You've been watching the House Rules Committee's consideration of the Republican Reconciliation Bill, otherwise known as the One Big Beautiful Bill.
You can continue watching our live coverage of it over on C-SPAN 2.
For this first half hour, we're getting your thoughts on the bill and its provisions.
Do you support making the 2017 tax cuts permanent?
Do you support proposed changes to Medicaid and SNAP?
What are your thoughts on green energy tax credits?
We'll take your calls.
Here's how to reach us.
Democrats are on 202-748-8000.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
And Independents, 202-748-8002.
You can send us a text to 202-748-8003.
Be sure to include your first name and your city-state.
And you can post your comments on social media, facebook.com slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
As I said, if you'd like to continue watching that House Rules Committee, they are still live.
That's on C-SPAN2.
But we're going to be taking your calls here on Washington Journal.
And a quick update for you from Punch Bowl News.
This from overnight, CBS released a score, and the Congressional Budget Office found that the GOP plan would increase the deficit by $2.3 trillion over a decade.
This would trigger automatic spending cuts in Medicare and other programs without congressional action.
It would also boost the incomes of the richest 10% of Americans while lowering the incomes of the lowest 10%, according to the CBO.
You can read that at Punch Bowl News.
Let's take a look at what Speaker Mike Johnson said yesterday about the expressing confidence about getting this bill passed.
President Trump's One Big Beautiful bill is going to require one big beautiful vote.
And this is our shot.
Best chance.
This is our best chance that we'll ever have in our lifetimes, in any of us, in any of our lifetimes, to deliver on the mandate handed down by so many Americans.
77 million Americans voted for President Trump, more than that.
And in fact, it's exactly what Republicans were sent to Washington to accomplish, as Chairman Jordan said.
By passing this legislation, wages will increase as much as $11,600.
Take-home pay for the typical American family with two kids will increase by $13,300 a year.
As many as 4.2 million full-time equivalent jobs will be created because of this legislation.
But if we fail, here's the alternative.
Here's what the Democrats are going to vote for.
Every American citizen seeing a 22% tax hike.
26 million businesses would see a tax increase of 43%.
We'd lose nearly 6 million jobs in the economy and about $1 trillion in GDP by some estimates.
The Border Patrol and ICE would lack the resources to detain and deport criminal illegal aliens.
And 1.4 million illegals would continue to receive taxpayer funding of health care.
Look, we could go on and on this morning about finishing the border wall and accomplishing all these things that we've talked about.
But we're just going to, I'm going to end it here and tell you that failure is simply not an option.
We have to get this done.
I told President Trump on the campaign trail that I believed he could be the most consequential president of the modern era and arguably maybe one of the most in all of U.S. history, maybe top two or three.
I think this is the way we deliver that.
And by extension, that means that this Congress can be one of the most consequential in history.
We do not take that lightly.
And despite the challenges and the nonstop media criticism and the historically small House majority, we are right on track to deliver.
And that's what you'll see this House do this week.
Now, we're not going to take a lot of questions this morning because we've already done a ton of media with you in the halls.
The President gave you a lot, we gave you a lot.
What we're leaving to do right now is gather up the small subgroups in the House Republican Conference and tie up the remaining loose ends.
I'm very confident that we'll be able to do that.
There's a great esprit de corps in the room this morning because everybody knows what's at stake.
All the things we've talked about here this morning, we are going to get this done.
Speaker Johnson, yesterday saying failure is not an option.
Well, there has been criticism over the timing of the Rules Committee, and this is a posting on X by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts saying this: Republicans are scheduling votes in the dead of night on Trump's big, beautiful bill.
They advanced their bill last night at 10:30 p.m.
The next vote is scheduled for 1 a.m. on Wednesday.
Why hide?
Maybe because this bill rips away health care for babies, new moms, and seniors.
And House Rules Committee Chair, Representative Virginia Fox, reacted to those criticisms in her opening statement.
Here's a portion: Our friends on the other side of the aisle love to cherry-pick the facts about how this meeting is taking place in the dark of night.
They've done it for several committee markups thus far.
Never mind the fact that the only reason the hearings went as long as they did was because Democrats engaged in the legislative process, which is their right.
But here's the thing: they can't have their cake and eat it, too.
They cannot complain about reporting legislation in the dark of night when the only reason it went so late was because of their own actions.
Now, in the case of the Rules Committee, the same holds true.
The Rules Committee has a long tradition of meeting late into the evening and reporting legislation long after most of America has gone to bed.
It is our duty to advance the agenda of the House of Representatives, the People's House.
Let's roll the clocks back to when Democrats held the majority in the 110th and 111th Congress.
They reported legislation out of the Rules Committee well into the twilight hours.
I know of what I speak.
I was on the Rules Committee then.
For example, HRES 587, 3:47 a.m., HRES 40, 481, 209 a.m., HRES 597, 343 a.m., HRES 903, 225 a.m., and HRES 445 in the 116th Congress, 1220 a.m.
I don't do not think there's anything wrong with this.
It is how the committee has operated when necessary.
It has occurred under Democrat and Republican control.
In this case, I do believe we'll be reporting not in the dark of night, but after the day has dawned.
I encourage my colleagues on the other side to prove me wrong.
John Thuon and Mike have been very closely aligned on this.
They've been moving it up together.
unidentified
Apparently, he said, don't happen with Medicaid accounts.
You can say in the room, there is some concern among some Republicans, including Senator Josh Halding, that this could impact benefits and they can be amount to important.
Massey, unmoved on Trump's big beautiful bill after President's personal pitch.
It says, President Donald Trump called Representative Thomas Massey a, quote, grandstander during his visit on the Capitol Tuesday morning to whip support for his big beautiful bill after previously calling for other Republicans to wage primary challenges against the Kentucky Republican.
Massey said he's unbothered and still a no on the legislation House GOP leaders hope to pass later this week.
That's at Politico.
And we have a message here on Facebook from Simon who is strongly opposed to the bill.
He says sending all of the tax cuts to the wealthy class while cutting support for the poor is disgusting.
Never forget the people in charge of the House are the same people that perpetrated the insurrection attempt.
MAGA Mike is a wolf in the hen house.
And Vicki says, I've never made over $70K in my life.
I'm one of those people who get up and work, go to work every day.
One of the proposals I like is the extra deduction for people over 65.
It will triple the standard deduction.
That will basically make their Social Security tax free.
Well, we're taking your calls this morning for about another 15, 20 minutes or so.
The lines are by party.
So if you're a Democrat, call us on 202-748-8000.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
And Independents 202-748-8002.
Here is the front page of the Wall Street Journal that says this.
President tells GOP dissenters to drop objections.
Trump signals waning patients with opposition over Medicaid and SALT CAP.
It says the president turned the screws on holdout Republicans, warning they would pay a steep political price if they stood in the way of the multi-trillion dollar tax and spending agenda that party leaders want to pass quickly through the narrowly divided chamber.
In a closed-door meeting Tuesday with the House GOP conference, the president urged fiscal conservatives to give up efforts to expand Medicaid cuts and a block of moderates to drop their drive for further blue state tax relief, pushing them to unite around his one big beautiful budget bill.
According to people familiar with his comments, quote, don't F around with Medicaid, Trump said, according to attendees.
And speaking of holdouts, here's Representative Mike Lawler, a Republican of New York.
He was on Fox News yesterday, and he is one that is pushing for higher SALT deduction.
Allowing the tax cuts to expire would be catastrophic.
It would be the single largest tax increase in American history.
But I'm not going to sacrifice my constituents and throw them under the bus in a bad faith negotiation, which is what this has been by leadership and Jason Smith.
So I'm sitting in the Speaker's office.
I just left those negotiations that have restarted since this morning to come talk to you.
And I'll be going back right after we finish this.
And this is Carlo, who is on Facebook saying, imagine being against no taxes on tips and being for taxes on Social Security.
You pay taxes so you can get Social Security benefits.
And when you receive your benefits, you're taxed on your benefits.
Imagine being for that.
Now, speaking of taxes on tips that this poster mentioned, this is the Hill with this news.
Senate unanimously approves bill to eliminate tax on tips.
It says the Senate on Tuesday yesterday passed a bill that would eliminate federal taxes on tips, advancing with the help of Democrats a top campaign promise of President Trump that Senator Jackie Rosen, a Democrat of Nevada, brought the bill to the floor with the expectation that it would be blocked.
But Senator Ted Cruz declined to.
It passed via unanimous consent.
So that has passed the Senate.
We'll see what the House does with that.
And here is House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar yesterday on the changes that the GOP mega bill will make to Medicaid.
And he specifically talks about health coverage to illegal immigrants.
unidentified
One way Republicans cut spending, cut people off Medicaid, is cutting the reimbursement rate to states where state Medicaid programs include non-citizens.
In California, Governor Newsom, but it's not cutting off all non-citizens, but he's capping that.
I wondered, there are two of you from California, one, if you support that.
Two, if states girding for this bill should be reduced to the number of non-citizens preparing for what Republicans might do here who are eligible for Medicaid.
unidentified
I know they're going after SNAP2, but just on the Medicaid part.
I want the vice chair to speak and actually Dr. Schreier as well.
But let's be very clear.
No federal Medicaid dollars are going to provide health care to individuals who are undocumented.
I think you'll accept that, and that is a current fact.
Some states have chosen.
Some states have said, including Washington and the state of California, have chosen to provide health care to everyone because, mind you, people will get health care.
We can help choose, and our state leaders have said, we would prefer you have health care than you show up to an emergency room and provide the most expensive way to provide care through that process.
And so our state leaders have independently made that decision.
Now, the Trump administration and House Republicans are choosing to penalize those states by reducing their FMAP funding, their health care funding.
What that is going to do is it's going to hurt the entire system, including mostly rural health care in California and Washington and in other states.
Hospitals will close because of that lowered FMAP contribution.
So if that's the ultimate goal of what House Republicans want is they want less access to care, they want people less healthy.
