CSPAN - Washington Journal 05/27/2025

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May 27, 2025 07:00-10:00 - CSPAN

02:59:57

Washington Journal 05/27/2025

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chris gibson

33:41

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donald j trump

admin 03:30

john mcardle

cspan 00:58

linda mcmahon

00:37

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adam goodman

r 00:04

larry sabato

00:27

patty murray

sen/d 00:06

rachel maddow

msnow 00:07

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Chris Gibson discusses his new book, The Spirit of Philadelphia, and how American founding principles can revitalize bipartisanship and civic engagement.
		And University of Virginia Center for Politics director Larry Sabato on the current political landscape as the political parties prepare for two key gubernatorial elections this fall and midterm elections next year.
		Washington Journal is next.
		Join the conversation.
		Good morning.
		It's Tuesday, May 27th, 2025.
		A three-hour Washington Journal is ahead.
		We begin on the topic of education.
		President Trump has made the elimination of the Department of Education a top priority in his second term.
		The goal, he says, is to empower states and localities when it comes to K through 12 decision-making.
		Meanwhile, the President has also targeted higher education over policies on DEI spending and how student protests are handled.
		So this morning, we're asking whether you support or oppose the Trump administration's policies when it comes to education.
		Phone lines for you to call in, split this way.
		Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		A special line for educators.
		That number, 202-748-8003.
		You can also send us a text at that number or catch up with us on social media.
		On X, it's at C-SPANWJ.
		On Facebook, it's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN.
		And a very good Tuesday morning to you.
		You can go ahead and start calling in now.
		Here's the latest when it comes to the president's concerns, particularly about higher education and Harvard University in particular.
		This is the headline from the Wall Street Journal: Trump looks to divert cash from Harvard to trade schools.
		That news coming in the form of a Memorial Day truth post from Donald Trump on his social media page saying, I am considering taking $3 billion of grant money away from the very anti-Semitic Harvard and giving it to trade schools all across our land.
		What a great investment that would be for the USA and so badly needed.
		That was the president yesterday.
		No further details on that effort.
		When it comes to the president's concerns about K through 12 education, his Education Secretary Linda McMahon was testifying on Capitol Hill this week talking about efforts to cut the Department of Education.
		This is what she had to say.
		Thank you for having me today to represent a department on a mission.
		Its final mission.
		To wind down the Department of Education responsibly, cut waste, and give education back to the states, parents, and educators, all in a lawful fashion.
linda mcmahon ▲ ● ▼		With your partnership, the fiscal year 26 budget will take a significant step toward that goal.
unidentified		We seek to shrink federal bureaucracy, save taxpayer money, and empower states who best know their local needs to manage education in this country.
		We have reviewed our programs and identified spending that does not fulfill the mandate of trust the American people have placed in President Trump.
		We've reduced a department that was overstaffed by thousands of positions, cut old contracts that were enriching private parties at taxpayer expense, suspended grants for illegal DEI programs, and now are putting forward a budget request that reduces department funding by more than 15%.
		At the same time, we're working to make American education great again.
		In our conversations with governors, teachers, and parents across the country, we hear calls for accountability and more local control.
		That's our goal.
		To give parents access to the quality education their kids deserve, to fix the broken higher education industry that has misled students into degrees that don't pay off, and to create safe learning environments for our students.
		We're holding institutions to account when they facilitate discriminatory or hostile environments on campus.
		A level playing field with limitless opportunity is a vision I think we all can share.
		That was Linda McMahon testifying on Capitol Hill last week.
		We'll show you more from her testimony, but we're asking you this morning whether you support or oppose the Trump administration's education policies.
		202-748-8000 for Democrats to call in.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Independents 202-748-8002.
		And educators, especially, we would like to hear from you this Tuesday morning as we get to the end of the school year.
