CSPAN - Washington Journal 05/16/2025

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May 16, 2025 07:00-10:06 - CSPAN

03:05:56

Washington Journal 05/16/2025

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rep/d 19:04

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Utah to local governments or private entities.
		Also, Wisconsin Democratic Congresswoman Gwen Moore, a member of the Ways and Means Committee and the Progressive Caucus, talks about the GOP budget and its impact on tax policy and social safety net programs.
		And Maria Snegovaya of the Center for Strategic and International Studies reviews the state of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
		Washington Journal is next.
		Join the conversation.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
		It's Friday, May 16th, 2025.
		A three-hour Washington Journal is ahead.
		We'll talk with two members of Congress and also dive into the latest efforts to strike a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
		But we begin with a question on birthright citizenship.
		The Supreme Court yesterday heard arguments in a case stemming from President Trump's efforts to limit birthright citizenship.
		So this morning, we're asking you about the idea that anyone born within the United States is automatically a citizen.
		Do you support birthright citizenship in this country?
		Phone lines are split as usual by political party.
		Democrats, it's 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		You can also send us a text, that number, 202-748-8003.
		If you do, please include your name and where you're from.
		Otherwise, catch up with us on social media on X.
		It's at C-SPANWJ on Facebook.
		It's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN.
		And a very good Friday morning to you.
		You can go ahead and start calling in.
		Now, the path to the Supreme Court yesterday began on President Trump's first day in office back in January, signing an executive order seeking to limit birthright citizenship.
		As the New York Times today describes it, that order seeks to deny citizenship to babies born to undocumented migrants and visitors without green cards as a practical matter, they write.
		That would start with agencies in the executive branch refusing them citizenship, affirming documents like social security cards.
		The story notes that multiple courts around the country have blocked the government from obeying that order, ruling that it is most likely illegal.
		The case came before the Supreme Court yesterday.
		Here's some of the arguments from here on Capitol Hill.
justice brett kavanaugh ▲ ● ▼		The day after it goes into effect, it's just a very practical question how it's going to work.
		What do hospitals do with a newborn?
		What do states do with a newborn?
d john sauer ▲ ● ▼		I don't think they do anything different.
d john sauer ▲ ● ▼		What the executive order says in Section 2 is that federal officials do not accept documents that have the wrong designation of citizenship from people who are subject to the executive order.
justice brett kavanaugh ▲ ● ▼		How are they going to know that?
d john sauer ▲ ● ▼		The states can continue to, the federal officials will have to figure that out.
		How?
		So you can imagine a number of ways that the federal officials could.
justice brett kavanaugh ▲ ● ▼		Such as?
d john sauer ▲ ● ▼		Such as they could require a showing of documentation showing legal presence in the country for a temporary visitor, for example.
d john sauer ▲ ● ▼		They could see whether they're on a B1 visa, which would exclude kind of the birthright citizenship and that kind of thing.
justice brett kavanaugh ▲ ● ▼		For all the newborns, is that how that's going to work?
d john sauer ▲ ● ▼		Again, we don't know because the agencies were never given the opportunity to formulate the guidance.
d john sauer ▲ ● ▼		They would have 30 days.
justice brett kavanaugh ▲ ● ▼		They're only going to have 30 days to do this.
justice brett kavanaugh ▲ ● ▼		You think they can get it together in time?
d john sauer ▲ ● ▼		Your honor, that's what the executive order instructs them to do, and hopefully they will do so.
d john sauer ▲ ● ▼		Again, it's a speculative and hypothetical scenario because they were enjoined from even starting that process.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Those are some of the arguments before the Supreme Court yesterday.
		This case also about the power of individual lower court federal judges.
		As the Washington Times headline notes today, Trump's birthright citizenship battle puts nationwide injunctions on trial at stake.
		Our nationwide are universal injunctions by which a single district judge can take a case brought by a single plaintiff and halt a congressional law or presidential action nationwide.
		That was a big part of the arguments yesterday at the Supreme Court.
		This morning, we're simply asking you about birthright citizenship.
		Do you support birthright citizenship or do you support ending birthright citizenship?
		Phone lines open for your answers.
		As usual, lines for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.
		We're going to begin in New York City.
		This is Rob, Democrat.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		Thank you again for what you do and for suspense.
		You know, I'm sort of a hybrid Democrat.
		You know, I'm a Second Amendment guy.
		I'm a border guy, just like unlike some of my Democratic friends.
		But, you know, and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not in support of someone stepping across the border and three weeks later to have a baby.
		You know, I'm not in favor of that.
		But, however, that said, you know, I do feel this is just another notch in the belt of the Trump show that we, the never-ending show, the Howard Stern show, the Trump show, the Jerry Springer show, the shock jock show, where, you know, this is a serious matter to talk about birthright.
		But, you know, it's just, you know, it's each and every issue that comes up, and one thing is more, is a distraction from ultimately other things that are going on that we don't hear about much,
		like real estate deals in the Middle East that the Trump organization privately are undergoing his children, Bitcoin, the Trump Bitcoin in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This type of Robin, if you think this is a distraction, what about that other issue that was a major part of what was talked about yesterday?
		The nationwide injunctions, the ability of a lower federal court judge to stop a congressional effort or an executive order nationwide if they disagree with something.
		Is that a distraction or is that something that we really should be dealing with right now?
unidentified		You know, there's distractions and then there's distractions.
		There's serious distractions, such as the one you just mentioned about a lower court judge, and then there's lesser distractions.
		But the whole thing was what I'm trying to explain to my Republican friends and my Democratic friends that we're being distracted and distracted and distracted, and you will never ever hear any Republican talk about Steve Bannon, however, is an exception, talking about what raising taxes on the wealthy.
		Steve Bannon has his finger on the pulse, and he knows that probably a huge portion of Americans believe that taxes should go up on the wealthy.
		We know that trickle-down is a myth, doesn't trickle down to the rest of us.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		But Steve Bannon is talking about raising and we're going to talk more about that with our members of Congress.
		We're going to talk about the federal budget reconciliation process.
		Right now, though, in this first hour, we're focusing on birthright citizenship.
		That's the question we're starting just actually in the first half hour of this program because there is so much going on today.
		So let me get to Eddie in Massachusetts, Republican.
		Eddie, your thoughts on birthright citizenship.
unidentified		Well, I'm not sure how to phrase it, but what I haven't heard in the last couple of days was the term anchor babies, which foreigners come in with pregnant women and give birth.
		I haven't heard exactly what the Trump doctrine says, but I would suggest that make it a law that the woman has to be in the country, let's say for a year, to make sure that her baby was conceived in America, not an anchor baby, just to gain citizenship to themselves and their family.
		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's Eddie in Massachusetts.
		This is John, an independent in Houston, Texas.
		Good morning.
		John, you with us?
unidentified		Yes, I'm here.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yes.
		You know, the whole thing about the ending birthright citizenship is ridiculous.
		I took in college two years of constitutional law.
		And since Trump took the oath and won the election, he's taken all that I learned and threw it right in the basket.
		It's one more attempt for him to turn the country into an autocracy with him leading the show.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		John, did you learn about the Wong Kim Ark case from back in 1898 on this topic?
unidentified		Yeah.
unidentified		Yeah.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What's your view on that case?
unidentified		I think it's bad.
unidentified		Very bad.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		But that's the case that's cited for historical precedent here.
		It was 1898 at Supreme Court ruling in the United States v. Wong Kim Ark.
		It's considered, as USA Today notes, the historical standard that children born in the United States to non-citizen parents are entitled to American citizenship.
		Wong Kim Ark, as they write, was born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents.
		He was denied re-entry to the United States after a trip to China despite being born within U.S. territory.
		And in a 6-2 decision, the court held that he was a U.S. citizen because of his birth in the United States, regardless of his parents' Chinese citizenship.
		The Trump Justice Department arguing that the court's ruling in that case was narrower, applying to children whose parents had a permanent residence in the United States.
		But that's the big historical precedence.
		That's what was talked about yesterday at the Supreme Court.
		This is Matthew in Dearborn, Michigan.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I don't see how you can do away with birthright citizenship because what criteria are we going to have for a citizen?
		I mean, who's to say after you get rid of birthright citizens, me, you, everyone listening to this program, what is going to be our criteria?
		I mean, that's the beautiful thing about America: that we got a birthright.
t s in florida ▲ ● ▼		We don't have a bloodline because how far back are we going to take the bloodline?
unidentified		We're going to go, somebody's going to come up with a law.
		Hey, we're going to go back before the 1800s.
		Them are the real Americans?
		I mean, I don't get where we're going with this.
		This doesn't make any sense.
		I've got to believe that they made that law back then.
t s in florida ▲ ● ▼		Because even the Civil War even had like a lot of Irish immigrants in the country that they brought over to fight the Civil War.
unidentified		Well, I'm sure their children, you know, wanted to be citizens after they were born here.
		If we're not going to have birthright citizenship, we're not going to have anything.
		I don't understand it.
		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's the 14th Amendment that this stems from.
		And here's what Section 1 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says: all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.
		No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protections of the laws.
		The 14th Amendment.
		This is Bob in Franklin, Indiana.
		Republican, good morning.
		Bob, you with us?
		Got to stick by your phone, Bob.
		Then we go to Willman, San Antonio, Texas.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Yes.
		I was wondering, I don't agree with it because I'm trying to figure out in my rapid round in my head.
		If they end it, that means we don't nervously our citizens then.
		So I don't understand what Trump or the Supreme Court is eating what they're trying to do.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Part of what the Trump administration was trying to do yesterday was to try to get a handle on lower federal court judges issuing nationwide injunctions, having their rulings in the lower court apply to the entire country, stopping executive order in this case, but saying it could happen with members of Congress and laws as well.
		This is the headline from the Wall Street Journal: Court Mull's injunctions in cases on birthright citizenship.
		Here's some of the arguments yesterday from the court, the exchange between Justice Sotomayor and the Solicitor General on the issue of this idea of universal injunctions.
justice sonia sotomayor ▲ ● ▼		If we can't do it by a universal injunction, because you say Article 3 doesn't permit that, Article 3 wouldn't permit us to give a universal injunction, even if we rule.
		Why don't we grant CERT before judgment so that all of these parents would have a firm Supreme Court decision that they can take where?
		Because you're saying nobody can grant a universal injunction.
d john sauer ▲ ● ▼		No party has asked for that in this case.
d john sauer ▲ ● ▼		I think one reason is that would deny the court of the benefit of percolation and multiple lower courts of a novel, extensive, and important constitutional question.
justice sonia sotomayor ▲ ● ▼		We have novel courts who've percolated this issue and said you're violating precedent.
justice sonia sotomayor ▲ ● ▼		Not only precedent, but the plain meaning of the 14th of the Constitution.
d john sauer ▲ ● ▼		Respectfully, I think what we have are lower courts making snap judgments on the merits that ignore the fundamental principle of the 14th Amendment, that it was about giving citizenship to the children of slaves, not to the children of illegal immigrants who really were not even very discreet at that time.
d john sauer ▲ ● ▼		And it's not a problem.
justice sonia sotomayor ▲ ● ▼		That's sort of some people.
		Congress who argued against the 13th Amendment just because of that.
		Some people who argued against passing the amendment just because of that, because it would give citizenship to gypsies.
d john sauer ▲ ● ▼		I think the relevant history of the 14th Amendment is the statements of Senator Trumbull, who emphasized that domicile was the key criteria.
d john sauer ▲ ● ▼		And he said that in a letter to Andrew Jackson, and we've found ourselves in the United States.
justice sonia sotomayor ▲ ● ▼		And we've got judges that reject it repeatedly.
		We can go into the history of citizenship, but I still go back to my question.
		You claim that there is absolutely no constitutional way to stop, put this aside, to stop a president from an unconstitutional act, a clearly, indisputably unconstitutional act.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Some of the arguments yesterday before the Supreme Court, if you want to watch them in their entirety, you can do so on our website at cspan.org.
		About 15 minutes left in this first half hour of the Washington Journal asking you about birthright citizenship.
		That's what was before the Supreme Court yesterday, but there's a whole lot going on today.
		So we will move into open forum in about 15 minutes.
		Let me try Bob again in Franklin, Indiana, Republican.
		Bob, you there this time?
unidentified		I am, yes.
unidentified		Good morning.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What are your thoughts on birthright citizenship?
unidentified		Okay, like much else that's going on right now, it makes absolutely no sense.
		We're told that Social Security is going to go into insolvency soon.
		And we have a demographic problem.
		We've got baby boomers that are retiring.
		We need young people to work and pay taxes.
		We're talking about paying people to have babies.
		And yet we're trying to send these people out of the country.
		We're trying to prevent babies from becoming citizens.
		It makes absolutely no sense.
		I think it's not good for the country.
		We need young people.
		And that's my thoughts.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So, Bob, it's an economic argument as much as anything else in your mind.
unidentified		Well, it's obvious in the Constitution about the citizenship.
		I mean, it doesn't take a lawyer to realize that what the Constitution says, but it's just another thing on the long list that this president's doing that the Democrats, you know, they're making their list.
		And when they get back in power, they're going to impeach him over things like this.
		And I am a Republican.
		I voted Republican all my life, but I couldn't vote for this president because any of the three times that he's run?
		One time.
		Which one?
		I did.
		I did when he lost to Biden.
		And I was out of the news cycle then, and I was a low information voter.
		But I couldn't vote for someone that's going to walk on the Constitution.
		I pledge allegiance to the flag every morning.
		That's a pledge to the Constitution.
		That's a pledge.
		My allegiance is to the Constitution, not to a party.
		And anyone that's going to walk on the Constitution, I'm going to vote against them, even if I am a Republican, because I keep my pledges.
		I love this country more than I love my party.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Bob in Indiana.
		Betty is in Massachusetts.
		It's Swamp Scott, Massachusetts.
		Democrat, good morning.
		What's your view on birthright citizenship?
unidentified		Yes, I approve of it.
		And if we don't have birthright citizenship, we won't have America anymore.
		We'll have a white supremacist country.
		Anchor babies, illegals, welfare queens, there are all the ways to distract people from realizing that they're really just screwing the middle class and the poor.
		It's just a distraction so you won't know what they're doing.
		You know, it's terrible.
		It's absolutely terrible what's going on.
		You know, I think it'll be the end of this country if they get rid of birthright citizenship, in my opinion.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Betty in Massachusetts, a map from the Library of Congress showing the countries around the world that have birthright citizenship.
		They're mostly in the Western Hemisphere.
		It's about 30 countries around the world.
		It's the violet countries on this map of the world here.
		When it comes to Donald Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship, this is what that executive order that he signed on his first day in office back on January 20th, 2025, said.
		It said, the privilege of the United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States when that person's mother was unlawfully president in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or a lawful permanent resident at the time of said person's birth, or when that person's mother mother's presence in the United States at the time of said person's birth was lawful but temporary.
		And they give an example such as, but not not limited to, visiting the United States under the auspices of a visa waiver program or a student, work or tourist visa, and when the father was not a United States citizen or a lawful permanent resident at the time of said person's birth.
		That's the language from President Trump's executive order again.
		He signed it back on January 20th and that's what led the path to the Supreme Court yesterday and it's not over the arguments being heard yesterday.
		No decision made yesterday.
		But we're asking you about this idea of birthright citizenship.
		Do you support it?
		This is Israel out of Crystal River Florida, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, thank you for having me on.
		Please don't press the button until I finish speaking, please.
		I'm seeing a lot of steps going on and the citizenship is a big thing because it's a, it's a contradiction and it's hypocrisy on what's going on, because the president, DeSantis and many other people that are within politics are of immigration, of immigrant parents.