They want people to drive in rural America to drive further for their health care options, then they should be very clear about that.
And maybe they are being clear.
By having a 10 p.m. budget hearing, a 27-hour markup, by the way, where health care started at 2 a.m., 3 a.m., and having the rules committee start at 1 a.m., it sure seems to me that they don't want to talk about taking health care from people.
Here's more information about that from the Washington Post.
It says a revised House GOP bill takes aim at health coverage for immigrants.
A revised version of the House Republican budget reconciliation bill further cracks down on states that provide health coverage to immigrants according to a text scheduled to be voted on by the Rules Committee.
States that provide Medicaid and children's health insurance program coverage to lawfully residing children and pregnant people would receive a lower federal matching grant, federal matching rate for Medicaid enrollees covered under the expansion in the 2010 health care law.
The change is likely to appeal to House conservatives who have been a difficult faction for the House Speaker, Mike Johnson, to win over as he seeks to get the broader spending bill passed by the end of the week.
The bill already contained a provision to penalize the 14 states and the District of Columbia that use their own dollars to cover some undocumented immigrants, a provision Democrats have strongly criticized.
If those states drop or scale back their programs to avoid the penalty, more than 1.9 million people could lose their health coverage, according to KFF.
That's a health policy research organization.
And that's again at the Washington Post.
And this is Stephen, New Bedford, Massachusetts, Independent.
But one of the things that I've noticed in the conversation between both sides is one side is defending those that are going to lose or those who will be hurt if this bill is going to be passed.
unidentified
And on the other side, I hear them explaining how that isn't true, how they're not going to hurt this.
It's not going to be harmful for this side or these folk or whatever.
But I never hear the right side, I mean, the Republican side, talk about how it's going to benefit those people that are getting those tax cuts and how the millionaires and billionaires are going to benefit from the bill.
They're always defending the bill.
But what it really comes down to is there's the 98% or 90-something percent of the population.
Joshua sent us this on Facebook, and then I'll have you respond to it, okay?
He says this.
Every time in the modern history of our country that a tax cut of this size has been implemented, we saw at least 3% growth and a reduction in the debt.
That is why Democrats don't want it, because they can kiss taking back Congress goodbye with 3 or greater percent growth.
What do you think of that?
unidentified
Numbers come and go.
Six months, a year, the numbers always change.
But one thing is a fact is the economic trickle-down thing never works.
I mean, they drag it out and they drag it out.
But when it comes down to it, that 98% or whatever it is population, they never benefit.
It's always the top, you know, the top people that benefit from it in the long run.
But, you know, when we go to war, it's always the people from the 90 percent that go.
The one percenters get deferments or whatever.
But the Republican Party has been built on the backs of.
And, Justin, regarding tax cuts, since you brought that up, how do you think that the less income that the federal government brings in impacts the national debt?
unidentified
Well, they don't bring in less income.
Come on, now, you're on C-SPAN.
You've got the stats.
Why don't you show a chart of revenue to the federal government over the last 10, 20 years and let me know when they've received less revenue?
It doesn't happen.
Now, that's a you shouldn't even ask that question.
If you just put up data, if you just put up the data and show the truth, our federal government hasn't had a revenue cut ever.
First of all, I think we need to retitle this bill.
This is the Big Bad Billionaires Bill.
Forget this big, beautiful nonsense.
This bill is 1,100 pages.
For the average citizen like myself, we, one, we can't see the bill.
We hear about the markup.
We can't find the text of the bill online.
And at 1,100 pages, nobody has the time, probably the time or the ability to analyze it in detail.
I default to the Congressional Budget Office.
And their analysis says that in the long term, this bill is bad for the country.
If you listen to Republicans, they have one position.
If you listen to Democrats, they have one position.
I defer to a non-partisan governmental organization that has, if you look at what their recommendations have been over the years, they have been correct.
And in my opinion, this bill is bad for the poor.
It's bad for the elderly.
It's bad for the disenfranchised.
This bill is good for one group.
It's the top one percenters.
And for that other person who was on blind before me, I'm not sure what he's saying.
How does a tax cut not benefit?
Yeah, it might not be a budget item, but if you don't have to pay those taxes, that benefits you.
I mean, we're getting to the point that people are asking us to be just ignorant in our analysis of basic statements.
So, my position is: defer to the budget office.
Their recommendation is that this is a bad bill for the poor and the disenfranchised, and that's good enough for me.
I think a lot of the issue in the Senate will be, as I mentioned earlier, does it have sufficient spending reforms to get us on a more sustainable fiscal path?
I think most of our members are in favor of a lot of the tax policy, and particularly those portions of the tax policy that are stimulative, that are pro-growth, that will create greater growth in the economy.
But when it comes to the spending side of the equation, this is a unique moment in time and in history where we have the House and the Senate and the White House and an opportunity to do something meaningful about out-of-control government spending.
So I think a lot of it's around that.
There are dials and tweaks on some of the tax issues that our members will want to talk about.
I think one of the principal differences, at least right now, in some of the House versions that I've seen, and I can't speak because they haven't passed it yet, is they have cliffs in some shorter term, I would say, timeframes when it comes to some of the tax policies.
We believe that permanence is the way to create economic certainty and thereby attract and incentivize capital investment in this country that creates those good paying jobs and gets our economy growing and expanding and generates more government revenue.
So there are different views about what the length of some of these tax policies ought to be, and we'll have an opportunity to be heard on that when it comes to the Senate.
And some posts on Facebook from Gary, he says, 100% support.
Without it, the 2017 tax cuts expire.
Why is it that tax cuts have expiration dates but tax increases don't?
And Barb in Long Grove, Illinois says, I oppose passing of the big beautiful bill, at least the way it stands now.
In order to provide tax breaks, it not only cuts funding for Medicare and Medicaid, but also funding for community service programs, all while increasing spending and the deficit.
And that's the time we've got, but there's a lot more coming because at the top of the hour, we have Democrat Glenn Ivey of Maryland.
He's a member of the Appropriations Committee with his take on the GOP budget package and how Democrats plan to fight back.
He's the first of two lawmakers joining us this morning.
But coming up right after the break, Reese Gorman of the new site Notice will be here to talk about the moment of truth for the president's big beautiful bill and what hurdles remain as it heads for a final vote.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
In a nation divided, a rare moment of unity.
This fall, C-SPAN presents Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins in a town where partisan fighting prevails.
One table, two leaders, one goal, to find common ground.
This fall, ceasefire on the network that doesn't take sides, only on C-SPAN.
American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2, exploring the people and events that tell the American story.
This weekend, at 4.45 p.m. Eastern, hear from Vietnam and Afghanistan Medal of Honor recipients Dwight Birdwell and Clinton Romashe about their wartime experiences after receiving the nation's highest military award for valor.
And then at 8 p.m. Eastern on Lectures in History, Hillsdale College history professor Mark Moyer explores the various schools of thought on the Vietnam War, focusing on debates over the war's necessity and whether the United States could have achieved victory.
At 9 p.m. Eastern on Real America, watch a 1960 Federal Emergency Management Agency film on how to build a fallout shelter in your home.
It was produced with the National Concrete Masonry Association and was originally titled, Walt Builds a Family Fallout Shelter.
And at 1145 p.m. Eastern, House Speaker Mike Johnson presents the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest civilian honor, to the 6th 888th Women's Army Corps Battalion for their contributions during World War II.
Known as the 6th 888, they were the first all-female, all-black unit to serve overseas, sorting male in Europe.
Exploring the American story.
Watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history.
It's not in a great place right now, that's for sure.
There is so many different factions at the moment warring over what they want, what they need.
You have the state and local income tax or SALT folks, which is Republicans from Blue States, New York, New Jersey, California, really pushing to get an increase in the SALT cap, which is currently at 10,000.
They want that raised to about, well, if they either way, they'd have a raise of $62,000, but that's not going to be $62,000.
So right now, the offer on the table is $40,000 raised there.
They're negotiating over that, but if you give those folks that, on the other side, you're going to have the Freedom Caucus, the hardline conservatives, they're going to be like, that's increasing the deficit.
That's spending a lot of money.
We need more Medicaid cuts.
We need more Cuts X place because we need to stop spending all this money.
You give that to them, then you have moderates that are going to be like, oh, you're cutting Medicaid.
You're making all these unpopular cuts.
That's going to help me, like hurt me in my district.
And I'm not voting for it then if you do this.
So it's like a warring faction where like if you give one group one thing, the other group's going to be mad, then another group's going to be upset.
You can't really bring it all together.
And the leadership was hoping, GOP leadership that is, was hoping that Trump coming in yesterday would kind of smooth things over and win people over.
And it didn't really seem to do that.
Andy Harris, the chair of the Freedom Caucus from Maryland, left the meeting saying that he didn't think Trump assuaged many concerns.
He didn't convince many voters.
He didn't think he did an adequate job of doing that.
And so that's how Andy Harris left the meeting.
And also quite a few other folks left too, being like, this bill still, I mean, Trump might like it, but we still don't like it.
And late last night, CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, released their score of the bill saying that the bill increases the deficit by $2.3 trillion, which is not going to be great for these hardline conservatives who are obsessed with cutting the deficit.
Well, there's not, so I mean, they're messaging, obviously.
I mean, they're definitely messaging against the vulnerable Republicans, being like, oh, they're going to vote for a bill that cuts Medicaid, that slashes it by $800 billion.
But, I mean, as far as crafting the policy goes, they can't really do much.
This is a bill that Democrats are never going to vote for anyways.
Republicans are not even kind of betting on Democrats voting for this bill.
So they're really just kind of messaging, trying to hold it up as much as they can, whether it be through hearings.
I mean, we saw a 28-hour hearing last week.
We saw a 16-hour hearing in a committee last week.
So Democrats are really just trying to hold it up where they can in hearings.
Right now, there's a rules committee hearing going on.
So right now there's a bill, and the bill is going through Rules Committee, but they need to make changes to the bill, as I was mentioning previously, because people are upset.
