of Defense. | ||
| Let's see how many of us buy that one. | ||
| And that's why I called. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Margaret in California, the Washington Post, following up on this story the last couple of days, saying it was on Monday that the president praised Cutter for offering his administration a free luxury jet. | ||
| But current and former U.S. Military Defense and Secret Service officials said he will likely have to waive existing security specifications to be able to use the plane. | ||
| Mr. Trump said he would be a stupid person to not accept the gift of a 400 million Boeing 747-8, called it a great gesture by Cutter. | ||
| The president said he intended to use the plane for a couple years. | ||
| The story saying that a White House official said it was premature to say how long upgrades to the Cuttery plane would take. | ||
| The official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, like others in a view, also declined to say if when Mr. Trump or the Trump administration expects to take possession. | ||
| That's in the Washington Post if you want to see it there. | ||
| Let's hear from Robert. | ||
| Robert in New York, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, hey, how are you doing? | |
| A couple questions real quick, too. | ||
| So Social Security Medicare, I owned a pizza shop for a brief time while I was in the military. | ||
| And when I had to pay out my Social Security to my employees, when it was taken out of their checks, I didn't realize as a business owner or a new business owner that I actually had to match that. | ||
| So when all that money goes into the fund, let's say, and even Medicare, when you pay that out too, because it's like 5.5% for Social Security and like 1.4% for Medicare. | ||
| When the money goes into the pools, just to be transparent with Americans, you think that does that money only get used for that or is there a shortfall in that? | ||
| Like because of maybe because of boomers? | ||
| I don't know the answer, but what motivates your concern over that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, because when you look at the $7 trillion we spend and the $5 trillion we bring in, I think I heard a stat that said something like 53% of the $5 trillion we bring in goes right to Medicaid and Social Security. | |
| But like, is that if that was, I'd like to know what the pool is, not just as a normal American, what the pool is that comes in from people's paychecks and what the employers pay. | ||
| Does that cover that? | ||
| Because, I mean, you know, we also pay federal income tax, which is separate from our, from, you know, our FICA, right? | ||
| Which comes out of your paycheck. | ||
| And then one thing it's always kind of, I did some research here and there with the previous was he a senator or a congressman? | ||
| He was a congressman, a house member. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He had mentioned things about Trump Musk getting contracts. | |
| I looked up what the basic NASA budget was for the year, and it was $25 billion. | ||
| And he has a $2.5 billion contract with him to do. | ||
| And so, I mean, like a lot of times we hear that Elon Musk is doing things that NASA can't do, supposedly, or he's doing it for less than what NASA could do it for. | ||
| So, I mean, if he's only got one-tenth of that budget, that's pretty impressive if he's carrying a heavy load, you know? | ||
| Okay, let's hear from Tony. | ||
| Tony in Florida, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hey, Pedro. | ||
| First off, as a long time, C-SPAN listener, I've become so disappointed because all we get is Trump's the greatest thing since sliced bread, and Trump is Hitler. | ||
| There's a lot in between that needs to be looked at. | ||
| Specifically, I hear people come all the way. | ||
| We're going to tax the rich. | ||
| We'll solve our problems. | ||
| Do these people really think that Elon Musk is sitting on $200 billion in $100 bills or in gold bars? | ||
| Don't you realize where this money is? | ||
| I bet you Musk couldn't find $44 billion. | ||
| Oh, he couldn't because when he was buying Twitter, he had to find investors. | ||
| And the other thing I want people to look at is that as the government has done more, the middle-class lifestyle has deteriorated. | ||
| They have made people dependent. | ||
| I bless this country. | ||
| I'm an immigrant accent, and I thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. | ||
| I have never, ever in 47 years cashed a government check other than my income tax return because I would work seven days a week at times to do what I had to do. | ||
| And they are making us into a nation of weak need beggars. | ||
| We need to wake up, stop the partisanship, and just look at what's happening. | ||
| You have a great day, Pedro. | ||
| You're my favorite. | ||
| Hi. | ||
| John up next in Tennessee, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hey, how are you? | ||
| Fine, thank you. | ||
| I want to talk about the 14.25% roughly the employer and the employee pays in Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. | ||
| Do you have any idea what the total amount annually that's paid in by the employee and the employer to Medicaid and Medicare? | ||
| I don't specifically know, but go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're being robbed by the hospitals, the doctors, the pharmaceutical companies, and the politicians. | |
| Medicaid and Medicare fund is being robbed. | ||
| It used to be a separate deal until Eisenhower or somebody put in the general fund. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| Again, I don't want to speak out of turn or without some basis of knowledge, but go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't understand. | |
| We're being robbed. | ||
| The politician was talking about Medicare, Medicaid Advantage plans. | ||
| How did the politicians decide that an insurance company needs to administer this and make a profit by furnishing lower health care, cheaper doctors, cheaper hospitals? | ||
| I take a shot in my eye for glaucoma. | ||
| I was forced into retirement at 77. | ||
| The company closed. | ||
| They will not pay for the most current shot or what for the shot to an advantage plant. | ||
| So they're making a profit in the margin at the top by furnishing lower health care to the American people. | ||
| Okay, John in Tennessee there. | ||
| Let's hear from Joe in Maryland, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Hey, good morning, Pedro. | ||
| Thank you for all the work you've done for over the years. | ||