		The very son that Trump hides, that's from Millennia.
		Trump, or whomever he's hiding, is of immigrants and he keeps them from public view.
		They never speak about him.
		So now, what son are you talking about Israel?
		One of his children that they don't speak about much?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Which one Donald Trump does talk about his children?
unidentified		Which one are you referring to?
		Ones that he keeps hidden?
		That's more to be, but that's not what I'm trying to focus on here.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Okay well, that's Israel.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Teresa in Waco Texas, a Republican.
unidentified		Good morning, good morning.
		How about just follow the law?
		If you came to the United States Of America on a green card, a visa, or entered illegally, and you give birth on American soil soil, your child is not a legal American.
		The child rides on your green card, visa or is a criminal like you that entered our country legally.
		It's, it's plain and simple, of jurisdiction, of thereof jurisdiction, or whatever.
		Towards the end of the 14th amendment, when it says that, so they're not under.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		When you say that, so here's the the, the line in question and tell me which part you're talking about.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction Jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.
unidentified		Right there.
		They're not under our jurisdiction.
		I mean, if it's a visa or green card, no, I cannot go to another country like Ireland.
		And if I give birth there, all of a sudden they're an Irish citizen.
		That don't work that way.
		No.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Teresa, the argument that folks will make on the other side is that they are subject to the jurisdiction because if they break the law in the United States, even though they're illegal citizens, they would still be prosecuted.
		If they committed a murder, they could still go to jail.
		So therefore, they are subject to the jurisdiction when they're in the United States, even if they are illegal.
		That's the argument that the other side will make to the point that you're making.
unidentified		That's not correct.
		If they're here illegally, they're here illegally, period.
		And yes, that's the reason why people are getting hurt and murdered.
		Yes, Americans do do that too.
		But why should we have someone come from another country to harm our children, harm our family, and then they're no, get them out, get them out.
		And no, there is no legal.
		The child is not legal.
		No, uh-uh.
		That's not the way it works.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		All right, that's Teresa in Waco, Texas.
		This is Roberto in Easton, Pennsylvania.
		Democrat, good morning to you.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Well, I immigrated from Columbia, South America, in 1974, and I became a citizen 10 years later in 1984.
		And then I had my son born in 1989.
		And according to the Constitution, he is a citizen, no less an American than anyone else here.
		And this idea that he's less of an American because I wasn't born here is not right.
		And the Constitution makes that very clear.
		I had to go through a naturalization process.
		He didn't.
		His citizenship is his birthright when he was born here all those years ago.
		And this idea that there's different degrees of Americanness is ridiculous.
		And, you know, if the people who wrote the 14th Amendment, which was not the Founding Fathers, this was shortly after the Civil War, if there were exceptions to the 14th Amendment, they would have made that very clear.
		But they did not make any exceptions, which means if you're born here, you're an American, unless you go through the naturalization process, which I did.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Roberto, what was that process like briefly?
unidentified		Oh, well, back in the 80s, it was kind of complicated.
		I had to go to this office in Newark, New Jersey, and do all kinds of paperwork, and there were fees and have to appear before officials.
		And then, of course, take the exam, and I had to learn English and take an oath with a whole bunch of other guys.
		It was a long time ago, so I don't remember a whole lot about it.
		The very specific details.
		But the point is, my son and I are no less American than anybody else.
		Why?
		Because the Constitution says so.
		Full stop.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Roberto, thanks for the call from the Keystone State.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Christine in the Wolverine State.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning, John.
		I was just thinking that what were you thinking?
		Well, the reason that we're in this state is because that Donald Trump, when he was convicted, he was not put in jail.
		And he was allowed to run for president.
		And now he thinks that he can do anything he wants to do.
		And there's nobody that can stop him except God.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What's your view on birthright citizenship, Christine?
unidentified		Well, I'm a native, and I feel like that it should not be touched that birthright citizenship because the Republicans, they want to protect embryos and people that aren't even born yet, and they have the same rights as us.
		But we have to fight for our citizenship.
		I'm 80 years old, and I've never been to court against anyone.
		And he lives his life in the courtroom, taking people to court.
		God help us.
		God help him.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Christine in Michigan.
		Maybe one more call on birthright citizenship, and then we'll move into open forum.
		Richard, thanks for waiting in Rockville, Maryland, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for having me on.
		One of the things I've been hearing and listening to is that, well, number one, I believe in birthright citizenship.
		What I learned in the 90s, I was a kid, one of the things I think this is really about, this is a fear of a browning of America, meaning the huge onslaught of what they've been fearing about immigration and city, and most of the people are coming from Latin America.
		And you see the focus on getting them out of the country.
		And now another way of saying deny their children birthright citizenship.
		And I think that's the keystone.
		And me, I'm an African American.
		And so without birthright citizenship with the 14th Amendment, I would never have been a citizen.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Richard, thanks for the call from Rockville, Maryland.
		That's going to do it for this first half hour today.
		We're going to shift right into open forum now, though, with, as we said, so much going on on Capitol Hill.
		Here's how you can get in touch with us on any public policy, political issue that you want to talk about.
		Democrats, it's 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		As you're calling in in open forum, I did want to let you know coming up in about an hour and a half this morning, work gets underway in the House Budget Committee.
		A discussion, a vote on the Republican budget for 2025.
		It includes tax cuts and spending reductions.
		Cuts to Medicaid will be discussed today, surely to be a topic of conversation.
		The markup involves reconciliation bills used for adjusting spending and revenues in the federal debt limit process.
		You can watch it all play out for yourself before the House Budget Committee at 9 a.m. Eastern.
		That's on C-SPAN2, also on c-span.org and the free C-SPANNow video app.
		One story on that front from today's Washington Times, the headline, Freedom Caucus threatens the timeline for the so-called big, beautiful bill.
		The House Budget Committee moving forward with their Friday meeting to package the pieces of President Trump's agenda into his promised one big beautiful bill, despite fiscal hawks threatening to vote against it over insufficient spending cuts.
		Several members of the House Freedom Caucus said they want to speed up the implementation of work requirements for Medicaid and phase out clean energy tax credits, both of which in the current bill are delayed until 2029.
		There will be discussions about that in today's budget committee hearing.
		I want to show you one clip from yesterday amid the various scrambles on Capitol Hill.
		Ralph Norman, one of those Freedom Caucus members at the heart of these discussions.
		This is Ralph Norman, Republican of South Carolina, talking with reporters yesterday.
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		I questioned the timing on work requirements, which are in 2029.
		I questioned the IRA phase outs.
		Didn't get an answer on that.
		I questioned the SALT.
		My point is we need to have answers before it hits the floor.
		Is salt going to be raised from 10 to 30?
		Is it going to be raised to 100?
		And how is it going to be paid for?
		That's my whole issue.
		And hopefully we can, if it hits the floor, I'm still a no on the budget presenting it.
		So we'll see how it goes.
		The tax policies, I've got a world of support.
		And I get that.
		I'm for that, but linking the two, it doesn't, we've still got a spending problem.
		We've got a deficit problem, and it doesn't address that.
unidentified		Do you need those answers before tomorrow morning's budget, Marco?
		Yeah.
		Do you know how you'll vote in budget?
ralph norman ▲ ● ▼		I'm going to vote no.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Ralph Norman, Republican, saying he's going to vote no today.
		We'll see what happens.
		It gets underway at 9 a.m.
		Again, C-SPAN 2 is where you can watch the House Budget Committee.
		Your phone calls now in open form, any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about.
		This is Avery in Atlanta Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, I want to talk about the Medicaid cuts.
		It's obvious to me that the Medicaid cuts are intended to target people with undiagnosed disabilities.
		Let's talk about what is undiagnosed disability.
		These are disabilities that can be faked.
		We can see what the symptoms are, but once we try to help people with the symptoms, then we can fake this, then the symptoms can be faked, and we don't know who's telling the truth.
		Let's look at what some of those symptoms are: an inability to handle stress, phobias, low energy, disorganized thinking.
		And there will be discrepancies between the diagnostic tests and people's performance at work that we can't explain.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So, Avery, are you saying that there is fraud in the Medicaid system that does need to be cut out?
		And so, therefore, you support cuts?
		Or are you saying that there should not be cuts because you can't tell if somebody's committing fraud or not?
		I just, to understand where you are on this.
unidentified		I'm not saying that there's fraud.
		I'm not saying that there should be cuts.
		I'm saying the people that they're targeting, the people they're targeting are people who have disabilities, but no one can say that this person has a disability because the nature of the disability is once you start helping this type of person, other people can fake it, and you don't have the diagnostic criteria to say who's faking and who's not faking once you start helping people.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Avery in Atlanta.
		This is Christy Waterford, Pennsylvania, Democrat.
		Good morning.
		Go ahead.
		Open form.
unidentified		Hi.
		I was calling.
		I wanted to say that the real problem is the ultra-rich are in the wealth distribution going to the ultra-rich away from the working poor, the working and the poor.
		You know, we're the one paying taxes.
		The workers and the poor people pay taxes.
		The big corporations, they get away without paying any taxes.
		And then they want to cut all our programs like PBS, USAID, FEMA, veterans' jobs and benefits.
		You know, these are all our tax dollars going to our people to help people in need.
		And they want to take our money and give billionaires tax breaks.
		It's just not right.
		You know, we shouldn't be paying Elon Musk $8 million a day and cutting veterans off the job rules.
		That just doesn't make sense to me.
		It's just we're just paying taxes and it's just giving it away to the millionaires and billionaires, and it's not right.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Christy in Pennsylvania.
		This is Gilbert out of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
		Republican, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just make a comment.
		Like around 1980, 60 Minutes did a program, and they showed these pregnant ladies walking around the border.
		And as soon as they would feel their labor pains, they would come across a bridge to make their births here in the United States in order to get citizenship.
		And I think that should have been taken care of a long time ago.
		And that's the only comment I have to make.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So, Gilbert, what requirements, how do you fix that?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What requirements would you put on citizenship in this country?
unidentified		You know what?
		That's a very difficult to handle.
		I do not even know how we would even begin to take care of that.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Gilbert, New Mexico.
		This is Darlene, Louisiana, Independent.
		Good morning to the Pelican State.
		Yes.
unidentified		What I believe about is that if you're not legally here, you shouldn't.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I'll tell you what, Darlene, give me a call back.
		We're going to try to fix that line because I can't really understand what you're saying.
		Call back, and we'll go to Howard in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I want President Trump to open up his $60 Bible made in China and read 1 Timothy 8, the love of money is the root of all evil.
		To be cutting USAID, PEPFAR, that saved 25 million lives, when you cut Medicaid, that funds the treatment beds in the midst of an opiate epidemic.
		In Minnesota, we lost 11 mental health facilities in one year.
		So we need to find compassion again.
		To whom much is given, much is required.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Howard in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
		This is Kelly in Texas.
		Republican, good morning.
		It's open forum.
		What's on your mind?
unidentified		Morning.
		Yes.
		I'm in my mid to late 50s.
		I do not own any real estate.
		I'm a single lady.
		And, well, due to the last administration's policies of the Build Back Better, I call it Build Back Broke.
		And then the Federal Reserve raised the federal funds interest rates, which raised the mortgage interest rates about tripled about almost three years ago.
		I've been a licensed ed score officer for almost 24 years in Texas.
		And I've been out of work for two and a half years.
		And I'm at my age trying to change careers.
		But I just wonder what the Republicans and or the Democrats are going to do about us Gen Xers because I don't have near what I need to for retirement.
		My brother and sister just turned 50.
		They're Gen Xers too.
		They're younger than me.
		And they don't have any funds for retirement.
		So I'm just and what's your plan?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What's your plan, Kelly?
unidentified		I don't know.
		I've read it in many plan.
		I've read in many articles that Gen Xers are going to be the first generation that are not going to be able to retire and match because we just don't have the funds.
		I mean, half of what I have, I have used it to just put a roof over my house.
		So I'm just wondering, what is the plan with both Democrats and Republicans?
		I would like to know what this is.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Kelly in Texas.
		As we said, there's a lot going on.
		In our last hour today, we're going to focus on the latest when it comes to efforts to achieve a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.
		This is the story on it in today's Wall Street Journal.
		President Volodymyr Zelensky pitches Russian peace talks.
		He was in Turkey yesterday with Turkish President Erdogan.
		There's the picture there from the Wall Street Journal earlier today as he's been traveling in the Middle East.
		President Trump commented on the state of Russia-Ukrainian peace talks.
		Here's about a minute of what he told reporters today.
unidentified		Can we ask you a quick question on that?
		You said that you didn't expect him to go if you didn't go.
		The question might be then, what are you going to do with why wait?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Well, we're going to, I think it's time for us to just do it.
		I said, you know, they all said Putin was going and Zelensky was going.
		And I said, if I don't go, I guarantee Putin's not going.
		And he didn't go.
		And I understand that, but we're going to get it.
		We're going to get it done.
		We've got to get it done.
		5,000 young people are being killed every single week on average.
		And we're going to get it done.
unidentified		Were you surprised when Zelensky didn't show up either, sir?
unidentified		Were you surprised when Zelensky didn't show up either?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		No, he didn't show up because he heard Putin wasn't going.
		When do you think you'll meet the president?
		As soon as we can set it up, I was going to, I would actually leave here and go.
		I do want to see my beautiful grandson, Sasan, and we'll be doing that.
		But I will tell you that the world is a much safer place right now.
		And I think in two or three weeks, we could have it be a much, much safer place.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		President Trump from earlier today as he's traveling across the Middle East.
		Also, some news breaking today.
		Axius foreign correspondent Barack Ravid tweets this out just about an hour ago.
		President Trump confirmed a few minutes ago in a gaggle with reporters on Air Force One that the United States has given Iran a proposal for a new nuclear deal.
		Quote, they have a proposal and now they have to move quickly or something bad is going to happen.
		Donald Trump board Air Force One today.
		Lots going on around the world trying to keep you on top of it all and taking your phone calls in open forum.
		202-748-8000 for Democrats.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Independents 202-748-8002.
		This is Jerry Sourlake, Texas, Democrat.
		Jerry, what do you want to talk about?
unidentified		Hello.
unidentified		I'm a veteran.
randy weaver ▲ ● ▼		And the one day in the year that was marked for veterans was canceled by a man who said that veterans were losers and suckers.
unidentified		And this just kind of makes, I'm a little disappointed in that due to the fact that I did enjoy sitting in my house thinking, wow, it's Veterans Day, and I'm having a good time.
unidentified		That's all I got to say.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Jerry in Texas.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Len Wilson, North Carolina, Independent.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yes, I have a couple of points to make.
		If you'll let me make them, please.
		I'm talking, you know, lately I've seen the laws and the way that the courts have been overstretched.
		And it's really pitiful.
		You know, laws are written by those, the people that write the laws always write them so they'll be able to break them and get away with it.
		And Donald Trump has been doing this all his life.
		He knows the laws, know how to use the courts and the system.
		And that's what's happening now.
		They finally got somebody up there crooked enough to take the laws and switch them and put them in the court and break the courts.
		But this is.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What laws specifically are you worried about, Len?
unidentified		Do I need to name them, sir?
		I'm sorry.
		I didn't mean to say it like that.
		But all the laws that's in here, all the stuff you've been talking about, birth citizen right, all this stuff never been a problem.
		But the laws are written so certain people, rich people, people with money, can get away with them.
		And Donald Trump is very good at that.
		That's what he's doing now.
		Now, when this system, the Constitution were written, the most important part in there is say in the preamble, say, we, the people, in order to form a more perfect union, meaning that we did not have no ways a perfect union or near it when it was written, and it hasn't been updated.