You have all those warring factions trying to cut deals and get on board, and they're not on board the current bill.
So right now, it needs to go the rules committee's meeting, and a manager's amendment is introduced by the chair of the committee, who then basically changes the bill.
So not the entire thing, but it makes broad changes and big changes to the bill.
And that's voted on, and then that incorporates and kind of overpowers some of the bills.
So it makes changes to things that then these members can be like, okay, well, like SALT right now in the bill, the SALT cap, I think, is 30,000.
Yes, so that quote is from a member in the room when we were talking to, and I was like, because Trump was in the room and sources were texting us saying that Trump's saying, don't F with Medicaid was the exact words he used, don't cut Medicaid.
He told them to, he told the SALT guys to just accept what they have and take it.
He told, was basically just telling everyone, this bill cuts spending.
This bill does that.
The bill doesn't do that.
The bill does, in his words, quote, F with Medicaid.
The bill does increase spending, as CBO found.
And there is a significant, there is an increase in the SALT cap.
I mean, it's quadrupled the SALT cap from what it currently is.
And so the bill that Trump was kind of pitching in this room to the members is very different than what the bill actually is, which is it does cut Medicaid.
It does increase SALT cap, and it does increase spending.
I think it's a little, I think it's a little, I think it's mostly doesn't care.
I think that he has, members believe that he has his agenda.
He's set forth on passing his agenda.
This bill is his, the vast majority of his agenda.
I mean, it does have immigration.
It has energy policies.
It has no tax on tips.
There's no tax, like it has all that stuff in there that he wants.
And so I think that he is just dead set focused on getting this over the finish line.
And the issues that the members have are not issues that he campaigned on.
So it's like he didn't campaign on cutting the deficit or slashing Medicaid or he did campaign on increasing salt multiple times, but now he seems to have backtracked on that.
So I mean, the members' issues that they have with the bill, it's not necessarily Trump's priorities.
It's the other stuff that's going into this bill as well.
Yes, I mean, there's no actual law, legal binding of this deadline.
This is something John said he wanted to do.
Theoretically, I mean, a lot of members, I mean, to my point, Andy Harris here, the Freedom Caucus has said, let's just take Memorial Day recess to work on this, to fix it, to find, to negotiate, to keep negotiating and talking, because it's, I mean, clearly they're far away right now.
There's nothing really moving them forward.
They're kind of stuck.
But Johnson is dead set on getting this done by Memorial Day.
And so odds are, I mean, they're going to try to vote today or tomorrow.
I've heard some members, staffers, propose that maybe they vote on today, even if it fails, at least they know, one, who is a no.
Then, two, Trump could publicly kind of pressure these members, his Trump fan base, Trump World, online, as we can pressure these members, as we saw with the funding bill in December that kind of got it all changed right away.
And so I think that we, I think that there are a lot of avenues that they're looking at, but I do believe that Johnson really wants, whether he's ready to go or not, to have a vote today or tomorrow.
Let's talk to callers, starting with Richard in Buffalo, New York, Republican.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
Honored to be with you and Rees.
I wanted to bring up two historical points in relationship to what's being debated and get Reese's opinion.
So the original 2016 tax cuts were done by Trump.
I think he said it as to reshore billions of dollars that corporations had parked outside our country.
And it follows that if you tax $1 trillion at 30% or $2 trillion at 18%, you get more revenue when you tax $2 trillion at $18.
So it's a tax cut, but in effect, it lowers taxes for citizens.
And the renewal just does that.
The Democrats had two years under Biden with the House and the Senate, and they could have undone it, but they did not because they understand the economics.
And then the other second point, and I'll let I'll get off, is during the election, Kamala Harris's plan was going to raise the debt over 10 years by 4.5 trillion.
And then they said Trump would raise the debt by 8 to 10 trillion.
That was during the campaign.
Well, and that was with Kamala Harris raising taxes on billionaires for $500 billion over 10 years.
But now we have a bill that says Trump's only going to raise national debt by $3.6 trillion.
So he beat the projections on his, and he beat the projections on Kamala Harris's financial outlook during the campaign.
So I'll just mention those and hope to hear Reese's response.
I mean, to his point, on the first point about the TCJ, the tax cuts and jobs acts, Trump tax cuts.
Democrats, I mean, the tax cuts, I mean, I think if you were to just put the tax TCGA reauthorization on the floor, I do think it would get bipartisan support.
Democrats would vote to reauthorize that.
I think they'd also vote to increase the SALT cut.
They'd vote for, we saw in the Senate, no tax on tips passed by unanimous consent yesterday, which is it's kind of more just a showboat because taxes have to start in the House.
So this is more just a show, like, oh, okay, here.
But to his point, I mean, these tax cuts have become more widely popular on a bipartisan basis.
But I think the reason, or I know the reason why this bill will solely be a partisan is because of all the other stuff included in there that isn't tax related.
It's the immigration stuff.
It's the cuts.
It's the energy policy.
It's the IRA clean energy subsidies being kind of removed.
It's all these different things that are in the bill on top of the taxes.
If you were to just put a tax bill on, he's correct.
It would be bipartisan support because these are widely popular now.
It's just all the other stuff that's added in is why this is kind of just a partisan bill at this point.
Let's go to Lawrence for Democrats in Jacksonville, Florida.
Letitia, good morning.
unidentified
Yes, I was complaining I would not vote for that bill for the simple reason if we eliminate all the charges and all the money that Donald Trump spent flying all over the country making deals with people and using the White House as an ATM machine, the taxes would be lowered.
But I'm against it totally.
And I agree with what your speakers were saying about the bill and so forth and so on and all the things they're taken from us.
I was born in 1950 and so I've never seen our country like this before.
My parents grew up in Jim Crow.
I've never seen a country like this before.
And my grandparents are from rural Georgia.
I've never seen a country like this before.
And so therefore, I don't know my country anymore.
And because they always look out for the poor, the children, the mothers, we always took care of us.
And so I hope that I'm totally against this bill because it doesn't look like America.
Yeah, so they are, luckily they went away from some of the more controversial cuts, which they were looking at, which was the FMAP provisions, which was the per capita caps.
So those were things that they were talking about that a lot of the moderates had a lot of hindrance to.
They do kind of, I mean, if they were to go away, CBO and release that there would be significant numbers of people that would lose Medicaid help because they're, I mean, they're trying to add in work requirements right now, which they're trying to, and also, I mean, right now they would start in 2029 for able-bodied adults on Medicaid.
They're trying to move that up and accelerate that to December of 2026, which coincidentally is just right after the midterms as well before there's a start.
But so that would be one thing that would do.
And also, I mean, a significant number of people would lose coverage under this bill.
I know Trump has said that he just wants to cut fraud, waste, and abuse.
But adding in some of these cuts, I mean, I think it's upwards of $800 billion.
You're going to lose some people that do fall under that as well.
And so those are some things that they're doing.
I mean, a lot of the most controversial stuff, the FMAP, the per capita caps, are currently not in there.
And there's a lot of states, like Republicans, there's states where Republicans are from that did Medicaid expansion, and that would hurt them as well because they'd be voting basically to take away a share of their Medicaid.
I think to her point, there was a lot of conversation and working behind the scenes to see if they could raise taxes on the highest earners, which would just be basically to re, I think it would bring the cap, the tax rate for the highest earners to think 39.7%.
I mean, there were so many conservatives that were like, why would you want to do this?
And their mindset was, the conservatives who were pushing for this, was, I mean, this is a way to generate revenue when we're spending money.
But the base, the Republican base, who for years and decades has always been like, we're the party of cutting taxes.
Like, why would you ever want to raise revenue, raise taxes on people to pay for government spending?
That's never been a conservative belief or ideology.
And so while there was like a handful of like 20 Republicans that were really kind of gunning for this, the vast majority of the conference was against it.
And Johnson was never going to put that on the floor.
So the holdouts, you got your SALT caucus, which is Mike Lawler, Andrew Garbarino, Nicola Loda, Elise Stefanik, those kinds of people who are New York Republicans pushing for a higher salt rate, salt cap.
And then you have the conservatives, which is the like of Josh Perkeen from Oklahoma, Ralph Norman from South Carolina, Chip Roy from Texas, Andy Harris from Maryland.
You have Andy Ogles from Tennessee, that whole group.
That's just naming a few.
There's a lot of other holdouts.
These are just some of them.
And then you have your moderates who the moderates are not saying we're not voting for this.
They're more just saying, like, okay, Medicaid cuts, like, let's hinder this.
Let's cut this back.
You have your moderates who have, they could very well be a no if Medicaid cuts increases or whatever.
You have the likes of Dave Valdeo from California, Rob Bresnahan from Pennsylvania, Dodd Bacon from Nebraska, those folks who are very opposed to cutting Medicaid because they represent districts with a high population of Medicaid.
And so right now, I mean, I think if you were to put the bill on the floor, I don't know how these folks will vote.
They're more behind the scenes.
They're not as vocal as some of the other groups.
But if you were to see them maybe add some of those different kinds of cuts in there to kind of please some of the conservatives, they would be more vocal.
But okay, now we're not voting for this because you gave them something that we cannot accept.
And it's possible since they're students, they're not making enough income to be taxed.
Let's hope that's the case.
Albert in Coilers, Collierville, Tennessee.
Sorry, Democrat.
unidentified
Hi.
And good morning to you.
Listen, I observed the session last night, but this morning, you might as well say at one o'clock.
And I was surprised because I'm trying to understand why would the Republican Party just dump this huge, ugly, over 1,000-page bill down our throat.
It doesn't make any sense.
I'm trying to wrap my brain around why you would take away the insurance benefits of over 13 million people for the sake of giving a billionaire $300,000 or giving a millionaire $68,000.
I think that's a drop in the budget for them.
That means nothing to them.
I don't think we should have that included as a tax cut in the bill.
First and foremost, $300 billion of SNAP benefits taken away from the public is wrong.