		202-748-8003.
		Plenty of ink has been spilled on the topic of the Trump administration's education policies since the president was sworn in.
		More in today's papers.
		This is the Washington Times today.
		Tim Rosenberger is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and the headline of his piece: President Trump's Department of Education is right to combat racial discrimination.
		Ending DEI policies is a legal imperative, he writes.
		In both the universities and K-12 contexts, he says the Trump administration's approach is not radical, it's restorative.
		It restores the legal meaning of non-discrimination, treating individuals as individuals without regard to race.
		It restores the Department of Education to its proper role of enforcing civil rights laws rather than facilitating political and social indoctrination posed as learning.
		That from the pages of today's Washington Times.
		Want to hear from you, want to hear your thoughts having this discussion in the first hour of the Washington Journal today.
		Lester is up first in Alabama.
		Republican, Lester, good morning.
		Johnny, I'm sorry.
		I call on the wrong line.
		I'm Democratic.
		I'm sorry.
		That's okay, Lester.
		What are your thoughts on this topic?
		John, this is unbelievable.
		You have Trump since he came in office cutting everything.
		Education.
		I mean, America, where are we going?
		Linda McMahon, out of all people, she doesn't have a clue what she's talking about.
		Power education.
		I guess he wants everybody dumb like he is.
		America, we got to be very careful the slope that we are trying to go with Trump.
		Trump is taking us back 100 years.
		We would not know America after Trump leave office.
		That's Lester in Alabama this morning talking about the Trump administration's education policies.
		Stephen is in Ulster Park, New York.
		Democrat, good morning.
		Good morning.
		Can you hear me?
		I can, Stephen.
		What are your thoughts on the Trump administration's education policies?
		Well, they're disastrous, and it's a great big cover to destroy all sorts of programs that help special ed students, Title IX, and other programs to benefit our children.
		But I have a request for C-SPAN and the media.
		Stop saying DEI.
		That's what they want you to say.
		Say diversity, equity, and inclusion.
		Who is against diversity?
		Who is against equity?
		Who is against inclusion?
		They use the acronym DEI to hide the fact that they're destroying all these programs to address the needs of all of these different types of children, faculty, and staff.
		There are no people who are monolithic.
		Everybody, if education is going to work, it's going to have to address children, who they are, and where they are, and that means employee diversity, equity, and inclusion.
		Stop saying DEI.
		Thank you.
	At Stephen in Ulster Park, New York, we're talking about education policies both on the K through 12 level, but also when it comes to higher education, plan to talk about on both levels, including, again, yesterday, Donald Trump targeting Harvard for its grant funding, saying that he's considering moving that funding to trade schools in this country.
	It's just the latest attack on Harvard, as the Washington Post puts it in their headline.
	Their column looks at the history of Donald Trump and Harvard.
	The battle between Harvard and the administration escalated dramatically.
	Back on April 14th, they write when the administration froze $2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard after the school said it would not yield to demands to change its admissions and hiring and governance practices.
	International students targeted.
	Last week, on Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security terminated Harvard's student and exchange visitor program certification for allegedly allowing anti-American pro-terrorist foreigners to harass and physically assault individuals on campus.
	The administrator of the Department of Homeland Security, Chrissy Noam, accused the university of working with the Chinese Communist Party by hosting and training members of the parliamentary group, a federal judge stepping in and blocking that as of right now.
	But the focus on Harvard continues, and Donald Trump continued it on his truth social page yesterday, in addition to the announcement about trade schools and funding.
	This was his other post yesterday.
	We're still waiting for the foreign student lists from Harvard so we can determine after a ridiculous expenditure of billions of dollars how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers, all should not be back in our country.
	Harvard is very slow in the presentation of these documents and probably for good reason, he said.
	The best thing Harvard has going for it is that they have shopped around and found the absolute best judge for them, but have no fear the government in the end will win.
	Donald Trump yesterday won of two posts focusing on Harvard University.