		All these loopholes, the way this thing will have been corrected as we go.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And we've moved to the city.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you think we are a more perfect union today?
unidentified		Well, we were on the way.
		Even though it was moving slow, they didn't move fast enough.
		And now we're going backwards.
		But we are not a more perfect union.
		And I'm going to tell you one more thing, sir.
		This is very important.
		Communism, capitalism, and communism.
		Now, I'm going to tell you, both of these systems are okay systems.
		I have nothing against communists.
		And a lot of people are fighting down for their way of life.
		But what happened to Russia is going to happen to us.
		The few is, they had the Communist Party.
		Communism worked great with Karl Marx.
		They built their empire.
		Now, then you get the Communist Party where all the money goes to one side.
		And then you start having a problem.
		We're doing the same thing now with capitalism, greed.
		Now you got all the rich people.
		You know, you got the money in one pot.
		And they get more and more interest and interest every time.
		They get hundreds of billions of dollars to doubling every year.
		It's only so much money in the pot.
		Now, after they start grabbing all that money, then it's less and less for us.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Len in North Carolina.
		Conrad is in Florida.
		Republican, good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, good morning.
		I'd just like to ask a few questions.
		When the president does an executive order, can the next president come in and change it right back to the way it is?
		You know, the way that he wants it, but this go on and on and on in some kind of way.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So that's a concern that's been ongoing about executive orders, that an executive order can be undone by the next president who may have a different opinion on it.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We saw it happen in literally the first day of the presidencies of at least the last two presidents.
unidentified		Well, what I'm saying is, listen, if the executive order is not permanent, why are we going through all this?
		We've got people getting kicked off jobs, fired, benefits being taken away from them.
		You know, we talk, just like you said, so this appears like a back and forth as long as we let it happen.
		So if the executive order is not a bill, why even let him maintain it?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Conrad, are there executive orders that have been that Donald Trump has made that you think should be codified into law by Congress?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That being the more permanent way of keeping those actions?
unidentified		I'm a Republican, but I say that if it's not law, why are we entertaining it?
		And then why are we talking about birth license?
		If it's not law, we should be talking about law.
		So just like the gentleman says, the rich is getting rich, the poor is getting poor.
		Our party is going to have to have a problem.
		It's not Democrats that's getting laid off and losing these jobs and fired.
		It's Republicans, too.
		Do you actually think somebody's been working for the government for 29, 30 years and dodge and down on Trump 5?
		Do you actually think they're going to come to the polls and vote for Republican again?
		I mean, I just don't understand what they're doing.
		And the last question is, how come Elon Musk won't go to Washington and go in all them office and see how much money they're stealing?
		Won't he go there?
		He's coming at the bottom.
		He needs to start at the top.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Conrad in Florida.
		This is Don in Silver Spring, Maryland.
		Democrat.
		Good morning, Don.
unidentified		Hey, how are you doing, sir?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Doing well.
unidentified		Yeah, my name is Don, and I come from Silver Spring, and I come from an old family in America.
		We've been in this country since before we were even a country.
		My grandparents landed in Port Tobacco 13 generations back, and I have ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War and lived.
		I have ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War and died.
		And every single one of us, going back, I'm the 14th generation.
		My daughter is the 15th.
		We have all been Americans by right of birth, because that's how it works in America.
		That's how we, the American people, have decided that we grant citizenship by right of birth or by naturalization.
		And that's not my opinion.
		That's just the truth.
		It's written in the Constitution, and denying that truth is un-American.
		And that's all I have to say.
		Unless you have any questions.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Don in Maryland.
		This is Andy in Pittsburgh, Indiana, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I got a couple of things to say.
		First of all, the spending is just out of control.
		And it is not right that the moment a child is born, he is already $100,000 in debt.
		And by the time he's 20 years old and able to start paying on that debt, it's probably $300,000.
		And he hasn't fed himself.
		He hasn't bought a place to live.
		I mean, if you love your children and grandchildren at all, you have got to stop some of this spending.
		And also, the reason that the Democrats filed all those lawsuits on Trump was to try to bankrupt him.
badass uncle sam in new orleans ▲ ● ▼		And I think that Republicans ought to file some sort of class action suit against Biden and my Orcas and try to recover some of this $4,000 a piece that we're getting to self-deport these people.
unidentified		You know, if the Bidens seem to be all about money, and I would think that that would cut them real short at their heels.
unidentified		That's all I got to say.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Andy, before you go, you mentioned the debt that this country is in financially.
		It's about $36.9 trillion right now, according to USDebtClock.org.
		Do you think anybody will notice when it crosses the 37 trillion dollar line, or do you think people will notice when it crosses the 40 trillion dollar line?
unidentified		They should have noticed when it crossed the 10 trillion dollar line.
		We ought to have a law in our budget that says in times of peace, we must have a balanced budget.
		I know that there are extenuating circumstances during a war that you got to do what you got to do, but in normal times, and I don't consider even a 5% raise, and then we're going to make it only 3%.
		That's not cutting the budget.
		That's keep expanding, keep exploding, and it's got to stop.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Andy, the folks in that building behind me on Capitol Hill, how likely do you think they would be to pass a balanced budget amendment right now?
unidentified		More so now than ever before, but it would still be extremely one-sided.
		I mean, the people the districts are so gerrymandered that there is no real competition for anybody to do anything.
		I mean, the district I live in, they can sometimes not even get a Democrat willing to get beat 70 to 30.
		So half of the election or half of the races are uncontested, and nothing's ever going to change unless you get real competition and discussion amongst people.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Andy, how do you create that real competition for a member of Congress?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Are you talking about a different kind of redistricting process?
unidentified		The way that they set the boundaries is in Indiana, it develops a quota system.
		Okay, we're going to give you a token representative here and a token representative here and a token representative here.
		But the way the districts are written up, it's going to be either 7-3 or 8-2 for our congressmen.
		And it's been the same three districts the whole time.
		I mean, I just read a thing where it was 1994 since a congressional district in Indiana has changed parties.
		People get beat in the primary, and then you get a new one.
		But he's from the same definite party, and therefore there's no accountability.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Andy in Indiana, an independent.
		Let me get one more call into open forum.
		This is Jim Winter Park, Florida, Republican.
		Jim, go ahead.
unidentified		Hey, John.
		With any law that is passed before the first day it's in place, someone has found a way to abuse it through a loophole.
		In my mind, the 14th Amendment was written to give slaves citizenship because of the language attorneys stretched the vocabulary of fit and agenda.
		And now we have the Supreme Court backed into a corner, which, whichever way they rule, 50% of the country is going to feel that it was a political power that was the reason for their decision.
		I feel that illegal immigrants who entered the country and have a baby, that baby is not a legal resident, but an immigrant who has been illegally born in the country.
		Illegal immigrant.
		And we never talk about this.
		Illegal and legal immigrants.
		People that come in legally and they have a child, that child has birthright citizenship.
		Common sense should prevail.
		You had a phone caller on before from Pennsylvania who did it exactly right.
		And he said he came from Columbia, he went through all the process, he became a citizen, his child was born, his child is a legal resident.
		That is the way it's supposed to be done.
		It is not legal for somebody to cross the border and have a child and that child be a legal resident.
		And you asked a question before of a person from New Mexico about how do you stop it?
		You stop it by using common sense and doing the right thing and listening, taking the Constitution as it was written and don't stretch the words.
		Just use the Constitution as it was written.
		Don't play games with it.
		Don't try to stretch it around to make it fit your agenda.
		The Constitution should be followed.
		I totally agree.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We'll take your point.
		That's Jim in Winter Park, Florida, our last caller in this open forum.
		But before we end our first hour of the Washington Journal, we wanted to give C-SPAN viewers a sneak peek at a new series that C-SPAN is launching this fall.
		It's called Ceasefire.
		Take a look.
unidentified		In a nation divided, a rare moment of unity.
		This fall, C-SPAN presents Ceasefire.
		Where the shouting stops and the conversation begins in a town where partisan fighting prevails.
		One table, two leaders, one goal to find common ground.
		This fall, Ceasefire, on the network that doesn't take sides, only on C-SPAN.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And joining us at our desk now to talk a little bit more about Ceasefire is C-SPAN CEO Sam Feist.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Morning, Sam.
unidentified		Morning, John.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Ceasefire.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Where did the idea come from and why now?
unidentified		So many years ago, I produced a program that is no longer on the air at CNN called Crossfire.
		You may remember.
		Crossfire, it was a raucous debate show where Republicans and Democrats would come on, they would debate.
		They certainly didn't agree.
		They almost never found common ground.
		But it was a program on that network at the right time.
		Here we are in 2025.
		Our country is as polarized as ever.
		There seems to be very little agreement.
		And most significantly to me at least, there's very little talking.
		Republicans and Democrats, at least publicly, you never see them on television having a productive conversation.
		You know, where can we find compromise?
		Where can we find common ground?
		Where can we work together?
		And that's what this program is intended to do: to bring a Republican and a Democrat on every week who, at least for that program, will try to have a productive conversation, reach across the aisle, listen a little bit, see what they might agree on.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How do you make that happen?
		And if the goal, as that promo said, is to find common ground, where do you start?
		What are a couple topics that you could start on?
unidentified		Well, first of all, I think you start by having Republicans and Democrats listening.
		The reality is that conversations like that happen all the time.
		You may find a Democrat and a Republican who are veterans, who are friendly, they have a shared experience, and they begin by talking about their experience as a veteran.
		Yesterday on C-SPAN, the Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who could not be more conservative, talked about how he found common ground with liberal Democrat Maxine Waters because they're both from St. Louis and they both love the Cardinals.
		If that's a starting point of a conversation, fantastic.
		So whether it's on vets or we've seen Senators Blackburn and Blumenthal work together on protecting teens on social media.
		I mean, there are areas where you can begin to talk.
		But for me, the idea of having a conversation between people who are politically divided on areas where they can find agreement, I think that's good for the country.
		It's what C-SPAN's all about.
		And I think it can help.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You've named some pairings.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you have an ideal pairing in mind for this program?
unidentified		I don't have an ideal pairing, although I will tell you that I've, you know, since I've been at C-SPAN for about nine months now, I've had a chance to visit with quite a number of members of Congress, Republicans, Democrats, senators, House members.
		And in every conversation, anticipating that we might do a program like this, I asked them, who is your best friend from the other party?
		Who do you talk to the most?
		Every one of them had an answer.
		And then I said, if we did a program where you and that member came on and sort of took off the jerseys for a few minutes and had a conversation, would that work for you?
		And almost all of them said yes.
		Now, proof will be in the pudding and we'll see what happens.
		But at least there's some indication that there are willing participants.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Washington Journal viewers will want to know because they love the call-in aspect of this program.
		Is this a call-in show?
		Will they be able to join the conversation with these two members?
unidentified		So we're still developing the show.
		Not sure about calls.
		We'll probably figure out a way for audience to interact.
		We haven't decided yet whether it's going to be live at the same time every week.
		We need to work around the schedules of members of Congress.
		But we definitely want our viewers to participate.
		So as we work on the show over the next few months, I'll get back to you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Final 60 seconds, the headline on ceasefire that is in the New York Times today asks a question.
		Can C-SPAN pull off crossfire but with civility?
		How would you answer that question?
unidentified		I think we can.
		That was part of the reason I spent so much time visiting with members of Congress ahead of this.
		I wanted to test drive the concept and make sure that it wasn't a fool's errand in 2025 to bring a Republican and a Democrat at the same table.
		And at least the early, early sense I got from the members themselves is, no, we need this.
		We need this right now in America and I'm in.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Sam Feist, you're always welcome at this table.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for stopping by.
unidentified		Thank you, John.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Coming up in the next hour, the Washington Journal, two members of Congress will be joining us a little bit later.
		It's Gwen Moore, Democrat of Wisconsin.
		But up first, it's Celeste Malloy, Republican of Utah.
		You'll be able to chat with her about the latest on the appropriations process and budget reconciliation.
		Stick around.
		More of your phone calls after the break.
unidentified		Looking to contact your members of Congress?
		Well, C-SPAN is making it easy for you with our 2025 Congressional Directory.
		Get essential contact information for government officials all in one place.
		This compact, spiral-bound guide contains bio and contact information for every House and Senate member of the 119th Congress.
		Contact information on congressional committees, the president's cabinet, federal agencies, and state governors.
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		Washington Journal continues.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And joining us now for the first time on the Washington Journal is Utah Republican Congresswoman Celeste McLoy.
		She serves on the Appropriations and Natural Resources Committees in the House.
		And Congresswoman, can you just start with your sense of where the reconciliation bill stands right now?
		Do you think the House is on track to have that one big, beautiful bill as it's been described passed in the House by next week?
unidentified		We're right on where we're supposed to be.
		My pilot friends would say we're right over the target.
		We had the budget bill or the budget resolution that we passed told 11 committees to go do their job and find savings, find revenue.
		And all 11 of those committees have passed their part out of committee through markups.
		And now the budget committee gets to take all 11 of them, stitch them together, and turn it into that one big, beautiful bill we've all been talking about for five months now.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And that budget committee meeting is set to take place at 9 a.m. Eastern, so less than an hour from now.
		Viewers, if you're interested, can watch that on C-SPAN 2 Live from Gavital Gavel.
		Here's one of the headlines about that meeting today, Congresswoman.
		It's from the Washington Times.
		Freedom Caucus threatens the timeline for the big, beautiful bill.
		And it asks, Republicans wrestle with unity on spending cuts.
		There were a lot of meetings yesterday that included Speaker Johnson and his leadership team.
		Were you involved in any of those?
		And do you think these questions about unity are overblown or on track?
unidentified		I wasn't involved in any of the small group meetings.
		We had a two-hour meeting with the whole Republican conference yesterday where we met with the committee chairs for the 11 committees.
		We went through what's in each of the bills.
		Everybody got a chance to ask their questions, make their comments.
		I've seen headlines for the last five months the Republicans are struggling with unity and yet we keep hitting our targets.
		We keep moving forward.
		That's part of the process.
		We're a deliberative body.
		We're made up of 435 people who are each elected by a different constituency.
		Everybody here has different priorities, but in the end, we tend to get it done when we need to get it done, and I think we're going to do that again this time.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What are your priorities for this bill?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What must this bill include to get your vote?
unidentified		I'm trying to avoid drawing any hard lines that I don't want to walk back.
		Right now, I am pretty comfortable with what the bill does include.
		It has tax cuts, it secures the border, it has spending reductions moving forward and revenue generators moving forward.
		And those are the things that are important to my constituents in Utah.
		They want to see that we're acting like a serious government, that we want to make sure that the United States of America is solvent moving forward and that we don't just blindly head toward a fiscal cliff.
		So I think this is a good step in the right direction.
		I think passing this is going to give the markets and the people at home some certainty that we're taking this seriously, that they can move forward with confidence, that they can invest, go to work, make long-term plans.
		So those are my priorities.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How much are you thinking about your colleagues in the Senate and whether they'll be able to take whatever gets passed in the House and pass it in the Senate?
unidentified		I don't have the bandwidth to worry about the Senate right now.
		We've got a lot of work to do in the House.
		We're talking to each other.
		We're making sure that we can all get on the same page.
		It's a big bill and it's complicated.
		And so I think a lot of people are reading a lot into every little negotiation we have.
		But I'll let the Senate do their negotiations.
		I haven't followed who's where on each of these issues.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Congresswoman Celeste Malloy with us until the bottom of the hour at 8.30 Eastern.
		Go ahead and get your calls in.
		Phone lines as usual, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.
