CSPAN - Washington Journal 05/20/2025

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May 20, 2025 07:00-10:11 - CSPAN

03:10:56

Washington Journal 05/20/2025

Participants

Main

donald j trump

admin 10:00

mimi geerges

cspan 33:45

Appearances

amy klobuchar

sen/d 01:22

brian lamb

cspan 00:50

chris murphy

sen/d 01:55

chuck schumer

sen/d 00:46

john curtis

sen/r 00:55

kevin hassett

admin 00:41

markwayne mullin

sen/r 02:16

robert f kennedy-jr

admin 00:35

Clips

adam goodman

r 00:04

barack obama

d 00:02

bill clinton

d 00:02

george h w bush

r 00:02

george w bush

r 00:04

jimmy carter

d 00:03

manu raju

cnn 00:03

ronald reagan

r 00:01

Callers

alex in florida

callers 00:02

chaz in new york

callers 00:09

julian in key west

callers 00:08

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Republican budget, tax policy, and President Trump's economic and tariff policies.
		Also, Dr. Georges Benjamin of the American Public Health Association talks about recent actions by the administration that directly affect public health efforts.
		And California Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman, a member of the Financial Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, discusses the GOP budget and policy on Ukraine and the Middle East.
		Washington Journal starts now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
		It's Tuesday, May 20th.
		A recent AP poll found that 59% of respondents are pessimistic about the state of politics in the United States.
		Many are doubtful about the future of the political parties and how political leaders are selected.
		For this first half hour, we'll ask you about your level of optimism about politics, the party system, and the leaders that system produces.
		Here's how to share your thoughts.
		Democrats, call us on 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202748-8001.
		Independents, 202748-8002.
		You can send a text to 202-748-8003.
		Include your first name and your city-state.
		And we're on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
		Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
		Just a news story before we get started on the Washington Post, and that is that Representative Lamonica McIver to be charged in New Jersey ICE clash, according to the Justice Department.
		The article says that the DOJ said it would charge a Democratic congresswoman whom authorities have accused of assaulting law enforcement officials during a confrontation last week outside an immigration detention center in Newark.
		Representative MacIver of New Jersey will be charged with assaulting, resisting, and impeding law enforcement officers, said Alina Haba.
		She's the interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey.
		And she said that her office would dismiss the trespassing charge it filed against Newark Mayor Ross Baraka over the same incident, though did not explain the reasoning behind that decision.
		The article says that the highly unusual decision to charge a sitting member of Congress after a heated clash in which no one was injured follows the equally unusual arrest of a local judge in Wisconsin this month.
		You could read the rest of that at the Washington Post.
		And now we will get back to our topic, which is that poll by the Associated Press with the headline, Little Optimism About Politics in the U.S., especially among Democrats.
		We want to hear from you about your level of optimism.
		Here's the overall results.
		So the green is very or somewhat optimistic.
		You can see that overall it's 25%.
		The blue is very or somewhat pessimistic, and that is 43% overall.
		And the gray is in the middle.
		Now look at by party.
		You can see here Republicans are at 55% optimistic, 21% pessimistic.
		Democrats, only 7% optimistic, and 66% pessimistic.
		Independents, it's just a little bit better on the optimism side, and that's 8% optimistic.
		48% in the middle, so about half of independents are kind of neither optimistic or pessimistic, and 39% of independents are pessimistic.
		We will go through a few more of those, but I wanted to show you this from Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullen.
		Was interviewed on an Oklahoma TV station, and he talked about the importance of working together.
markwayne mullin ▲ ● ▼		Once again, I have no title, and I think James said it right.
		You see a problem, you go fix it.
		But for me, I'm a junior senator.
		I don't have seniority over here.
		So, what I have to do is, if we're going to get something accomplished, you have to build a coalition to do that.
		What's interesting about our delegation is we all punch way above our weight.
		We all have separate issues.
		We trust each other.
		We allow that individual to take the leading position on that.
		And I don't care if it's from Tom on appropes or Frank on ag issues, James being with financial services or budget, or you have Stephanie that we have the, you know, we have the ability to work together now and on armed services and on appropriates too.
		And then you have, you know, you have Kevin and you have Josh, who they're all leading in different aspects in the House.
		What we have to do is build a coalition because what I learned when I went to the Senate real quick is that both chambers worry about the other chamber.
		And most of the time when I'm arguing with my wife, it's a misunderstanding.
		You know, we both want the same thing for our family.
		We both love each other, but there's a misunderstanding.
		So it's a breakdown of communication.
		What the role that I play between the White House, between the Senate, and putting to the House is breaking down that miscommunication and just bringing the facts to the table.
		Instead of worrying about what someone's doing to do, build a coalition to figure out how we can accomplish what our common goal is and deliver for the American people.
		And that's simply having a conversation and putting the right people on the telephone, putting the right people in the room, and having a clear vision on what we're trying to accomplish.
		And, you know, fortunately, because I served so long in the House and I had that relationship and been able to maintain the relationship and been able to build a relationship in the Senate and then having, you know, obviously have an outstanding relationship with the president who I call a friend.
		We find ourselves in a really good opportunity to make some real big differences for the country right now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was Senator Mullen.
		And just a quick correction on the poll that I just showed you.
		So the numbers I cited were the future of the Republican Party.
		So these are the top numbers for that.
		If we look at the future of the Democratic Party, you have overall 17% optimistic, 49% pessimistic.
		And then Democrats, this is how it comes down, are 35% optimistic.
		Republicans, only 6% optimistic.
		Again, that's the future of the Democratic Party.
		67% pessimistic among Republicans.
		36% pessimistic among Democrats.
		We wonder what you think about that.
		We're taking your calls just for the first half hour on this topic.
		How optimistic?
		How pessimistic are you?
		Why?
		What about the way that leaders in your party are selected and voted on?
		We'll start with John, who's in Brooklyn, New York, Democrat.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		How are you?
		I am estimated for both parties.
		Let give me a chance to explain myself.
		When it comes to the Democrats, I'm worried about them.
		They don't know how to sell themselves or point out the good things the Democrats do and the bad things Democrats do.
		With the Republicans, I'm 76 years old.
		I've never seen the president do what Trump has done.
		He has set up A system that he primares is Congress and senators who don't agree with him.
		Now, let me get back to the Democrats.
		Give me a chance to explain why.
		Testament about the Democrats.
		The government, President Bush and to President Obama, was a disaster.
		Remember when everything was going bankrupt, the car companies, the insurance companies.
		Obama came in and straightened that out.
		The government Trump gave to President Obama, he said because he didn't know how to handle the virus that wrecked the government because he didn't know how to handle COVID.
		He has no experience of what it was, how to set it up, plan to get the vice medicine distributed.
		And a lot of people died, and the economy was down.
		You remember when Trump left office the first time, there were ships setting up on the state, couldn't be loaded.
		There was Trump demonstrations, and there was a lot of chaos.
		The government Biden had to trump was very good.
		Now, you take Obiden.
		When he comes into office, let me tell the truth, and then I'm going to hang up.
		Biden coming to an economy that was all corrupt, all bad chaos because of Obid's experience.
		He got it on track.
		Because I know he came in and gas at like $7 a gallon.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, John, we got to move on and get some more callers.
		Jason in Alabama Independent Line.
		Good morning, Jason.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		I want to be optimistic.
		That's where I want to start.
		I really want to be optimistic.
		But you played the clip for Mark Wayne Mullen, and it makes me sad because Mark Wayne Mullen exists because American voters consistently vote for people that go to Washington and don't live up to the expectations we have for public officials, right?
		We think school teachers, firefighters, police officers, our local officials, we feel like they should put their community and the people they represent above whatever their interests are.
		But for whatever reason, when it comes to federal officials, we throw those expectations out the window and we put people in place like Mark Wayne Mullen that'll say all the pretty words and tell you how he wants, how he builds a coalition to work together.
		And yet you have, he supports a man like Donald Trump who comes in and creates all of this unnecessary chaos and confusion as he's done over the past few months.
		And Mark Wayne Mullen is silent.
		He does nothing to stand up against it.
		He does nothing to stop the crazy tariffs or to stop all of the craziness going on in the government with these federal workers being fired, these grants being cut, these schools being attacked, these law firms being attacked.
		All of these things, the mismanagement by Pete Hexet and other unqualified, unprofessional officials that Trump has put in place, which Mark Wayne Mullen appointed.
		But he's not going to be able to do it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So Jason, let me ask you about one of the questions on this poll, which is the way our leaders are chosen under our political system.
		So currently, are you optimistic about that?
		Are you pessimistic about it?
		The way the leaders are chosen?
unidentified		In the way, like just through voting?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So the primary system, the election system, the whole system.
unidentified		Well, I'll put it to you like this.
		Two things.
		One, I think it only works if we as voters engage and do our due diligence.
		And unfortunately, we don't do that.
		And Trump, the Trump arrow this past decade has proved that we don't do our part.
		The second thing is when it comes to people like Joe Biden, you can respect him as much as you want, but he shouldn't have run in 2024.
		People like him, Chuck Grassley, Mitch McConnell, those people, the system shouldn't be set up in a way to where the only way they can get out of office is if they decide that they're too infirmed or too far gone on their own to not run.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yep, I got your point.
		Let's take a look at this interview by Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Cañada.
		He gave his assessment of his Democratic Party.
		Take a look.
unidentified		Let me look quickly, though, at the Democratic favorability numbers.
		It's kind of tough lately.
		Let me go through them.
		They're generally underwater.
		Strategists, though, like James Carville, pretty bullish, saying not only do we have a shot at winning in 2026 and the midterms, but he thinks we're winning now.
		Smaller, necessarily, you know, state legislature and races like that.
		But do you agree with him?
		This is what I think.
		I think at the end of the day, there are a lot of people like me who want to reform this party.
		It was a part of the reason I ran.
		I didn't run because I thought everything was going great.
		But there are too many people who think that coming and sitting with you, Alex, and other people and saying the Democratic Party sucks, that that's actually reforming the party.
		That doesn't reform the party.
		We have to do the hard work of making sure that when voters pick our nominees, not party bosses, that we have everything in place for them to beat Republicans in the fall.
		That's why right now at the Democratic Party, we're investing over a million dollars a month into our state parties, the largest investment in history.
		It's why we're hiring the top talent and not just talent out of the political world, but top incredible talent who can help power our response to Donald Trump's lies.
		And it's why we're building out the technological infrastructure.
		And I get a lot of these things for the average person is boring.
		What they see is the results of the work that we're doing behind the scenes.
		And I want to make sure that we are focused on that and we're lifting up voices that want to prioritize the three word mission of this party, make life better.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Wonder what you think about that.
		And we're asking for the next 15 minutes about your level of optimism about U.S. politics.
		What you think about your own party.
		Are you optimistic, pessimistic?
		Regarding the Democrats, this is, they were asked, this will give you over time.
		So this is the difference between July 2024, obviously before the election, and today, May 2025.
		And this will give you the trend.
		So future of the Republican Party, people are more optimistic about that from, oh, sorry, less optimistic.
		So in July, they were 12% more optimistic.
		So Democrats were more optimistic about the, less optimistic about the future of the Republican Party.
		I'll get it.
		But here it is about their own party.
		So in July 2024, 57% were very or somewhat optimistic about the future of their party, the Democratic Party.
		Now it's down to 35%.
		More people, obviously, the correlation is more people are pessimistic now than they were in July.
		The opposite is true of the Republicans, but it's not as extreme.
		So in July of 2024, 69% were pessimistic about the future, and now it's at 66% of Democrats.
		That's Democrats.
		Anyway, we'll go back to your calls.
		This is Jan in Great Falls, Virginia, Democrat.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go right ahead.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		Okay.
		I think I'm becoming a little bit more pessimistic.
		I don't understand how, well, I have my reasons why, but somehow the Republican Party has been able to shift its identity from being country club elites, pro-business, anti-union, and been able to take on this identity of being blue-collar workers and I guess this concept of America first and protectionism.
		And the Democrats have not been able to hold on to the working class, and they've been focusing a lot on identity politics, which I understand and they want to be a voice for a lot of the people that are unheard.
		But at the end of the day, I think most of America is very uncomfortable with certain points of that ideology.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So what do you think the Democrats should do, Jan?
unidentified		What do I think?
		I think they need to somehow get back together with the blue-collar workforce.
		It's going to be difficult to reconcile some of the differences where blue-collar work comes into, I guess, how can I say this?
		Conflict with some of the regulations that are imposed on the blue-collar industry, which directly impacts jobs for them, right?
		So I think somehow they've got to become that voice for them again.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And here's Mike in Norwalk, Ohio, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Morning, Mimi.
		I say we should just gut the whole system.
		I mean, listen, the Democratic Party used to be for the people, but look at all the major cities now.
		They're ghost towns.
		Businesses were sold out.
		We were sold out.
		The problem is Trump comes in.
		He's starting to think of we the people, America, and he's working for us again.
		And people in that building behind you have their own selfish interest in their own parties.
		The parties aren't parties for the people anymore.
		Even the Republican Party.
		I mean, sometimes a reason I voted for Trump is because I'm an independent and he was the only one that was willing to do anything for we the people like he tried to do in 2016.
		But then again, you got that beast behind you that's trying to stop them.
		And I'm telling you, this man has done more for us than any, than Obama and Biden has done in their terms.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Mike, when you say gut the whole system, what do you think should change about the system itself?
unidentified		Meaning, listen, I don't have no answers.
		I'll tell you, from what I've seen, I'm a 63-year-old man, a veteran, and from what I've seen, when what they've been doing over the last 30 years, there's two different governments.
		There's a shadow government, and then there's a government that they allow us to elect to make it look like the government's working for us.
		They are not working for us.
		And Trump's finally opened up a lot of people's eyes.
		But then again, you got the Democratic Party and everybody that's trying to make them look bad, stop them in the court, anything they can.
		It's, I don't know, Mimi.
		If anything happens to Trump, I'm afraid we're going to head for a civil war.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And this is Utah Republican Senator John Curtis.
		He was on CNN and discussed the importance of being able to push back on President Trump when necessary.
		Take a look.
unidentified		Is it possible to be independent in the GOP in this era of Trump?
john curtis ▲ ● ▼		Listen, I actually think we serve the president best when we do act and function more like a board of directors.
		And let me tell you what I mean by that.
		You wouldn't want a board of directors to rubber stamp the president of a company, right?
		We do our job best when we tell President Trump what we see, what we think, what we feel.
		We're another set of eyes for him and a set of hands.
		And I really think the best way to make President Trump successful is to let him know when we disagree.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		You think he can accept that?
manu raju ▲ ● ▼		I mean, people who have spoken out against him have been drummed out of the party.
john curtis ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think there's a stereotype, but I think you can also see in President Trump that he does respect people who the right way, the right time, the right place.
		You know, if I send out a mean, nasty tweet, of course that's not received well.
		But if I have a thoughtful conversation with the administration about how I see something, I hope and trust that he actually values that as somebody who wants to help him.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We're getting your thoughts on that and whether you're optimistic or pessimistic about U.S. politics currently and what you think should change within your own party.
		We will talk about that for the next 10 minutes and then go to open forum.
		So we'll talk to Lester now in Washington, D.C. Democrat.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		How are you doing, Mimi?
		You're looking fantastic.
		You're looking fantastic.
		I want to say this: I'm very optimistic in particular about the Democrats.
		I think by November, after the economic problems that the Trump administration is placing upon the Americans right now, particularly the tariffs and the costs and the impact, so forth, as well as the current dilemma in Congress right now, in particular where you have a mega group of conservatives that want to cut Medicaid, that impact,
		what it will have in states like Kentucky, Mississippi, and other places.
		I think once the impact of the Trump economics and its negative impact on working people finally have serious implications, I think most Americans, in particular, those folks who voted for Trump, I think they'll wake up and realize that the Trump economics is not and has not been good for America.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Lester, do you have a Democratic leader that you like, that you're following, that you might want to see run for president in the future?
unidentified		Well, I don't know if I, I mean, I like minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries.