| A lot of hours I've listened to you, sir. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And don't always agree. | ||
| So that's great, right? | ||
| And that said, thank you for your work. | ||
| I was calling today about two quick ones. | ||
| I'm from Washington, D.C. my entire life. | ||
| I'm 55 years, young or old. | ||
| I call it old. | ||
| And the plane, that whole thing is really not, that just needs to stop real quick. | ||
| He needs to take that to his house and play with it. | ||
| And if they want to make us pay to fix it, fine. | ||
| But we can't have another from Qatar, Cutter. | ||
| He normally called them Cutter. | ||
| Now he switched to Qatar. | ||
| And they have an embassy over here in Alexander, right in Virginia, where supposedly that stupid plane, airplane took off out of that helicopter. | ||
| But I don't care about that stuff. | ||
| I care about changing this place, Pedro, because what we're talking about today is the airplane. | ||
| That shouldn't even be a topic of conversation. | ||
| It should be things like tariffs and people struggling and death and veterans dying and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. | ||
| And Pedro should get a day off to talk about positive things. | ||
| That said, we have one chance, Pedro. | ||
| And I was thinking what to say this whole time. | ||
| We have one chance in this country. | ||
| And that's to get rid of Citizens United, the law they passed several years back that made it available for all corporations and people and entities around the world to get involved in the United States of America elections. | ||
| And that is why we have lost control to these people. | ||
| And you wonder why don't our people represent us? | ||
| Because they represent the powers that be, Pedro. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| How do you feel about that? | ||
| Joe there in Maryland. | ||
| He did bring up tariffs. | ||
| It was the discussion point of a forum that took place here in Washington, D.C. | ||
| It featured former U.S. trade representatives of the United States and various administrations. | ||
| And one of the first things they talked about was the announcement by the Trump administration of the agreement, the 90-day agreement with China. | ||
| And here's some of those perspectives from yesterday's event. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It'll change 10,000 times between now and 90 days from now. | |
| And it'll go up and it'll go down and China will commit some infraction or the U.S. will commit some infraction. | ||
| And it's like scrambling eggs and unscrambling, scrambling again, so on and so forth. | ||
| I think it's good that both sides climb down from the ledge. | ||
| Particularly good that the U.S. climbed down. | ||
| I think both recognize time to get back to managing the relationship as opposed to trying to transform the relationship, which will be claimed but will not happen in that way and certainly not on any durable basis. | ||
| And most of all, I think it's good that the two sides recognize that they each have interests that actually do overlap. | ||
| One of which is not to be coupled. | ||
| One thing I will say is, Bill, to all of us who are here, we all dealt with China. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And most of us made an agreement of one kind or another. | |
| For me, it was a textile agreement, which Susan will remember as deputy when I was there. | ||
| Very tough negotiators and very frustrating. | ||
| And if Hank Paulson were here, I hate to speak for Hank, but I'll channel him a little bit. | ||
| You know, he's been very interested in the relationship and in encouraging us to stay engaged. | ||
| He's also frustrated with some of the commercial, whether it's IP theft or whether it's subsidies, and sort of the stubbornness of trying different ways, including sending a product to a third country and then have that product come outside of the tariffs that were rightfully in place because of a countervailing duty or anti-dumping. | ||
| Okay, so it's not an easy deal with China. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And so I agree with Charlene. | |
| The devil's in the details. | ||
| We'll see what happens over the next 90 days because they're very clever and they will try to figure out ways to continue to have this great U.S. market for them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I applaud Secretary Besson and Jameson Greer for taking the lemons and making some lemonade. | |
| You can see that whole event, by the way, on C-SPAN and our apps, C-SPAN now, the website MediaITE has this story taking a look at former President Joe Biden saying that as the former president insisted he was running a 2024 campaign against Donald Trump, his closest aides were privately planning on his likely need for a wheelchair if re-elected, determining that they need to conceal the conversation until after voters cast their ballots. | ||
| According to Original Sin, the forthcoming book by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios correspondent Alex Thompson. | ||
| The team engaged in a behind-the-scenes scramble to manage Biden's mobility, including stage modifications, handrails, sneakers, and shorter walking routes, all carefully choreographed to avoid public stumbles after the president tripped over a sandbag in 2023. | ||
| Axios reports that it was the Biden team believing that it was, quote, politically untenable for Mr. Biden to opt for wheelchair use. | ||
| Ronald is in New York, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Two points I would like to make. | ||
| One is that what you just had, like about Biden and his difficulties, and prior to that, excerpts from the meeting, I think it's wrong to go into the very limited time that we have with open forum. | ||
| Just leave open forum for people to call in and express their thoughts or opinions. | ||
| We have so little time to do it. | ||
| The other point I would like to make, Pedro, is that you have such an opportunity there to be on the air for several hours a day when you're on. | ||
| And I think it would be very beneficial if you would utilize that by, for example, if you have a Democrat, a Democratic representative, ask them, ask them, can you say anything decent about President Trump and what he has accomplished or what he wants to accomplish? | ||
| Do you have anything decent to say about Republicans in Congress in general? | ||
| Put them on the spot. | ||
| Use the opportunity that you have to do that and do the reverse when you have Republicans on. | ||
| Ask them, do you have anything positive to say about Democrats and their complaints and their Democratic representatives? |