We have children, elderly, and disabled people who rely on those SNAP benefits to live.
So we're just going to let them perish by the wayside and do nothing.
We're going to put more stressors on the nonprofits, the churches, to help these people in their time of need.
This is ridiculous.
And the Republican Party ought to be ashamed of themselves.
It benefits, so salt deductions, state, local tax, it is a benefit that is given to, it mostly benefits the richer people in blue states with high tax rates.
Democratic-held states, New York, New Jersey, California, tend to have higher tax rates than, say, Texas with no income tax, et cetera.
And so it's used to benefit basically that they can deduct this portion of their taxes, save some money, because there are states already taxing them so much.
And so that's why you see a lot of conservatives opposed to this.
I've had members tell me that, oh, why should I pay for rich people living in New York when I'm over here living in X State, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas?
They're like, we're subsidizing just people living in a high-tax state.
And because ultimately, I mean, that's not necessarily what it is, but that's a belief that some conservatives have.
That's why you have a very small portion, I mean, like four, five, six, seven people of the 221 Republican, 220 Republican conference actually fighting for this.
But the reason why you have to listen to these eight groups of eight is because they, right now, it's enough to take the bill.
And they want that also extended for over the 10 years, so the full life of a normal tax bill as opposed to, I mean, the original office was four years, and they're like, no, we don't want that 10 years.
And so, yeah, I mean, it would only apply to, it wouldn't apply to like someone making like $50 million.
But that's kind of, I mean, they're thinking is like, are voters kind of like that's why they're sent here.
I mean, the voters in 2016 when TCGA, so, I mean, salt used to not be capped.
I mean, it was capped in TCGA under Trump the first go-around is kind of what implemented this cap.
And so these blue state Republicans really, really then started pushing for this increase in the salt cap because their voters obviously wanted it because like, okay, well, like, I could have, I could get a deduction now, which is a $10,000 deduction, which is really low comparatively to what it used to be.
And so that's why they're pushing for this quadruple in like $40,000 now.
There could be I think that there's the risk right now.
I mean, I think the portion of it is just a cut from illegal immigrants that are on it.
But I think that there is, I think the risk is, which is what a lot of these analyses have said, is that you're going to get people that are allowed to be on Medicaid that are going to lose coverage under this, like such as people who are on green cards, whatever, because it's just going to fall by the wayside because they're adding all these things.
And I mean, the scores have all said that people are going to incidentally lose it.
And then he did not like the follow-up question, which was just kind of also just like, well, like they're saying that your speech didn't really spray any votes.
And then he asked where I worked.
I said, notice, and he told me to get yourself a real job.
We'll be right back on November 17th, 2002, 23 years ago, Rich Atkinson appeared on the Book Notes 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 in 10 dexes.
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 Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
BookNotes Plus is available on the C-SPAN Now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Book TV, every Sunday on C-SPAN 2, features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
At 2.45 p.m. Eastern, Book TV presents coverage of the 2025 San Antonio Book Festival.
You'll hear author discussions on the Uvalde school shooting, Texas history, the impact of Jose Cuervo Tequila on America-Mexico relations, and more.
And at 8 p.m. Eastern, attorney Christine Menidas, author of Why the World Doesn't Make Sense, argues that Americans are unknowingly giving up their freedom and sovereignty to the government, private institutions, and global organizations.
And then at 9 p.m., Jonathan Cohen with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences looks at the downside of legalized sports gambling, dominated today by companies like FanDuel and DraftKings, with his book, Losing Big.
Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
Like I said, the Congressional Budget Office has said it's around $700 billion in cuts.
There are independent entities, including conservative ones, that tag this around those numbers.
The reason he wants to pretend like that's not going to happen is because the cuts to Medicaid are so deeply unpopular across the country, not just in blue states, not just in blue jurisdictions, but in red jurisdictions as well, because they know that that means their hospitals are going to shut down potentially.
They're going to lose doctors and nurses.
There's going to be a dramatic contraction in the availability of health care and an increase in the number of health care deserts across the country, including in the states where the Republicans look to for their key base of support.
Well, we've been pushing, targeting Republicans, really, who are, I think, most at risk with respect to the impact of these and living in districts where they won by relatively small margins in the last election cycle.
I think you had Greg Kassar on earlier today talking some about that and some of the other Democrats who've been going around and doing meetings and other or town hall meetings in other people's jurisdictions that are areas where Republicans have either refused to hold town hall meetings or been circumspect about trying to do it.
But we think that when the information gets out, we win on this issue and that's why the Republicans are trying to duck it, avoiding town halls, holding meetings and hearings in like 1 a.m. in the middle of the night and that sort of thing.
No, as you know, the Moody's has downgraded the U.S. credit rating and they pointed the blame at, quote, successive U.S. administrations in Congress failing to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest rate cuts.
Well, I think you can certainly say that this deficit's been growing over a period of decades now.
I think Bill Clinton was the last president to actually balance the budget.
So it's been growing for a while.
I think the key point here in the timing for Moody's announcement was they wanted to get that out before this vote takes place, especially the vote that would add $3.7 to $4 trillion more in the current deficit.
The Bipartisan Policy Center recently released a report showing that your home state of Maryland was among the top five states with taxpayers claiming the state and local tax deduction.
That's salt.
The current cap is $10,000.
Republicans are arguing right now over raising or eliminating that cap.
And, you know, to your point with respect to the debate within the Republican caucus, you have a number of Republicans, especially in the New York area, but not solely, who desperately need to have the salt tax issue addressed.
The Republican caucus is balking at that, and that's creating problems for them.
But, you know, as I mentioned a minute ago, they live in the districts that the Democrats are targeting because we think we can win those seats back, among others, and retake the majority in the House in the midterm elections next year.
And what they do here on this vote is going to be pivotal.
And as we've been watching, there's been litigation about that.
It began in court, I think, about two months ago.
The Trump administration acknowledged that they had made a mistake in deporting him and sending him to El Salvador because a previous judge had said you can't deport him and send him to El Salvador because they wanted to try and keep him away from MS-13.
But that's exactly what the Trump administration did.
Having acknowledged that they'd made that mistake, they're now refusing to bring him back, even though you've gotten court orders from the Supreme Court and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals saying that he should be brought back.
I think the Supreme Court said that they should facilitate his return.
Judge Harvey Wilkinson in the Fourth Circuit used much stronger language to say just how un-American, frankly, this really is.
People should get their due process opportunity to have their day in court.
And the Constitution says persons, not citizens, so it applies to everybody that's here.
He didn't get his day in court, and they sent him down to El Salvador, and they're dragging their feet on bringing him back.
So currently, you have the district court judge, Paula Zenis, who's, I think, putting together a factual record so that when we get to the point where they have to hold people in the Trump administration in contempt, there'll be a factual basis to support that and carry it up when it goes up through the Court of Appeals and to the Supreme Court.
I really can't comment on that because I'm on the ethics committee here in the House, and my expectation is that's going to be a matter that ends up before the committee in relatively short order.
So I can't say anything in public about it.
Certainly nothing that would suggest that I'm prejudging the merits of that decision.
So I'll have to wait until after that case has been resolved to comment on it publicly.
Well, I think I understand your point to be that the proposed tax cuts the Republicans are floating would give much bigger cuts to very high-income individuals like Elon Musk and would result in losses to lower income people.
I think that was been recently confirmed by the CBO scoring.
So really it's a transfer of wealth from the needy to the greedy and the people who are losing it, not just on the tax front, but on the cuts we're talking about with respect to Medicaid and other services, tend to be lower income people who need it the most.
So it's really a shocking scenario, it seems to me, because I agree with the caller.
Elon Musk doesn't need additional help from the federal government, at least not any more than he's already gotten.
I think it was like $34 million is one of his first subsidies he got to launch one of his companies.
We don't need to keep giving him money.
We've got people, the elderly, kids who need school lunches and the like because they can't afford the food at home, the disabled.
Now, Republicans are saying on those tax cuts, if they were to expire, Americans, and this is the middle class, across the board would see the biggest tax increase in American history.
You know, the point we were just making was, you know, the people who would benefit the most from this extension are very much the highest income individuals in the country, millionaires and billionaires, literally.
And by the way, you know, I think Democrats would be happy to sit down with the Republicans if they ever get to the point where they actually want to negotiate a tax package that targets low-income and middle-income people.
If we want to help small businesses, I'd be more than willing to work to target that.
If we want to help families with, say, child care tax credit, you know, the talk about no taxes on tips and wages of certain types, I'd be open to discussing that.
But the types of cuts they're talking about that really drive the $4 trillion number don't have anything to do with those amounts.
And that's also true with respect to the cuts that they're making across the board.
I agree with most of what she said, too, at the front end of that, you know, with respect to the tax cuts that are proposed.
It's going to go to people that really don't need it and aren't likely to put it back into the economy.
Certainly not as consumers in the way that I think helps to spur growth and keep the economy going and add jobs.
Now, there are ways to help small businesses, for example, increase the number of jobs and the like, but these taxes aren't really aimed at doing that.
And we haven't even mentioned the impact of the tariffs yet.
If you want to hurt small businesses as well as large businesses, the across-the-board reckless tariffs that he put in place is the absolute way to go.
I mean, it's one of the most destructive moves with respect to the national economy that I can recall since the Nixon administration.
So hopefully the Trump administration can get its act together.
On that front, they've made a step in the right direction, but there's still major tariffs that are still in place that are still damaging small businesses and raising prices for consumers, just taking money out of people's pockets instead of putting it in.
Here's Kashov in Silver Spring, Maryland, Independent Line.
Good morning.
unidentified
Hi.
So I have a couple of questions for you, Congressman.
First off, I'm following the passing of the most favored nation, that executive order, and then the various Medicare and Medicaid cuts.
And I'm just wondering why, so even for the most favored nation, it brings the price we pay in line with what other nations would pay for drugs that we don't, you know, I guess, quote unquote, subsidize their drug costs.