		Now, I don't, I'm not going to say he should run for president, but I like the way he's, I just like him.
		I just like his presentation.
		I like what he presents.
		I do think that there are a couple of things I think the Democrats need.
		I think they need to get back to the center.
		I think one of the callers did allude to the Democrats fell into this identity politics, in particular when it came to the issue of LGBTQ, you know, the party, you know, Affirming issues like gender, gender affirmation, things like that.
		So I think that was a bad mistake.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think about running a woman for the Democrats?
		Because Hillary Clinton lost, Kamala Harris lost.
		Do you think they should run a woman again?
unidentified		I think it's, yeah, I mean, I think that's very, it's bound to happen.
unidentified		Eventually, there will be a woman president.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, Senator Amy Klobuchar was on, was being interviewed about the lessons that Democrats learned from the last election and also about running a woman.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So let's take a look.
amy klobuchar ▲ ● ▼		I hope not.
		You have seen women run other countries quite well.
		Angela Merkel comes to mind in Germany.
		And you've also seen women in the U.S. incredible mayors, incredible governors.
		I look in the Senate for Democrats in the last election.
		Three of the four races where we beat the presidential ticket were women running in Michigan, women running in Nevada, women running in Wisconsin.
		I mean, this happened.
		So I just, I don't think that's a lesson to learn.
		I know it's not easy running as a woman.
		If it was, we could play the game, pick your favorite woman president.
		You can't.
		But I think the president understands there's been sexism.
		President Biden does.
		But to me, I just want to move forward.
		And we've got incredible candidates across the board running at all levels of government.
		So let's work on helping the American people instead of looking backwards.
		Instead of looking at what happened years ago, I want to look at the now and people need our help.
unidentified		Let's look forward.
		I know you know how tough it is to run for president because you've done it before.
		Would you rule out running again, Senator?
		Yes or no?
		We're out of time.
amy klobuchar ▲ ● ▼		I am focused on my job right now.
		I'm third in leadership in the Senate, and we have a lot to do.
		And that means making sure people have got their Medicaid, their Social Security, and taking on these Trump tariffs that are hurting the American people and our economy and not helping small businesses.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar on Meet the Press.
		And this is some postings on X. Mimi says this: politics have always been about the haves and have-nots.
		It's not new.
		You have to be optimistic to stay sane.
		And McCain and Four says, I'm looking for those candidates whom spread optimism and true willingness to work with everyone in my district.
		And this is Marcel in Alexandria, Virginia, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you very much for taking my call.
		First of all, I'd like to be very clear that I believe in democracy.
		And I am really sad that more people don't seem to believe in it right now.
		And democracy means that all of us have a voice and a voice that has some weight behind it.
		So my first conversation with people, and I know where they line up politically, is when I say we live in a democracy, and they immediately correct me with, no, we live in a republic.
		I understand that.
		But when I'm talking about democracy, I'm talking about a society that is inclusive, that everybody can speak and everybody has a representative who will represent their interests.
		And I'm very fearful that that is disappearing.
		And I think people don't understand that it's disappearing because it's always wrapped up in some cultural war.
		It's always some cultural thing.
		Some person that doesn't look like you or sound like you or have the same rhythm that you do is automatically thrown to be an enemy.
		And so we never get down to the basis of as flawed as America is, it was based on the fact that everybody had a voice.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So Marcel, tell me why you think that that's going away, that this concept that everyone has a voice is somehow slipping away from us.
unidentified		First of all, an analogy that was given in one of your previous excerpts talked about a board of directors for a CEO.
		America is not a company.
		America is a country.
		And America's ROI is how well its citizens do, not on how much profit that it garners for the state writ large.
		And when people speak in that language, because we all know that language influences how people think, when we speak of a CEO, we think of a CEO.
		And a CEO is not there to serve the people.
		A CEO is there to deliver profit.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		A board of directors are people who are paid to be in place, but representatives of our country are in place to represent us.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Marcel, we got that.
		And we will go to open forum now.
		So if you've got anything else on your mind, of course, you can continue to talk about this topic of optimism and pessimism in U.S. politics.
		But you can go ahead and give us a call on our lines by party about anything public affairs or politics related.
		The numbers are Democrats, 202748-8000.
		Republicans 202748-8001.
		And Independents 202748-8002.
		You can also text us, 202748-8003, and you can interact with us on social media.
		Well, President Trump gave his assessment of former President Biden's cancer diagnosis and then raised other questions about it.
		Here are his comments.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		When you take tests, medicalness, as a male, that test is very standard.
		I don't know if it's given to everybody, but it's given just about, and it takes a long time to get to that situation.
		Now, I think to get to stage nine, I think that if you take a look, it's the same doctor that said that Joe was cognitively fine.
		There was nothing wrong with him.
		Well, he said, if it's the same doctor, he said there was nothing wrong there, and that's being proven to be a sad situation.
		And the OtoPen is becoming a very big deal.
		And you know, the AutoPen is becoming a big deal because it seems like that maybe was the president whoever operated the AutoPen.
		But when they say that that was not good, they also, you have to look and you have to say that the test was not so good either.
unidentified		In other words, there are things going on that the public wasn't informed of.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		And I think somebody's going to have to speak to his doctor.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		If it's the same, or even if it's two separate doctors, why wasn't the cognitive ability, why wasn't that discussed?
unidentified		And I think the doctor said he's just fine, and it's turned out that's not so.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		It's very dangerous.
		Look, this is no longer politically correct.
		This is dangerous for our country.
		Look at the mess when you're talking about all these questions on Ukraine and Russia.
		That would have never happened.
		As an example, if I were president, it would have never happened.
unidentified		The other thing is you have to say, why did it take so long?
unidentified		I mean, when you, This takes a long time.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		It could take years to get to this level of danger.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		So it's a look, it's a very, very sad situation.
unidentified		I feel very badly about it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we'll go back to your calls.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Bob in Brainerd, Minnesota.
unidentified		Democrat, good morning.
		Good morning.
		Yeah, I have a little statement to make on the way our country is run as far as elections go.
		You know, we've got rules to follow, and nobody's following the rules.
		I remember back when Trump ran the first time, he stood on stage, put a name on everybody that was running against him.
		That should have never happened.
		That was the beginning of the end right there.
		It's just let these politicians get away with things like that.
		We never had that before.
		We never had name calling.
		We never had the rise.
		It's got to be changed.
		The country's got to be run by the people, and they have to stand up.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But, Bob, couldn't you?
		In that case, when you were saying that the candidate Trump at the time was giving people nicknames, derogatory names, and things like that, and that shouldn't have been allowed.
		Isn't it the people that hold him accountable by not voting for him?
		And they voted for him anyway.
unidentified		He should have been taken off the stage.
		Hey, you can't run if you're going to be this kind of a person.
		Who do you think should hold him accountable then?
		The people.
		The people should have stood up and said something to whoever.
		I don't recall who was given the questioning that day, but it should have been stopped right there.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		When you can come up on stage and act like you're supposed to be acting, you can run for office.
unidentified		Otherwise, you can't run.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it.
		Rich, Nutley, New Jersey, Republican line.
		Good morning, Rich.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Well, I'd like to address a few situations with the four years of the Biden administration, with this cover-up for four years, especially with his doctor, the auto pen controversy.
		Okay.
		Their press secretary, two of them, lied for four years.
		I mean, this is bigger than Watergate.
		I mean, where's Bob Woodward?
		Why isn't he saying anything now?
		I mean, so are you guys going to have these books that are written about Joe Biden?
		You know, now the Democrats are saying, oh, they don't want anything said now.
		He's sick and all that.
		That's balancing.
		You got a new slogan, democracy unfiltered.
		Well, let's see unfilting it.
		Let's bring them people on that digital books.
		You bought on for four years, all these books against President Trump.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		No, no, we'd be happy to have those.
		We'd be happy to have them on as well.
		I don't know, Rich.
		I'll ask.
		I'm sure they have been invited onto the program.
		I'm not sure if they're going to be on this program or if they've agreed or on book TV.
		Let me find out for you.
unidentified		I don't want to misspeak, but they're definitely have them on Washington Journal, please.
		That's where you had the guys on for Trump.
		So please.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		The doctor's going to be a good idea.
		We'd be happy to.
		Rich, we would be happy to hold this up.
unidentified		All right, just give me a second here.
unidentified		Oh, okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I thought you were done.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		He let these other guys go on for hours.
		The doctor covered this up, okay?
		The man, that doctor should be disbarred or whatever, taking his license away, okay?
		Let's see.
		The press secretaries lied for four years, the two of them, the two women that they had, okay?
		You know, the auto pen, that's forgery.
		That's forgery.
		From what I'm hearing from real lawyers are saying all that stuff that he signed with the auto pen that he didn't sign with the auto pen that somebody else did can be washed away now.
		So all these executive orders, all these pardons are going to go to court.
		I mean, and I expect C-SPAN to do the unfilterness that you guys advertise now every day.
		Please, don't put them on the book channel.
		Put them on Washington Journal where you did trade.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You have to understand it's not necessarily up to us.
		But let me find out if that's been scheduled, because I don't know, but we will ask that question.
		And I appreciate that feedback.
		Here's Chris in Philadelphia, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning to you.
		I just want to complain about I am so tired of hearing everything announced, government announcements coming through social media like Truth Social.
		I mean, you know, what cracks me up with the Trump administration is they talk about get back to the office, go to work.
		You're sitting at 1.30, 2 o'clock in the morning with a cocktail, most likely, or whatever, and you're tweeting away.
		I mean, it's pretty embarrassing when the Supreme, when officials or Senate or whatever is interviewing people in his administration and they don't even know announcements are coming through, and he's just sitting up there Truth Social in it.
		And honestly, if that's the way you want your government to announce, you know, trade agreements or anything, I question like where your head's at.
		Like, talk about, like, first of all, here's what I'm saying.
		Donald Trump owns Truth Social.
		Look at the stock market.
		I am not joining Truth Social to find out what's going on in the government.
		The government should be sitting in the office making announcements at a reasonable hours.
		You know, I mean, it's just, it just shows what he likes to call a lack of common sense.
		They want everybody focused on issues like eggs and transgenders and all these other things.
		And honestly, like, I worked for a job in the government and I had to sign papers that said I wouldn't be tweeting or posting anything.
		And it's just like, you know, it's ridiculous.
		It's like baseball hats.
		When you're a grown adult, you know, as an adult, not to walk into an official building with a baseball hat on.
		It's just not the time or place.
		You know, and we've become that.
		And it's just really, I don't know when that's going to go back.
		I mean, I guess this is what they call making America great again.
		But when you're 86 years old, I'm sure half these people don't even have access to broadband in some of these rural areas.
		I mean, it's like, let's focus on that instead of him tweeting about his $400 million debt.
		I mean, it's just, I don't know, am I the only one that thinks this way?
		Because I wonder.
		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Chris.
		And I just wanted to respond to the previous caller about the book Original Sin.
		So the authors have been invited onto Washington Journal.
		There's a tentative agreement.
		We're working on scheduling.
		We're hoping that that's going to actually happen.
		So do stay tuned for that.
		So just so you know that that is in the works.
		And we'll talk to Miles now in Potomac, Maryland, Democrat.
unidentified		Hello.
		So I have two things.
		One is the corruption that is happening in this administration is so beyond the pale that if this was happening during the Biden administration or Obama administration, people's heads would be spinning.
		Doing meme coins where you're essentially allowing people to give money to get access to President Trump to talk to him so they can influence policy.
		Accepting a $400 million jet.
alex in florida ▲ ● ▼		I mean, they were talking about things like bereavement and everything else.
unidentified		The fact that I guess they're just okay with it as long as corruption's out in the open or if it's their guy doing it.
		I just, I'll never understand that.
		The second thing I want to say is I'm just very concerned about the fact that we only have one side that still respects elections and their results.
		In 2020, Biden won.
		That's a fact.
		That is something that people need to accept.
		And we accept that Trump won in 2024 because we accept the results of elections.
		But now every time a Republican is losing, Cary Lake in Arizona, this guy in the Supreme Court in North Carolina, oh, it's always fake.
		It's always fraud.
		If there's only one party that accepts the results of elections and the other is always able to just say it's fraud and lie about it, then our democracy is over.
		And I'm just so sick of hearing the Republicans yelling about fraud and everything else when every one of their accusations is just a projection.
		And it's just, it's sickening.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Miles brought up the meme coin.
		This is CNBC Trump meme coin dinner likely to include mostly non-Americans based on top dollar sign Trump holders.
		It says that as a meme coin dinner with President Trump approaches, it appears as if most of the attendees will be people from other countries.
		Many wallets for the top holders are tied to international exchanges like Binance that don't serve U.S. customers.
		It says the nature of the anonymous wallet wallets raises questions about the true identities and motivations of the tokens' largest holders.
		And here's Ruth, a Republican in Montville, New Jersey.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I've been listening, and I think a lot of the previous callers had very valid points.
		But people are judging President Trump way too soon.
		We had four years, actually, we've had Democrats in power for 12 of the last 16 years, and they've messed up the country horribly.
		You can't expect one man to undo 12 years' worth of damage in four or five months.
		It takes time.
		It's as if, you know, there used to be these signs out, lose 20 pounds in two weeks.
		There are some Americans that think that you can undo a lot of damage very quickly.
		You can't.
		It takes time.
		President Trump is trying to rebuild American industry.
		American industry has been on the decline for 20 or 30 years now.
		It's been terrible.
		Middle-class Americans have been losing jobs.
		Patterson, which is a district very close to mine, used to be an industrial giant.
		If you drive through it now, you see grown men walking the streets in the middle of the day because they don't have jobs.
		We need to bring back the steel industry.
		We need to produce our own clothing, our own medicines.
		We need to be self-sufficient.
		Yes, importing caviar or champagne, that's fine.
		It's all right to import luxuries.
		But for the necessities of life, just as you raise your children to be self-sufficient, our politicians need to make sure that America is self-sufficient, and it used to be.
		I was watching a different show, and they asked, you know, should the Democrats run, different topic, a woman next time.
		I don't think in this day and age, the 21st century, and I'm changing the topic completely now, should be the gender of our candidate.
		We should be looking for the qualities of our candidate.
		Gold de Mair and Deerek Gandhi, Angela Merkel, Margaret Thatcher didn't get elected because those countries were looking for a woman candidate.
		They elected those people because they were the best people for the job.
		And that's the way Americans need to focus.
		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it, Ruth.
		Here's Patricia, Chesapeake, Virginia, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just wanted to say that lady had a lot of good points.
		And America needs to stop focusing on all of the negative.
		And they need to start focusing on what, you know, America really stands for.
		And this whole thing with they need to let Trump do what he does best and focus on the real issues.
		And the Democrats need to back off and stand behind the president instead of keep going after him on all these other points that really don't matter.
		We all need to stand united behind the president, no matter who it is.
		And we as a people need to do that or we are going to fail as a country.
		And people just don't seem to understand that.
		And I don't understand why as many tyrants and dictators that have been out here in the past, why we don't take and treat Putin the way he is as a dictator and just take him out, you know, and arrest him and that kind of stuff.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Patricia, here's Roxanne, a Democrat in Maine.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		Actually, the first thing I want to say is I acknowledge President Trump in his remorse for what President Biden is dealing with at this present time.
		But also in the next breath that comes out of his mouth is, which bothers me terribly, is the criticisms.
		Was he worthy of his position as president?
		Why wasn't this acknowledged some time ago?
		That is wrong.
		Just, I wish he would just say, I'm sorry that he's dealing with this at this time, and I wish him the best.
		But he doesn't.
		He gets into the negatives.
		The second point of this is I understand Syria likes Trump.
		I understand that they're back in the United States with billions and trillions.
		And this is not the way to go because Syria is going to own us.
		And that's what's going to happen with this.