	Last week, when she was testifying on Capitol Hill, Linda McMahon was asked about the administration's crackdown on Harvard and other Ivy League institutions.
	This is what she had to say in that exchange.
linda mcmahon ▲ ● ▼		We've seen it, religious, we've seen it across our college campuses, some of the most elite in the country.
unidentified		And we took very strong and very decisive action against those universities who clearly were not protecting Jewish students against anti-Semitism, against some anti-Semitism, when they were anti-Semitic, those that were attacking them.
linda mcmahon ▲ ● ▼		When you've seen students barricaded in a library and others pounding on the glass, going, death to Jews, death to Israel, death to the United States, that is unacceptable in our college campuses.
unidentified		And we reacted.
		We reacted to Columbia.
		First did not, that happened.
		This incident happened at Columbia.
		And I met with the President of Columbia.
		I've had two conversations now with the current President of Columbia.
		We've talked about things that we need to do at those universities.
		We want to be able to be supportive.
		But those universities, albeit they're private, do receive federal funding.
		We have leverage to withhold some of that federal funding or to cancel some of the grants, and we will do that unless it can be proven that these colleges and universities are going to respect all rights and set their policy in place and enforce them.
		And I was complimentary to President, the acting president now at Columbia, Claire Shipman, when I talked to her last week.
linda mcmahon ▲ ● ▼		And I said, You reacted just as you said you would to the recent uprising on campus.
unidentified		You're looking at whether or not you've expended students, suspended students, are you going to expel them?
unidentified		And that's still what she's looking at.
linda mcmahon ▲ ● ▼		So we've seen that that kind of action can deliver results.
unidentified		Linda McMahon testifying on Capitol Hill last week.
		If you want to watch that testimony in its entirety, you can do so, of course, on our website at c-span.org.
		Just type Linda McMahon in the search bar at the top of the page.
		Hope you'll join our conversation this morning as we ask in this first hour of the Washington Journal whether you support or oppose the Trump administration's education policies.
		The phone numbers are on your screen, a special line for educators, and we'll go to that line.
		Kyle, Buffalo, New York, good morning.
		Hey, good morning, John.
		How are you doing today?
		Doing well, Kyle.
		Go ahead.
		Yeah, so, you know, a lot of these cuts have already started.
		Probably about a month ago, I got an email from one of our local colleges.
		We usually have Law Day for our in-district kids that's funded through whatever type of programs, and the funding got cut.
		And they emailed me.
		They said it was due to the DEI cuts for a lot of these programs.
		And so in my career technical education department, we were told that funding for next school year, some of that fell into the DEI.
		That's going to be cut.
		So I'm a Republican, but I definitely am against some of these education cuts coming from an area of poverty.
		You know, people had made it seem like that these DEI programs were strictly for African Americans, and that's not true.
		If you did the research, people, it covered a vast variety of areas, not just people of color, handicapped, different opportunities for low-income people.
		And it just seems like we're just going to be cutting programs that are designed to help people up, especially the youth.
		You know, now I can understand some of these other cuts for the adults, but I mean, we can't be cutting for our youth.
		They're already vulnerable, especially coming from poverty.
		Buffalo is one of the four, like, poorest city in the nation.
		And Kyle does.
		You've called in before, correct?
		I have.
		It's high school and I think history teacher, is that correct?
		Business.
		I actually have a business and legal teacher.
		So what is you talk about Law Day and that the program was cut because of DEI components?
		Do you know what that meant?
		What was the diversity, equity, and inclusion component?
		And what is a Law Day program?
		So Law Day's program is they invite some of the public schools to the university here and to show off their law program.
		It's basically University of Buffalo, a law school.
		And since I'm a legal teacher in other areas, they try to promote the students and encourage them to come to law school, basically.
		And they show off the program and we'll have students talking and then they'll have a big spread at the end.
		And I'm assuming the spread that's usually financed through whatever and the people who put it on.
		I didn't ask questions, but it was told to me that it was due to DEI cuts.
		And I said, that's a shame because the students look forward to every year.