But we overpay even relative to what American companies like pharmacies pay without insurance.
There are drugs that we overpay by hundreds of millions of dollars each year compared to what, for example, an independent pharmacy that doesn't take insurance, what they would pay for the drugs.
And I don't understand why are these big pharma companies allowed to just fleece our government like this, taking hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of million dollars for singular drugs.
These are singular drugs that we're overpaying by up to six and $800 million per year just because of that.
So that's my first question.
And then second is I'm seeing from various representatives from multiple states, specifically the two that just banned fluoride and the water supply.
And the justification is, look, it's an American value that we should be able to choose our own medication, our own treatment.
It shouldn't be mandated on anyone.
And how that's enforced is very subjective, but I think that is an American value that most people would agree with, almost everyone.
So on that note, I would like to know, why is it allowed to have blanket infant circumcision in this country still?
It's a complete cosmetic procedure that should be elective, and it's elective in most other developed countries.
And I'm not sure why when the science shows that it's unnecessary, that pretty much every condition that it prevents, it can also be cured by circumcision when caught as early as pretty much every medical institution in the United States catches it.
Well, it's not circumcision is not required in the United States, and I'll spare you the details, but I know that from personal experience, that that's not required.
The American people can make the choices they want on that front.
On the prescription drug cost, I think you're absolutely right.
You know, the United States pays far more for many of these drugs, in fact, the vast majority of them than other countries do.
The Biden administration took some steps to try and address that using the federal government's negotiating power to bring costs down with respect to, say, insulin and some of those types of drugs.
I think they targeted 10 altogether, but may have run out of time.
I'm not sure if the Trump administration picked up where they left off.
The Trump executive order, though, was just a show because the executive orders don't influence the prices of prescription drugs.
You either need to pass a law here in Congress to try and address it or do what Biden did and negotiate it down using the power of the federal government as a customer to do it.
Hopefully the Trump administration will get serious about that and stop the gamesmanship and actually try and address it directly.
Let's talk to one of your constituents in Laurel, Maryland, Democrat Todd.
You're on with Representative Glenn Ivey.
unidentified
Hi, Mr. Ivey.
So great to speak with you.
My biggest concern is that the right and the left are operating on two separate versions of reality and one American network is feeding propaganda to the majority of the people in rural America.
What can we do to get on the same page and see things eye to eye?
Well, I mean, one of the things we're trying to do is, you know, try and find outlets that are neutral and provide information.
You know, I wish we could have a thousand C-SPANs across the media spectrum.
Unfortunately, we don't.
And the way media has gone is in a very polarized direction.
And it's created, I think, to your point, sort of silos where people hear only their side of the story.
One of the things Democrats are trying to do is to get in those silos where the conservatives, the MAGA Republicans and the like are hearing one side of it.
We want to try and present our side of it too to make sure that they hear that.
And that means not just TV, you know, or not just cable, but podcasts, you know, some of these radio shows, talk shows, call-in shows, whatever it is.
We've got to, you know, meet people where they are and try and address those issues and tell the American people what our side of it is, what we think ought to be done, and how it would be better for them than what the Republicans are proposing.
But that's what you've been seeing with the Medicaid debate and this fight over the tax cuts over the last few weeks.
We've certainly come to major media markets and outlets, but we're trying to go everywhere to raise it.
And I think we're making some headway on that front, but we've got a long ways to go.
Congressman, I want to ask you about the recent book that has just been released about President Biden's physical and cognitive decline while still in office.
Wonder, as a Democrat, what's the lesson that you're taking away from that?
I mean, you know, I was interacting with President Biden, you know, during the tail end of his administration.
Certainly he slowed down, but the cognitive decline piece, a lot of the things they're talking about, I just didn't see, with the exception of that debate performance.
I thought that was a real shocker there.
But I saw him shortly after that.
He did speeches in North Carolina the next day, did fine.
So I just wasn't seeing it.
But the bottom line, I think, is transparency and disclosure.
Over the years, there have been health issues and questions that have been raised about presidents.
They do annual physicals.
I think those just should just be published every year so that the American public can see what's out there and draw their own conclusions.
And I think you have to try and find ways to make sure it's objective and not swept under the rug.
And I think that's true for other issues too, like financial reports.
You know, President Trump fought the release of his tax returns for years.
I think that's the kind of stuff that people need to see and know about so they can draw their own conclusions.
On the one hand, with respect to the allegations about waste fraud and abuse and Medicaid and other government programs, and I'm sure there's some there, but if you want to try and identify it and cut it back, don't cut back on the investigators and auditors who track down waste, fraud, and abuse within the federal government so that it can be eliminated.
But one of the first things President Trump did when he got in office was to fire the, they're called inspectors general.
He fired them across the federal government.
And in the bills where they're talking about waste, fraud, and abuse, like the Medicaid issue and the budget resolution, they're not expanding the number of auditors and investigators to help try and track this down.
So I don't know that they're really serious about it.
Secondly, I just saw this on 60 Minutes.
The FBI is saying that between $500 and $750 billion a year are stolen from the federal government by foreign adversaries, especially during times like creating false identities during disaster relief efforts where the federal government's trying to get help out quickly to people who've lost their houses or been killed or their lives have been destroyed.
So they try and get it out quickly.
Well, you've got foreign actors who figured out how to tap into that and divert money from the United States and these people who need it the most to their foreign governments and in some instances, potentially terrorist organizations.
So I think we should ramp that side of it up at the FBI and other agencies.
And then the last point I got to make is with respect to cleaning up what appears to be going on with the Trump administration right now and specifically the Trump family.
He's using these cryptocurrencies to siphon literally millions of dollars into his family's accounts.
I think by one account I saw $320 million.
I raised this yesterday with the head of the SEC and asked them to take a look at it.
But if we're going to be serious about cleaning up the swamp, not taking $400 million airplanes from countries like Qatar and things like that, that's where we need to start.
And the Trump administration, to be polite, is not leading the way on that front.
You know, you drop an 1,100-page bill 48 hours before you try and have a vote on it.
There's no way everybody can go through it and certainly no way that the public, even folks like you who are being very conscientious and trying to look through it so that you know what's going on with it.
There just isn't enough time.
So we end up with these kinds of scrambles to get that done.
And then the way they try and move these things at 1 a.m. in the middle of the night, you know, they're really not about transparency and disclosure.
And just a reminder that the Rules Committee is still meeting.
We've got that live coverage over on C-SPAN 2 on your screen right now is Congresswoman Gwen Moore.
You can watch that right now going on on C-SPAN 2.
You can also see it on our website, c-span.org.
At 9.30 Eastern this morning, Republican Tom McClintock of California will be here.
He's a senior member of both the budget and judiciary committees.
We'll talk about the GOP budget bill and the Trump administration immigration policies.
But first, it's open forum.
You can start calling in now.
202748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and 202748-8002 for Independents.
unidentified
Sunday on C-SPAN's Q&A, travel writer Rick Steves talks about his 1978 journey along the hippie trail and the 60,000-word journal he kept of the trip, which he recently published as a book.
During the 3,000-mile trek, the then 23-year-old Steves and a friend visited Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nepal.
He recalls the people he met along the way, the challenges of traveling in foreign countries in the 1970s, and the lifelong impact the trip had on him.
It's fun to look back on it with the help of the journal and see how naïve and green and uneducated I was.
But it's the growing pains of a global perspective, of gaining a global perspective.
And I've got this notion that culture shock is a good thing.
A lot of people try to avoid culture shock.
To me, culture shock is constructive.
It's the growing pains of a broadening perspective.
unidentified
Rick Steves with his book On the Hippie Trail, Sunday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q&A wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
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We are going to be taking your calls shortly on anything that you've got public affairs related, politics related, what's going on in Washington.
Obviously, the big thing going on in Capitol Hill right now is consideration of that reconciliation bill, what's being called the one big beautiful bill by the president.
I want to share with you this from NBC News, and it says this.
Elon Musk says he's going to do a lot less political spending.
I think as an overview, Donald Trump is going to be the best thing that happened to the country for quite a while.
I know we don't like his personality necessarily, but I think if you stop the hysteria and think about what he's really doing, I think it's going to be great for the country.
And it says this, ICE's new tactic may be letting perps walk suspects, witnesses deported before trial begins.
So this is what it says.
Some suspects in violent assault and sex crimes are escaping American justice because they're being deported before they can stand trial, according to a number of prosecutors and legal experts across the country.
In one suburban Denver County, the district attorney has tallied at least six criminal cases he's had to shelve or drop because Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, the agents detained or deported suspects before he could prosecute them.
In another case in the city of Denver, a man suspected of attempted murder was released because ICE had deported the witnesses against him, forcing prosecutors to drop the charges.
That suspect then tackled an ICE agent trying to detain him outside the jail.
It goes on talking about Boston, etc.
But wonder what you think about that and whatever else is on your mind.
Here's Mary, Syracuse, New York, Democrat.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
My concern is about meals on wheels.
I'm 87 years old and I get meals on wheels.
And last year I left rehab because I couldn't afford to stay there.
It was $619 a day.
That's a month over $18,000.
With Meals on Wheels, my cost of living for a month is less than $1,000.
And I feel that this is a savings for the government that I stay at home with Meals on Wheels.
I just feel that the fact that it's on the chopping block is unreasonable.
And we've got some news to share with you this morning.
Representative Jerry Connolly of Virginia, Democrat, has died.
This is a statement that his family released today.
It is with immense sadness that we share that our devoted and loving father, husband, brother, friend, and public servant, Congressman Gerald E. Connolly, passed away peacefully at his home this morning, surrounded by family.
It goes on to say that Jerry lived his life to give back to others and make our community better.
He looked out for the disadvantaged and voiceless.
He always stood up for what is right and just.
Again, that is Congressman Jerry Connolly of Virginia, covers areas in Northern Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. Nearly 40 years was his service to Northern Virginia.
And we send our condolences as well to his family.
John in Pounding Mill, Virginia, Independent Line.