		We have to be very cautious of who offers and what they offer.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You're talking about Qatar, not Syria.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You're talking about the plane?
unidentified		Akata.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
unidentified		And we can't have that.
		We just can't have that.
		And I understand he likes what he saw there.
		A lot of marble, a lot of gold.
		You know, that's wonderful.
		But do we get any of it?
		I don't think so.
		And we're the people that need to speak.
		We're the ones.
		We're the ones that support this country with our taxes and workforce.
		Thank you, Mimi.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Roxanne.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer talking about President Biden's cancer diagnosis on the Senate floor yesterday.
chuck schumer ▲ ● ▼		Today, our thoughts and prayers are with President Biden and his entire family after his cancer diagnosis this weekend.
		If there's one thing we all know about President Biden, it's that he's a fighter.
		All his life, he's faced adversity and tragedy of the worst kind.
		And each time his response has been the same.
		He's faced it with grace, with courage, and with the kind of resilience that only can come from God.
		This is no different.
		I know President Biden will face this hardship with everything he's got.
		So today, the entire Senate wishes Joe Biden our very best.
		We will pray for him.
		We'll root for him.
		And we know he will bounce back, just as he's done his whole life.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And back to Open Forum.
		This is Gina Picayune, Mississippi, Republican.
		Hi, Gina.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
unidentified		Great outfit, by the way.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		We've had a lot of great calls the last few callers, I'd like to say.
		And Mimi, if you could just give me a minute, I'd appreciate it.
		I'd like to talk about facts.
		And I'd like to talk about the responsibility that I think Washington Journal has to call out something that they know is an outright lie.
		And we all know if you pay any attention to politics, first of all, you have to pay very close attention to politics now.
		You can't just turn on the nightly news and hear five or ten minutes of it and think that is the fact.
		The American people now are having a very hard time deciphering what is true and what is false now.
		So you have to pay very close attention.
		Also, I would like to make a comment about poor Joe Biden.
		And yes, I am a staunch Republican, as you all know, but I have had sympathy for President Biden ever since he was put back in office, being in the shape that he was in.
		If you know anything about anything, you knew that that man was having a hard time just functioning.
		And I think it's very cruel of his wife and all the Democrats who put him out there and that's a stressful situation.
		So I have a lot of sympathy for him and I wish him well.
		But I also want the Democrats to think back 10 years ago, what they started doing to President Donald Trump and the lies and the names they all called him.
		Every day I watched it because I am a political junkie.
		Every day I watched the Democrats low rate this man.
		And he has put up with this for 10 years and now Democrats want to act like, you know, they're all goody two-shoes.
		Well, I want to tell you people that you are the ones who started this verbal war and the disgusting thing that is going on in our country.
		And you're going to be, you're going to answer it to God Almighty for lies and for its slander.
		And I think our laws need to be changed to where if you out and out lie on someone on the public airways, you need to be sued.
		And that includes Washington Journal, a show that I love.
		When you allow, you need to have a disclaimer that this is an opinion show and not true facts, which so many of your listeners are taking as facts.
		Thank you, Mammy.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is James, College Station, Texas, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, James.
unidentified		Hi.
		Thank you very much for taking my call.
		I'd like today to talk about a little bit of the social media pipeline that I think is really affecting the electorate going into the midterms and going into the next presidential election.
		I think it's very clear that people are getting a massive amount of disinformation and even intentional misinformation from social media.
		And I think it's really time that people start analyzing where they take their political news from, where they pick up their stories they read each day, and how they assess these stories.
		I think it is extremely dangerous that people are accepting no source stories online through a single tweet and completely buying that theory and conforming their worldview to these theories every day.
		And I just want to really speak to people and say, please investigate your sources.
		Please understand where you're getting your information from.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So James, tell us about where you're getting your information and how do you investigate if you see something come across your social media feed.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		How do you investigate it?
unidentified		Yes, ma'am.
		Well, what I like to do is I like to investigate by going for kind of a three-step.
		So I will, if I find something I see that is interesting on, let's say, Twitter, I will start immediately by Googling that story and I will make sure that it is in reputable media forms.
		Now, I'm not saying that the big, you know, four conglomerate groups, you know, you have your MSNBC, you have your Fox News, you have your CNN.
		If you don't see a story that you believe is a serious, impactful story on one of those three sources, you can almost guarantee this is not a real source for that story.
		You need to really investigate where you get your news from, and you need to seriously take time to do due diligence to investigate these sources.
		So thank you very much for taking.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, James.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And President Trump did speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday for over two hours, and he had these comments to say after that discussion.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I think something is going to happen.
unidentified		It's a very big ego's involved, I tell you.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Big ego is involved.
		But I think something's going to happen.
		And if it doesn't, just back away and they're going to have to keep going.
		Again, this was a European situation.
		It should have remained a European situation.
		It should have remained.
		But we have, because the past administration felt very strongly that we should be involved, that we got involved much more than Europe did in terms of the money and all of the things that we gave.
		We give massive, I think, record-setting amounts given to a foreign.
		There's never been anything like this.
		Both weaponry and money.
		And Europe gave a lot also, but they didn't give anywhere near what we gave.
		We gave probably almost three times the amount.
		And it's just a shame.
		The whole thing is a shame.
unidentified		Did you ask?
unidentified		But the level of death is just a shame.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Also, with regard to some overseas news on the war in Gaza, CNN says five aid trucks enter Gaza for the first time in months as famine looms.
		It says the UN acknowledged on Monday yesterday that several of their trucks were allowed in through the Karim Shalom crossing, but that much more aid was needed.
		That's on CNN.
		And this is Andrea in Austin, Texas, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimique.
		If you could please give me some time, I'm going to be all over the place.
		I wanted to say, first of all, to me, Donald Trump is like a manifestation of the majority of how America is seen right now.
		Americans or majority of them are all about money.
		So it's not a surprise that we have a president that's all about money.
		And you had asked earlier, what is wrong with our, or what could we do better with the way that we, how we vote?
		And I would say that the problem is we have a lot of ignorant voters.
		And that's not to be ugly or anything.
		To me, that's just the facts.
		We have a lot of people that vote on our emotions instead of voting with our intellect.
		So it's not surprising that we have people who are for Trump, even though they know that if there was someone other than Trump that was doing what Trump is doing now, they would not be for what he's doing.
		But because they're not going by facts, they're going by emotions, it's okay.
		And I wanted to say also, you know, it's no surprise that we have these kids out here doing what they're doing because we have these adults that's making these decisions.
		So, you know, our kids mirror what we're doing.
		If we want to have a better society, we need to do better ourselves, people.
		You know, you can't look to your kids to do better when you're out here defending someone who talks the way Trump talks and who does things that Trump does.
		You know, that's just the facts.
		You know, we are very emotional.
		We have to stop being emotional.
		This is like a woman said earlier, this is not a fact show.
		This is people come here and they voice their opinions.
		You know, but if you're an educated person, you learn to discern between what's facts versus what's an opinion.
		And then lastly, Mimi, I want those who are Christians or who believe in the Almighty God.
		Isaiah 50, 70.
		Do not grow weary.
		Keep your face like flint.
		That means keep your faith pointed to Jesus Christ.
		And then the last thing is Exodus 14, 14.
		Remember, the Lord will fight for us.
		Don't put your faith in man.
		You know, we are very frustrated in what we're going through right now, but don't look to Trump.
		Don't look to no man.
		Look to God and pray, and he will get us through it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Andrea.
		And here's Dwayne Ypsilanti, Michigan.
		Democrat, you're next.
unidentified		Hello.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		These people are really, really rich talking about a lie or about lying.
		Donald Trump has lied 30,000 times in his first stint in office.
		I mean, what exactly has he done?
		He passed a tax scam.
		He said repealing replays.
		That never happened.
		Thank God, because we have a real, true American hero, John McCain.
		Stop that.
		Build the wall, Mix Co pay for it.
		That never happened.
		Infrastructure Week, every other week, never happened.
		And a little bit of prison reform because federal prison reform because Garrett Kushner's daddy went to federal prison, and I guess it wasn't cushy enough for him, sent there by Chris Christie.
		Donald Trump caused insurrection.
		He killed a million people by lying about COVID.
		Oh, no, there's just nine people on the ship, and it'll be gone in no time.
		1,100,000 people deceased because of Donald Trump.
		He's a disgrace to the world and the country.
		I can't wait for him to be gone.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Dwayne.
		And that's it for this segment.
		More to come.
		Later in the program, we'll talk about planned funding reductions at agencies that deal with public health with the American Public Health Association's Dr. Georges Benjamin.
		But first, it's Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist on the Republican budget and President Trump's economic policies and tax policies.
unidentified		We'll be right back on November 17th, 2002,
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		23 years ago, Rich Atkinson appeared on the BookNotes television program to discuss his book Army at Dawn.
		This was the first of three books Atkinson called the Liberation Trilogy, a full history of the European theater of World War II, which is a total of 2,512 pages, including notes and indexes.
		Beginning in 2019, Rick Atkinson switched trilogies.
		This time, it's the history of the American Revolution.
		In this episode of Book Notes Plus, we are repeating the 2002 interview, which has substantial background on Rick Atkinson's life and writing experience.
		Next week's episode, we will talk with him about his second book on the revolution, The Fate of the Day.
unidentified		Rick Atkinson with his book, An Army at Dawn, on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
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		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We are going to be discussing the Republican budget and President Trump's economic policy with Grover Norquist.
		He's the president of Americans for Tax Reform.
		Mr. Norquist, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Good to be with you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Just start by reminding us about your organization, the mission, and the funding.
unidentified		Sure.
		Americans for Tax Reform was created in 1985 at the request of President Reagan.
		I became the president of it.
		And the goal was to pass the Tax Reform Act of 1986.
		So we were there for two years.
		As we did it, we realized if you took the rates down, which the Republicans and Democrats both agreed to do back then to a top rate of 27, 28 percent, that really broadened the base and maybe the rates would drift up again.
		So we created a pledge, which was that one would, that candidate would oppose any tax increase, and particularly any rate increases, in the future.
		So we'd protect tax reform.
		We got 100 congressmen to sign it and 20 senators.
		And with that assurance, people felt comfortable at the end of the day that it wasn't going to turn into a tax increase when it went into the smoke-filled rooms.
		And in fact, it wasn't.
		It was a small tax cut.
		But it was really just a tax reform which reduced rates, got rid of a lot of deductions and credits.
		Very good for economic growth.
		And the pledge was so powerful, people in campaigns said, let me make it clear, I'm never raising taxes.
		I'm not going to do that.
		And they put it in writing, you know, one sentence commitment.
		It was so powerful that we kept that going.
		It actually is a centerpiece of what Americans for Tax Reform does at the federal level, offering the pledge to all candidates.
		Most Republicans have signed the pledge.
		And at the state level, two-thirds of all the governors, Republican governors, have signed the pledge.
		We've had some Democrats in the past sign the pledge back in 94 when the Republicans took the House and Senate.
		There were five Democrats in the House who took the pledge and two Democrats in the Senate.
		All of them became Republicans after that election.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And your funding?
unidentified		We get support from Americans.
unidentified		We run Americans for Tax From ATR.org, and we welcome contributions.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You've been doing this since 1985?
unidentified		Yes.
unidentified		Yeah.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That's a long time.
unidentified		Well, it has been.
		But there are fights at the state level as well as at the federal level.
		And actually, right now, some of the most exciting things that are happening on tax policy are state reforms.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So let's talk about what's happening right now in the House, the GOP reconciliation bill, past budget committee Sunday night.
		House rules are going to take it up early tomorrow morning, middle of the night, depending on where you are in the country.
		Here's what a statement from the Freedom Caucus said about it.
unidentified		Quote, we face a serious fiscal crisis.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We must put an end to Washington's wasteful spending now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What are your thoughts on spending levels?
unidentified		Well, one should take spending down as much as one can in any given election.
		You need to double check and see where are the votes for it in the House, where are the votes in the Senate.
		Is it something you can explain to people?
		And you move on that to reduce spending.
		And hopefully you, the best way to reduce spending is to reform government.
		There's a reform in Medicare that they're putting in that will slow the growth.
		Medicare spending will go up every year.
		It's not a cut in any way, but it will say, you know, we're going to ask that people be citizens.
		We're going to ask that people either have jobs or be looking for jobs.
		Medicare was Medicaid, Medicaid, Medicaid, sorry, I don't mean to confuse it.
		Medicaid was set up for people with jobs who didn't have health care, and it got expanded under Obama.
		So reforming that so that we don't have fraud is a way to save a lot of money, or block-granting it to the states, as Clinton did.
		He block-granted welfare, aid to families with dependent children, out to the 50 states and said, we're not going to tell you how to run it.
		You do that.
		And they saved 30 to 40 percent.
		I mean, that was Clinton's policy that he signed the bill.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		The 2017 Trump tax cuts, those are.
		I can see you getting excited about that.
		Why do you think that's so important to make those permanent?
unidentified		Well, it's important to make them permanent because anybody making a decision, whether it's an individual or a business deciding do we hire three more people, do we buy a new truck, do we build a new factory?
		You really need to know not only what taxes are today, but what will they be in five years, ten years, and 50 years.
		Factories last a long time, equipment lasts a long time.
		When you hire somebody, that's often a very long-time commitment, and you need to know what the rules of the road are going to be.
		So what was done was you can only do about 10 years at that point.
		We're now going to make permanent all the parts of that.
		I'm not sure everybody focuses as much as they perhaps should, because it's difficult.
		But here's what happened in 2017.
		Here's what will be made permanent.
		There were across the board tax reduction for all individuals.
		If you paid income taxes, your rate went down.
		Highest income, lowest income.
		There was tax simplification because it expanded the tax, the standard deduction for taxes.
		And they doubled it, and it's going to go up again in this case.
		That's why 90% of Americans today don't have to itemize and bring all their little deductions in.
		We used to have many more people had to do that, but the standard deduction was raised so high, it was doubled, so that most people don't.
		But 90% don't have to.
		The child tax credit was doubled.
		It's going to go up another $500.
		We expanded the tax cuts for small businesses.
		A lot of businesses aren't incorporated.
		It's not a corporation.
		It's an individual or a family that, through their own personal tax return, they pay the company.
		And you can have some good mid-sized circumstances with dozens and dozens or hundreds of people working for it, but it's paid through the individual rate.
		The rate for businesses that pay that.
		A lot of those are smaller businesses.
		They certainly started smaller businesses.
		That was important and will continue.
		Death tax.
		Fewer people are subjected to the death tax.
		Fewer farms, fewer small businesses will be torn in half because they move that number up again and make it more permanent.
		There's 100% business expensing.
		What this means is if a company said, well, we'd like to buy a new set of machinery to make everybody here more productive.
		And if you're more productive, you can produce more and you can get paid more.
		You can demand to be paid more because you can produce more here or someplace else.
		So the more capital, the more investment per worker, the higher the wages.
		And there's actually a percentage you can figure out as you put more capital behind a worker, assuming you do it smart, you can actually see the wages go up.
		We saw that dramatically in the first year of the Trump tax cut took effect.
		Median income for family of four and median income dead center went up 6.8%.
		Why?
		Because all that capital flowed into those folks.
		Then there are the new ones, 100% expensing for new factories, a new idea of Trump this time around, in addition.
		No tax on tips, both for people who work at restaurants, for independent contractors, Uber, Lyft, and so on.
		Those taxes will not be, those tips will not be taxed.
		No tax on overtime.
		They'll be making some move on that as well.
		reducing taxes on seniors it also gets rid of how does it reduce taxes on seniors Through reducing taxes on Social Security.
		They're moving to not tax Social Security.
		I don't know how far they're going to get this time around, but they're beginning the process of going to not taxing Social Security.
		There's also those 1099 things.