		We'll put those numbers on the screen for you.
		Congresswoman, we noted that this is your first time on the Washington Journal.
		For viewers who don't know you, what did you do before this job and why did you want this job?
unidentified		I was a staffer before this job and I wanted this job because I found out my boss, the congressman I was working for, was retiring, resigning.
		He went home to take care of his wife when she was having health problems and I really cared about the things that were happening in Utah's 2nd congressional district.
		I wanted to see this district be represented by somebody who understood those issues, understood how to get them solved, and was willing to keep moving forward on a lot of the priorities that I'd been working on.
		And I realized that I could hope that somebody ran who cared about those things or I could run knowing I cared about those things.
		So here I am.
		And before that, my background is in natural resources, agriculture, law.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What should viewers know about the 2nd District of Utah?
unidentified		It's the most beautiful district in the country.
		I have the Bonneville Salt Flats where the land speed records are set.
		I have Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, and a whole lot of beautiful places in between.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned national parks.
		Something like two-thirds of all the land in Utah is federally owned, and it's not all national parks.
		So can you explain why that is?
unidentified		It's an anomaly of history.
		As the United States was settled, there was always public land.
		There was public land in the original 13 colonies.
		But what happened in most of the United States is as people moved into those lands and settled them, they became private land.
		As you got into the West, especially the arid West, and Utah's the second driest state, it took more land to be able to make a living.
		And the law is always caught up with the practice eventually, and the parcel that you could turn into private property got bigger as people went west.
		But by the time the arid states were being settled, those parcels sounded big to people back east, and the law didn't catch up with the practice.
		And we kind of got caught in this limbo where people learned how to make a living on arid lands in the west, but they never got the chance to privatize them, like happened in the Midwest, where the Homestead Acts and land rushes settled a lot of that land.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So, earlier this month, I know you were part of an effort in the Natural Resources Committee to pass a provision to sell thousands of acres of federal land to make it private.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Explain what that bill would do and what you're doing here.
unidentified		Yeah, so it's not actually a bill, it's an amendment to the Natural Resources Committee's part of the reconciliation bill.
		So, it's just one little piece of the big, beautiful bill.
		But they're in my district, the parcels in Utah, and they're small, targeted parcels that aren't actually becoming private.
		They're being sold to local governments that need them for infrastructure.
		So, a lot of trails, roads, water infrastructure.
		I already mentioned that Utah is the second driest state, especially down in the southwest corner where this land is.
		It's really hot and dry, and part of it is for the water reuse plan that that area has because we don't have more water, but we have more people moving in all the time.
		So, the water district, the county, the cities have been innovative.
		They've come up with this water reuse plan, but it takes room to build the infrastructure.
		So, some of those pieces are for that infrastructure.
		Some of them are to get people out recreating on the public lands that we've been talking about.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So, this is something the state and local governments are asking for.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How long have they been asking for this?
unidentified		Worked with Washington County for several weeks on identifying which parcels should be in.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And that provision did make it into the Natural Resources Bill, and you will be a part of what's finally going to be voted on next week, you believe?
unidentified		It's in the Natural Resources Bill that came out of the committee.
unidentified		I don't know what's going to happen in the markup today, in budget, or in the manager's amendment, but right now it's in the Natural Resources Committee bill.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Let me pause there and get you some phone calls from viewers.
		Again, Congresswoman Celeste Valloy of Utah, it's Utah's second district joining us.
		About 20 minutes left here to take your phone calls.
		202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans.
		Independents, it's 202-748-8002, and that's where we'll begin on the Independent line.
		This is Wayne in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Every time you all try to pass a bill, you never do anything for the poor people.
		And you always want to do a study and see how long it takes.
		It don't take that long.
		We've been going to poor people in America.
		We've been going through this for 40 years.
		When are you all going to help us?
		This is what I want to know, and I want to know soon.
		Yeah.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Congresswoman.
unidentified		We do need to help poor people.
		Poor people are our constituents.
		That's who got me elected.
		I think if you look at the details of the reconciliation package, you'll see that there's a lot in there that'll help poor people in general.
		Stabilizing the economy, getting it on track, making sure we have the tax cuts helps poor people.
		That keeps small businesses in towns and areas where businesses have been leaving.
		It makes goods affordable.
		It makes your paycheck go a little bit farther.
		If you're on a pension, if you're on a fixed income, it goes farther when the economy is strong.
		That's good for everybody, including the poor.
		So you haven't been forgotten.
		We're trying to craft policies that are good for all Americans, including the poorest among us.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Lois is in Woodville, Wisconsin, Republican.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You're on with Congresswoman Malloy.
unidentified		Hi, it's my understanding that there's like 20 Republicans who do not want to defund Planned Parenthood.
		And, you know, taxpayers give them $700 million a year.
		And with all what's going on with them, you know, now they're doing trans, you know, getting, you know, helping kids, you know, do that.
		Wouldn't it just make sense that as long as we're trying to balance the budget to, you know, defund Planned Parenthood?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Congresswoman.
unidentified		Burr is correct.
		I think there are some people who want some of the things Planned Parenthood does that aren't gender reassignments, surgeries, or abortions to remain.
		And that's why we have 435 people here who have different views so that we can debate these things and negotiate until we get to a better answer.
		So there are some people who want it completely gone.
		There's some people who want it partially gone.
		And there are some people who support it.
		I'm not sure what the actual final bill language is on that.
		But let's watch the process play out.
		I feel like a broken record.
		I say that a lot.
		Watch the process play out.
		But the reason that's so important is because the starting position for most people isn't usually where we end up after a negotiation.
		And sometimes people panic about someone's starting position, but then they're okay with the final product we get after negotiation.
		So watch it play out for a little bit.
		And I'm sorry I don't have the exact language for you of what is in the bill for Planned Parenthood.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned you were a staffer on Capitol Hill before becoming a Congresswoman.
		You say let the process play out.
		Does the process work?
		There's a lot of people in this country who think the process up there where you are on Capitol Hill, it doesn't work.
unidentified		Yeah, there's a lot to criticize Congress about.
		I'm not going to defend everything Congress does, but the process was slow by design.
		Our founding fathers knew that it would be a slow, deliberative process in Congress, and they wanted it to be that way.
		When you have to get 218 people to agree on something for it to become a bill that has passed, you have to put in some work, some thought, take some input, be persuasive.
		You get a lot of different opinions, and that's frustrating for people.
		It's frustrating for those of us who are part of the process, but I think it's better for the country.
		The executive branch can move quickly, the judicial branch moves at its speed, and Congress has a slow deliberative speed by design.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		New York City, this is Deborah, Line for Democrats.
		Good morning.
		You're on with Congresswoman Malloy.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Ms. Malloy, I'd like to know about your education, how you got into Utah politics.
		Okay.
		I have a bachelor's degree in agriculture from Southern Utah University and a law degree from Brigham Young University, also in Utah.
		I got into politics kind of by accident.
		I wanted to do policy.
		I was working after I graduated from SUU with my bachelor's degree.
		I was working for the USDA.
		I was helping farmers and ranchers.
		I wanted to be part of the agriculture community, help the people who lived around me.
		But I was working on federal programs and sometimes the policy in those programs was really frustrating.
		And I didn't know who was making the policy or where to go to get it fixed.
		So I decided after 10 years into my career to leave and go to law school.
		And I didn't really know how law school was going to help me fix the policies.
		I just thought that was probably a good place to start.
		When I graduated, I was in southern Utah doing public lands law work, legal work for Washington County, which is the southwest corner of Utah.
		And because so much of our land is federal, as we've already talked about, doing policy work on the land meant I was interacting with our federal delegation.
		And I started to get involved in politics and realize how important politics are if you care about policy.
		My congressman eventually offered me a job, so that's why I was a staffer for four years before I ran.
		And so it was kind of a slippery slope, I guess.
		Be careful if you like policy because you take one step, it leads to another, it leads to another.
		And the next thing you know, you're on C-SPAN early in the morning.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Now that you are a member, how much of your day do you spend on politics and how much do you spend on policy?
unidentified		That is a really good question.
		Now that I'm a member, it's sort of hard to parse those two apart.
		I'm probably more policy-oriented than the average member of Congress, but the policy I do is politics now.
		You know, I go to Utah and talk to my constituents about what's on their mind.
		That's policy, it's also politics.
		I talk to my colleagues about where they are on issues.
		I try to educate them on issues that matter in Utah that don't matter in their states.
		Is that policy or politics?
		It's kind of hard to tell the difference anymore, except that I'm not a pure political creature.
		I like the in the weeds part.
		I like to understand how the policy works.
		I still like to read a lot of the nerdy stuff that my staff is reading.
		So I would say it's probably 100% policy and overlapping 60 to 80 percent politics.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You held a field hearing this week on geothermal energy and energy production permitting issues.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Was that politics or policy and how does that relate to the federal land sales that we've been talking about?
unidentified		So the field hearing was policy, but good policy is good politics.
		So we went out to the West Desert of Utah in Beaver County where I used to live.
		We had the field hearing at my alma mater, Southern Utah University.
		So it was a really fun day for me just for those reasons alone.
		But going out and seeing on the ground the cutting-edge work that companies are doing in Utah to develop geothermal energy and make geothermal energy production affordable, make it economically viable to do in other parts of the country we haven't traditionally thought of as having the right resources for geothermal energy was really exciting.
		We're going to need more energy production in the future.
		We went and saw one of the ways that can happen in a sustainable, clean, baseload, dispatchable way.
		And then we went to the university, had a field hearing about it so the public could come be part of this policy.
		They could come hear a committee from Congress, talk about what's happening in their area.
		And I think that's good policy and good politics.
		It's not really related to the land amendment that's in reconciliation.
		But most of the land in the West Desert is federal land.
		So federal land policy is going to have a big impact on how well we produce geothermal energy moving forward.
		So everything in the long run overlaps at some point.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		On the land amendment, you and C-SPAN viewers know who the Sierra Club is.
		Their Ethan Manuel, their director of land protection programs from that environmental group, put out this statement about public land sales.
		Public lands shouldn't have a price tag on them, he said.
		But Donald Trump and his allies in Congress are working like mad to hand over our public lands to billionaires and corporate polluters to drill, mine, and log with the bare minimum oversight or accountability.
		Congressional Republicans have made it clear that this is their plan and our public lands are clear air and water and critical habitat and our communities will be threatened by unchecked industrial development.
		The American people will not tolerate it.
		What would be your response to the Sierra Club?
unidentified		My response would be that's a fairly hyperbolic reaction to targeted small parcels that are going to be sold to local governments for infrastructure.
		When it comes to federal land policy, people are really emotional on all sides because there's a lot at stake.
		And I think we're better off if we lower the temperature a little bit, get in the same room, and talk about good policy.
		And that's the background I come from.
		So, in the week since I offered that amendment, I've spent I don't even know how many hours on the phone or in the room with other conservation organizations, with people who are interested in land policy, talking about what the future of land policy is in the West, and particularly in my district.
		When you have a district that has as high a percentage of public land as I do, land disposal has to be part of the conversation.
		I have cities and towns that are completely landlocked by federal land, and when they need to build roads or build water infrastructure, that by necessity crosses federal land.
		And even the trails that get people out to enjoy public land are going to probably fall on federal land, and we've got to be able to work together.
		So, I would invite the Sierra Club to come have a chat with me about their concerns.
		I think we can probably find a way to move forward.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Is that the term for getting land out of federal hands, land disposal?
unidentified		Yes.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Ron is up next out of the Illinois Republican.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, I just want to thank you for doing what you guys do.
		This is what the United States voted for.
		If you look at the congressional map of the counties and the ones that Trump won and the ones that their candidate won, it's the United States is all red.
		So, this we keep doing what you're doing.
		I appreciate the fight, and you know, I can't wait to someday get out to Utah.
		It's a beautiful state and see it.
		I'm sure you probably don't get a lot of votes on those soft flats, though, do you?
		That's all.
		I just want you to keep doing what you're doing.
		Thank you.
		Well, thank you.
		People don't usually chime in just to say thank you very often.
		And come on out to Utah.
		I think you'll find that there is a lot there to be enjoyed, including our public lands.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		To the Peach State, this is Richard and Georgia Democrat.
		Good morning.
		You are next.
unidentified		Good morning, Congresswoman.
		Do you really believe that this budget is going to be deficit-reducing by the time the CBO gets finished with it and the Senate?
		And also, could you not realize that raising the taxes on the rich is not going to hurt them?
		It's going to help the poor.
		And also, if the Republicans are so much in pro-life, why would they want to cut food, food stamps, health care from people that need it to sustain and prolong life?
		Because the school districts are getting cut, whether they're state-level or federal funding for food to help kids have a decent nutritional lunch.
		And I just don't see you guys caring nothing much about the poor.
		And I see some charts from Steve Ratner that say you guys' bill is fraudulent.
		So I'm glad you asked this question.
		I think that's what's on everybody's mind, and there are a lot of misconceptions floating around out there.
		And this is a good chance to talk about some of them.
		So the SNAP programs aren't getting cut, but there's a work requirement for people who don't have dependent children.
		So if you are not at home raising children and you are able-bodied and between 18 and I think 64, then there's a work requirement to get food.
		And that's not going to hurt poor people.
		It's going to help poor people.
		And that's the way we keep these programs solvent into the future.
		You might be interested to know that I went to school in public school in a district that's considered a poverty district.
		I didn't grow up with money.
		This is something that I do care about.
		I want to make sure that school kids have lunch and that people have the opportunity to get the help they need.
		What we're focused on is getting rid of the waste, fraud, and abuse that are sucking those resources away from the poor, from kids who need it, from moms who are in tenuous situations and need the help.
		If we're going to be a strong country going forward, we have to get serious about making sure that the resources go to the people who need them, that we crack down on waste, on overburdensome processes that are wasting money instead of getting the resources to the people who need them.
		So again, we haven't forgotten about the poor.
		A strong economy, a strong America is good for the poor and everybody in the country.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		To the Cowboy State, this is Earl in Wyoming.
		Republican line, good morning.
		You're next.
unidentified		Yeah, I'm calling about your interest in the geothermal down in southern Utah.
		I'm one of those rare people that have experience in drilling those holes.
		Are you aware of the danger of that job and the danger that those roughnecks put themselves through?
		I actually did the work.
		And what is your response to that?
		Ishing American Energy and being a roughneck in Wyoming, I assume, helping us produce energy.
		I was out on the site earlier this week.
		I saw the people who are working there, the conditions they're working under.
		I think they're being really careful.
		They're using a lot of technology that was developed in the oil and gas industry.
		And I believe they're doing everything they can to make it a safe work environment.
		Everybody there seemed healthy and happy.
		But I do think we have a responsibility to make sure as we're unleashing American energy, making sure that we have a strong economy and we're not dependent on anybody else for our lights to be able to turn on, that we take care of the people who are out doing that work for us.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Earl, how long were you in the drilling business?
unidentified		I spent a whole career there, 37 years.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Where mainly, Earl, in Wyoming?
unidentified		Well, all over the western United States.
		I broke out in Fort Morgan.
		I worked in Taft, California, quite a bit, raised my family there.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What years?
unidentified		I'm one of those rare people that went through the entire career without a lost time accident or anybody on my cruise.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What years are we talking about, Earl, that you were doing this?
unidentified		And I was never even recognized for it.
		And when it comes to this geothermal, it is exceptionally dangerous.
		Very dangerous.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Earl, do you think that geothermal energy is something we should be exploring?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Are you saying that we should back off of that?
unidentified		Well, it's a great idea, but it's extremely complex.