Good morning, John.
unidentified
Yeah, I just had a question, a comment.
I was wondering if you could do a show or have a professor somewhere from a law school and explain what the 34 felonies that Trump was guilty of, what exactly are they?
I just want to say we could reduce the budget, the deficit a whole lot by taking away the tax holiday for those making over $800,000 and half for those making over $400,000.
We could also make social security tax holiday, explain that.
Yeah, when they gave them the tax cut in the first Trump administration, that was a tax holiday for the rich.
And also, Social Security will be sustainable if we take off the cap and let the rich pay Social Security on all the money that they make.
And finally, when the Republicans say they don't have time to investigate Trump and all the gifts he's getting in that cryptocurrency, but they do have time to investigate a Democratic representative who is trying to make sure ICE was doing the right thing.
They're lying.
They're just not being truthful.
And also, it benefits the Republicans if they can take one of the Democrats out so they can't vote.
And Steve, regarding crypto, the Wall Street Journal has an editorial about that.
It says, disclose the Trump crypto winners.
It says this.
This is the editorial.
Again, Wall Street Journal.
President Trump likes to blur lines between personal business and public office, but he'd help himself by calling off his Thursday gala with the top 20, 20, 220 holders of his meme coin.
If he won't do that, he could at least disclose his crypto contest winners so Americans know who may be trying to buy access to the president.
It says days before his inauguration, Mr. Trump launched a dollar sign Trump coin whose purported purpose was to, quote, celebrate everything we stand for, winning.
Sure, it happened that the coin could also enrich the Trump family.
The fine print disclosed that the Trump organization and affiliates held 80% of the coin tokens and therefore stood to benefit from any price appreciation.
It goes on to talk about this announcing a dinner at his golf club outside Washington, D.C. on May 22nd, that's tomorrow, for the 220 holders and ultra-exclusive private VIP reception with the top 25.
That's in the Wall Street Journal if you'd like to read that.
This is Josie, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Independent Line.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'm calling because the big, beautiful bill that is pending in Congress is going to hurt so many Americans.
And to hold sessions through the night and to try to rush it through in 48 hours is just unconsciable.
I think that we need to see what's in it.
We need to understand what's going to be done.
The president going to the hill and saying get it done at any cost, I added at any cost, to the middle-class Americans and working Americans is going to be horrendous.
That's one thing I'd like to say.
The second thing I'd like to say is this drain the swamp idea of putting President Trump back into the White House.
The swamp has gotten wider, deeper, muddier, and uglier.
We just talked about the Wall Street Journal's article.
I thank them for their investigative reporting.
The coin money, the jet coming from Qatar, the family members who are making deals for hotels in areas that the president went through last week on his trip.
It's all grifting.
And we are going to pay a terrible price from now in 20 years into the future, not just financially, but with our rights.
Our rights are being the idea put forth by Stephen Miller to take away rid of habeas corpus and saying that we're in a wartime mode is a threat to all of us.
And I just am amazed at how people are asleep at the switch.
And that includes the members of Congress.
And while I am not a very, very conservative person, I have to look at those six House members or seven House members who held back the vote on this bill.
They want more draconian cuts, but there has to be more discussion on it.
I'm tired of people saying he's going to be good for our country.
The gentleman who called in a couple calls ago, no, no, and no.
All right, Josie, and this is USA Today with this news.
Trump to meet South African president amid clashes on trade and refugees.
Trump recently began accepting white Afrikaners as refugees from the majority black country.
Experts and the South African government reject Trump's claim they are victims of discrimination.
Well, yesterday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was back before his former colleagues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a hearing that turned a little contentious.
There is a division in our government between the federal branch and the judicial branch.
No judge and the judicial branch cannot tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy.
No judge can tell me how I have to outreach to a foreign partner, what I need to say to them.
And if I do reach that foreign partner and talk to them, I am under no obligation to share that with the judiciary branch.
Just like a judge cannot order me to negotiate with a foreign minister of Russia, they cannot order me to negotiate with a foreign minister or the president of El Salvador.
And if I did negotiate with them, which we have responded to them, and we've told them we've had communications with the president of El Salvador, I am under no obligation under our division of powers in this country to share with the judicial branch how I conducted diplomacy of the United States.
If you'd like to see the entire hearing, it's on our website, cspan.org.
Let's talk to Keith, a Republican in Pleasantville, Pennsylvania.
Good morning, Keith.
unidentified
Hi.
Good show.
Appreciate it.
Two things I'd like to say.
All of those complaining about cuts, none of them have a plan to balance our budget or to pay down our debt.
We cannot continue to borrow money and print money to throw all over the world and into this country for all of the giveaway programs.
We don't have it.
Please ask everyone who's complaining, come up with their plan to balance our budget, which is $2 trillion off, $37 trillion in debt, borrowing $3 million a minute.
Let the states handle these programs.
They're not $37 trillion in debt.
They have balanced budget amendments.
The federal government cannot continue down this road.
So please ask everyone what their plan is when they call in and complain.
It's got to change.
President Trump is right on track.
He's going to do it.
Better trade deals.
Prices are coming down.
Stronger border.
You don't see 10 million illegals flowing into this country anymore.
We've stopped it.
It's got to stop.
Let the states do it.
First Time Voter's Regret00:05:22
unidentified
Every Democrat, please call in.
Give us your plan to pay down $37 trillion in debt and balance our budget.
I'm not really sure what I want to complain about.
There's so many things to complain about.
I voted for the first time in my life this year, and I was so proud of myself.
But after this election, I don't think I will ever, ever vote again.
I mean, it is so much chaos in Washington and everything.
And I think, you know, Donald Trump has some good ideals about the border and stuff like that.
You can't let these people just keep flooding our country.
But at the same time, you know, you got to have compassion for people.
I live in a house with someone who has cancer and does get food stamps and Medicaid is not a freeloader.
And you got to have compassion for people.
And just like when he went to church when he first got inaugurated and he didn't like the way the pastor spoke to him, and you can't have things like that.
The presidency seems like it used to be an office of respect and integrity.
It just seems like it's nothing like that anymore.
Ronnie, you said this is the first time you ever voted.
How old are you?
unidentified
I am 65 years old.
And the reason this is the first time I have ever voted in my life was because I didn't have no voting rights for a while because I unfortunately I made mistakes at a very young age, spent years in prison.
And I said, I'm going to vote this year.
Try to change things.
And it just seems like this seemed like this total chaos.
I just wanted to say, since people keep talking about these white people from South Africa, they're coming in, and everyone says they claim that they've been discriminated against.
Do you really think that the government in South Africa is documenting all their claims of discrimination?
No, they're not.
Do you think when white people get called crackers in Washington, D.C., when they're walking down the street or when they move into a neighborhood that has been historically predominantly black since the late 60s, do you think that Mayor Bowser and the D.C. Council are sitting there documenting it?
No, they're not.
White discrimination is not documented.
And I feel sorry for those white people in South Africa.
And this is the article I wanted to show you from Politico.
Nome defends potentially suspending habeas corpus, flubbs definition as Trump's right to, quote, remove people.
The Trump administration has floated suspending the legal right amid its crackdown on illegal immigration.
You can read that article at politico.com.
And yesterday, Representative LaMonica McIver spoke about what happened outside that ICE detention facility in her district in Newark, New Jersey, and responding to the federal charges against her.
She was on MSNBC.
unidentified
Absolutely.
First of all, number one, we can show up to any facility, any ICE facility unannounced.
We like to come unannounced because we want to see the conditions in the state that they are, not with a planned visit where they have time to fix up anything or cohorce anything of a visit.
unidentified
So we can do that.
We can show up.
Secondly, push our way through.
Like, no, before that whole situation occurred, we were inside of this facility waiting for over an hour for ICE administrators to get there to take us on this tour.
We were also there with the GEO, which is the prison, the private prison company that runs this location, who we were talking with the person who was in charge of the facility, who was actually lovely, by the way.
He was providing us with great information.
He was like, hey, I would love to give you guys a tour, but we have to wait on ICE because they said that I can't.
So at the end of the day, we're waiting over an hour for them, you know, to come.
We didn't bust our way through.
We didn't do any of that.
We were invited there while waiting there for them to come and give us a tour.
Let's talk about the president's big beautiful bill.
What have you heard so far about what's happening with that?
unidentified
Right now, there's been so many changes.
By the time I finish this sentence, it might be completely different.
But as of right now, what we're hearing is the president went up on the hill yesterday, as you know, and threatened, pleaded, talked, tried to have a pep rally to rally Republicans behind his bill.
And it didn't seem like, it doesn't seem like that's really made much of a difference.
It seems like what's happening is the fiscal hawks are sticking to their position.
The Blue State Republicans are sticking to their positions because they're afraid of getting primaried.
And we're going to see what happens when it plays out in the Rules Committee today.
And it is still going on, as I understand, on C-SPAN 2.
So you can definitely watch it there live.
What do you see as the president's reaction to what's happening in the House?
Is he concerned?
unidentified
I think he's concerned.
And I think the way you can see that is if you went up there yesterday, or when you saw how he behaved when he was up there yesterday, he tried to rally support, but he didn't really push for one side or another.
The only real thing he said is he told people not to, and I'll use my word, not his word, mess with Medicaid.
He used a word a little strong.
Expletive.
He used an expletive.
But he told them not to, and that was really the only warning.
Other than that, he seemed to try to play the middle to give both sides a chance, almost that he's more concerned about it not passing than he is about what's in that bill.
And it's kind of interesting because his comments then allowed Republicans on both sides to come out and claim the president's backing their side, which I thought was particularly interesting.
Is he going to continue the pressure, the charm, to try to get the holdouts?
unidentified
Yes, he's going to continue the pressure on both the fiscal hawks, the blue state Republicans.
He's going to keep the pressure up.
He has the president of South Africa coming in today.
Other than that, it's a light schedule for the president.
We expect that's because he's going to be spending that time in communication with his staff, in communication up on the hill to try to get Republicans in line and get this across, get this to the floor, get this vote and get this across the finish line.