		If you use Venmo, under Obama did this, but then it was so unpopular, he repealed it.
		Biden did it and didn't care how unpopular it was.
		A lot of people buy and sell things through Venmo.
		They were going to make you put in a piece of paper for every time you did that.
		And anytime you got some money in, three of you get together and pay your rent together, and two of you Venmo to the other guy, the third guy could get stuck with that as income, unless he kept all his receipts that showed this was we're all getting together to pay the rent or dinner somewhere.
		So that's a huge paper nonsense that's being repealed in this package.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, let me ask you, I mean, I know that there's a lot there, but this is what the Wall Street Journal says, and it says about the $36 trillion in debt.
		It says the stark math on the GOP tax plan.
		It doesn't cut the deficit.
		It says House Republicans advance the bill as budget analysts across the political spectrum warn the proposal worsens the U.S. fiscal picture.
		What do you say to that?
unidentified		Well, we're doing several things in this budget.
		We're reducing taxes in order to have more growth.
		If you grow at 3% a year instead of 2% a year, you bring the deficit down $3.5 trillion, with more revenue coming in and with less spending on welfare as more people have jobs.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Historically, is that how it works?
unidentified		I mean, these are CBO numbers.
unidentified		And this is what's whenever you've got a lot of money.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So the farther you bring down taxes, the better the economic growth.
unidentified		Well, certain taxes are more, if you cut the cigarette tax by 10 cents, that's not going to affect economic growth.
		You take the taxes on individual wages, yes, you'll get more economic growth.
		You take the taxes on investment and savings, you'll get more growth.
		And the corporate income tax, when we took the rate from, one of the things that people need to remember is we took our rate, corporate rate, before Trump was president, was 35%.
		That is the highest in the world.
		Communist China was 25%.
		We were taxing our businesses 35%.
		China was 25%.
		The European average was under 25.
		We were taxing higher than Europe, worse than Europe.
		No country had a tax rate higher than our 35%.
		That was brought down to 21.
		And they said, oh, look at all the money that we'll lose.
		It actually gained revenue as a result of more growth and more jobs.
		And remember when we used to have inversions, people during the Obama years, companies were leaving America being bought by Canadian firms or European firms.
		And those were inversions, and Obama said they were unpatriotic because they're being bought by other people.
		A company purchased by a Canadian American company, purchased by somebody in Canada, was worth more because of our tax laws.
		We had tax laws so stupid, they made our own companies worth less.
		We took that rate down to 21.
		Trump wants to take it to 15.
		And in that, tremendous economic growth flowed.
		I think it is very important that we go all the way to 15.
		So these have been extremely helpful for economic growth.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		If you've got a question for Grover Norquist about taxes, about economic policy, you can give us a call.
		He's the president of Americans for Tax Reform.
		The numbers are Democrats, 202, 748, 8,000.
		Republicans 202, 748, 8,001.
		And Independents, 202, 748, 8,002.
		I want to ask you about this the Truth Social post that President Trump put out recently and it I'll put it on the screen.
		I won't read all of it.
		It says the problem with even a tiny tax increase for the rich which I and all others would graciously accept in order to help lower and middle income workers.
		He goes on but ends this way.
		Republicans should probably not do it, but I'm okay if they do.
		So I want to ask you about this idea that was floated of taxing the very high income workers and let's define what high income is.
unidentified		This is NBC News.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This is bumping the top rate for those making at least 2.5 million annually from 37% to 39.6%.
		So that's 2.6% increase.
		$2.5 million is a lot of money regardless of where you live in the country.
unidentified		Yes, and since then they've already brought it down to $600,000.
		What we do when people bring in new taxes historically is it's trickle-down taxation.
		They say we're going to tax the rich.
		When they brought the income tax in, the top rate was 7%.
		And it was only going to hit rich people, only hit rich people.
		This is back in 1913.
		And you had to make $11 million in today's dollars in order to pay 7%.
		Today's 7% is less than the bottom rate.
		And you don't have to make $11 million.
		You don't have to make much at all to pay the bottom rate.
		So yes, they always promise whenever they bring in a new tax, this is only on them, not on you.
		The alternative minimum tax was put in 1969 to tax 115 people who were paying very low taxes because they put all their money into municipal bonds for cities.
		The government wanted people to invest in cities so they didn't tax it.
		So they said, well, these people aren't paying any taxes.
		We should do something.
		They set up the alternative minimum tax.
		Before the Republicans cut it back, it was threatening 30 million people.
		115 people, 30 million people.
		So whenever somebody tells you, oh, I've got a tax, Maryland was talking about a millionaire's tax.
		But they kept coming.
		The definition of the millionaire is not somebody who makes a million.
		It's not even somebody who has a million.
		It's somebody whose income is enough that that could be.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But if this were to stay at this current 2.5 million income, would you be in favor of it?
unidentified		Of course not.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		First off, well, because when you raise the slippery slope argument that they're going to keep bringing it down, but let's say they kept it at 2.5.
unidentified		Okay, go ahead.
		Assuming that the bear won't eat you, would you sit next to him?
		You know, it's a ridiculous assumption because we know it's not true historically through American history and the history of the world, forever.
		But the problem with raising taxes, and this is where we had a letter went to the president.
		First of all, you have to read that carefully.
		People were claiming that people were lying in the White House were lying, said the president was for it.
		President has three times slapped the idea of a tax increase down and said no, never on each of those things.
		So that's not happening.
		And the president's been very severe on that with the people who tried to sell it to him.
		I know, he's trying to be gentle with him.
		He said, well, yeah, yeah, but no, is what the comment was.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And internally, but it said, I'm okay if they do it.
unidentified		Yes.
		What everybody said during the debate was, everything's on the table.
		The president's position was no, not now, not never.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		During the debate, but this Truth Social post came out on May 9th.
unidentified		I know.
		This is since then.
		I've talked to him on the phone.
		He is not in favor of raising taxes on people.
		Remember, he ran against tax increases, and he ran both when he first ran to reduce rates for everybody.
		And this last election at Americans for Tax Room, ATR.org, we have a series of all of his statements saying we're going to reduce rates for everybody and we're going to make all of those rates permanent.
		He stated his opposition to anything like that again and again and again and at the state of the state address.
		We're going to cut taxes for all income brackets, he says.
		You said you talked to businesses.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You said you talked to the president.
unidentified		Yeah.
unidentified		Did you call him or he called me talking about this sort of thing?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This specifically.
unidentified		I can tell you what I said, which is a really bad idea, and I walked through why.
unidentified		And they decided to say that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So he thought about it, which is why he called you to see your opinion.
unidentified		There were people, some in the White House, who've been pushing this for a month.
		It took a month to kill this idea because they kept going, what about this?
		What about this?
		What about this?
		There's always that kind of effort.
		It was very muted here during the Bush administration.
		George Herbert Walker Bush, one of his key aides, Darman, talked George Herbert Walker Bush, the first Bush, Bush 41, into breaking his commitment not to raise taxes and to raising taxes.
		And as a result, George Bush has gone down in history not as the guy who managed the victory of the Cold War, not as the guy who kicked Iraq out of Kuwait and didn't stick around for 50 years, but as the guy who lied his way into office and raised taxes and had a recession and lost.
		That's not what you want on your tombstone.
		And Trump is serious about economic growth, and he knows that lower rates give you economic growth.
		There was a letter that went in reaction, not to the president's comments, but to the comments of others that were trying to make this case.
		This is from 90 different trade associations.
		These are the people who, when a congressman walks down the street and looks at all the stores and all the businesses, the association builders and contractors, the heating, air conditioning, and refrigeration distributors, the independent electrical contractors, went up all 90 saying, this idea hits us as small businessmen and would kill jobs and opportunities in our neighborhoods.
		That idea of raising the rate was a direct attack on small businesses and Main Street.
		I don't know how any Democrat could go out and go to the American people and say, you know what, I think that what we should do, you go through this list.
		Are they really going to vote to cut the per-child tax credit in half, which is what a no vote means?
		Are they really going to take the standard deduction down to half of what it used to be so that more people have to pay taxes?
		That's what voting no means.
		Do they really want to tell farmers and small business and more of you will see your farm destroyed and torn apart and not going to your kids?
		And on this one, you really want to go to every small business in your neighborhood and say, we're raising taxes on you.
		That's what a Democrat who votes no is saying.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's talk to callers.
		We'll start with Janice Midlothian, Virginia, Democrat.
		Hi, Janice.
unidentified		Hi, Janice.
		Hi.
		Hi, good morning.
		My question is about waste broad interviews.
		I just, please, can you explain to me why is it all right that every weekend almost, we taxpayers have to pay for him to go to his capital HIS, his resort to golf or hangout or whatever.
		And not only does he require protection on land, but on sea too, since it's on the water.
		How is that all right that we have to pay for this every weekend?
		Frankly, I don't think I'm ever going to get invited to this resort.
		So how is that all right?
		And how does that impact the budget?
		We're paying for this.
		Why is that?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Janice.
unidentified		Yeah, this is something that's brought up with every president.
		When Biden traveled and Obama traveled, Republicans said, do we really have to pay for all of their travel?
		And it is expensive for the president to move because of security concerns.
		So it's a cost.
		In the size of the total budget, it's not the biggest item around.
		But I think all presidents should be aware of and try and minimize cost to the extent that they can.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		David in Milton, Florida sent you this text.
		Please explain how the budget bill will reduce our debt.
		Sounds like it will increase the debt.
unidentified		Okay.
		The present trajectory of spending because of the entitlements that were passed by Democrats and by Obama and O'Biden puts you on an automatic pilot into higher spending.
		If you do nothing every year, the spending goes up.
		The other challenge you have is both during Obama and Biden, we had less growth than we should have had, and we will have more as a result of the tax cuts.
		So the most important thing to look at is how big is the debt compared to the economy.
		A very large economy can sustain a bigger debt than a smaller economy can.
		The United States can have a bigger debt than Denmark and not worry about it.
		So it's not just the size of the debt, it's the size of the debt compared to how strong, how big the economy is and how strong it is.
		We need to have more economic growth.
		A lot of that's deregulation.
		A lot of the deregulation that was put in under President Reagan, starting under Carter, to deregulate trucking and airlines and railroads.
		We dropped transportation costs in America 20% by ending stupid regulations, not by spending any money, just like the government's not going to tell you how to run your railroad and how to run your airline and what prices to set and so on.
		Dramatic spending restraint, spending reductions.
		And the President Trump's proposals on deregulation will also have tremendous help in terms of economic growth.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Carolyn in Georgia, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Carolyn.
unidentified		Good morning.
		My question is that I'd just like to know how can we the people be more informed because oftentimes we talk as if we are informed but we may not be.
		And also it's been said that you cannot help one group of people without helping another group of people.
		We think that all this, you know, the tax bill may help one group and not help the other group, but we know that it must help all people, but we may not know that.
		And how can we get the information?
		Thank you.
		As to where to get some information, at Americans for Tax Reform, we put together ATR.org slash list.
		It is a list, and here's a partial list, of all the jobs created.
		People put out press releases and did things in the press when they hired new people or made new investments back in 2017.
		So we collected as many as we could and put them here.
		My favorite is the fellow who called in because he heard about the list we were doing and pointed out that Baker Boy, a North Dakota bacon goods manufacturer, produced a brand new donut that they invented.
		You know, you have donuts that look like bagels with the whole.
		He got one of those and was able to put cream inside the whole thing, not the standard one.
		And with the new equipment that they had, they created a new entire donut.
		And they're putting $13 million into their business.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this list, tell us again what this is.
unidentified		This is ATR.org slash list.
		This is a list of newspaper accounts or television accounts that we could find at American Seduction Room.
		And then we put them together and made a list of them.
		And you quote all the articles about people's reaction to the tax cut in 2017.
		This is the similar bill that we are both strengthening, increasing the power of the tax cuts, and making permanent.
		So I think we'll have a bigger impact this time.
		But it was really interesting to see the number of companies that announced very early, and we've got a lot of smaller companies out in the countryside.
		If you want to go knock on the door of one, we have all their info at hr.org slash list.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So Lou in Middlesex County, New Jersey is wondering about your stand on salt.
		So this is the cap on state and local taxes deduction.
		He says, my thoughts begin with to eliminate salt.
		If you live in a blue state, fiscal responsibility begins at the local level and should not be subsidized by fiscally responsible states.
unidentified		The state and local taxes, this is on the individual side.
		There's also salt on the corporate side.
		B salt, business salt.
		But on individual salt, what we had in the past was here's your income, and you can deduct so much for each kid, so much because you're you, and the cost of state and local taxes.
		That allowed some states to say, well, we'll just raise your taxes and tell you it doesn't, you don't really pay for this.
		Governor Jerry Brown in California, when he was campaigning against the tax cut of Proposition 13, said, why would you want to cut your wonderful state taxes?
		Because some of that would go to Washington because you'd have more income and Washington would tax that.
		So he argued against tax cuts at state and local level because of salt deduction and for tax increases at the state and local level.
		So it's been used by politicians in New York, California, New Jersey to say, oh, don't mind the tax increases.
		What happened was in the last election, go back to 1969, the Democrats with alternative minimum tax began to say, if you have too much money, we start taking away your salt.
		So salt has been disappeared for higher income people for many, many decades and not there.
		What the Republicans said was, we're getting rid of the salt thing.
		We're not going to be fiddling with that.
		So you just do one tax reform, not two.
		Tax returns, not two.
		And we are allowing you to deduct $10,000, which covers most people, of taxes, state and local.
		It's property taxes and it's income taxes.
		They're tough to calculate sales taxes.
		$10,000 per person.
		And that's being increased to $30,000 so that the higher taxes in some states are not as punitive.
		I understand the comment that he made of if you're in New York, the reason you pay higher taxes when state and local taxes are not deducted is one, your mayor has very high property taxes, your governor has very high state income taxes, and your congressmen and your senators, the Democrats, they voted for the very high tax rates that you're paying if you're high income living in New York.
		So all of the Democrats could fix the SALT problem by getting better mayors who didn't have high property taxes, better governors who didn't have as high state income taxes.
		And if all the senators, the Democratic senators and Congress who say they care about salt would take the top rate down 4% or 5%, that would solve your problem.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Sabrina is an independent in Asheville, North Carolina.
unidentified		Hi.
		I would just actually like to comment real quick on what that gentleman said.
		Number one, the tax problem is not in our businesses.
		It's coming from the loss of federal income tax returns of the American people due to the illegal liens that were placed by the child support system that have left my people homeless in the streets for decades.
		And Congress keeps wanting to focus on the tax problems as a business issue.
		It's not a business issue.
		It's a people issue.
		Second of all, I stand firmly against a work requirement on Medicaid.
		That is going to devastate my community.
		It's going to devastate the lowest levels of our communities that are already suffering from the policies that the government has put in mind.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Sabrina, tell us why.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Why are you against the work requirement?
unidentified		Because I walk these streets.
		I've lived out on the streets homeless for five years.
		Those individuals need medical care like no other.
		And have you ever tried to walk these streets and get a job?
		Our economy has crashed like you would not believe.
		And our citizens are having to deal with several issues whenever it comes to obtaining a job.
		Number one, we have to deal with this immigration policy where we're discriminated against when we first walk into the door.
		Second of all, the economy hasn't been stimulated in a proper manner in decades.
		So the proper job growth, there's barely any out there.
		Then when you do get one, before the pandemic, I'm going to be honest with you, before the pandemic, I worked for 218-hour plus my tips, and I carried all the taxes for the businesses that I worked.
		All right.
		That was Waffle House.
		That was Crackle Barrel.
		That was all of your major corporations.
		Okay.
		I was paying the taxes for it, and I was the lowest paid employee.
		All right.
		So the reason why I don't want that is because the American people have already been under extreme financial strain.
		And cutting access off to a program like that will leave hundreds out in my streets dying.
		We just went through a biological attack of COVID-19.
		All right.
		We just went through our entire nation being invaded.
		And what infuriates me, because I know this is not Trump.
		All right.