		You know, they get a chance to go out and experience a university type setting.
		Some of the students have never seen that type of setting before.
		And, you know, some of their parents don't come from that type of environment.
		So it's always nice to get the kids out to, you know, to kind of give them a different perspective on how certain segments of society live, especially when we're trying to promote education.
		And I just feel like, you know, when I hear about these cuts, it seems like these cuts are going to the very low people who really don't deserve that type of cutting for the programs.
		You know, I mean, I understand we got to make cuts, but, you know, when you mess with education, you're messing with the kids.
		And, you know, and I come from a heart where the kids matter, you know, so I don't support.
		When you say that the cuts are targeting the very lowest, so then how do you interpret Donald Trump yesterday saying, I'm going to cut $3 billion that goes to Harvard, and I'm not sure what specific programs he's referring to, and moving that money to trade schools.
		That's what he's considering doing.
		Yeah, you know, I think the problem is, is because Harvard, the protesting, you know, there was the black president, female, you know, it just makes it look as if somebody, almost as if, like, you know, if it has something to do with people of color, it's going to be cut, you know, but they don't realize that it just doesn't service people of color.
		You know, I mean, they'll probably go off to Columbia and some other colleges that didn't really respond to those type of, you know, student protesting.
		You know, I think that's what gets people in trouble if you protest against the system, especially if the system doesn't agree with your agenda or idea, ideology, you're going to get cut.
		You know, it's almost like you can't say anything right now because you're afraid that there's going to be some repercussion due to the freedom of speech.
		But, you know, that's who we got in office right now.
		And I do realize cuts need to be made.
		But, you know, trade school programs, that's great.
		You know, put that money into the high school trade.
		They have the trade school programs in high school.
		Let's encourage that.
		And let's not, you know, I don't know.
		It's just, you know, I mean, put it some type of grant for your local community colleges, too.
		That's who should be getting the money, not these endowed schools.
		You know, they got alumni who are filthy rich.
	So I can sort of see that, but you got to be even across the board.
	Kyle.
	That's what I think.
	Always appreciate talking to you.
	Before you go, you say you're a Republican.
	Did you vote for Donald Trump any of the three times that he ran for president?
	I did the first two.
	I didn't the last time.
	I actually voted for Cornell West.
	Kyle, we'll talk to you down the road.
	I couldn't trust both sides this time around.
	Always appreciate talking to you, Kyle.
	Thank you.
	Richard, Minneapolis, Republican.
	Good morning.
	Yes, good morning.
	I got two things.
	You know, if Trump wants to do something or the Congress wants to do something, they should repeal that law that says these students cannot file bankruptcy.
	A bankruptcy should be a fundamental right of everybody.
	Everybody else in the country can file bankruptcy when they're deeply in debt.
	They're going to be penalized with seven years of bad credit.
	Isn't that punishment enough?
	And then the other thing, Trump is banning foreign students from Harvard or other schools.
	That's kind of idiotic to me.
	If we want to influence the world, there's no better way than having foreign students come here and get indoctrinated into our culture.
	So that's what I think.
	Richard, on Cost, where are you on student loan forgiveness?
	Well, the people should be able to file bankruptcy.
	Everybody else can, and I think that would force some of the higher education to lower their fees and lower their tuition.
	People would probably go to a cheaper college or a smaller college.
	I mean, what's the big deal about Harvard having a Harvard degree?
	There's a lot of people smarter than that.
	Richard, thanks for the call from Minneapolis.
	Ramesh Pomeroo writing in the pages of the Washington Post today about student loan forgiveness.
	This is what he writes: COVID is over.
	It's no longer a mass social phenomenon that can justify emergency measures.
	We've acted on that logic in almost every area of American life, and it's time that the COVID era ends for student loans, too.
	That's what the Trump administration is doing by resuming efforts to collect from delinquent borrowers on May 5th over Democratic objections.
	It began a process that will lead to the garnishing of wages and redirecting tax refunds to loan service.
	He says, forgiving much or all of the debt, an idea that's popular among progressives and the borrowers themselves, is an alternative to reviving loan payments.