		And it would be compared to our military in really complex defense work.
		It is very, very complex.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And Earl, before you go, you used the term roughneck.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Is that the term for somebody who's in the drilling industry?
unidentified		Yeah, Rosniks work on the drilling rigs.
		They're the ones that actually drill the holes.
		And Joe Oldfield has drilled millions of holes around the globe.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Earl, thanks for telling us about it.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Congresswoman Lloyd, is there anything else you wanted to add?
unidentified		Yeah, I'm a miner's daughter.
		I know that how important mine safety is and how important those safety recognition awards are to the people who are so careful and work so hard to get them.
		So Earl just said he went 37 years without having an incident and nobody on his crew was ever injured and he was never recognized for it.
		Could we just take a second here and recognize Earl for the work he's done?
		I'm sorry you didn't get it before, but thank you.
		From a member of Congress who doesn't represent Wyoming, thank you for your work.
		Thank you for doing it safely so that when the rest of us go to fill up our cars or to use energy, we can do it knowing that it's safe because of the work you did safely.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Earl in Wyoming, time for just a couple more calls here, Congresswoman.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Tom in California, Independent.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Yeah, hello, Celeste.
		This is Tom.
		And anyway, I've been to Zion, Bryce, Moab, and Canyon Lands.
		It's beautiful country down there.
		Yes, sir.
		And I've been in agriculture all my life.
		And I'm curious.
		I've had to fight the liberal agenda most of my life in California here.
		My family, we have 2,000 acres and three ranches.
		I've dealt with the federal government, state government, county government, city government, every government under the sun, it seems like.
		And with many issues.
		But I also don't like the MA thing.
		It seems like Trump is a kind of a cultish figure.
		And I don't understand how the Republicans are sort of giving in to everything he has to say or do.
		I've known about Trump most of my life.
		I saw him speak one time at the Moscone Center in San Francisco when he was with Marlon Maples or something.
		He talked about how he wasn't the smartest real estate person in the world, but he was just the luckiest at the time.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Tom, we'll take the call.
		About 60 seconds left, Congresswoman.
		Want to give you a chance to respond?
unidentified		Yeah, my response to that is thank you for calling.
		Thank you for staying involved.
		Donald Trump ran for president promising he was going to be a disruptor and he's disrupting a lot of our systems.
		And I know that the process of disruption is uncomfortable, but I am excited about getting the results that he's also promised.
		And I think that's why Republicans are still with Donald Trump and excited about moving the agenda forward because we're looking at being energy dominant, having a strong economy, stabilizing the tariffs on the world stage.
		Don't get hung up on the process.
		Let's keep working towards the end goal because I think we're all going to be better off when we get there.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Congresswoman Celeste Malloy represents Utah's 2nd District of Republicans serving in the House.
		We appreciate your time.
		Come back again.
unidentified		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Coming up in about a half an hour this morning, we're going to talk about efforts to achieve peace between Russia and Ukraine.
		We'll be joined by Maria Snegovaya of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
		But first, it's Congresswoman Gwen Moore, Democrat of Wisconsin, joining us.
		She's a member of the House Ways and Means Committee.
		She'll be taking your phone calls right after the break.
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john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Back with us now, it's 11-term Congresswoman Gwen Moore, Democrat from Wisconsin, member of the Ways and Means Committee.
		And Congresswoman, you've seen a lot of these major legislative fights in your time in Congress.
		I realize Republicans currently control the reconciliation process right now, but what's your sense of how this is going and where this ends up?
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Well, John, good morning to you and to the audience.
		I think what we have seen is that the committees of jurisdiction over Medicaid and health care, the Energy and Commerce Committee, the Committee on Agriculture, jurisdiction over SNAP benefits, formerly called food stamps, and of course Ways and Means Committee, which is responsible for tax cuts.
		They all have tried to stay within the guidelines of their budget instructions, which means that the Energy and Commerce Committee has cut about $880 billion between health care and climate change and energy investments.
		The Act Committee has cut about $300 billion out of SNAP, formerly called food stamps.
		And Ways and Means Committee has left room for at least the extension of the current tax cuts for billionaires, quite frankly.
		And so, but what we have heard is that there's a lot of argument among Republicans as to whether or not the cuts are too deep.
		Some members want even deeper cuts.
		And so I do think that there is a chance to derail, at this point, before it's final, to derail some of the most onerous cuts.
		And I think that the actions and activity of people on the streets, we had people being arrested in wheelchairs, protesting the Medicaid cuts.
		I think the people have spoken and Republicans are hearing from them.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned that the people have spoken.
		What is the Democratic strategy on the floor right now?
		Is it to fan the flames of division among Republicans or do you just sit back at this point and see if Republicans can just get enough votes on this bill?
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		We're not sitting back as Democrats.
		We continue to look at Democrats, especially those that we know for a fact, have some misgivings about cutting, especially Medicaid, you know, in their districts.
		And we only need three people.
		In the budget committee, we saw that there were two definite no's for getting that the reconciliation bill out of that committee.
		And so it's not a matter of sitting back.
		We continue to try to persuade Republicans that these cuts are unjust, unfair, and that they will not, that they have nothing at all to do with the president's promise of cutting expenses for people, dealing with inflation.
		As a matter of fact, given his tariff policies and price of goods and services going up, that the combination of inflation and these cuts are really going to send people into a financial and economic crisis in their families.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned the budget committee, and that's the next big stop for this bill.
		That meeting is happening in about 20 minutes, 9 a.m. Eastern in the House Budget Committee.
		We're going to be airing it on C-SPAN too for viewers who want to watch it live.
		Gabble a gabble.
		As you watch the numbers on it, as the Washington Times points out today, the budget committee, Republicans on the committee can't afford to lose more than one Republican vote since Congressman Brandon Gill of Texas is not in Washington because his wife recently had a baby.
		So that's some of the numbers to watch as these votes play out.
		But I want to come back, Congresswoman, to Medicaid and your concerns about cuts to Medicaid.
		What do you say to Republicans who argue that there's plenty of waste, fraud, and abuse in that program and that these cuts and the work requirements that they're specifically talking about can help streamline this program to help it better serve the most vulnerable?
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, it's not just some Republicans are saying this is their major talking point, that they're not going to hurt the Medicaid population in general.
		They're only cutting out waste, fraud, and abuse.
		Well, you know, unless there's seven, there's not $715 billion of waste fraud and abuse in Medicaid.
		What they are doing in Medicaid is they are cutting Medicaid to the bone.
		What they're doing is they're using all kinds of budgetary tricks to drive people off the program.
		For example, the work requirements.
		They're saying that able-bodied people should have to work.
		Well, most people on Medicaid do work.
		But what they're doing is saying that in a three-year period of time, that for only three months can someone, say, age 53 get Medicaid.
		And of course, when you're in your 50s, you're starting to develop diseases and problems like, you know, diabetes and arthritis.
		And if you're somebody who's done roofing all your life, you're probably not going to be able-bodied to climb some roof to do this.
		And so you're going to only be eligible for food stamps, whether you're working or not, for three months in three years.
		You know, and some people may feel like it's not even worth it to try to get Medicaid.
		And that they have scored.
		People not even trying to get the benefit.
		You know, another thing that they have quote-unquote scored is not being able to keep up with the bureaucratic red tape and paperwork around being eligible for Medicaid or SNAP.
		You know, to say that if you don't report your change in address, if you don't get it done, you know, quarterly or weekly, whatever the requirements are, that you won't be eligible.
		They are actually scoring people's inability to keep up with the red tape and bureaucracy.
		They are really relying on people making mistakes in order to cut Medicaid.
		And one of the things I think is important for people to understand is that Medicaid is part of the healthcare system.
		So that as soon as you start pulling out this part of Medicaid and that part of Medicaid a little bit more, you are severely putting all health care in jeopardy.
		Hospitals, about 25% of their budget depends on Medicaid patients.
		70% of the budgets in nursing homes depend on Medicaid.
		I mean, you got families where if you say, say, the able-bodied person, you know, can't get any more at SNAP, that's going to affect the whole family.
		Because a majority of SNAP benefits, for example, are in families where there are children and or elderly people.
		And it's impossible to sort of just pull out little pieces of Medicaid and prevent rural hospitals from closing down, to prevent maternity wards in urban areas from not closing down.
		70%, 77% of the income for our community health centers come from Medicaid recipients.
		And so this notion that you're going to cut some people off Medicaid and it's not going to affect the entire health care system is absurd.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		11 term Congresswoman Gwen Moore is with us about the next 20 minutes or so.
		The phone lines, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents as usual.
		She's making her 554th appearance on the C-SPAN networks.
		Her first appearance on this program back when she was a freshman Congresswoman back in 2004 and always happy to take your calls.
		Sonia is up first, a Democrat out of Staten Island.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes.
		Hi, good morning.
		Thank you, Congresswoman, for that information.
		And I just wanted to compare the Congresswoman that was there prior to you when she was supporting cutting the PSNAP for people that were able to work.
		And I'd like you to compare how so many people that are thought to be able to work may not still be able to work for so many reasons.
		And how do we go about finding these people that are quote unquote able to work and are taking stamps?
		And what would that cost?
		Would it be worth it?
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Listen, let me thank you for that question because there are an awful lot of people who are quote unquote disabled and have not been determined to be disabled by the Social Security Administration.
		You know, they're not receiving SSI or they're not receiving Social Security disability, and yet they're disabled.
		You know, the example that I gave before me, somebody might have a pinched nerve and can, you know, can't stand long hours in a restaurant being a chef or a waitress just are incapable of working and they can appear to be able-bodied.
		You know, my beautiful nephew was age 33.
		Last October died.
		He looked like something snatched off the page of Sports Illustrated.
		He appeared to be able-bodied.
		He was working, but he had had a heart transplant which failed, and he succumbed and died last October.
		But to look at him, you would think he was able-bodied.
		There are people with substance abuse problems and mental health problems that may have been diagnosed, but they're not receiving Social Security.
		And so they appear to be able-bodied.
		This able-bodied thing is a ruse for just denying people benefits.
		And to declare that, you know, if you're 53 years old, that automatically makes you able-bodied.
		And if you haven't been declared disabled, and what it is, they have scorn this.
		They have the quote-unquote savings in Medicaid and in SNAP are based on this fallacy that number one fallacy is that able-bodied people don't work.
		Most people who receive these benefits already work, but there are invisible disabilities that people have, up to and including that they don't have the educational attainment to be able to get a job.
		They have illnesses and arthritis and problems physically that have not necessarily qualified them for Social Security, but they are barriers to employment.
		They have sick people and elderly people and children that they're caretakers for.
		And this is what they're using to throw people off.
		It's a talking point that is definitely inaccurate.
		The other thing is that in order to deny people health care, they're also undermining the Affordable Care Act, so-called Obamacare.
		And as you recall, 60 times the Republicans tried to end the Affordable Care Act, and Senator McCain did his thumbs down.
		So this, it seems that they're going to succeed in this bill in vilifying people who are not poor enough to receive Medicaid, but don't have employer-sponsored insurance or don't have enough money to buy their own.
		And those people are not going to benefit from the expansion of health care under the Affordable Care Act.
		And they vilified them by saying that all they are, these people, these are boys living in their mama's basement asking for another, you know, their mom to bring them some more chips.
		That's a talking point that is absolutely not true.
		That being said, we're going to have 14 billion people at minimum that are going to be thrown off health care with a combination of these bills from energy and commerce and ways and means.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		About 15 minutes left to the Republican line.
		This is Mark in Lynn Haven, Florida.
		Mark, you're on with Congresswoman Gwen Moore.
unidentified		Yes, ma'am.
		Hey, I totally agree with Medicaid, but you've got to root out the waste.
		And your talking points that the Republicans are trying to take it away, I mean, it's not working.
		We know there's waste.
		That's where we're concentrating on.
		And I would just please, please help get rid of the waste.
		Talk about the illegal, not the illegal people audit, but the illegal use, the double billion.
		You can't audit Medicaid.
		All sorts of stuff that we need to fix.
		Thank you.
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		You know, he makes a very good point that we need to get rid of waste.
		But let me just tell you, they've also scored that.
		You know, the way, for example, the SNAP program works is 100% of SNAP benefits come from the federal government.
		And the administrative costs come from the states.
		What they've done in this bill is say that this is a zero tolerance for any kind of error.
		If people get even $1 more than they're entitled to, that that's going to increase the state's error rate.
		And so that up to 15% of the cost of SNAP, food stamps, will be on the state.
		And in my state, for example, Wisconsin, that would mean that our state would have to come up with $200 million if there are any kinds of errors over 6%.
		And so this is an unfunded mandate.
		Yes, we should not have waste, but this is yet another way to have people who are otherwise eligible be thrown off by making it so difficult for the state to manage.
		Because you say, there's not going to be one penny that the federal government provides to make sure that the administration of SNAP is error-free.
		But then they're going to ding the states if there are errors.
		And so, yeah, you know, you can't, there's not $300 billion worth of waste fraud and abuse in the program.
		And yet, they are, you know, they're going to quote unquote save $300 billion in SNAP with waste, fraud, and abuse.
		That's a talking point that is no more than that, a talking point.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's not to the West Coast, to the Evergreen State.
		This is Joanne in Washington, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, I'm very concerned about how the Democrats and the Republicans do vote.
		I think it should always be a secret vote.
		That way, you're not handcuffed.
		Like in the Republican Party or in Congress, they are very scared of how to vote because of Trump.
		They're very handcuffed, and everybody's going because of what Trump wants.
		And I disagree with that.
		I think it should all go secret vote.
		And I don't know if that'll ever happen, but I think it should be.
		It's like a jury.
		When you go in, you do secret votes.
		People don't need to know how you vote.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Joanne and Washington Congresswoman.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How would you feel about secret ballots for everything before Congress?
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Well, if there were a secret vote, I can guarantee you this bill would not pass.
		Of course, that's not the American way because, you know, people are entitled to know how their members voted and base their vote for them in an election cycle based on those votes.
		And one of the things that we're seeing is that there are so many Republicans who, behind closed doors, are against the draconian cuts, not only in Medicaid and in SNAP, but raising the debt ceiling and providing,
		you know, trillions, trillions of more dollars in tax cuts to billionaires, people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and all the people you saw standing behind Trump during his inauguration.
		But they are being intimidated by the administration.
		They're being literally whipped that they had better vote with Trump or else Elon Musk has said that he will fund primary opponents against them.
		And we have never seen anything like the intimidation tactics that our Republican colleagues are being subjected to.
		And the fear that they have.
		And I would just admonish them the way Liz Cheney said, Trump will be gone, but the stitch of your activities as Republicans will last forever.
		And we are going to send not only some people into a financial abyss, but the country into a financial abyss.
		Again, this is going to have an impact on hospitals, nursing zones, community health centers, agencies that enable people to stay in their homes.
		That's one of the first things states are going to have to do with these Medicaid cuts.
		They're going to have to make choices like elders who are living in their homes and receiving care, home care.
		That might be one of the first things will be cut under Medicaid.
		Getting rides to your medical appointments is another thing that's very vulnerable.
		Children with disabilities or living in their homes could see cuts based on this Medicaid program.
		So don't be fooled by these talking points.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You talk about Republican members behind closed doors and what they say.
		Earlier this week, when we were talking on Capitol Hill about snap cuts and food security programs, you shared a very personal story about your own experience as a child with food insecurity.
		What sort of reaction did you get from members, specifically on the other side of the aisle, after sharing that story?
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Well, they were pretty silent.
		But, you know, in the halls of Congress, I had people come up to me, men, who said that it brought them to tears to hear these stories.