		I know it's not him.
		All right.
		And by the way, the money that he is spending and going golfing is presenting us as a competent nation to the world.
		Okay.
		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Sabrina, you've got a lot there, so let's get a response.
unidentified		Many issues.
		She points out that individuals pay taxes, not corporations, and she's quite right.
		Even when corporations can collect taxes, General Motors, when you buy a car, takes some of your money and pays it to the federal government.
		That doesn't show up as a tax paid by you, but it does raise the price of your car, and you are eventually the person who pays for it.
		There is no Mr. General Motors.
		Mr. General Motors does not write checks to the federal government.
		There are consumers of cars, and they pay higher prices for cars when the corporate income tax or business income tax or property taxes on a factory go up, and when property taxes on a grocery store go up, that's not paid by the grocery store.
		That's paid by everybody who buys milk and potatoes and lettuce at that grocery store.
		So the corporate income taxes are a way for businesses, politicians rather, to hide who's paying the tax.
		Oh, you're not paying the tax, but when you buy the groceries, you're paying the tax.
		And that is something to keep in mind.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, speaking of that, what's your view of the tariff policy for President Trump's tariff policies?
unidentified		The president's stated tariff policy is that he has thrown tariffs up and said to other countries, we're not happy with how you tax our companies.
		The Europeans are busy taxing our high-tax companies in ways that they don't tax their own companies.
		Complete discrimination against American firms.
		We don't like your non-tariff barriers where the Japanese say, oh, we won't let in your rice because it tastes funny.
		Well, if it tastes funny, you don't have to keep it out, do you?
		You're keeping it out for some other reason than you think it tastes funny.
		You could let it in and no one would buy it.
		That's not what they're doing.
		So there are other groups.
		When we export pharmaceuticals, other countries, because of the way treaties are written, they say, well, because this is a medical thing, we say we're not going to pay the market rate.
		So Americans end up paying the market rate, but in other countries, many of them say, no, we're going to pay you less.
		And if you don't, we will steal your patent and bankrupt.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		The agreement with China, as an example, is 30% tariffs.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Are you in favor of that?
unidentified		No, they've moved down to 30%.
		I hope we move down to zero on all levels and have complete free trade as the president said he wants.
		He wants to get rid of tariffs, period.
		He uses his tariffs to get the other guys.
		And it's tariffs.
		It's also non-tariff barriers.
		Sometimes the barriers are hidden.
		The Japanese, oh, we don't like your rice.
		Or we don't tax your art that comes in movies and so on, but we limit it.
		So I think the president's having some success at reducing the barriers that other countries put up.
		But we should remember, tariffs are taxes.
		Tariffs, American tariffs, are paid by American consumers, not by somebody else.
		So to use it as a weapon to argue with other countries is one thing.
		The goal, however, is to bring them down, and that's what the president says he's doing and what he's doing.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Robert in Price, Utah, who says this.
		Say the quiet part out loud, Grover.
		You don't want the government to fund anything but the military and the subsidies for big oil and big pharma.
		Everybody else can fend for themselves.
unidentified		Actually, one of the things that we spend a lot of time doing is fighting against corporate subsidies.
		And in this bill, the Big Beautiful bill, there are the reductions in a lot of the corporate subsidies that were put in under Biden.
		He put a trillion dollars in corporate subsidies into so-called green energy, but these are massive corporate subsidies.
		You can paint them green if you want, but they're corporate subsidies.
		I would like to see those brought down to zero.
		And I am glad to see that the caller finds corporate subsidies, subsidies to corporations like corporate welfare to be offensive.
		It is offensive.
		You shouldn't be stealing people's money and subsidizing companies with it or anything else.
		My concern, I tend to think if it's listed in the Constitution once or twice, it's probably okay.
		If it's not, then you probably want to wonder about whether the government should do it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Larry in Melville, New York.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Democrat, good morning, Larry.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		How are you?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good.
unidentified		Good.
		I just have a couple of questions for Mr. Norquist and comments about the budget that came out of committee on, I believe, Sunday night they voted on it.
		And part of the problem that I have, and I don't know if I missed it in the beginning of the show or not, is that I'm looking at expiration dates on all of these tax give-backs, I guess you can call it, in the budget to the working class.
		And it seems like most of the budget, okay, and I can line item it for you if you would like.
		Starting with the standard deduction expansion for $2,000 for married couples ends in 2028.
		CTC expansion, additional $500 per child, ends in 2028.
		Tips deduction, which is a big thing that I've been listening to, ends in 2028.
		Overtime deduction, 2028.
		Elderly deduction, 2028.
		Car loan interest deduction 2028.
		$1,000 government payments to NAGA, which I have no idea what that is, accounts for newborns, 2028.
		Capital book deduction for the banks.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So Larry, let's take up some of those.
unidentified		No, well, they're all of a piece, as he correctly points.
		The MAGA effort is a child's tax, parents can save $1,000 in the child's name as he grows up, and so when he gets older, he's got that money tax-free for school or anything else he wants to do in life.
		It's a new, it's like a universal savings account, but for a kid, which is a great idea.
		It's Ted Cruz's idea.
		It's the president's endorsed it.
		What you're listing is all the new tax cuts.
		What the presidents and the House and Senate have said they're going to do and are doing, everything that was passed in 2017 will now become made permanent.
		But since then, the president has said, hey, no tax on tips.
		And some other, you made a list of several of the ones that the president said, I think we should do with this.
		I think we should do this.
		So what they've done with most of those is they've extend them for two, three, four years in order to make them fit inside reconciliation because they have very, they have rules about what can and can't fit in a package.
		And so they're making sure that that fits.
		The goal will be to make those things permanent, and we will come back in a year, two years before they retire and make those permanent.
		So you're quite right.
		The new ideas are not all made permanent.
		The things passed in 27 are all made permanent.
		So there's a distinction.
		The new stuff is several years and the older stuff is now made, which was only for a few years before, now that's made permanent.
		So it's on track to be permanent.
		That's the distinction that you're seeing between long-time tax policy and things, new things.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And I forgot to follow up with you.
		The caller from Asheville, North Carolina brought up the work requirement for Medicaid.
		And she being against it because she said there are no jobs and the economy is so bad where she lives.
		What do you think?
unidentified		Well, North Economy is doing fairly well in North Economy, the economy.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		North Carolina.
unidentified		North Carolina, North Carolina, North Carolina.
		And we ought to do better.
		They're in the process of taking their individual tax rate down to under 2%, and they've been caking it down for the last 12 years.
		So they've been growing quite well.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, if you don't have a job, it doesn't matter what your tax rate is.
unidentified		I mean, Medicaid work requirements.
		When you cut tax rates, you get more jobs.
		That's what they've been getting with the lower rates.
		They've taken the individual tax rates down, and more jobs have been created as a result.
		So one of the booming states.
		But we need to always do more and better.
		That's correct.
		I had the one thing that I wanted to be sure and show you, because this explains the power of the tax issue.
		Here is 1932.
		And the yellow line is 1994 and until today.
		The top is who runs the U.S. Senate.
		The bottom is who runs the U.S. House.
		And the little thing in the middle that doesn't matter very much who runs the president.
		Congress runs the country.
		Taxes, spending, Congress makes the decisions.
		For 62 years from when Franklin Roosevelt was elected until 1994 when the Republicans swept the House and Senate, Congress, the Republicans control Congress twice in 62 years, once under Eisenhower and once under Truman.
		So we really had a one-party state at the congressional level.
		You could elect a Republican president, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan.
		They could veto things, but they can't pass anything without the Democrat votes.
		So here you had 62 years of one-party rule in terms of Congress, who runs the country.
		Since 1994, this is when 96% of Republicans signed the taxpayer protection pledge that Americans for Tax Reform shares with people.
		And that was in reaction to the fact that Bush had broken his pledge and raised taxes.
		And all the Republicans said, we're never doing that.
		And it's in writing.
		You can hold us responsible.
		And since then, the vast majority of Republicans, all the leadership, has signed the pledge never to raise taxes.
		And since 1994, the Republicans have won both houses 18 years, and the Democrats have run both houses six years.
		So the Republicans don't have the dominance the Democrats had, but the parties are competitive, and the Republicans have been on the field competitive only because they became the party that would never raise your taxes.
		They may invade small countries they can't pronounce, which is how you end up losing Congress briefly here, but they will not raise your taxes.
		And so the power of the tax issue, and the answer, why did the president keep saying no to people, we've got a great idea, let's raise taxes?
		No.
		The difference between governing and not governing at all.
		So that's the power in American politics of the tax issue.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Mike, who is in Gillette, Wyoming, Republican.
		And Mike, before you start, I just wanted to get you on the record.
		So you are in favor of work requirements for Medicaid.
unidentified		Yes, as I understand the bill, there are a series of requirements.
		I think you may have to be a citizenship.
		I think I will defer to how Congress decides, but Medicaid was set up for people who are working.
		Yes, that was the original goal.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Mike, go right ahead.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Gillette, Wyoming.
unidentified		Yeah, Grover, I'm a big fan of yours.
		Thanks for your diligence.
		Thank you.
		The listeners don't.
		A lot of the listeners don't know the difference between the national debt and the yearly deficit.
		Please, can you explain to them that they can understand the difference?
		Thank you.
		Sure.
		Appreciate it.
		Two numbers.
		One is how much debt you've accumulated.
		At the end of World War II, we'd accumulated enough debt to help pay for World War II and World War I and the Great New Deal in order to, that was about 100% of GDP.
		And because we had economic growth and we grew faster than there were deficits, the debt became a smaller and smaller part of the economy down to about 20%.
		Now it's growing again.
		The debt as a percentage of the economy.
		One, every year we spend too much money and that increases deficits.
		And we're not growing fast enough.
		And that increases deficits as well.
		So we need to focus on growth and on reigning in spending.
		Those are two different projects, but we do as much as we can on each.
		You're talking about taxes in general and the lady, the woman calling from South North Carolina.
		At the state level, we're having a discussion about the federal budget, but at the state level, the green states, eight of them, have no personal income tax.
		The yellow states have a flat rate tax, which is very important because it's very difficult to raise a flat rate tax.
		You have to look everybody in the state in the eye and say, you're all paying for this.
		Illinois shows the power of a single rate tax.
		They have a constitutional amendment put in many years ago, said it has to be single rate.
		So their rate is 4.9%.
		Now, Illinois is very left of center, very Democrat, two-thirds both houses, Democrat, very left-wing governor.
		You'd think they'd be up with New York, where you've got over 10%, 14% in California, 10% in Minnesota and Vermont.
		But they're not.
		They're down at 5%.
		Why?
		Because they have to tax everybody the same.
		They can't divide people into different groups and mug them one at a time.
		So a single rate tax, very easy to cut, because you go to everybody.
		We're all going from three to two.
		Okay.
		And when somebody wants to play the envy card, what about billionaires?
		They're going from three to two also.
		We're all going from three to two.
		Oh, okay.
		So cutting taxes becomes easy.
		Raising tax is difficult.
		The black dots are those states where the governor and the legislature said, we're going to zero.
		So the number of states that are phasing themselves down to zero, Louisiana passed this recently, so did Mississippi.
		South Carolina just passed it in the House about to pen it.
		North Carolina has been phasing down for 12 years.
		West Virginia passed a phase down to zero.
		So did Kentucky.
		Our friends in Oklahoma are in the process.
		I think they've passed one House, but not yet the second.
		They will be passing a phase down to zero there as well.
		Iowa phased down half of the way to zero and on to zero.
		So we're now looking at 23 states that have a single rate tax now, eight of them at zero.
		And that number is going to go up because Kansas has voted to go to a single rate tax.
		North Dakota is committed to going to single rate.
		So is Ohio.
		We're going to see more and more states go to single rate taxes and more and more states go to zero.
		So when we were talking about how some people were trying to trick the president into voting for a tax to supporting a tax increase and he said no, the answer is, what's the future of the Republican Party?
		It's the congressmen and senators and presidents that come from governorships and state legislatures around the country and they're taking taxes to a single rate and then down.
		Nobody's raising taxes and nobody's playing the politics of envy and hatred by trying to raise certain people's taxes.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And that's Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform.
		You can find more on the web at atr.org.
		Thanks as always for coming in.
unidentified		Amy, thank you.
unidentified		Enjoyed it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And coming up, the Trump administration and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are planning for cuts at agencies that deal with public health.
		Joining us next is American Public Health Association's Dr. Georges Benjamin.
		we'll be right back.
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jimmy carter ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is always an unfinished creation.
ronald reagan ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is worth dying for.
george h w bush ▲ ● ▼		Democracy belongs to us all.
bill clinton ▲ ● ▼		We are here in the sanctuary of democracy.
george w bush ▲ ● ▼		Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies.
barack obama ▲ ● ▼		American democracy is bigger than any one person.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected.
unidentified		We are still at our core a democracy.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.
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		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We are talking about the Trump administration's public health policies with Dr. Georges Benjamin.
		He's executive director of the American Public Health Association.
		Dr. Benjamin, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Thank you.
unidentified		Thanks for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		The Trump administration has had several cost-cutting efforts when it comes to public health.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What cuts are most concerning to you?
unidentified		Well, the biggest cuts to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the $3.6 billion are taken out of that.
		They've taken almost a billion dollars out of the Health Resources and Services Administration, as well as a significant amount of money out of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration.
		And when you combine those cuts together, they're just devastating to the ability to do prevention and wellness in the nation.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's take a look at the numbers.
		So here's 2026 proposed budget cuts.
		We'll get those on the screen.
		National Institutes of Health down $18 billion.
		So that reduces it down to a budget of $27 billion.
		The CDC cut $3.6 billion.
		And substance abuse and mental health, $1 billion.
		Can you be specific as to what types of programs will be cut or is it simply redundant programs or things that many Americans would consider wasteful?
unidentified		No, no, these are not redundant programs.
		And these are not wasteful programs.
		So domestic violence programs, programs that address the quality of the food you eat, programs that protect you from lead exposure, programs that help kids get vaccinated, maternal child health programs, programs to help women have a healthy pregnancy.
		Nutrition programs were cut.
		These are truven programs that the public health community has had for many years.
		Programs to deal with diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, lung disease, autism, interestingly enough.
		Those programs are all a chopping block should these cuts go through.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, here's what the White House said about specifically NIH cuts, the National Institutes of Health.
		They said this, quote, NIH has broken the trust of the American people with wasteful spending, misleading information, risky research, and the promotion of dangerous ideologies that undermine public health.
		I want to ask specifically about this concept of risky research.
		How do you respond to that?
unidentified		None of that is true.
		Look, these are research studies that have looked at the heart disease, looking at how many people die from heart disease, looking at ways to reduce exposure to infectious diseases like HIV, AIDS.
		These are not wasteful programs.
		What they're talking about is programs that have looked at health equity in some cases, looking at diversity, equity, and inclusion.
		But these are not discriminatory programs.
		They're misstating what those programs do.
		They're misstating what that research does.
		And this is just a guise in order to them to get money so they can have their tax cut, quite frankly.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		There has been over 1,000 measles cases reported now in 30 states.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		How concerning is that number to you?
unidentified		Oh, very concerning.
		As you know, we had almost, we had eliminated measles from this country, which means that basically only measles cases that occurred were when someone came from out of the country and got infected, usually someone who was unvaccinated, who came into the country.
		And then because we were so well vaccinated, in most cases, we were not able to spread it to anybody else.
		But if it did happen, only occurred in communities where there was a low vaccination rate.
		And fortunately, we had very few of those communities.
		In this situation, we've had a robust exposure to measles in a community in Texas, which is now spread to over half the states in the country.
		And it's growing at a rapid rate.
		And the administration has done very little to address it.