	But the extended pause on student loans has already cost taxpayers more than $238 billion.
	That number would rise even more if the government forgave more of the debt.
	Though progressives say that collecting on loans amounts to punishing the working poor, the best evidence suggests that student loan forgiveness tends to benefit people who are doing better than other Americans.
	Ramesh Poneru, if you want to read the entirety of his column today, the headline, Trump is right, those student loans need to be repaid.
	Spence, Clarksburg, West Virginia, Democrat, good morning.
	Yeah, how are you doing this morning?
	I just find that they're wrong.
	There's a man who had a fake university that had to pay $25 million as any room to speak about any university with high education.
	I guess Brandon wasn't good enough for Harvard, so he's holding that thing out there.
	And he said he was going to take $3 billion and give us something other funds.
	He's gone to Congress.
	The Congress gives the money.
	And the Republicans say they want to stay out of the business.
	Why does he carry on like other Americans are enemies of this country?
	There's only one enemy, and that's the person that doesn't want to unite behind everybody and make things better.
	I can't think of one thing that he's done that's helped this country out with this attitude.
	Have a wonderful day, and God bless you.
	That's Spence in the Mountaineer State.
	We will head to the Old Dominion, Mike in Loudoun County, an educator.
	Mike, what grade do you teach?
	Hello, good morning.
	High school.
	What subject?
	Biology.
	And what are your thoughts on what's happening with the Education Department and funding?
	Yeah, thank you.
	So it's, I think, before I kind of wrote down notes so I didn't go all over the place, but here I am.
	It's important for everybody to understand that, you know, we're all, everyone's indoctrinated.
	Everyone is involved and integrated into a culture.
	You can't spell culture without cult.
	And everybody is given information that we then use to communicate with each other.
	You know, you didn't invent the English language.
	It was given to us.
	It was given to me.
	All of it.
	We're programmed, we're conditioned to have certain ways of communicating and thinking.
	When people are going around saying we have to stop indoctrinating our children, well, the people who are people that say that are indoctrinated to say that.
	So I just wanted to make sure that we had this clear understanding that everything is culturation.
	So, Mike, in what you teach, what's the indoctrination that you see?
	Well, okay, okay, well, that's a great question.
	Now, I'm going outside of what I had written down to talk to you about.
	So in public schools, the children are indoctrinated to accept each other.
	There is a tremendous amount of anti-bullying that has been given to this generation of kids since they were in kindergarten, right?
	And that's something that is very different from how the teachers who are teaching the children right now, like, you know, probably teachers that are, you know, maybe 25 and above, right?
	Or maybe 30 years old and above.
	We weren't given this level of social-emotional learning.
	So, Mike, if that's indoctrination, is it a good thing?
	Right.
	Yeah, sure, exactly.
	So, it's like it's very similar to how money is neutral, right?
	Money itself is a neutral entity.
	And then you can either use it to plant a tree or you can use it to chop down a rainforest.
	So, indoctrination within itself can be used to program, because people are programmable.
	It can be used to program people to be focused on ensuring that no harm is done to others, to ensure that you're an upstander.
	Or it can be used to say people that stand up for others.
	And, Mike, you're going in and out a little bit, so speak a little bit more into your phone.
	And then I didn't mean to hijack your argument.
	So, wrap it up for me, just because I've got some other folks waiting.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, no doubt, no doubt, no doubt.
	Well, we did, hold on, I'm going under a bridge.
	We did kind of go off from what I was originally saying, but I think it was originally planning on saying, I just think it's important for everybody to understand that what is happening in public schools right now is going a little bit beyond the acquisition of knowledge because of the existence of the internet.
	What's happening in schools is that, you know, students are, teachers are being trained to ensure that students feel safe, feel that there are trusted adults in the building that the students can come to if they ever need anything, right?
	So, it's more along the lines of preparing the next generation of Americans and world members to be open and understanding and accepting of others.
	And that's what's overall collectively happening outside of understanding algebra too, right?
	And, Mike, you're saying if that's all indoctrination, you're good with it.
	Well, everything, you know what I mean?