		Men.
		You know, here we are, we're leaving 17 million of the poorest children like I was behind because we're demanding work requirements of parents in order for them to receive the child tax credit.
		And, you know, it was so reminiscent of Charles Dickens, you know, who really wrote, you know, about Scrooge and Oliver Twist and in his books, David Copperfield, because of his trauma with childhood poverty.
		This is our workforce of the future.
		And instead of saying we're going to pay women to have babies, why don't we feed and clothe and provide health care for the ones that we have here?
		This is threatening our future workforce.
		And given the fact that the replacement rate is below par in terms of establishing a good workforce for the future, we are endangering ourselves by not taking care of these children.
		You know, we've got the DREAMers, the DACA children that we're trying to throw out of the country.
		These are our children.
		We've paid for their education, their health care.
		Some of them don't even speak any other language other than English.
		They're bright.
		But, you know, if we're going to throw them out and deport them, then we are just digging our own graves in terms of having a viable future workforce.
		And yes, I told my own personal story because I was bright, I was intelligent, I was an ACE student, I was president of the student council, and I was starving every day.
		It just didn't make any sense.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Let me take you home to the Badger State.
		This is Michelle Intoma.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		Thank you so much for all your service, Congresswoman Moore.
		I live in Wisconsin, and my issue is filing for disability.
		I'm being told I have COPD stage three and alpha one antraciptin disorder, which affects my liver, which also affects my lung function.
		Anyways, I'm being told when I file for a disability, I cannot be having any income for three months prior to filing, first filing.
		After the first filing, I'm being told they always deny it, so then you have to submit again, which is another three months.
		And if they deny it, you submit again, which is another three months.
		So along the way, you are, or the government, the Republicans or whoever, are expecting people to go 9 to 12 months with no income just to see if they qualify for disability.
		Now, my doctors are telling me I should not be working, but yet I have to work because I rely on that income to pay my bills.
		So when I file for disability, I can't have any income.
		So how is one supposed to pay their bills if they have no income coming in while you wait nine to twelve months for the disability to come through?
		Can you answer that question for me?
		And also with the Medicaid, with the cuts, a lot of people rely on that Medicaid.
		We put into that system our whole life when we work.
		And yet the Republicans behind closed doors want to dismantle that.
		And I just hope they don't go after the ACA because I rely on that for my insurance because my employer does not offer insurance.
		So could you answer the Michelle got your questions?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Congresswoman Morgan.
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Michelle, unfortunately, your story is just really common.
		I mean, it's just, it's not something that's unusual.
		You know, inability to get disability when it's clear that you're disabled and having to file and refile.
		And to complicate that, they're closing down Social Security offices, defunding Social Security Administration, firing people at the Social Security office.
		So it will make it even more difficult for people to get disability determinations.
		And they're doing this on purpose.
		They claim that there's waste, fraud, and abuse in Social Security.
		And Social Security has about a 99.8% accuracy rate.
		But they still say waste, fraud, and abuse.
		And of course, people who are applying for Social Security have to depend on loved ones and other family members to literally take care of them while they're awaiting their determination, which puts a burden on other people.
		Else these people will fall into a trap.
		The other thing is, is that this is to try to discourage you from getting benefits to which you're otherwise entitled.
		This score, these savings really rely on people just getting discouraged and giving up and saying, even though I'm entitled, I'm just going to give up because it's too onerous to do.
		The other thing is, yes, you're talking about Medicare that we've paid our entire lives in.
		They're undermining that in this bill as well.
		This has an impact, believe it or not, on Medicare payments as well.
		Our whole entire health care system, safety net system, is at risk with their initiative.
		I want to thank you for sharing your story.
		And your story, as horrible as it is, is very common.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And Congresswoman, we want to thank you for your time.
		We are out of time this morning, but I always appreciate you stopping by on the Washington Journal.
		Come by again down the road.
gwen moore ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Coming up in our last hour of the Washington Journal, more of your phone calls and up next, we'll be joined by Maria Snegovaya of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
		She joins us to talk about the state of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
		Stick around for that conversation right after the break.
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		Watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history.
		This show and C-SPAN is one of the few places left in America where you actually have left and right coming together to talk and argue.
		And you guys do a great service in that.
		I love C-SPAN too.
		That's why I'm here today.
		Answer questions all day, every day.
		Sometimes I get to do fun things like go on C-SPAN.
adam goodman ▲ ● ▼		C-SPAN is, I think, one of the very few places that Americans can still go.
unidentified		C-SPAN has such a distinguished and honorable and important mandate and mission in this country.
		I love this show.
		This is my favorite show to do of all shows because I actually get to hear what the American people care about.
		American people have access to their government in ways that they did not before the cable industry provided C-SPAN access.
		That's why I like to come on C-SPAN is because this is one of the last places where people are actually having conversations, even people who disagree.
		Shows that you can have a television network that can try to be objective.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Thank C-SPAN for all you do.
unidentified		It's one of the reasons why this program is so valuable, because it does bring people together where dissenting voices are heard, where hard questions are asked, and where people have to answer to them.
unidentified		Washington Journal continues.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		A conversation now on efforts to strike a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
		Our guest is Maria Snegovaya, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
		And Ms. Snegovaya, start by just bringing viewers up to speed on the latest on where these peace talks are, what was supposed to happen this week, and what did happen.
unidentified		Absolutely.
		Well, a lot is in the news these days, as you can tell.
		But the irony of that is that despite all the hype and talk about the peace talks, the results so far, and we've been at this point, the US administration has been trying to push Ukraine and Russia to agree on some sort of ceasefire, ideally at least 30-day ceasefire.
		So far, the results are very, very limited.
		So the latest in that series of development is the effort on the side of the US administration and Donald Trump in particular to bring both parties at the negotiation table in Istanbul, which was supposed to happen this week.
		However, Putin, earlier this week, actually, during the night time, Saturday night in Russia, announced that he was uncertain whether this actually was going to be any progress.
		And as a result, he sent to Istanbul, as we now find out, relatively low-level representatives to conduct the peace negotiations.
		In fact, one of the leader, the head of that delegation on the Russian side, used to be engaged in the first series or first round of the Istanbul negotiations at the start of the war in Ukraine back in spring 2022.
		And as a result, basically, there is no even decent, adequate meeting right now between the Ukraine and the Russian side.
		There is some mixed evidence in that regard, just because Russia sent a relatively low level of representation and Ukraine has sent Minister of Defense.
		Original Markovio was supposed to be participating in this round of negotiations on the U.S. side, but because, as he announced, Russia sent very low level of the delegation, that's not going to happen as well.
		Basically, to make the long story short, there's an effort on the side of the U.S. administration to bring both parties to the negotiation table.
		And the first condition is to agree on a 30-day ceasefire.
		While Ukraine is willing, we've been pressured by the Trump administration.
		Ukraine is dependent on the U.S. lethal assistance, so it really has no choice other than to agree.
		Russia is repeatedly trying to procrastinate delayed negotiations, as we have seen, through such tactics as, for example, sending lower-level delegations to the meetings.
		And as a matter of fact, similarly, similarly, is not interested in anything productive coming out of these talks because Putin is dead set on achieving his goals in Ukraine, which include quote-unquote liberation, but de facto occupation of the four regions of Ukraine, but also ultimately some sort of direct or indirect control over Ukraine leadership and its future direction.
		And so far, Russia feels relatively comfortable and is not willing to stop cease to agree onto the ceasefire to stop the war at this point.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And that's where we are now.
		President Trump, earlier today, as he was traveling in the Middle East, was asked about what comes next and his reaction to the talks that were supposed to happen in Turkey this week.
		This is what he told reporters.
unidentified		Russia, you said that you didn't expect him to go if you didn't go.
		The question might be then, what are you going to do it?
		Why wait?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Well, we're going to.
		I think it's time for us to just do it.
		I said, you know, they all said Putin was going and Zelensky was going, and I said, if I don't go, I guarantee Putin's not going.
		And he didn't go.
		And I understand that, but we're going to get it done.
		We've got to get it done.
		5,000 young people are being killed every single week on average, and we're going to get it done.
unidentified		Were you surprised when Zelensky didn't show up either, sir?
unidentified		Were you surprised when Zelensky didn't show up either?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		No, he didn't show up because he heard Putin wasn't going.
unidentified		When do you think you'll meet the president?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		As soon as we can set it up, I was going to actually leave here and go.
		I do want to see my beautiful grandson, Susan, and we'll be doing that.
		But I will tell you that the world is a much safer place right now.
		And I think in two or three weeks, we could have it be a much, much safer place.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Maria Snegovaya, what do you take from those comments and the timeline that he lays out there in the end in perhaps four weeks some sort of deal getting done?
unidentified		Well, first of all, the original claim by President Trump, as far as I remember, was that he will go to Istanbul as long as Putin is coming.
		Now we're hearing that Putin is not coming because Trump is not coming, but that's not how we originally saw the situation.
		So I don't know if that's really what is going on there.
		That's one issue.
		The second problem, of course, is the deadline that keeps being pushed.
		Just reminded that the original promise of the incoming President Donald Trump was to stop the war on day one.
		Then 100 days now was actually, the last deadline was this week, but Putin did not come to Istanbul.
		So now we are again looking at four more weeks.
		As a matter of fact, what we are seeing is that the talks have been delayed consistently, partly because, like mainly because Russia is refusing to comply.
		And the deadline keeps being pushed further and further.
		In fact, it's increasing talk that it's unlikely that anything is going to be achieved this year.
		Certainly we do not see a lot of willingness demonstrated by the Kremlin.
		In fact, since the start of this administration, the intensity of Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities, not just the military, but actually civilian infrastructure, has intensified, has at least doubled.
		So you can see that you probably can hear in the news horrible news about Ukrainian cities, like new civilian casualties.
		And certainly that does not showcase commitment on the Russian side to any ceasefire at all.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Is there any risk for Russia to this strategy that you're talking about of dragging its feet here?
unidentified		That's exactly the question, because typically, based on my understanding, the way President Trump negotiates is that he threatens with some serious consequences the parties that would not comply.
		And while we have seen this tactic certainly being applied towards Ukraine, and it did work, in the case of Russia, we do not see similar pressure coming on the side of the U.S. seemingly, at least at this point, right?
		Because what could the U.S. have done potentially?
		What are the tools, assets at the disposal by the U.S. administration?
		Well, one can intensify or promise new lethal aid provision to Ukraine, right?
		Saying to Russia, hey, if you don't agree to ceasefire now, there will be consequences.
		It will be worse.
		The frontline situation will get much worse for you.
		Second, there's, of course, sanctions.
		And we're about to release a report with CSIS showing that while the Russian economy has adjusted to the sanctions and they're doing somewhat okay, it's not ideal economically, but they are fine for now.
		Definitely more sanctions can significantly worsen the economic situation because the balance is fragile and Russia is basically going for the resources they accumulated before in order to be able to sustain this war.
		Meaning it's becoming more fragile and potentially more malleable, more susceptible to sanctions push.
		But again, this promises of more sanctions coming from the US or the West more broadly.
		But so far, we have not seen this administration willing to actively explore that tool.
		So it's a questionable, though, to what extent Putin will be willing to negotiate while he faces, like he sees no risks in continuously trying to procrastinate the talks.
		And also simultaneously feels like he's got an advantage, right?
		The West is divided as to whether to continue the support of Ukraine.
		And the frontline situation from his side is actually beneficial for Russia going forward.
		So from that perspective, it's unlikely that he will be willing to agree to ceasefire anytime soon because he feels like time is on his side.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We've got about 15, 20 minutes left with Maria Snegovaya of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		If you want to check out their website, where I assume that report that you mentioned will be available.
unidentified		It will be published in a couple of weeks.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		CSIS.org is where you can go and see her work as well.
		Phone lines for you to call in 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, Independence 202748-8002.
		As folks are calling in, in the negotiation process here, is there anything between all or nothing for each side?
		Is there anything between Russia saying we're going to hold everything that we have right now and Ukraine saying we want every piece of Ukrainian land back and Russia back to beyond the borders?
unidentified		Certainly, we see that Ukraine more recently has been demonstrating willingness to follow the signals that it's been receiving from the United States, partly because Ukraine, while it claims that it wants to recover and regain the territories that have been occupied by Russia, also is dependent on the U.S. lethal assistance.
		So in this sense, Ukraine has limited options.
		It has to go with what the U.S. is telling it, just to make sure that there is actually lethal assistance going forward.
		We remember, right, just during this negotiation period after the notorious Oval Office meeting, that temporary cessation of the US intelligence sharing actually was quite problematic for Ukraine.
		So in that sense, yes, Ukraine potentially would be willing to at least see some possibilities for negotiation.
		What is not acceptable is something that Russia asks and demands on Ukraine's behalf is to, for Ukraine to be effectively prohibited from further militarization, meaning from basically having any agency over the size of its military force.
		And that, as you may imagine, definitely, in the Ukraine's eyes, increases the risk of Russia re-invading if Russia was to basically limit how much Ukraine can expand militarily its own army.
		But for Russia, as we have discussed, it's questionable to what extent at this point Putin is ready to agree to some sort of compromises just because he feels that, first of all, his goals in Ukraine, even minimalist goals, are not achieved yet, meaning that he, quote-unquote, I said hasn't yet liberated, as the Russian propaganda puts it, the four Ukrainian regions that he wants to occupy fully.
		The Russian army keeps pushing forward in Ukraine, but very, very slowly.
		And there was some analysis recently showing that at this pace it will take Russia 230 years to occupy all of Ukraine.
		And it certainly will take a while to even occupy the remaining parts of these four regions.
		But there's also no evidence that Russia is going to stop there.
		We've seen repeatedly, right, that Russia was claiming that it only cared about Crimea, that it only cared about these four regions.
		But the reality is Russia is conducting this new imperialist war.
		The goal ultimately is to sustain some sort of political control over Ukraine going forward, to prevent Ukraine from developing further and integrating with the West.
		And as long as that's the case, as long as that's Putin's goal, he feels like he's got human, like demographic and economic resources to achieve this goal.
		At this point, he's not going to be willing to negotiate, especially if the West refuses to pressure him further to create more problems for Russia socio-economically in sustaining this goal.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Let me get you some calls.
		This is Eric waiting in the eastern shore of Maryland, Independence.
		Eric, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		First, I'd just like to make the comment.
		I mean, every time we talk about Ukraine, whoever's talking about it brings up President Trump saying he was going to stop this on day one.
		I mean, everybody knows that that wasn't literally and just give the man time.
		This is not anything that can be solved in on day one.
		Everybody knows that, but everybody gets what he meant, that he could solve.
		And he does believe that he can, and I think he can, and I'm going to give him time.
		Second, I'm a little confused about this whole Ukraine thing.
		Before the war, I heard Putin's baloney about Nazis and stuff.
		That's just crazy.
		But what was exactly happening in the eastern region of Ukraine with the Ukrainian army and the Russians that lived there?
		Was there anything to provoke this at all?
		So I don't know the whole story.
		So I'd like to hear that.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Maria Snegovaya.
unidentified		Well, first of all, while definitely peacemakers should be given credit for the effort to stop these horrible atrocities that are going on in this war, there's also just objective reality that we're dealing with as to why it's very hard to stop this war from developing.
		And one of the reasons is that Russia is controlled by Harley Brivanch's leader, who has a lot of new imperial ambitions, and he does not feel like he's run out of the resources.
		He feels like he has time on his side, as I flagged.
		So in this current status quo, many analysts and experts who've been tracking the situation for a while see very limited opportunity for successful achievement of a ceasefire with Russia at this point.