		And in fact, the cuts that they've done, both the funding cuts and the personnel cuts, have accelerated the outbreak.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, there's something called block grants.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		If you could explain that to us and then explain if you think that that's a good idea, that that's how public health funds should be delivered to states.
unidentified		You know, block grants could be a good idea because they can give you flexibility about how you use the money.
		You know, you put basically funding in a bucket of money.
		You know, you say we're going to give you $100 million to do whatever you need to do for public health.
		And you can use it pretty much any way you want within some broad guidelines.
		And then there's flexibility to use that, right?
		What happens right now for most of the funding, for example, that goes from CDC, it goes out in very narrow funding streams.
		So there's funding for sex and transmitted diseases.
		There's funding for tuberculosis.
		There's funding for chronic diseases, maybe heart disease in one funding stream, maybe cancer in another funding stream.
		And you really don't have the ability to move the money around or some of the people around.
		So you have an epidemiologist for cancer that's funded.
		You have an epidemiologist or syphilis that's funded.
		None of the two shall work together on any kind of program because the funding streams are separate.
		So, block grants could give you that flexibility.
		But here's the problem with block grants: we had something that happened many years ago with the Reagan administration called the Preventive Health Block Grant.
		It's $100 million, and every year it gets eliminated, by the way, regardless of political party, because it doesn't have any constituency.
		You can't explain what the money is being used for.
		So, people are always questioning what it's used for.
		It turns out it is good money, it is flexible, but it loses its constituency.
		The other thing that happens is when you have a block grant, the resource allocators, when they want to cut funding, they take a cut in the funding, and then they tell everybody to do the same amount of work with less money.
		So, block grants have a flexibility benefit, but for resource allocators who want to cut budgets, it makes it a lot easier to cut the budget and for the public to not be really aware about what's getting cut.
		So, it's not very transparent.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		If you'd like to join our conversation about public health, you can speak to our guest, Dr. Georges Benjamin.
		The lines are by party.
		So, Democrats are on 202-748-8000, Republicans 202-748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002.
		You can start calling us now.
		The Associated Press, Dr. Benjamin, reports that Trump administration again blocked from cutting billions in federal health money.
		It says that President Trump's administration must put the brakes on slashing billions in federal money for public health departments.
		That's according to a federal judge.
		What do you think of that?
		What do you make of that?
		Do you think that that's obviously a positive sign?
unidentified		Oh, absolutely supportive.
		Let me tell you why.
		These cuts have been broad, indiscriminate, and unthoughtful.
		No one's opposed to improving the efficiency of programs.
		But when you wake up one morning and you've already been given a grant in a local community, and then suddenly they come back and reneg on that grant and say, you can't spend the money.
		You know, we're now going to cost shift from the federal government to your local community.
		So, now your governors and mayors have now got to find the money for those programs or fire the people.
		That's a problem.
		And by the way, when they cut some of those programs, some of those people that were involved in the measles outbreak got fired basically that same day.
		So, it does have an impact locally.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And during a recent hearing on the Hill, RFK Jr. was speaking to one of the senators.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But before I show you that, I wanted to ask you about your assessment of Secretary Kennedy and how you think he's been doing so far.
unidentified		Yeah, we were opposed to Mr. Kennedy becoming secretary to begin with.
		We did not believe he had the training, skill, expertise, you know, management to run such a big department.
		And he has lived up to our worst expectations.
		He has been a very, very poor manager.
		He has been an extraordinarily poor communicator.
		And I believe that some of his communication has resulted in children getting sicker because of some of the things he said.
		Because he's got a large bullhorn and people believe he's speaking good science and he's not.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Dr. Benjamin, I just want to let people know that what you're seeing on your screen in just a moment is President Trump just now arriving, and he's speaking now, so we'll listen.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I don't think we've ever had a party like this.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		There are some people that want a couple of things that maybe I don't like or that they're not going to get.
unidentified		But I think we're going to have tremendous, not luck.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		We have tremendous talent.
		This man has done an incredible job as Speaker.
		You know, we had a majority of one.
		We were one heart attack away from losing the House.
		Okay, now we have seven.
		That's a big because we won some elections, as you probably noticed, and we're going to win a lot of elections.
		We have an economy that's roaring.
		We took out 5.1 billion.
		If you take a look, 5.1 trillion with a T, not a B. 5.1 trillion out of the Middle East.
		They're investing more than that.
		It's going to be ultimately more than that.
unidentified		What 180 wide-body Boeing aircraft?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		They're spending money at levels that nobody's ever seen.
		Usually a president goes for a trip and he loses money.
		In other words, he gives money.
		We went for a trip, but we took out $5.1 trillion.
		Nobody has ever seen anything like it.
		And that's just the beginning.
		So I think we're a very unified party.
		The Senate's doing great.
		John Thun is doing fantastically.
		He's a great guy.
		And we're going to have a bill, the one big, beautiful bill, I think it's going to be.
		It's the biggest bill ever passed.
		And we've got to get it done.
		Tremendous tax cuts for people, tremendous incentives, tremendous regulation cuts, all these regulations that are so horrible.
		And now you find out and find out what happened because Biden, look, it's a very sad thing what happened, but I really, we're going to start looking into this whole thing with who signed this legislation.
		Who signed legislation opening our border?
		I don't think he knew.
		I said there's nobody that could want an open border.
		Nobody.
		And now I find out that it wasn't him.
		He autopenned it.
		Who was operating the Autopen?
		This is a very serious thing.
		We had a president that didn't sign anything.
		He auto-penned almost everything.
		He opened the borders of the United States of America.
		And I kept saying, who would do such a thing?
		Allowing criminals to pour in from all over the world, not just South America, all over the world.
		They came in from Africa.
		They came in from Asia.
		They came from the Congo.
		The prisons in the Congo, in Africa, these are rough, rough people.
		The prisons from the Congo are empty.
		You know where they are?
		They're in this country.
		Who would sign this?
		Nobody would sign it.
		No sane person would sign it.
		You know who signed it?
		Radical left lunatics that were running our country.
		And the Autopen signed it.
		And they didn't want him, and they were disappointed in getting him because they wanted Bernie Sanders.
		And then after about two weeks, they said, wait a minute, this is a gift.
		He'll do anything.
		We're going to use the AutoPen.
		And they used the AutoPen and everything.
		He didn't approve this stuff because when Joe Biden was with it, he would never have approved it.
		You take a look.
		He would have never approved open borders.
		Go ahead, another round.
unidentified		Are Republicans still grandstanding in your view?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah, sure.
		You have a couple that will grandstand.
		But I think even the grandstanders should look, the alternative is a 68% tax increase.
		And you can blame the Democrats for that and one or two grandstanders.
		We only have one or two, but we have tremendous support.
		But you'll have a 68% tax increase, or you'll get a massive tax decrease.
		You'll get a tax cut, the likes of which we've never had before.
		This is bigger than any Ronald Reagan tax cut.
		It's even bigger than the tax cut that I gave because, as you know, that's being extended and increased.
		So this is the biggest tax cut in the history of our country.
		Or you'll get a 68% tax increase.
		And if that happens, I mean, what Republican could vote for that to happen?
		Because there wouldn't be a Republican much longer.
		They would be knocked out so fast.
		But we're going up to details.
		This is a, I'm a cheerleader for this party and I'm a cheerleader for the country.
		Much more importantly, for the country.
		But I'm a cheerleader for the party.
		And we're going to go up and I think we're going to have a very good discussion.
		There are one or two points that some people feel strongly about, but maybe not so strong.
unidentified		Do you consider some of the people who put on the table of club pay provider tax as a benefit cut?
		How are you viewing the value?
		Meaningful.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		The only thing we're cutting is waste, fraud, and abuse.
		With Medicaid, waste, fraud, and abuse.
		There's tremendous waste, fraud, and abuse.
		There's incompetent things going in.
		We have illegal aliens that are multiple killers with multiple murder records getting Medicaid.
		I don't think anybody minds if we cut that.
		The Democrats, on the other hand, are going to destroy it because they're going to leave these people on.
		We're cutting three things, waste, fraud, and abuse.
		We're not changing Medicaid, and we're not changing Medicare, and we're not changing Social Security.
		And if I wanted to do those things, I would have done it during my four years that we would be able to do it.
unidentified		Mr. President, what's your message to your fellow New Yorker Republicans who are hung up on the salt issue statement?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Well, salt is a very interesting thing because the governors of New York and Illinois, you know, the big JB is going nowhere.
		Probably right now he could be the worst governor of the country.
		But Illinois and Gavin Newscomb, those are the people that want this.
		And the Democrat states, they're all Democrat states.
		You know, Ronald Reagan tried very hard to get this passed, was unable to do it the way we have it, where basically everybody's treated equally.
		He tried it so hard, and he never got it done.
		He was always disappointed.
		He never got it done.
		We got it done.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That's President Trump, having just arrived at the House in order to meet with House Republicans about the reconciliation bill.
		If you'd like to continue watching his remarks to reporters, you can do that on C-SPAN too.
		But we will get back to our conversation with Dr. Benjamin about public health.
		And Dr. Benjamin, we were talking about Secretary Kennedy, and I wanted to show you this exchange because of the discussion about measles and his views on vaccines.
		So he had an interaction with Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy, and here it is.
unidentified		I'll have you respond to it.
chris murphy ▲ ● ▼		Just this morning in front of the House of Representatives, you also said that you, in fact, would not recommend that kids get vaccinated for measles.
		You said you would just lay out the pros and cons.
		So this is the summation of everything that you have said to compromise people's faith in the measles vaccine in particular is contrary to what you said before this committee.
		You said you support the measles vaccine, but then you have laid out a set of facts that are contested.
		And I will submit information for the record from experts who can test what you've said about the vaccine.
		And the result is to undermine faith in the vaccine.
		It's kind of like saying, listen, I think you should swim in that lake, but the lake is probably toxic, and there's probably a ton of snakes and alligators in that lake, but I think you should swim in it.
		Nobody's going to swim in that lake if that's what you say.
		And so I want you to acknowledge that when you say you support the measles vaccine and then go out and repeatedly undermine the vaccine with information that is contested by public health experts, that is not supporting the vaccine.
		And so I guess I have two simple questions for you.
		One is, can you clarify what you said in the House this morning?
		Are you or are you not recommending that families get their children vaccinated, or are you just giving people the pros and cons?
		And do you understand that when you say these things about the measles vaccine, what ends up happening is less people get the vaccine.
		That may be what you want, but do you understand that the result of constantly questioning the efficacy or safety of the vaccine results in less people getting a vaccine?
		So, I don't necessarily want to spend the remaining 20 seconds in an argument over the science, but do you at least understand that that's the consequence of what you're saying?
		And are you actually still recommending people get the vaccine or are you not?
robert f kennedy-jr ▲ ● ▼		Senator, if I advise you to swim in a lake, I knew there to be alligators, and wouldn't you want me to tell you there were alligators in it?
chris murphy ▲ ● ▼		So, are you recommending, are you recommending the measles vaccine or not?
robert f kennedy-jr ▲ ● ▼		What I've said and what I said and doesn't sound like you are.
		If that's are you going to let me answer?
		Are you going to keep it?
chris murphy ▲ ● ▼		Are you not?
robert f kennedy-jr ▲ ● ▼		Are you going to let me answer?
		What I pledged before this committee when I during my confirmation is that I would tell the truth, that I would have radical transparency.
		I'm going to tell the truth about everything we know and we don't know about vaccines.
chris murphy ▲ ● ▼		Are you recommending the measles vaccine or not?
robert f kennedy-jr ▲ ● ▼		I am not going to just tell people everything is safe and effective.
robert f kennedy-jr ▲ ● ▼		If I know that there's issues, I need to respect people's intelligence.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Dr. Benjamin, what do you make of that exchange?
unidentified		Yeah, he continued to avoid answering questions.
		He's done that almost every time he's been in public, and he has given enormously missed messages, which basically are designed to undermine the confidence in vaccines.
		Let me just say the measles vaccine is safe and effective.
		And in fact, it's one of the most effective vaccines that we actually have.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Do you believe that there should be any additional investigation into some vaccines?
		Specifically, the COVID vaccine has gotten a lot of controversy around it.
		Do you think that that was rushed?
		Do you think that that could use a little bit more research?
unidentified		Oh, absolutely.
		I mean, I think there's a lot more we need to learn about the COVID vaccine.
		You're right.
		We did it.
		It was a miracle.
		We did it in a year.
		And it is, you know, science is never fully, fully, fully settled.
		So the idea of doing more research that it's evidence-based, that it's thoughtful going forward, absolutely.
		I would strongly support that.
		But when you cut the NIH budget by $14 billion, that research is not going to happen.
		That research to the COVID vaccine or anything else is going to be undermined by such drastic cuts.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to callers.
		We'll start on the Republican line in Crystal River, Florida, O'Dallis.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Okay, so I know there's been a lot of talk about the measles.
		I just want to point out the obvious here.
		The reason why we've got all these people in Texas now with the measles and now this measles out that's spreading throughout the United States is only one real reason is because of the illegal immigrants that were allowed to come in through that open border because of the Biden administration.
		Something that nobody seems to be pointing out.
		We didn't have a measles outbreak here in the United States because the majority of the people are vaccinated.
		That makes me very upset.
		And we're lucky that we don't have even more things that were coming through.
		If I can just remind everyone that during the height of COVID-19, the Biden administration and Dr. Fauci were putting out that people that were coming into the border were not bringing in COVID-19.
		Therefore, they did not have to have vaccines, nor did they have to have the to come in.
		But all of us that flew through airplanes had to have the vaccine or go on a cruise.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Dallas, those are two things.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's get responses to both of those as far as the measles outbreak coming from illegals coming across the border.
unidentified		Yeah, that is not accurate.
		This was a poorly vaccinated community with measles, poorly vaccinated for measles, and some of the other childhood vaccines.
		And we do see that, as I said earlier, when you have someone that gets into those communities, they can spread like wildfire.
		It is very important for folks to get vaccinated.
		And this all know that during COVID, a lot of children did not get their regular vaccinations.
		And so as a nation, our vaccine level did fall, but it was mostly because people couldn't get to their pediatrician.
		But this happened to be in a largely unvaccinated community.
		And where it's spreading tends to be in either unvaccinated or undervaccinated communities.
		It has nothing to do with immigration and immigration status.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And do you know anything about as far as COVID vaccines being required for those that were coming across the border?
unidentified		Yeah, everyone was required to check their COVID shots.
		I got to tell you, I traveled a lot during COVID, and I couldn't go anywhere without showing my COVID card.
		And if you were coming through any of the courts of entry in the United States, you had to show your COVID card.
		Now, obviously, if someone came here illegally and snuck across the border, we may not necessarily catch them right away.
		But as you know, you couldn't go anywhere in this country without someone having to show you their vaccine card.
		So most of those people would not have been able to get around without having gotten vaccinated.
		And we know very clearly that it was not the reason we had vaccine outbreaks in COVID.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Richard in Las Vegas says, we don't want our government officials to support a vaccine.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We want them to support the Americans who may or may not use the vaccine.
unidentified		You know, I, as a physician, encourage patients to get vaccinated because I believe in vaccines.
		I give them my best advice.
		And every now and then, I cannot convince somebody to not be vaccinated.
		I still treat them.
		I still see them.
		I still care for them.
		But I often try to go back and try to convince them by giving them the evidence that they'll be better off if they get vaccinated.
		Now, you know, the problem with measles and some of these vaccines where you have person-to-person spread is that you not only are putting yourself at risk, which you have a right, you know, to do, but when you start putting other people at risk so that you might make other people very sick and someplace killing people, then I think government has a responsibility to put rules around where you can go, whether or not you can do things without being vaccinated.
		And that's exactly what we've done in this country.
		So we do have rules around going to school and that you have to be vaccinated in most situations with some rare exceptions.
		One of those rare exceptions is for religious reasons, as one example.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Gene in Ohio.
		Democrat.
		Good morning, Gene.
unidentified		Hello.
		It's really nice to hear someone that knows what they're talking about.
		It's really nice to hear someone that's educated in the medical field.