	You can't go into, if I'm trying to learn a language, I'm being indoctrinated with that language, right?
	A doctrine is a document, right?
	So, we can't use that word to say that it's negative because when people go into it, when people go into a religious institution, they're being indoctrinated with the religion.
	People go into anything, they're being given information to be programmed in order to think a certain way and to use a specific type of language in order to communicate in that methodology.
	So, if indoctrination is what it is, which is what it is, then what's happening in schools is a positive form of indoctrination to teach as many American, future American voters that, you know, is both bloody and bold, and we need to understand it so that we can better prepare ourselves for the constantly evolving future.
	Mike, thanks for the call from Loudon County, Drive Safe out there.
	David is in Denison, Texas, Republican.
	David, go ahead.
	I couldn't pick up my phone fast enough after listening to that gentleman talk about SEL, social educational learning.
	It's based on the works of Paolo Freira, a Marxist who glorified Che Guevara and Castro.
	He wrote the book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
	Please, everybody, look it up.
	You'll have a hard time reading the introduction.
	It's a third of the book, which tells you how obtuse and abstract the topic will be.
	And Freira doesn't get into talking about direct mentioning his communist ties until about halfway through his part of the book.
	But his work is an outcrop.
	Let me catch my breath a moment.
	His book is a direct outcrop.
	It's downstream from what's called the Frankfurt School, which was created in 1923 by a group of German Jewish Marxists.
	The Jewish part doesn't have any relevance, except that it caused the school to move to Columbia University in 1934 to escape Hitler.
	Columbia University had already had a relationship with this institution in Germany.
	They were going to call it the Institute of Marxism, but as a part of marketing, they decided, especially with the conflict between communists and fascists in Germany where they were, would not be a good idea.
	So, David, I assume you are okay with trying to dismantle, shut down whatever word you use, the Department of Education.
	Yes?
	Absolutely, totally.
	Are you confident that if the indoctrination is the word that we've been using here for a little bit, are you confident that if that control of programs is shifted more to states and localities, if parents have more choice, that less indoctrination will happen?
	You're confident that that's true?
	Yeah, so please let me make this a couple of small points.
	The Frankfurt School, in 1937, Max Horkheimer, I didn't realize they had actually moved to Columbia University in 1934.
	They had a relationship with Columbia University since before that.
	They were actually at Columbia.
	This is a Marxist school.
	And David, I got your point, but bring me to 2025 here just because we're running short on time.
	All right, SEL, by the way, they've got a fringe out there that talks about helping kids deal with personal relationships.
	Their major goal is to instill a state of consciousness.
	Revolutionary consciousness is what it's all about.
	This is a program.
	There's schools, universities, major universities all over the country that have programs.
	Just look up Paolo Ferreira, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, universities with programs about this.
	You'll find them all over the country.
	This is Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
	It's about teaching the teacher.
	They have these programs down to the elementary school levels.
	They teach them a level of revolutionary consciousness under the word activism.
	How many schools have you heard of over the years that the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, they let the schools out and they give the kids credit for going to these demonstrations?
	That's what they've moved this to.
	And the Prankford School, Max Horkheimer in 1937, they created Critical Theory, which is a Marxist school of scholarship where they lie based on a point of view of Marxism.
	Got your point, David.
	That's David in Denison, Texas.
	It's 7:30 on the East Coast, halfway through this first hour of the Washington Journal, asking you, simply, do you support or oppose the Trump administration's education policies?
	We have a special line for educators, 202-748-8003.
	Also, looking for your text as well on that number.
	This is from Stephen in Florida saying, We need tradespeople.
	Do we need more social engineering and arts?
	The trade are the graduates, or the engineering and arts are the graduates with crippling debt, no jobs, and no future, is what Stephen had to say in his text.
	This is another Steve saying, education has been on a steady decline ever since the government declared that they're here to help.
	Now it's in the toilet.
	Yes, change is needed.