		So while this intent is commendable, there's just objective factors that make this high unlikely.
		And that's exactly the reality that we've seen over the last several months, where consistent effort on the size of the and goodwill on the size of the U.S. administration have not so far resulted in any success.
		As a matter of fact, it's very clear, and even President Trump has repeated that on a number of occasions, that Putin similarly tries to procrastinate, delay, right?
		He's not really negotiating similarly in goodwill.
		And that is something perhaps worth factoring in when looking at the possibility of successful conclusion of the ceasefire talks, at least with the current status quo, without additional pressure being applied on Russia.
		Ultimately, you want pressure in order, you want some sticks on the carrots, usually do not do the trick.
		Second, there's a long history of various regions of Ukraine, but in general, Ukraine was developing in the democratic direction since the early 1990s.
		And Ukraine is multilingual, like at least bilingual country, where there is Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking regions.
		While after the second Maidan revolution, the 2014 revolution, there was some effort on the side of this government to at least perhaps standardize, if I remember correctly, the administrative use of the language in the administrative proceedings, there was not really any persecution of the Russian-speaking population, as the Russian propaganda likes to put it.
		Similarly, in 2021, when Putin started collecting his army, assembling his army on Ukraine's border, again, there was no serious, like any instances of the persecution of the Russian-speaking population to talk off.
		One possible reason why Putin felt triggered was the fact that Zelensky was actually trying to limit the Kremlin influence in Ukraine by especially going after the three Russian-speaking channels, which were largely perceived as being indirectly controlled by Kremlin-linked oligarchs.
		And that was happening in the spring 2021, and allegedly that was one of the issues that triggered Putin.
		He actually held the security council, Special Security Council meeting associated to those developments.
		So it's really not about what the official propaganda tells you.
		It is about Russian control over this country.
		And it wouldn't be, again, the first time Russia did this.
		As a matter of fact, this effort to sustain control over the so-called post-Soviet countries and surrounding Russia, whether Georgia or Tajikistan, Moldova, you name it, actually has been consistent not just for Putin but also Yeltsin, the previous Russian president, pretty much since the first day of post-Soviet Russia.
		Russia is really near-imperial country in that sense that it's a state which unresolved identity issues, which cannot really think of itself as a nation-state.
		It cannot really stay within its borders because it has still a lot of this imperialist ambition and cannot really fully understand where its borders end.
		In fact, Putin on multiple occasions has stated himself that Russian borders end whatever Russia wants them to end.
		So from that perspective, I would not overfocus on domestic Ukrainian developments because it was really just an effort to really dissociate itself from Russia in order to limit the Kremlin's ability to control Ukrainian political processes.
		That triggered Putin, and this is consistent with the ways Russia acted towards other countries on numerous occasions.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Several callers and short on time here.
		This is Richard in Williamstown, New Jersey.
		Democrat, go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		I know that Putin started this war, and he can easily end it, but I just can't understand why Donald Trump continues to put the pressure on President Zelensky and trying to get him to end the war.
		He didn't start the war, so it's not fair that the pressure should be put on him to end this war.
		The one that can end it, and he can end it at no time, is Donald Trump.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Maria Snake, goodbye.
unidentified		Thank you.
		I think the, well, I definitely agree with the fact that it's definitely the war has been started and continued, definitely because of Russia's imperialist aggression.
		And I think it's very much consistent with the way Russia, again, acted towards other countries.
		I don't think, unfortunately, at this point, there's as easy for the U.S. administration to end this war.
		To be fair, but I agree that there absolutely needs to be much more pressure applied on Putin in order to at least, if not, change his intent.
		We have seen that it's actually very hard to do even under Biden when the war, again, with a lot of delay, but many of the needed sanctions were introduced, and many of the lethal, much of the lethal aid was provided to Ukraine, even if, again, the administration was also taking its time to do that.
		Even that was not enough to change Putin's intent.
		It's just because it's very hard with this leadership of this kind.
		There's limited resource of external powers in that regard.
		But what can certainly be done is applying sufficient pressure to limit resources at Putin's disposal, primarily socio-economic resources.
		Russia still receives about 30% of its budget revenues from selling oil and gas, and that's one of its major weaknesses.
		Historically, so Russia's economic crisis tended to combine with decline in its energy revenues.
		At this point, especially in the coming years, because the situation of the oil market is a little bit more beneficial for the West, there's more oil produced and there's demand, basically.
		There's actually a little bit more flexibility for the West to apply that pressure.
		We see that Europe is trying to go after Russia's shadow fleet, the special fleet that Russia built in order to keep exporting its oil to primarily India and China from maritime routes in circumvention of the oil price cap.
		So that is a very welcome development, but certainly more should be done.
		I can only agree with the basic premise that there needs to be more pressure applied on Russia.
		Having said that, there are some promising developments recently on the side of the U.S. administration.
		First of all, this U.S. administration has kept most of the sanctions introduced by the Biden administration.
		They didn't introduce new ones, but they're keeping the old ones, which already was quite significant.
		And while it's not undermining Putin's radical and changing Putin's capacity in the short term, in the long term, it will definitely have the effect.
		We're seeing that in our analysis.
		Second, there is more hopes now that Ukraine will be getting at least some additional lethal assistance.
		Recently, this administration has allowed green lighted sale of the Patriot system, new patriot systems for Ukraine.
		And there's also a new bit small lethal aid package, just above $50 million.
		So at least we see that the administration starts going in that direction, which is very promising, and one can only hope that this continues.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Let me get these last two callers in.
		Both have been waiting.
		This is Beverly in Connecticut.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Hi, thank you for taking the call.
		I want to make two comments.
		The first one is the gentleman that said that give Trump time.
		If Trump didn't waste his time doing what he's doing and concentrated on Ukraine and Russia, maybe it would have been done.
		So that's number one.
		Number two, and not to be rude in any way, shape, or form, but this lady has a lot of good information, but she talks so fast that we can't understand a lot of it.
		But I appreciate her.
		She has a lot of information.
		Slow down a little bit.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		All right, Beverly, got your point.
		Let me get in, Robert, with the time we have left in Houston.
		Democrat, go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, thank you for letting me talk.
		I just wanted to say that if people want to know a little bit about the fight between Ukraine and Russia, there's a good documentary.
		It's called Winter on Fire.
		And if your guest could mention it, it was when they had the pro-Russian leader in 2015, and the young people rose up to fight to have their freedom from the Russian way of life to more of the Western way of life.
		It was very good.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And also, I believe that was a Netflix show, wasn't it, Robert?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Winter on Fire?
unidentified		It's very good.
		And then there's also another one.
		It's called White Raven, Sniper, the White Raven, I believe.
		And these people will fight for their freedom until there's nothing left.
		And, you know, I think if Putin were to watch either one of those, he'd realize what he's getting into.
		You know, these people are not going to give up.
		They may be outmanned and out, everything else.
		But like us Americans, we understand what we would do to fight for our freedom.
		And that's all I have to say.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Robert in Texas.
		Maria Snegovaya.
		Give you the last about two or three minutes here.
unidentified		Thank you so much, Robert.
		I definitely agree that Ukraine's commitment and resilience and courage demonstrated in this war is completely amazing and inspiring.
		I think it's an example for really all of us to follow.
		And certainly Ukraine is fighting for it's also for the reasons because for Ukraine it's existential.
		It's really not about NATO enlargement or some Issues with Russian speakers in Ukraine that provoked this war, but the fact that Putin has a very dead set intent on taking Ukraine under control.
		This intent has been demonstrated consistently since he became Russian president, so much earlier than 2014, even pretty much since early 2000.
		And he's just very consistent and going after achieving this goal.
		I'm less certain to what extent we are able to change this intent of his, since he's been extremely consistent in this since early 2000.
		But we are definitely, as the United States, capable of limiting the resources that he has at his disposal.
		Just a reminder that this is just not just about Ukraine and Russia.
		This is a story much larger.
		This is a story about the survival of the liberal international order and independent nations write for their own existence without being controlled or told how to exist by major new imperial powers.
		So I hope we all agree on that one and do our best to allow Ukraine to achieve its goal and to survive.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Maria Snegovaya is a senior fellow in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
		It's csis.org.
		We always appreciate your time.
unidentified		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Coming up, about 25 minutes left in our program.
		In that time, we turn the program over to you.
		It's our open forum.
		any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, go ahead and start calling in and we will get to your calls right after the break.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		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.
		Book Notes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
		Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
		Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
		At 6:30 p.m. Eastern, NPR international correspondent Emily Fang shares her book, Let Only Red Flowers Bloom, where she reports on individuals in China who are pushing back against efforts to control free expression.
		And at 8 p.m. Eastern, Columbia University's John McWhorter talks about the use and evolution of language and argues that the current controversy over pronoun usage in America is largely overblown in his book, Pronoun Trouble.
		At 9:15 p.m. Eastern, Steve Olson, author of Eruption, recalls the volcanic eruption at Mount St. Helens in southwestern Washington on May 18, 1980, which resulted in the deaths of 57 people.
		Then, at 10 p.m. Eastern on afterwards, University of Michigan law professor Leah Littman explains why she believes the Supreme Court isn't making rulings based on legal principles in her book, Lawless, How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes.
		She is interviewed by author and Nation magazine justice correspondent Ellie Mistal.
		Watch book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
		Washington Journal continues.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Here's where we are in Capitol Hill.
		The House and Senate will not meet in full session until next week, but committee hearings are happening today, including that very closely watched House budget markup of the Republican budget for 2025.
		That's underway right now on C-SPAN 2.
		If you want to watch that here on the Washington Journal on C-SPAN, it's our open forum.
		Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, now is your time to call in.
		And we will start with Linda in Vineland, New Jersey, Democrat.
		Linda, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		How are you?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I'm doing well.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for asking.
unidentified		You're welcome.
		I just wanted to question.
		I think the supporters of Trump voted because he was going to make America great again.
		How do they feel about us being less than Saudi Arabia, less than Syria, less than China, less than Russia?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How do you define less than, Linda?
unidentified		He has bulked up his wallet from kissing the rear ends of dictators.
		So he must hold them in higher esteem than the people of the United States.
		And proof of that is that they are deducting health care from people of the United States.
		But he is impressed with a big jet.
		You know what they say about men that have to have big cars, big jets, big motorcycles.
		But anyway, and as far as the people of the United States, he has royally screwed us.
		There's nothing going down.
		Prices are going up.
		He has done nothing, doesn't care.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Got your point.
		That's Linda, New Jersey.
		This is Jodi in the Bluegrass State, Williamsburg, Kentucky, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		First of all, I want to reply to what the lady just said about the Trump voters.
		We're happy with everything Trump is doing.
		Trump is doing everything we voted for him to do.
		Second of all, I want to talk about how ignorant Congressman Al Green is.
		It's wanting to impeach Trump with the Republican-controlled house, with the Republican-controlled scenic, how stupid Canadian woman might be.
		And all he's doing by talking to impeachment is hurting the Democrats in trying to win the Mayterman election because we, the people, will see to it that the Republicans keep the House and the scenic.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Jody in Kentucky to Westbrook, Maine.
		Dwayne, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		You just had a half-call because you had a propaganda song recently, just now, who's spreading disinformation about why Ukraine was invaded by Russia.
		And it's because it was a provoked invasion by the West.
		We installed a government on Russia's border that was hostile to Russia and has very many, according to, you know, contrary to what was said, very many neo-Nazi elements to it.
		And they killed 14,000 ethnic Russians in the Donbass region of Brain.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Where do you go for your information on this?
unidentified		Jeffrey Sachs, you should have him on.
		Instead of these same propagandists from these State Department-sanctioned think tanks that just spread propaganda and lies, they're fooling the American people into thinking Russia is the, if Putin is the new Hitler and Russia wants to invade all of Europe.
		And that is just not true.
		John Mearsheimer, he's a historian, prominent historian.
		Jeffrey Sachs, these are prominent people who come out and had a different narrative because they talk about the actual history.
		They don't begin history with Russia's invasion.
		It was a provoked invasion.
		You need to tell that to the American people so they can have a perspective on this.
		You don't do that at Ceaseman.
		It's just like every other mainstream media outlet.
		They just parrot State Department talking points, and you're doing a disservice to the country.
		It's not going to help peace.
		It's not helping Ukraine.
		Ukraine's lost this war.
		The more it's prolonged, the more Ukrainians are going to die.
		And so it needs to stop.
		We need to have peace.
		We need to have NEO stop extending its presence in Eastern Europe against agreements that were made back in the early 90s when the Berlin Wall fell.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		All right, got your point.
		That's Dwayne.
		This is Alex in Miami, Florida, Democrat.
		Good morning.
unidentified		I just wanted to say what's on my mind is I just, about two weeks ago, I saw a headline briefly that the DOJ settled with the family of ASCII Baby.
		That outraged me.
		I can't believe that my tax dollars are $30 million.
		This is the Trump administration that's doing this.
		They're settling.
		She's a rioter.
		I don't wish death on anyone, but she put herself in that predicament.
		She was staring down the barrel of a gun, broke a window, tried to get in.
		And while staring at the, I mean, she did this to herself.
		So why are we paying for that?
		Why do our tax dollars are paying for that?
		That outraged me.
		I'm surprised more people are not outraged and it's not receiving more coverage.
		It was just like a small little headline.
		That upset me a lot.
		I'm surprised more people are upset about it.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Alex in Florida.
		This is Sarah in California, Republican line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just wanted to make a comment.
		Well, it's nothing to do with Russia and Ukraine.
		I do have a neighbor that's Ukrainian, and I do see the stress on her.
		Same with, you know, I just think both sides' war is horrible.
		And this, you know, it seems like we're not in a, it's almost like that's third world, it's not 2025.
		It seems like we should be over that.
		We should be able to talk.
		I'm glad that Trump talks about bringing countries together with trade and with business.
		But my main thing is, is in San Diego, where I live, I saw firsthand where they spent our taxpayers' money to hold these illegal immigrants.
		And they were hiding it.
		They put it up, put them up in Crown Plaza Hotel, a hotel circle.
		They paid for all their stuff.
		And I have a sister that's a truck driver.
		She's a single mother, and she can't even afford Medicare.
		And it's just sad to see that our American people are just acting, they're acting like we're the enemy.
		So it's almost criminal when they say it's okay for, you know, to that, oh, we're doing good.
		But in actuality, it's hurting the Americans and the apartment that she lives in.
		She says none of them go to work.
		She has to work her butt off.
		And she, you know, she's been doing this her whole life, struggling.
		And it's just a time where we've got to put American first, America and Americans first.
		And fly your American flag this 4th of July because that's the true sacrifice our veterans gave for our country.
		And that's what I wanted to say.
		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Sarah in California.
		Harvey out of Santa Monica, also in California, independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		A couple of things I want to talk about.
		About the tariffs that are coming down.
		I worked on solar and environmental stuff for over 50 years.
		Solar energy tax groups and I resolved right now in Congress.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And Harvey, I'm having a little trouble hearing you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You're talking about working in solar for a long time?
unidentified		And there's also low-income housing credits here in California.
unidentified		We're going to be saying.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I'll tell you what, Harvey, let's work on that line, and we'll go to Lois in Salisbury, North Carolina.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Democrat, go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, top of the morning to you guys.
		You know, it's very ironic to hear, and please, I'm not racist or nothing, but I hear white Republican madgas talk about veterans and it's patriotic.
		But they act like they don't see what.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And Lewis, I don't know if callers identify by what race they are when they call in.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		But you're making an assumption.
unidentified		Well, assumption, but you could tell, I know I can, because that's all my life, I can distinguish between a white person, Hispanic, or a black.