		And I just wanted to make a comment that I think the gentleman is a little too nice to this administration when he says that these cuts are for the rich people and for, you know, to help them out with their taxes, et cetera.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We've moved on from that topic.
		I'm sorry.
		We're talking about public health now.
unidentified		Okay.
		And to make sure that the poor people don't have health care.
		Okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We can get an answer for you on that as far as Dr. Benjamin, the Republican bill and what you make of the changes to Medicaid and to SNAP benefits.
unidentified		Yeah, I respectfully disagree with the president when he says this is about waste, fraud, and abuse and going after the Medicaid program.
		They want to get 800.
		They've got proposed $700 billion, but they want to get over $800 billion out of the Medicaid program.
		I actually oversaw the Medicaid program as a state health officer for the state of Maryland.
		I know Medicaid very, very well.
		And if you take that much money out of the program, you're going to take people off the program.
		They say they want to make everyone as a work requirement.
		By the way, work requirements don't work.
		They add additional bureaucracy.
		The real purpose of work requirements is to limit people on the program because it becomes very programmatically burdensome.
		And they know that.
		And every study that's ever done, been done on work requirements has shown that we really haven't figured out how to make them work.
		By the way, that most of the people in the Medicaid program do work unless they have a disability or some other legal variance.
		That doesn't mean there isn't somebody out there who is, you know, shucking, as they say, shucking and jiving and on the program.
		You're always going to have a few people like that, but it is so few people.
		And the systems are in place to catch them that I don't believe there's needs to be any changes in the program.
		We can still do it.
		And we have enormous programs to deal with waste, fraud, and abuse.
		So I think that everything you're hearing about that is basically a marketing campaign to allow them to dramatically cut the program.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		The NPR says, has this headline, Casey Means, Trump's new pick for Surgeon General faces pushback.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Dr. Benjamin, can you remind us what the Surgeon General does and what your organization thinks of President Trump's pick for that position?
unidentified		Yeah, Dr. Means is a physician who went to Stanford Medical School, and she has been a promoter of health and wellness.
		The Surgeon General is the head of the 6,000-person Commission Corps of the Public Health Service.
		So they basically go in at flag rank, basically an admiral or vice admiral in the commissioned corps.
		And they also are the nation's chief spokesperson.
		We call it the nation's top doc.
		So they really need to be someone who's credible.
		We always had a physician in that job, although the other services, Army, Air Force, and Navy, have now allowed nurses to be Surgeon General.
		But historically, the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service has been a physician.
		They've always been a licensed physician.
		And they've always been someone who's actually practiced medicine and has some academic backgrounds.
		Neither of those two things Dr. Means has.
		And so we would not be supporters of her to be the nation's top doc.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to on the Republican line in Fairfax, Virginia, Mahadeva.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning, Dr. Benjamin.
		This is Mahadeva.
		I just want to make sure we understand the current health HHS is actually actively inhibiting the freedom of expression by the staff member to talk about anything which is related to health.
		People are afraid to voice their opinion.
		This really affects, especially in the, We were discussing about the re-emergence of measles and a recent report of re-emergence of COVID in certain part of China, which can easily come to the United States.
		So cutting the staff of HHS, I think, will have a significant deterioration in the healthcare system.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Sorry, cutting the staff of what, Manadeva?
unidentified		HHS.
		They are cutting 20% of the health system by the federal government.
		That is going to affect the health care.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Dr. Benjamin.
unidentified		Yeah, he's right that cutting HHS staff has been dramatic.
		It's again been unfocused, unthoughtful.
		And in many ways, the way they've done it is created enormous fear.
		You know, I've run lots of big organizations.
		I've run lots of small organizations.
		And the morale of your staff is very important.
		And having the trust of your staff is very important.
		You know, one of the first things they did was to fire the disease detectors, what I call the Navy SEALs of disease detectors.
		They let those folks go.
		And then they said, oops, we shouldn't have let them go.
		And then they had to bring them back because they didn't know who they were firing.
		They let many of the staff go that were dealing with the H5N1.
		That's the bird flu outbreak, which is undermining the ability of our farmers in Mineral America to handle the bird flu outbreak in cattle.
		And then they said, oops, we shouldn't have let those people go.
		And they had to bring them back.
		They've done dramatic cuts in the Food and Drug Administration.
		You may have seen in the news that Publix just recalled some food pouches because there's been food, there was lead in some of the food pouches that they had in many of their stores.
		The good news is Publix does test food and they discovered it.
		But we've not yet seen a notice nationwide from the Food and Drug Administration to notify us about these food processes and the danger it is for kids.
		You know, lead is an environmental toxin.
		If it gets into food, it can be very dangerous for kids.
		And yet we've not heard anything from the FDA that I'm aware of.
		And I just looked at their website this morning and it's not on their website.
		So these cuts, I believe, are dramatically impacting the health and wellness of the American people.
		And we need to reverse them.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is George in Maryland, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I guess the most concerning thing for me about this, and if I can have your outlook on this, Doctor, is should we really be giving up freedom for safety in terms of our freedom to choose what we put in our bodies?
		Whether you make the argument that it's to protect the mass because the Nuremberg experiments were all done in a good quote unquote.
		And I don't think we should be reverting back to those type of allowing the government to have that much control.
		You know, I respect your opinion, and I believe very much in body integrity.
		You know, as a society, we do have to balance individual rights versus community rights.
		And, you know, we require you to wear a seatbelt.
		We require you to wear a motorcycle helmet.
		They're in Maryland, you know, you can't ride a motorcycle without a helmet.
		And every year in our legislature, we have the anti-helmet people who come in and fight with the legislature to take away the requirements to wear a motorcycle helmet.
		But you know what happens in Maryland is that people who ride their motorcycles without helmets every now and then get into a collision or they fall off their bike and they get a head injury.
		And when they get that head injury, they eventually go into the hospital and the cost for caring for them ultimately becomes a public responsibility.
		They end up going on the Medicaid program quite commonly, or they go into one of the state's disability programs and you as a taxpayer end up paying for their medical care in the hospital.
		So, you know, we do have to decide what we want and at what point we draw the line over individual responsibility and the rights of society.
		And in terms of vaccines, we have made that decision for a few vaccines that we require everybody to get for the good of everybody.
		And we do give up a little bit of bodily integrity for that.
		But we also do is we have systems in place to make sure it's safe and effective for you to give up that right.
		And that's been adjudicated in the courts.
		And at least so far, that is the law of the land.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Dr. Benjamin, what do you make of certain states starting to take out fluoride from drinking water?
unidentified		Yeah, I think they're making a terrible mistake.
		You know, what is it?
		Utah and Florida have both now prohibited local jurisdictions from making fluoride in their water.
		Fluoride in the levels that are recommended are safe and effective.
		And they have been clearly shown to improve the dental care, reduce cavities in kids.
		You know, poor dental care is one of the leading causes of school absenteeism for kids.
		So kids, when they have dental problems, don't go to school.
		They don't get their education.
		And so it has another spin-off around an educational benefit in addition to the dental benefit that it gets.
		Yes, there are studies like anything else.
		Anything used at high levels can have bigger problems.
		But in the levels that are traditionally used, it's safe and effective.
		So I disagree with those states, and I believe that they are going to undermine the health and well-being of your citizens.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Dana in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, has this question on text.
		I see RFK Jr. telling people what's in the vaccines so they can be aware.
		Some people are allergic to ingredients.
		Why is that a problem?
unidentified		It isn't a problem.
		You know, full disclosure about ingredients and vaccines are very important.
		And you can get that.
		That information is available to you.
		The problem is, is when you have somebody like Mr. Kennedy who says that there are fetal parts in the vaccine, which there are not, or that there are genetic substances in the vaccines, which he's misstating.
		And the problem is when you get bad information spoken by someone who should be giving you authoritative information and who should know better, that causes problems and confusion.
		So I believe in absolute full transparency from authoritative sources so that you get the right information.
		And by the way, if you're allergic for medical reasons to a vaccine, then that gets put in your medical record and you are excused from getting that vaccine even when vaccination is required.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It's Dr. Robert, a Democrat in Far Rockway, New York.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Hello, yes.
		Good morning.
		I have like a question and a comment, rather.
		Just to Dr. Denjman, are you aware that they were putting anti-heart attack medicine inside the vaccines for children?
		I believe it's called, what is it?
		Thromethamine?
		You're probably not allowed to save if you know about it.
		And another thing, you say that they're making a big mistake by putting fluoride in the water.
		I don't think so.
		We should not be forced to ingest anything.
		If people want fluoride, They should be able to, you know, buy liquid fluoride and put it in their own glass or take tablets and drink them or eat it.
		Yeah.
		So I'm not aware of what you're talking about in terms of something within vaccines, but I'm unaware of that.
		I don't believe that that's true.
		And by the way, fluoride, just drinking raw fluoride can be toxic, and I would not recommend people do that.
		There are safe mechanisms to add additional fluoride.
		You have fluoride in your toothpaste.
		And when you go to the dentist, sometimes they will add topical fluoride.
		And there are some oral fluoride mechanisms to enhance that in targeted situations.
		But I would encourage people to not do that without professional guidance.
		Look, we fortified cereals.
		We do lots of things to, on a mass basis, to improve the health and nutrition of populations that we know are safe.
		And that is commonly accepted as standard practice and good governance and good health.
		And, you know, that's one of the ways that we protect the public.
		But transparency is important.
		And so to the extent that we tell people what's in that food, and by the way, we've had people that have been resistant to us putting ingredients on packaging.
		You know, I know that we've tried to tell people on tobacco how bad tobacco is for you, you know, cigarettes.
		And we had great resistance from the tobacco industry for doing that.
		We've had some resistance from the food manufacturers from having expansive notation on some of the labeling.
		Some of that's practical, you know, just too many words and no one's going to know what's going to be on the packaging.
		But we've had resistance when we have tried to give people better information on some of the packaging so they could make informed decisions.
		So that is a battle that we have each and every day in public health as our efforts to try to inform the public.
		But the good news is we have the internet and if you can go to authoritative sources and get that information, that's another way to get informed.
		And I strongly support that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Dr. George's Benjamin, Executive Director at the American Public Health Association.
		They're on the web at apha.org.
		Thanks so much for joining us today.
unidentified		Thanks for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Coming up next, another round of open forum.
		You can start calling us now.
		The numbers, Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		We'll take your calls as soon as we get back from the break.
unidentified		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.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		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.
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mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We are back and it's open forum until the end of the program.
		When the House gavels in, I wanted to show you this statement from Congresswoman LaMonica McIver about the charges that have been brought against her.
		This is her statement.
		She says this, earlier this month, I joined my colleagues to inspect the treatment of ICE detainees at Delaney Hall in my district.
		We were fulfilling our lawful oversight responsibilities as members of Congress have done many times before, and our visit should have been peaceful and short.
		Instead, ICE agents created an unnecessary and unsafe confrontation when they chose to arrest Mayor Baraka.
		The charges against me are purely political.
		They mischaracterize and distort my actions and are meant to criminalize and deter legislative oversight.
		This administration will never stop me from working for the people in our district and standing up for what is right.
		I am thankful for the outpouring of support I have received and look forward to the truth being laid out clearly in court.
		That's Congresswoman La Monica McIver on her on the news that just broke yesterday about charges being brought against her by the Justice Department.
		And for your schedule, later in about 25 minutes, we've got Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Capitol Hill to testify about his department's 2026 budget requests.
		He'll also likely face questions about the situation in Gaza, the war in Ukraine, and the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development.
		We've got that live.
		That's the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
		It's on C-SPAN 3, kicks off at about 10 a.m. Eastern.
		You can also watch it on our app, C-SPANNOW, and online c-span.org.
		We'll go to your calls and start with Chuck in California, Independent Line.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Hi.
		Yeah, my name is Chucky.
		I'm from California.
		I'm very curious, and I have a very important question that I always ask that never seems to get answered.
		And that question is this.
		Just why is it that no one is talking about nor asking the trillion-dollar question as to why these million and billionaires just have to have these tax cuts?
		And also, why must these tax cuts be permanent?
		Because the tax cuts that President Trump has offered to give to the poor, the working poor, and the middle class, they're all temporary.
		And this is what Chucky would like to know from California.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here's Marilyn in Marysville, Washington, Republican line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Well, good morning.
		My issue today is that President Trump wants to designate May 8th as Victory Day for World War II instead of calling it VE Day.
		And my issue has to do with the fact that it will change the understanding of history for all generations to come.
		And I suggest that Victory Day for World War II should be August 14th, because, as you know, we entered World War II, December 7th, 1941, when the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
		World War II ended August 14th, 1945, when the Empire of Japan surrendered aboard the USS Missouri.
		And I feel that if Trump is successful in designating May 8th as Victory Day for World War II instead of VE Day, Victory in Europe Day, he is erasing all the sacrifices made by the sailors, primarily and the Marines, in the war in the Pacific.
		We think about, of course, Iwo Jima.
		We think about the three months of battle in Okinawa.
		And so I feel that as Americans, we should let our president know that he cannot change history.
		If he wishes to have a victory day for World War II, it should be August 14th.
		And those are my views.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Marilyn.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Stephen, Tampa, Florida, Line for Democrats.
unidentified		Good afternoon.
		I'm Steve in Tampa.
		I have just one concern with all that's happening with Doge and auditing everything and judges and cops getting arrested.
		I want to see the borders are that Trump pardoned however many years ago.
		Start getting people that are innocent for misdemeanors and nonviolent crimes pardoned and released from jail.
		If this guy can release all these people from January 6th and there's still people in prison or jail for the dumbest crimes sitting there writing and writing off like, look at justice denied is always from justice being delayed.
		People are sitting months and months and months.
		We got people being stabbed in prisons and we're all watching the Diddy case.
		Nobody cares about that right now.
		We care about people that are in jail that shouldn't be there.
		There was an old woman that got pardoned.
		Let's see them pardon the people that are innocent.
		There are a lot of guilty people that are working to put people in there.
		Let's get the ones that shouldn't be in there out.
		That's it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And the National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett spoke to reporters yesterday about the credit rating downgrade from Moody's and also Walmart's warning about raising prices.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here are his comments.
unidentified		Well, I think that the tariff policy has been very successful.
kevin hassett ▲ ● ▼		It says that we've raised $20 billion in revenue last month and the Consumer Price Index went down and inflation actually got closer to target.
unidentified		But depending on supply and demand elasticities for each product, I guess the answer could go one way or the other.
kevin hassett ▲ ● ▼		One thing we're highly confident in is that real wages are going to grow, and people, so the people going to Walmart are going to have a lot more money in their pockets.
unidentified		In fact, we have a new study out for the Council of Economic Advisors that highlights just how much real wage growth there's going to be because of these policies.
		And so there's some uncertainty.
		We're going to watch it very, very closely about how this ends over the next two or three months when the tariff rates get set.
kevin hassett ▲ ● ▼		But also don't forget, it's not a measure of inflation that to the extent there was a price change, that it's just a one-time level adjust based on whatever the incidence of the tariff is.
unidentified		You were the next thing that I was going to say.
unidentified		Just how closely is the White House watching the bond market this morning when you saw the tariff there?
kevin hassett ▲ ● ▼		Well, yeah, I think that American bonds are the best buy in the world.
		They're going to be even better by once all of our policies are in place.
		And this downgrade is something that happened because of the runaway spending of the previous administration.
		They were the last AUC to move, and I don't think it should be a surprise to markets.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was Kevin Hassett yesterday.
		And we'll go to Anthony, South River, New Jersey, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hey, Mimi, thanks for coming in.