Let's talk about that meeting with the South African president.
What's the purpose of that?
unidentified
Well, it depends on who you ask.
If you ask South Africa, it's to improve trade relations and try to bolster trade because the U.S. is South Africa's largest trading partner.
If you ask the White House, it is to press South Africa on what the White House is calling the genocide of white Africans in South Africa whose land is being taken by the government has a way of sort of dismantling the apartheid system.
It is something President Trump has railed against.
It is something Elon Musk, who will be in the meeting with the South African president today, has railed against.
And it'll be interesting to see how much this administration, Cyril Ramifosa is the president of South Africa, how much they press President Ramifosa on the treatment of white Africans.
One of the things that's particularly interesting is if we, excuse me, if the White House doesn't get this, doesn't get a trade deal in place, they don't get some negotiations set up, I worry that the public portion of this could almost be on par with President Trump's meeting with Zelensky, because where he hectored Zelensky and it kind of went into a shouting match.
I don't know if it would go that extreme, but the president has been extremely outspoken here.
And if they can't come together with a common ground, I think the president, especially with Elon Musk there egging this on, I think he could really hammer President Ramifosa about this.
The president announced yesterday his Golden Dome missile defense.
What is the president's interest in this?
And what can he tell us?
unidentified
Well, it's very similar to what they have in Israel for when it comes to blocking missiles.
It's a massive defense bill.
It's going to be part of what he and the Republicans are calling the big beautiful bill.
That's some of the funding in there.
And that has angered some of the, as I was saying at the beginning, some of the conservative fiscal hawks that are on the Hill that are really worried about this bill that it's increasing spending.
It's a significant amount of money going to this golden dome.
And one of the things we have not heard about from either the president or Republicans is the deficit.
I mean, there's a lot of spending in this bill.
Now, the president's argued that between tariffs and tax cut, between the tariffs, we should generate enough money to cover the tax cuts, the other spending he wants in this bill.
It's not entirely clear.
And the deficit's about to go off a cliff here.
We've got a real problem.
And that's sort of what the objection is with the Golden Dome.
The President also had a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to get more engaged in that.
How did that call go?
And what are we expecting on that front from the president?
unidentified
Well, what we see now is almost another shift from this administration.
It's almost as if after that call, President Trump's almost throwing up his hands and letting Ukraine and Russia just figure it out with the United States abandoning the negotiating table.
And that's almost the third shift we have seen from President Trump so far.
At the beginning, he tried to achieve peace by being more cordial to President Putin than we've seen from the Biden administration.
When that didn't work, there was sort of a change where, you know, JD Vance came out against Putin saying he was demanding too much.
IVF Guidelines at Bargaining Table00:03:49
unidentified
President Trump was highly critical of Putin saying that he was for breaking the ceasefire on True Social.
That didn't seem to work.
So now we're going to sort of the third shift in policy, which is the president sort of throwing his hands up and saying you two figure it out without the United States.
You wrote this article for the Washington Times with the headline, Trump delves into thorny IVF recommendations that threaten to split Republicans.
What's that about?
unidentified
Well, it's interesting.
That's going to be the big thing outside of all the other things that we've talked about this week.
That's the other thing.
It's a big week.
So back in February, President Trump had signed an executive order tasking his administration to come up with rules and guidelines to make IVF access easier for infertile Americans.
Those guidelines are expected to come down this week.
Now, there's a lot here because a lot of people, a lot of his base that sent him to the White House is extremely pro-life.
They oppose IVF because embryos created during the process.
Sometimes they're discarded, sometimes they're used for genetic testing.
They view that as life, and they look at that as the destruction or the harming of life.
So they don't support that.
On the other hand, you have a lot of conservatives led by JD Vance saying that America's record low birth rate threatens this nation because we have it's going to hurt our tax base.
It's going to be fewer people for jobs.
It's going to make America less competitive.
And they look at IVF as a cure, as a cure to that.
But there's a lot of issues that might be sidestepped for this.
One, the IVF industry is not heavily regulated.
Blood banks have more regulations than IVF clinics.
The other thing is during the campaign trail, President Trump talked about having the government and insurance companies pay for IVF.
That would be a mandate akin to President Obama's contraception mandate in 2014, which Republicans howled about.
I talked to our Republican strategist who was telling me that that would be the height of hypocrisy if the Trump administration a decade later tries to go forward with their own medical mandate.
Plus, if you want to improve, if you're going to include include act, if you're going to bolster access, the president and the administration need to come up with what are they going to do with the embryos?
How should they be treated?
How should they be handled?
They're probably going to sidestep that issue, but that's another issue that's going to face them that they need to come up with an answer.
And here is Pat, who is in New York Independent Line.
Thanks for waiting, Pat.
unidentified
Thank you.
And thank you for having me.
Palestinian Policy Controversy00:04:08
unidentified
Seems to be a lot of concerns this morning and a lot of different things that are going on.
Obviously, we're in a state of turmoil.
But there is one particular issue which I really believe should be magnified and it is not being to the extent that it should be.
And that is our policy in Palestine.
You had a previous call saying how we can cut back on spending.
Well, one of the things we could do is stop sending so much money and weapons to a very aggressive nation that is clearly, in my mind, genocidal.
We are not looking at what we are doing.
This is very destructive to us.
I mean, we have 150 nations in the UN voting against us on this policy of ours.
Nobody's mentioning it.
The news is one of the worst things in this country.
A few days ago, there was supposedly a half a million people protesting in London against our Palestinian policy, another 100,000 in The Hague in the Netherlands.
It's not coming on a mainstream news.
It's not being showed.
I've spent a lifetime, I'm 65 years old, ex-government Department of Defense employee.
I served my country.
I've watched my entire life with my family documentaries on the Holocaust.
My mother used to have tears in her eyes over the years back in the 60s, 70s, 80s.
And now we are doing exactly what we've been pounded mentally against doing, which is wiping out, I believe the IDF, they said on certain media, foreign media, are not even fighting anymore.
They're simply destroying houses and buildings and living places.
There's also this other thing that I heard, and I wish you could look into it, C-SPEN can.
Something about, I can't classify it properly, only from memory, something about the ESTER program, which is brought to us by the people who conceived the 2025 program, which is basically to annihilate the Palestinian people.
And it's not driven by Jewish groups.
It's driven by American conservative evangelists who have a foothold in this government.
It's called Project Esther, a national strategy to combat anti-Semitism.
And I can't read the whole thing, but it's here on heritage.org.
And it's called Project Esther, as in Queen Esther from the Old Testament.
unidentified
Right.
And according to many who have evaluated it, it's called anti-Semitism.
But it's actually that's a cover for what it's actually doing.
Just as we've been told that the protests on campuses in this country were anti-Semitic when the largest group of protesters against the Palestinian policy was actually Jewish Voice for Peace and 40 or 50,000 people of the Jewish community in America who are actually protesting against the Israeli government.
You'd brought up like Trump coin, and I remember reading like how our public officials aren't supposed to have like operating business as it a conflict of interest.
And then, yeah, like the gentleman before me had said, you know, kind of like this trickle-down economic, well, while it might create more jobs or whatever, like we still have this whole thing about, you know, robots and AI kind of taking people's jobs.
So, you know, they really, you know, do something on that.
Let's talk to Sandy in Washington, Pennsylvania, Democrat.
Good morning, Sandy.
unidentified
Good morning to you.
I would just like to point out that even though the Republicans last night at the hearing kept repeating the 37.5% that the one percenters or millionaires are receiving or are paying, I apologize.
They failed to mention that with cutting taxes on Social Security, if you do not receive $50,000 in Social Security, you don't pay taxes.
The people who are receiving over $50,000 are the very wealthy people who have earned a great deal of money.
So this is another gift to the very, very rich.
In addition to that, their taxes are supposedly charged at 37.5%.
However, nothing is made mentioned that in this last bill when Trump was president, they got a tax cut on one, owning a plane, two, owning golf courses, and several other things that are only available to ownership to the very wealthy.
The 37.5% is really a starting point.
And with all the loopholes, it isn't that they are not paying 37.5%.
And I'd like that information to be made known to society here in the United States.
We think they're paying 37%.
No, they're not.
And whenever they came out and Trump was running on the fact that he's going to cut taxes for Social Security, and everybody is roaring and happy about that.
No, unless you receive $25,000, I mean, $50,000 a year, you don't pay taxes on that.
And if you would like to see that entire hearing, it is on our website, c-span.org.
This is Richard North Little Rock, Arkansas, Republican.
Hi, Richard.
unidentified
Yeah, hey.
Yeah, Mamie, as far as the hosts go, I think you and John are the fairest and most honest about how you handle the callers.
That being said, I want to let the American people know that there is, whether the people want to understand it or not, there is a war by liberal judges against Caucasian people in this country.
For instance, Shiloh Hendricks, Shiloh Hendricks, and Austin Metcalf, Austin Metcalf, and there are others all across this country.
I can't remember all of their names, but there are all of these liberal judges exonerating or lessening the sentences against all of these criminals with these heinous crimes against Caucasians.
I wanted to touch on this reconciliation bill that's being negotiated in Congress.
I noticed when Republicans call in, they're all concerned, so-called concerned about deficit spending.
And I would hope, at least not push back on them, but ask them if they realize that this reconciliation bill will actually raise the deficit to at least $2 trillion.
And in Trump's first term, he raised our deficits by almost $8 trillion.
So I think they're being disingenuous when they are so-called concerned about deficit spending.
Donald Trump doesn't care about deficits.
Republicans at large really don't care about deficits.
The so-called deficit hawks, they always capitulate in the end.
And they vote for Donald Trump because they really don't stand on any real principle.
And they're cowards.
So in the end, this is going to hurt more Americans than not.
The cuts to Medicaid is going to hurt rural areas, southern states that depend on Medicaid heavily.
So I'm not sure how much hurt Republicans have to go through before they wake up, but if this bill passes, then it's not going to be good.