		Sometimes I might hit and sometimes I might miss.
		But on this particular issue, I'm sure I'm right.
		But they always speaks about patriotic and the veterans.
		But this administration is cutting everything for veterans.
		They stopped the PAC Act.
		They took the money from the PAC Act, which was allocated with Biden administration to help veterans out.
		They're cutting the VA down to the bone.
		They're also messing with the miners.
		They took away the black globe benefits for the miners, and they want to drill, baby, drill.
		I don't understand these people that act like they can't see that he is destroying America by killing these.
		And look, and when this thing hit $880 billion, they haven't felt it yet.
		But I do know this.
		They're going to change their mind because the prices are still going up.
		They haven't felt it yet.
		Wait till they fill it.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Lewis in North Carolina.
		About 15 minutes left in the Washington Journal today.
		It's our open forum.
		Any public policy issue, any political issue that you want, that's how we're ending our program.
		Also did want to note this in our final 15 minutes here.
		An obituary from the pages of the Washington Post.
		Christopher Kit Bond, a Republican who brought millions of dollars in federal funding to Missouri during his four terms in the U.S. Senate and earlier was the youngest person in his state to serve as governor, died on May 13th in St. Louis.
		He was 86 years old.
		As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Mr. Bond secured federal money for big and small projects in Missouri, scoffing at government watchdog groups that considered him a master of pork.
		Quote, if it's pork, it's an awfully healthy diet for the people of Missouri, he said in 1999.
		Mr. Bond assumed a higher national profile during his last term in the Senate.
		After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, he became a primary spokesman for congressional Republicans about the war during the time leading up to the 2006 elections.
		And there's a picture there of Kit Bond, Republican of Missouri.
		Back to your phone calls.
		This is Rod in Ohio.
		Republican, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Chief Span.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		I wanted to have a question.
		Maybe you can help me with some numbers.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I'm not great with numbers on the fly, Rod, but go ahead.
unidentified		Well, no, well, do you have any numbers on the civilian deaths in Gaza or also the children's death in Gaza?
unidentified		It's not being covered by mainstream media, and what Israel is doing with these with the war and withholding, also withholding food from the civilians there in Gaza is absolutely horrible.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Rod, how do you think this ends the war in Gaza?
unidentified		Well, it ends with the United States taking a firmer stance with Israel.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Meaning what?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What do you want the U.S. to do?
unidentified		Well, first of all, I mean, the numbers thing is what I was hoping that maybe you had some information on.
		But I think we just need to take a firmer stance with Israel, that they can't just basically carpet bomb Gaza, the Gaza Strip.
		They need to take a more precise avenue when it comes to going after Hamas instead of just carpet bombing certain areas.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Numbers-wise, I mean, you can Google them as easy as I can.
		Rod, Al Jazeera has a report out from a couple days ago.
		Pegg's at over 53,000.
		There's other numbers in other places.
		But at this point, what numbers do you trust?
		Still there, Rod?
unidentified		Yeah, I'm still here.
		What numbers do I trust?
		Well, I mean, you know, I mean, we have to trust what we have to trust what we're being told by the authorities on the ground.
		And, you know, I feel like Israel isn't giving us the true numbers.
		So we have to have some independent and maybe some UN individuals go in there.
		There's been some discrepancies in those numbers because we're not letting the proper authorities get in there and really get a good assessment of what's really going on in Gaza.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Rod in Ohio.
		Jim is in Clearwater, Florida, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for having me on your show.
		Longtime listener of your program.
		My dad turned me on to your program, and I absolutely love it.
		Real quick, like I just wanted to piggyback on what the Democratic Moore was talking about earlier with the Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, et cetera.
		I'm going to go on a limb here.
		I worked for the federal government.
		I worked for Social Security.
		And I will tell you, the amount of abuse that I see in this program is absolutely astounding.
		And if Trump was listening to this program right now, I would tell him on a programmatic level, that's where you really need to get into the weeds of the program because these people getting approved for SSI, which is a segue to Medicaid and SNAP.
		From my perspective, it's an abuse program.
		It's taxpayer money.
		And I'm hoping they really get in there and find the fraud because it's there.
		But for the Democrat Moore to just openly say that Trump is going to take away all this money, that's a falsehood.
		We know it's the Democratic narrative.
		They're putting a spin on it.
		But again, just maybe someone can look at that angle.
		On another note from the guy from Salisbury, I am a white man.
		I'm a 22-year veteran of the Air Force.
		And I served overseas on many different tours away from my family.
		And I am a Trump supporter.
		I voted for what is currently going on.
		And I love my country.
		And I want to say thank you to you and your staff for allowing me to be on your program.
		Thank you very much.
		Have a safe weekend.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You said your dad turned you on to this program.
		Did you and your dad share the same political views?
		Was it are you a family that is particularly into politics?
unidentified		Yes.
		Well, I have a very large family.
		So, my father was a lobbyist in the late 70s when the Speaker House was Tip O'Neill.
		I met Generals Sonny Montgomery.
		And so, it kind of went from there.
		But, you know, my father was a Vietnam veteran.
		He served from 61 to 74.
		He was a bombardier on a B-52, and he taught me a lot of great things about our country.
		And yes, both sides of the House, if you will, over the decades have changed as far as what their original role, if you will, as outlined in the Constitution.
		And it's kind of sad to where we are today.
		The Democratic Party is not what the Democratic Party was as of, say, you know, four decades ago, per se.
		I think they've lost their footing.
		And I think if people just look at what the Constitution says, follow the Constitution, and that's where we need to go.
		And I think Trump is doing that.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Jim, did your dad ever call into this program?
unidentified		You know what?
		He probably did.
		He was a big Rush Limbaugh fan.
		I got pictures of him and Rush.
		But when you turn me onto your program, I'll be honest, I stepped away from mainstream media, from Fox News, CNN, whatever.
		We used to watch all that stuff years ago, but my channel is on C-SPAN every single day, and I love it.
		Are you going to love this program?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Are you going to watch the House Budget Committee hearing?
		So that got started about an hour ago, and we're showing it on C-SPAN too.
		And you can head over there after this program's over if you like.
		But are you going to watch it?
unidentified		I will.
		I'm home today.
		I just came back from a family cruise and I got my one day off and then I go back to work like everybody else.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Jim, thanks for spending your day off with C-SPAN.
		I appreciate it.
		C-SPAN 2 is where you can go for the House Budget Committee hearing.
		There's already been some fireworks this morning.
		Some members walking out of the hearing.
		They're back inside and it continues.
		You can watch it over there on C-SPAN 2.
		Back to your phone calls.
		Another five minutes or so left in our program.
		This is Tom Prince Frederick, Maryland, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for having me on.
		I was a lifelong Democrat for my first election I voted was in 1960.
		Come from a long line of Southern Maryland Democrats.
		But I changed to Independent right around when Clinton came in, but I voted for Clinton.
		I didn't vote for Republican until 2016, and I could tell you my reasons for doing that.
		And I voted for Trump the next two times.
		The point I want to get over is the mainstream media double standard.
		And I'll give you an example.
		A month ago, Dick Durbin, in an address about J6, said that four police officers died that night.
		That is a blatant, provable lie.
		Mainstream media never said a word about it.
		They just don't, they don't say anything about all the lies.
		Another lie from Congressman from two days ago that Trump is going to take away, is going to not reduce or change it.
		Trump is going to take away Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
		Another blatant, provable lie.
		Yet the mainstream media doesn't cover it.
		I'm just curious as to why nobody ever says anything about that.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Tom in Maryland.
		This is DeAndre, also in Maryland in Baltimore.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		Go ahead.
		Can you hear me?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
unidentified		We're not in an open forum, right?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We are in open forum, DeAndre.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What's on your mind?
unidentified		Okay, perfect.
		Okay, so as of recently, Donald J. Trump has been on this little Middle Eastern tour.
		And I want all the Americans listening to really pay attention here.
		He's essentially went and legitimized and recognized Mohammed al-Julani or al-Sharah, who's the new president of Syria, but I will not recognize him as a president.
		He was the former deputy of al-Qaeda.
		He was a leader of ISIS.
		He was a founder of Jabat al-Nusra.
		These are literally terrorists, right?
		They're headshopping terrorists who kill religious minorities.
		They destroy everything.
		They're barbarians.
		And then, you know, we literally, like, you know, I understand al-Qaeda was like, you know, CIA creations, you know, and back in, you know, the stuff that was going on back in the day.
		But now it's been used as, you know, groups and proxies to overthrow regimes for 40 years.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What do you think happens in Syria going forward?
unidentified		What's happening next is going to be Balkanization, right?
		This new, you know, this new placed terrorist leader, right?
		I'm not going to acknowledge him as a president.
		He essentially agreed to give Syria and all this oil away to Trump in America.
		He gave it all the way.
		Israel's building nine permanent bases inside of Syria.
		Turkey and Israel have already established buffers and demilitarized zones in Syria.
		Israel, in the first 48 hours of Bashar al-Assad being overthrown, Israel bombed Syria 425 times.
		And in our Air Force, dropped 75.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		DeAndre, what was your view of the Assad regime?
unidentified		All right, well, Assad wasn't angel, right?
		No, nobody's ever perfect.
		You understand there's stuff that happened, you know, and you know, but Assad and Syria was literally being for 14 years, you know, timber sycamore, operation that we, our military was our number one objective from 2011 to 2017.
		We were trying to doing everything to take out Assad.
		Oh, we have to overthrow.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you think Syria was better off under Assad?
unidentified		Absolutely.
		Here's the reason why.
		Bashar al-Assad would never abandon the Palestinian cause, and he never normalized with Israel.
		And for that, his country suffered.
		The people endured.
		People are humbled and honored to suffer for Palestine.
		Because Israel's been occupying it for 77 years.
		Yesterday was the Nakaba, a remembrance day.
		All right.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's DeAndre.
		This is Mary.
		Just a couple minutes left in Michigan.
unidentified		Independent, good morning.
		Hi, Mary.
		Hi, Mary.
		Hi, John.
		This is Mary from Northeast Lower Michigan.
		And I'm recently retired, 50 years in healthcare as an RN.
		And I have lived through the pandemic and many, many changes in health care.
		And it very much upsets me, the Medicaid cuts and that.
		But I will say that the pandemic changed health care forever for people that were alive during it.
		And I say this: staff, we've lost staff.
		I have colleagues that have long COVID programs to study long COVID have been slashed.
		They go to Social Security and try to get disability.
		That has been slashed, so people are waiting a year, year and a half to try to get on disability.
		And once what happens when people don't have health care is they end up in an emergency room.
		And increasingly in this country, the emergency rooms are further and further away.
		And once a hospital closes, a rural hospital or an urban hospital, once they close, they close forever.
		I've never in my 50 years seen, and we've had this happen in Northeast Michigan, where now if our rural hospital closes here, where I live in El Pena, it's 75 miles to the next hospital.
		Well, if you're having a heart attack or you're having complications with a baby, 75 miles is a long way.
		And there's weather and whatever that you can't just fly everybody out of here with a helicopter.
		Right now we have it we're having shortage of nurses and everything else.
		And the other thing I wanted to say was I looked, I'm part of the Pete Buttigieg fan club, and he gave a talk the other night in Iowa, and people should look it up, look it up on the Internet.
		And then I just saw...
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Well, Mary, I've got other folks waiting.
		I think you made a couple points.
		Let me get to Judy in Kentucky, Democrat.
		Good morning, Judy.
		A little short on time here.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Yes, I just want to ask a question that's been tagging me for years.
		What is social security?
		Because it sure is not security.
		It might be called that.
		You work all your life, but it's not secure.
		It's not security.
		And I just want someone to answer that question.
		Why do they call it Social Security?
		How would you define it, Judy?
		Living some day to day, month to month.
		You're having a heart attack or your hand in translocation.
		Trying to make trying to make it.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Are you currently on Social Security, Judy?
unidentified		Yes, I am.
unidentified		I'm 84 years old.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you mind saying how much you get month to month?
unidentified		Yes, I do.
		I'd rather not do that.
		And it's not that much, sir, believe me.
		And the other thing I want to say.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Judy in Kentucky.
		This is Mike in Idaho, Republican.
		Mike, go ahead.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		Well, I've never called in here.
		And so I'm watching it from a timeshare.
		I'm from, I was born and raised in Idaho.
		And I'm also come from a family of eight military veterans.
		We served my family from Idaho served in World War I, II, Korea, and Vietnam.
		And I served.
		My dad was in the military from age 9 to 18.
		I was a military brat.
		And then when he was in the canal zone, he encouraged me during the Cuban Missile Crisis to enlist in the Air Force, which I did.
		And I served in West Germany 36 months straight, no phone calls home, no trips home, at $73 a month.
		I came back to Idaho after retiring to build a home.
		And I came back and I could not believe what happened to Idaho.
		Because prior to leaving Idaho on my business career, there was Frank Church and it was more balanced.
		Well, I came back and I said, what in the heck happened to Idaho?
		because it was so polarized.
		And then I started listening to the radio.
		Now in the Armed Forces, I worked for Armed Forces Television part-time on weekends for 28 out of the 36 months that I was in West Germany.
		So I know a little bit about ABC, NBC, CBS, and Mutual Broadcasting and Associated Press because I learned that at 19 years old.
		And I also compared that to Radio Moscow.
		And as far as I'm concerned, Radio Moscow is Fox News.
		Of course, I watch RTTV too, and I compare that misinformation with the media and, of course, your program here, which is outstanding, in my opinion.
		But anyway, what happened to Idaho?
		I have no idea.
		But I was asked to run for the Idaho legislature, and I learned a lot.
		I learned that there was $64 million that went to 1,400 Republicans and incumbents.
		They repealed the citizens' initiatives on turn limits.
		It was passed with 61% of the voters in 1960 or 1996, and they repealed it in 2002.
		So there's a fella that's sitting in the Idaho legislature, one of the 70 seats that's been there for 28 years.
		So it's kind of like a good old boys club.
		The point I'm trying to make is, I don't know what happened to the Republican Party.
		I'm kind of a middle-of-the-road guy.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you still consider yourself a Republican, Mike?
unidentified		Yeah, I do.
		My wife is a Democrat.
		But it's kind of a balanced balance.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		When's the last time you voted for a Republican president, Mike?
unidentified		Let's see.
		I think it was Ronald Reagan.
		And was it Ronald Reagan?
		Heck, yeah, I think so.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And you've voted Democratic for president since Reagan?
unidentified		Well, yeah, I vote for the person.
		I don't vote.
		You know, I take the issue.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So at this point, Mike, what makes you still a Republican?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What are the tenants that still make you a Republican?
unidentified		Well, I was, well, I'll just tell you.
		I worked for IBM for 32 years, and that's a business.
		I also worked for a conservative insurance company, a nonprofit.
		I see you're speaking.
		I'm sorry.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		No, Mike, the television's a little bit behind.
		Running short on time, Mike, but so what are those tenants?
		Why are you still a Republican?
unidentified		Because, well, first of all, I ran as a Democrat, and you can't get elected in Idaho because you don't have any money.
		All the money goes to the Republicans.
		And in order to do anything in the Idaho legislature, you've got to run as a Republican in order to do anything.
		They need a lot of help.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Last question for you, Mike.
		You talk about all the members in your family who served in the military.
		What are you doing for Memorial Day this year?
unidentified		Well, my dad is buried at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis, and I can't get there.
		I plan to be buried in Blackfoot, Idaho at the Veterans Cemetery there.
		And there's a lot of participation in Idaho.
		You know, I fly the Missing in Actions flag, don't forget.
		And so, yeah, I attend.

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