		I don't know how you do it.
		So I try to get on with the doctor that I was on previously, and I have a big respect for anybody in the medical field.
julian in key west ▲ ● ▼		But to me, just listening to him was very frustrating because, you know, everything he was trying to say was just like a total spin.
unidentified		And it was like everything that is wrong with what's going on with health care.
		We have a sick care community, not health care.
		And I think the focus should be more on health.
		A couple things that he said that I really, really, so he said that, you know, the one lady from Texas called and says, you know, people coming in over the border, sweeping over the Rio Grande, you know, they didn't have their COVID vaccine cards, but we all had to have them.
		And if you were a nurse or something, you lost your job if you didn't have a card and everything like that.
		And then he said, well, you know, if they come in at the point of entry, but, you know, I guess that's good.
		But most of the people that are illegal don't go through a point of entry.
		And they don't even come with any identification because they're most, the majority, if you see, are just throwing it away before they cross over the river.
		So, you know, that's a little misleading.
		And, you know, I think getting back to the health care as opposed to sick care, I applaud, you know, Robert Kennedy.
		I mean, I'm a Democrat.
		I voted for him.
chaz in new york ▲ ● ▼		I applaud him for trying to focus in on the chronic diseases and getting all of this junk out of our diets and everything.
unidentified		And, you know, I mean, the doctor said, well, you know, people that ride motorcycles, some of them don't want to wear helmets.
		And so when they get a traumatic brain injury, then the society has to pay for them.
		But then I was thinking that I'm looking at him as the face of public health.
		He's the head of the public health association.
		And I'm thinking to myself, well, geez, aren't we going to be taking care of people who have illness stemming from obesity?
		Okay, which causes heart disease and diabetes and strokes.
		Isn't society going to be taking care of him?
		So if people on wearing motorcycles got to wear a helmet, shouldn't be forced to be put on a reduced calorie diet.
		I'm sorry to be so negative, but all right, Anthony, but we got your point.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we will pause our calls for now because we are joined by Representative Brad Sherman.
		He is a Democrat from California.
		He's a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
		He's also on the Financial Services Ranking Subcommittee member of the Capital Markets Subcommittee.
		Congressman, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Good to be with you, Beevie.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So let's start with the GOP reconciliation bill.
		It passed the Budget Committee Sunday night and will be taken up by the Rules Committee early, apparently 1 a.m. in the morning, Wednesday morning.
		Your main points of disagreement with that bill.
unidentified		Well, if you're going to commit a burglary, you want to do it at 1 in the morning.
		And they clearly want to hide this bill from the American people, have as much of the process as possible take place after midnight.
		I think perhaps the worst thing in the bill is it's going to increase the deficit by $5 trillion.
		That'll have a tremendously bad impact on economic growth, and it'll raise interest rates very substantially.
		They want to be providing huge tax cuts to Elon Musk and others at that level of wealth, and they're taking 14 million people off of their medical assistance, chiefly Medicaid, but also Obamacare.
		So this is a billionaire's bill.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to ask you about the Moody's downgrade since you're on financial services, and this is what they said.
		Quote, successive U.S. administrations in Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs.
		We do not believe that material multi-year reductions in mandatory spending and deficits will result from current fiscal proposals under consideration.
		I wonder what you make of the downgrade and the issue with the national debt and lawmakers not being serious about getting spending under control.
unidentified		Well, we have got to have revenues that match our spending.
		We did that when I first got here in the late part of the 1990s.
		We spent like Republicans and we taxed like Democrats.
		We had a surplus and we had a great economy.
		Instead, this bill adds $5 trillion to the deficit.
		If it actually passes, I wonder whether Moody's would engage in an additional downgrade.
		And it's not the effect of the downgrade in that people buy U.S. bonds based on their own assessment, not necessarily Moody's.
		But it's reflective of the fact that we're doing a terrible job of running the federal government, its fiscal impact, and the economy as a whole.
		And I hope very much that we can get four Republicans to reject this tax bill, avoid the $5 trillion increase in debt, and keep people on Medicaid and on Obamacare.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And should this go out of the House and go to the Senate, what kind of changes would you be looking for from the Senate?
unidentified		They do have a good paper shredding machine over there, and hopefully they'll use it.
		I expect that they will make major changes.
		One of the things they've got to look at is the deductibility of state and local taxation.
		You know, if Congress doesn't do anything, then people in California and around this country are going to be able to deduct their state and local taxes without limit, whatever they pay, on their income tax returns, as they have for decades and decades and decades.
		So we in California would benefit tremendously if we simply don't pass this law and allow the state and local tax deduction to come back.
		This idea of saying you're giving something by having a $30,000 limit is not a gift.
		You've got Republicans from New York, from New Jersey, from California voting for a bill that is imposing this severe limit.
		And the purpose of the limit, if you listen to the right-wing think tanks, is to try to force California to act more like Mississippi, to not have good schools, to not have a university system.
		And this idea of using the federal government and the tax code to try to force states to do less for their people is really a terrible idea.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What kind of specific budget cuts would you be willing to vote for, if any?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Or do you think that the solution is solely in increasing taxes?
unidentified		Well, I voted for appropriate reductions in our defense bill.
		I voted for appropriate reductions in our agricultural subsidies.
		I think there are a lot of things that we can do on the spending side.
		And of course, we do need to defeat this Republican tax bill and its $5 trillion increase in the deficit.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You're on a senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
		A recent New York Times piece on President Trump's trip to the Middle East was headlined this way.
		On Iran, Gaza, Syria, and Yemen, President Trump is moving ahead without Israel, reshaping decades of foreign policy.
		Do you agree with that assessment?
		Do you think that Israel was left out of this shift in American foreign policy?
unidentified		Well, I haven't actually seen a shift with regard to Iran or with regard to Israel.
		What I'd be concerned about is entering into a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia that allows them to move toward a nuclear weapon.
		And what I'm particularly concerned about are the enormous bribes that are given just openly to Donald Trump.
		The $400 million plane, I'm sure you've covered, but these crypto transactions are harder to understand.
		But when Abu Dhabi, part of the Emirates, puts $2 billion into Trump stable coin, that is a huge transfer to the Trump family.
		And then while he was there, TikTok threw $300 million into his Trump coin, which is a $300 million gift to the Trump family.
		Not surprisingly, he has decided to violate the law and allow TikTok to continue to be owned by those same Chinese interests.
		So whether it is through crypto or whether it's the widely publicized plane, the effect of bribery on our foreign policy is just enormous.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I do want to ask you about the plane.
		The administration is insisting that this is a gift to the Department of Defense and it is not a personal gift to President Trump.
		How do you respond to that?
unidentified		An absolute lie.
		They say at the end of his term when Trump leaves the White House, the plane leaves the Air Force and goes to Trump.
		Look at what happens here.
		First, the $400 million plane.
		Then we have to pay to disassemble the plane and look for all the bugs they will have put in.
		Then we have to put communications gear and safety gear on that plane.
		Many tens, hundreds of millions of dollars.
		And then after three years, we don't own the plane anymore.
		The plane is owned by the Trump family and the Trump Foundation.
		So this is not only a gift to the Trump Foundation, it's one that's very expensive to taxpayers.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Going back to your comments on crypto, there is a bill in the Senate.
		It's called the Genius Bill regarding cryptocurrency.
		Can you explain what that bill is and whether or not you would support it?
unidentified		I certainly wouldn't support it in its present form.
		The goal here is to create a money market fund for tax cheats and drug dealers and to not pay them any interest.
		So the people who put this together are well compensated.
		They have provisions in that bill that says if you have a quote stable coin, you're not going to pay any interest.
		So why would anybody put money in there?
		You've got money market funds, they pay 3%, 4% interest with total safety and a lot of regulation to make sure your money's safe.
		This is a relatively unregulated, zero interest.
		It is because they will not tell a cooperate with the government the money's in offshore tax havens and elsewhere, and they violate or they exclude themselves from the know-your-customer anti-money laundering provisions.
		So they are literally creating a financial system that costs you 3% or 4% every year on your money, but allows you to engage in financial crime.
		And they think they're going to make a lot of money doing it.
		They've already made a lot of money.
		The crypto industry makes money literally by making money, literally by printing it, albeit electronically.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And as you know, last week, while President Trump was in Saudi Arabia, he met and shook hands with the new Syrian leader and lifted sanctions on Syria.
		Did that surprise you?
		And does that do you agree with that, the lifting of sanctions on Syria?
unidentified		We would have to have an understanding, and there might be a secret understanding, although the way that Trump just shoots from the hip, he may have forgotten this, to protect the Christian community of Syria, to protect the Druze, and to protect the Kurds.
		And without those understandings, without autonomy for the eastern part and some of the southern part of Syria to protect those minority communities, Trump will have had a handshake and a good PR campaign and say he's making progress.
		Let's see if the Druze are safe.
		Let's see if the Kurds are safe.
		And let's especially see if the Christians of Syria are safe under this new regime.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And finally, I just want to ask you about the Ukraine war.
		As you know, President Trump did speak with Russian leader Putin yesterday on the phone over two hours and then said that they would begin discussing an end to the war.
		What are your expectations on that front?
unidentified		Well, it appears as if Trump is trying to force the Ukraine into total subservience to Russia.
		One of the essential plans of Putin is to tell Ukraine that they can't have much of an army in the future.
		Well, why doesn't Russia want Ukraine to have much of an army in the future?
		Because Russia wants to invade again, maybe not this decade, but next decade.
		So Trump is pushing Ukraine into surrendering territory, surrendering its sovereignty, and having a huge victory for the Putin invasion.
		It's not enough to talk to people.
		What matters is what you do.
		And his temporary cutoff of intelligence sharing with Ukraine, his temporary interruption of arms supplies to Ukraine, and the fact that he will not come to Congress and say we've got to continue to support Ukraine with another bill is going to put Ukraine in a very, very weak position.
		The Ukrainian heroism on the front lines, what their soldiers are doing, has protected Ukraine so far and might be enough, but to put them in that position with American policy is just terrible.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Representative Brad Sherman, Democrat of California, Member of Foreign Affairs and Financial Services, thanks so much for joining us.
unidentified		Good to be with you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we have about three or four minutes left in the program.
		We will take your calls.
		Open forum.
		We'll go to Darren in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
		Democrat Darren, thanks for waiting.
unidentified		Hey, no problem.
		Good morning, Mimi.
		Good to talk to you again.
		I'll make this quick.
		Just wanted to kind of thank C-SPAN.
		I never, I've called him before.
		I've only followed politics for 12 years, and I've become kind of a political junkie.
		Probably wish I would have taken up piano, but whatever.
		Recently, I think I heard on C-SPAN, it was really interesting that George Washington stated that he thought political parties would be the most divisive and destructive thing to happen to our democratic process.
		And I think now at this present time, I couldn't agree more.
		I think as Americans have become so tribal and it's more of like a team now, even though you know something may be wrong on both sides that we stick with them and kind of ignore our morals.
		So I think now is just hopefully some other parties, three or four different parties can come about since we are kind of going down that road.
		But I think just having two is going to be real dement, real bad for America in the long term.
		So just wanted to throw that out there.
		Thanks.
		Have a great day.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You too, Darren.
		And the text from Anthony and Elgin, Illinois.
		Why is the United States paying a settlement of $5 million to Ashley Babbitt?
		Here is the article about that in the Washington Post.
		You asked to pay nearly $5 million to family of January 6th writer Ashley Babbitt.
		It says that it is a settlement to the family to settle a lawsuit brought by the estate of the Trump supporter who was fatally shot by police when she tried to storm the House Speaker's lobby during the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
		According to people familiar with the matter, Babbitt's family filed the wrongful death lawsuit in early 2024, seeking $30 million.
		Lawyers for both sides told a judge this month that they had reached a settlement in principle, reversing the Justice Department's earlier opposition in the case, which had been set for trial in July of 2026.
		You can read the rest of that at the Washington Post.
		Here is Tim, Gassville, Arkansas, Independent.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		Doing a fine job.
		Can you hear me okay?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I can.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Yeah, on your Mr. Brad Sherman there, right from the get-go.
		No, we don't have a taxation problem.
		We got a spending problem.
		He says we should tax up to our spending.
		No, no, no, no, no.
		You should always spend only what you're taking in.
		We're still spending on Nancy Pelosi's COVID budget, which was $2 trillion deficits.
		The big, beautiful bill, there's still cuts to be made.
		If we continue to allow Medicare expansion, there's going to be no point in all of this.
		We keep thinking in terms of 10-year budgets.
		We need to think of the budget this year and next year because the bond market is going to get a final say in what we do.
		If the bond market explodes, we can't sell bonds.
		We can't finance anything we're doing.
		Guess what?
		Nothing's going to get paid.
		It's all going to fall apart.
		Brad Sherman wants to keep spending, spending, spending because he believes in that deficits don't have any effect on the economy.
		But as we see, the price to pay for all that borrowed money, it just keeps going up and up, and eventually there'll be nothing left.
		Thank you, Mimi.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Tim.
		And just as we are closing out today, this on the front page of the Washington Post, High Court allows end to protections for Venezuelans.
		It says that the ruling affects up to 350,000 migrants.
		Justices lift bar on Trump undoing Biden's order.
		You can read that at the Washington Post if you'd like to know more about that.
		And that's the time that we've got for today's Washington Journal.
		We're back again tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern.
		I hope you'll join us then.
		Thanks for watching, everybody, and have a great day.
unidentified		House should be gaveling in here in just a moment.
		We are waiting for we understand the presiding officer to arrive to gavel the House in to begin legislative business here on C-SPAN.
		Again, live coverage of the U.S. House expected to begin in just a moment here on C-SPAN as we await the arrival of the presiding officer.
		President Trump on Capitol Hill today as members continue working toward a resolution on the budget negotiations.
		We had the president earlier today speaking with reporters.
		Here's a look.
		Mr. President, Mr. President, what's your message?
		What's your message to the holdouts?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's not a question of holdouts.
		We have a tremendously unified party.
		I don't think we've ever had a party like this.
		There's some people that want a couple of things that maybe I don't like or that they're not going to get.
unidentified		But I think we're going to have tremendous not luck.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		We have tremendous talent.
		This man has done an incredible job as Speaker.
		You know, we had a majority of one.
		We were one heart attack away from losing the House.
		Okay, now we have seven.
		That's a big because we won some elections, as you probably noticed, and we're going to win a lot of elections.
		We have an economy that's roaring.
		We took out 5.1 billion.
		If you take a look, 5.1 trillion with a T, not a B. 5.1 trillion out of the Middle East.
		They're investing more than that.
		It's going to be ultimately more than that.
		But 180 wide-body Boeing aircraft.
		They're spending money at levels that nobody's ever seen.
		Usually a president goes for a trip and he loses money.
		In other words, he gives money.
		We went for a trip, but we took out $5.1 trillion.
		Nobody has ever seen anything like it.
		And that's just the beginning.
		So I think we're a very unified party.
		The Senate's doing great.
		John Thun is doing fantastically.
		He's a great guy.
		And we're going to have a bill, the one big, beautiful bill.
		I think it's going to be, it's the biggest bill ever passed.
		And we've got to get it done.
		Tremendous tax cuts for people, tremendous incentives, tremendous regulation cuts, all these regulations that are so horrible.
		And now you find out and find out what happened because Biden, look, it's a very sad thing what happened, but I really, we're going to start looking into this whole thing with who signed this legislation.
		Who signed legislation opening our border?
		I don't think he knew.
		I said there's nobody that could want an open border.
		Nobody.
		And now I find out that it wasn't him.
		He auto-penned it.
		Who was operating the Autopen?
		This is a very serious thing.
		We had a president that didn't sign anything.
		He autoped almost everything.
		He opened the borders of the United States of America.
		And I kept saying, who would do such a thing?
		Allowing criminals to pour in from all over the world, not just South America, all over the world.
		They came in from Africa.
		They came in from Asia.
		They came from the Congo.
		The prisons in the Congo, in Africa, these are rough, rough people.
		The prisons from the Congo are empty.
		You know where they are?
		They're in this country.
		Who would sign this?
		Nobody would sign it.
		No sane person would sign it.
		You know who signed it?
		Radical left lunatics that were running our country.
		And the Autopen signed it.

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