Everybody knows in their own lives how they're doing.
And if we can get all this into place by the summer, the tax relief, the major regulatory rollbacks, and hopefully some bilateral free trade agreements, by this time next year, we'll be in a period of profound economic expansion, and the vast majority of the Americans will be feeling it in their own lives.
That was addressed to some of my colleagues who are seeking absolute perfection in this budget, and I certainly support everything they're trying to do.
unidentified
We don't cut enough spending.
We don't come close to balancing the budget.
And I happen to believe that the salt deduction ought to be 100 percent.
So I support what these various groups are trying to obtain.
But we need to keep in mind the big picture, and the big picture is that this bill is absolutely essential to revive the economy and to secure our borders and to open up our energy resources and all of the things the president was elected to do.
unidentified
So at any rate, it's not perfect, but it's the next step, and we can't get to the 2026 reconciliation until we finish this process.
Oh, I mean, hundreds of billions of dollars of grant programs that rob one community to pay for programs that exclusively benefit another.
Hundreds of billions of dollars in various subsidies that literally stuff the ballot box that consumers vote in every day with every dollar they spend on what the economy is going to produce and who's going to produce it and what price they're willing to pay for it.
unidentified
I mean, those are two vast areas.
Doge has started to scratch the surface on them, but I think we've got a long way to go.
Representative Tom McClintock is with us until the end of the program.
So if you'd like to, now's your chance to call in.
Lines are bipartisan.
Democrats are on 202, 748, 8,000.
Republicans are on 202748-8001.
And Independents, 202748, 8,002.
On Medicaid, Freedom Caucus members want to accelerate work requirements for Medicaid, bringing those up to, I believe, December of 2026.
Also change the formula by which the federal government calculates how much they give to states.
Are you in favor of those changes?
unidentified
Yes, I am.
The work requirement for able-bodied adults is nothing new.
We did that under the Bill Clinton administration.
It cut the welfare roles in half, not just for Medicaid, but for all of the other entitlement programs that was rolled back during the Obama administration.
But if you're an able-bodied adult on Medicaid, we expect that you should be looking for work and accept a job of ones offered, just the way every taxpayer that is paying for this program is doing.
And every household spends about $6,900 in their taxes every year just to support Medicaid.
unidentified
You know, I keep hearing that there are going to be cuts in Medicaid.
Well, actually, under this budget, the Medicaid spending will go up $168 billion over the next 10 years.
It is slowing the growth of Medicaid, and it's doing that mainly by insisting that able-bodied adults who are on the program look for work and by removing illegal aliens from these programs.
I mentioned you're the chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Integrity, Security, and Enforcement.
Can you outline for us what the budget increases will be when it comes to immigration and pays for the repatriation of about 1 million illegal immigrants this next year?
Remember that over the last four years, the Biden administration admitted 8 million illegal aliens into this country, 6 million directly trafficked in by our government, and another 2 million gotaways that came in while the Border Patrol was overwhelmed taking names and changing diapers at the border.
unidentified
So 8 million.
This pays for the repatriation of a million, and the priority will be going to criminals.
There are about 630,000 illegal immigrants on the non-detained docket.
After that, you've got about 1.4 million illegal immigrants who have already had their day in court, have been ordered, deported by an immigration judge, and have thumbed their nose at that deportation order.
unidentified
So that's going to keep us busy for quite a while.
And also, of course, it funds the completion of the border wall, which the Border Patrol says is absolutely essential as a force multiplier to allow them to do their jobs.
What's the top-line number on the funding that will go for immigration enforcement and border security?
unidentified
Well, I don't recall the exact number, but it is significantly offset because we are increasing fees on a wide number of immigration visas and the like.
exactly and just on the basis might put it out of reach for a lot of people no no I mean these are these are fairly nominal amounts for the most part But Americans should not be paying for programs that benefit a specific class of non-citizens, in this case, of people coming to our country legally or illegally.
The Democratic Party has spent in excess of $2 trillion, and the Republican Party has only spent $901 billion.
unidentified
But out of curiosity, I looked at President Trump's.
He was 29.9 in his first four years in office, and I compared that to Democratic President Truman, 46 to 52, 41 being in six, 31 being in for Trump 29-9.
But between President Bush, Clinton, and George Bush II and President Trump, they spent $428 million in 24 years.
Is your bottom line about Representative McClintock's take on foreign aid or foreign support, military aid?
unidentified
Well, it all comes down to budgeting.
Okay, so now we're dealing with doctors and dreamers coming across the line, $7 million a week.
We, the people, paid for that.
Refugees, we're paying $3,032 a month per person coming to the U.S., and plus your illegal immigrants coming in.
So, the bottom line is: yeah, we have a budget, and the Republican Party is spot on, but I'd like you to bring these references to light to posture the Republican Party.
With that in mind, thanks for your time, your hospitality, Cease Pan Rup. Clintock, you have my support, and I hold for your remarks.
The only thing I'd add is that just the illegal immigrants that were admitted by the Biden administration are costing American taxpayers about $160 billion a year to support.
unidentified
And again, as we roll that back, we'll see considerable savings in those funds.
The reconciliation bill does not allow any adjustments to Social Security, but as I understand it, they're going to be increasing the standard deduction for seniors over the age of 70 by, I believe it's $4,000 per person.
unidentified
I might have that wrong, maybe $2,000, but somewhere in the $2,000, $4,000 range.
So that is designed to essentially mimic the proposal not to tax Social Security benefits.
It'll go a long way to achieving that.
And then I think you'll see probably a standalone bill at some point in the future introduced that will actually shield Social Security earnings from the federal income tax.
I'm looking forward to y'all of the cuts that Doge is doing.
I'd like to see that continue.
Oversight on the military spending has been a problem for 30 or 40 years, where the contractors are able to come in and then raise the original budget by adding more stuff to it.
I'd like to ask the Congress, I'm at the end of the baby boom generation on disability and Social Security Medicare.
And it sounds like what I heard just size of the dump of that's associated with the billionaire tax break, that there's going to be automatic cuts in Social Security Medicare.
I'd like to see an answer to that.
Why are we cutting Medicare now?
We just talked about Medicaid.
Now we're talking about automatic cuts in Medicare.
Representative McClintock, the President had kind of floated the idea of increasing the highest tax rate on millionaires, so those making over $2.5 million a year.
Would you be in favor of that?
Would you?
unidentified
No, no.
And don't forget that a lot of that applies to small businesses.
It's the marginal tax rate that is the growth factor.
You borrow it now, which reduces your future productivity, runs up huge interest costs, and crowds out capital that could otherwise be used for businesses to expand or for consumers to make consumer purchases.
unidentified
Or you run the printing presses and inflate a dollar.
Those are the only three ways to pay for spending.
The spending is the root of our problems, and it's completely out of control.
She says, Representative McClintock has not addressed the waste of taxpayer dollars on Trump's weekly golf outings and his ego-stroking parade using the same military that he refused to join and serve.
All right, let's go to Patricia in Circleville, Ohio, Republican line.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
Good morning, Representative McClinock.
I have a question.
When all of the illegals came in to our southern and northern borders, no one paid any attention or didn't, excuse me, did any vetting of them.
However, why are the Democrats so incensed about taking care of them on the other end when they broke the law in the first place?
If anyone could explain that to me, I would love it, because it makes no sense financially or with the people here in our country.
Thank you very much.
I certainly agree with you without enforcing our immigration laws.
We have no immigration laws.
If we have no immigration laws, we have no border.
And if we have no border, we have no country.
And for four years, the Democrats deliberately opened our borders to the world, brought in 8 million illegal immigrants, and as you said, about whom we know very little, if anything.
Among them were the most violent criminal gangs and cartels on the planet that this administration is now trying to get removed from our country, and the Democrats are fighting them tooth and nail.
I don't understand that either.
unidentified
I think there are a lot of Democrats who no longer understand where their party is going on these issues.
Here's Mike in Littleton, Colorado, Independent line.
Hi, Mike.
unidentified
Yeah, I was wanting to know.
He talks about waste, fraud, all of this.
What's he going to do about the military contractors that are building us equipment and that we are paying for to do the research like the F-35, right?
We can't work.
Once we get these F-35s in, we can't work on them.
They extort us to do maintenance on those planes that we paid to research to do, right?
When you say that there's waste and fraud and all of this, you have a military budget that is half of our budget.
And you don't want to go in there and clean that up, but you want to take things that help regular Americans out, like Medicaid.
You want to cut that?
What?
That is outrageous.
First of all, obviously.
Your donors must be the people, the Lockheeds, the Boeings, the Raytheons.
Those must be your donors if you're not willing to take on what is exploding our budget, and that's the military budget.
Let's talk to Joyce in Minnesota, Line for Democrats.
Hi, Joyce.
unidentified
Hi.
I would like to know why we are spending a huge sum on a military parade for the President's birthday when the military cannot balance their budget and come up with a true of their spending.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, I can't entirely disagree with you on that.
Again, as I said, I support the President's efforts to rekindle patriotism.
I think that this is one part of that, but I do think we need to be sensitive to the costs and the appearance of the costs.
The only excuse for them is to leverage trading partners to reduce their trade barriers.
And I am certainly very hopeful that that is where the President is taking us.
The agreement with the U.K. is a step in the right direction.
It's not free trade, but it is at least freer trade.
If that is followed by a series of bilateral trade agreements with other countries, I think that's going to justify the president's use of tariffs to reach that point.
At the moment, I'm not ready to set my hair on fire over it because, as I said, I think he's using this as leverage to get the free trade agreements we need to not only help our economy, but also help the world economy.
unidentified
As long as he's moving in that direction, like I said, ready to set my hair on fire.
If we don't see more of those within the next few months, well, then maybe we need to change course.
And although it's not quite an exemption on Social Security income from income taxes, it basically mimics that with the device that we spoke about earlier.
unidentified
So all of those benefits, just put it in very clear terms.