	Then thank God for common sense again.
	And Catherine saying, What education policies?
	The only thing I've seen, I've been seeing is states want to put Bibles and teach religion in school, which I oppose.
	And Lawrence saying, I support it 100%.
	It's time to change our public education.
	School choice is the way to go.
	I should be able to use my education tax dollars to make sure that they're getting the best education possible.
	Just a few of your comments on social media and via text.
	We, of course, want to hear your calls.
	Charles in Los Angeles is a Democrat.
	Good morning.
	Very good morning.
	I taught wood shop and metal shop for 30 years in a junior high school and a high school.
	And when it was done away with, the school really deteriorated.
	The kids, I don't care if they were going to college or if they just were going to graduate and go out and get a trade.
	The Department of Education did away with it.
	It took them about four months to dismantle all the shops.
	And I think a lot of people out there took these shop classes to learn skills and see what they wanted to do.
	And really, I think being in education 36 years and the last six years being in the classroom, we missed the shops.
	We started setting up tenuation schools where kids were refusing to come to high school and junior, mostly high school.
	And we tried to, and they still are in operation.
	And doing away with the shops and the education philosophy was nobody wanted a shop person around them.
	They were all going to go to college.
	Well, I don't want any, for example, lawyers.
	So let's cut out all the law schools.
	We have plenty of lawyers.
	And that was the philosophy of the Department of Education.
	We had plenty of plumbers.
	We had plenty of wood carpenters and down the line, electricians.
	We have plenty of lawyers.
	I can't even afford a lawyer, $600 an hour, so I have no use for one.
	And Charles, you need somebody to fix my bathroom.
	You say that as a Democrat, do you think, on the whole, the Department of Education has been a good or bad thing?
	Oh, the Department of Education has been a bad thing.
	Very bad.
	Very, very bad.
	Do you remember when they brought in the new mass?
	Probably not, but they brought in what they called in the 60s, new mass.
	It destroyed the mass.
	The kids didn't even understand it.
	And most of the teachers did not.
	The older teachers went back to the old books and were, in some ways, were kind of punished or looked down on because the kids understood the old math, which we all learned in the 50s.
	That puts me pretty old.
	But I feel if we went back to education about 59, these kids would be, they would love education again.
	We never had any trouble bringing kids to school.
	In the shop classes, we had six different subjects.
	They were pounding on the door to get in.
	If the teacher didn't get there on time or the next class went out, he went and got something to eat.
	They were at the door, pounding on the door.
	So I think it's a bad thing.
	I'm sorry.
	Thanks for the call from Los Angeles.
	I want to take viewers back to March with Donald Trump's announcement of his effort to eliminate the Department of Education.
	This is the president.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Today we take a very historic action that was 45 years in the making.
		In a few moments, I will sign an executive order to begin eliminating the Federal Department of Education once and for all.
		And it sounds strange, doesn't it?
		Department of Education, we're going to eliminate it.
		And everybody knows it's right.
		And the Democrats know it's right.
		And I hope they're going to be voting for it because ultimately it may come before them.
		But everybody knows it's right.
		And we have to get our children educated.
		We're not doing well with the world of education in this country.
		And we haven't for a long time.
		And we're pleased to be joined today by the woman who I chose because she's an extraordinary person.
		And hopefully she will be our last Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon.
		Linda.
unidentified		Thank you.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Thank you very much.
		That's another interesting statement.
		That's an interesting opening, right?
		But it's true.
		And people, it's been amazing how popular this has been.
		I tell people that this is what I'm doing today.
		And they say, oh, it's about time.
		Everybody says it.
		Republicans and Democrats have said it.
		They're all saying it.
unidentified		I was President Trump from back on March the 20th.
		It's just after 7:30 this morning on the Washington Journal.
		We're asking you if you support or oppose the Trump administration's efforts when it comes to education policies.
		Special line for educators or former educators.
		Mary is on that line in Somerset, Ohio.
		Mary, when and what did you teach?
		I taught pre-Columbian history and natural history.
		To what grades?
		For all grades.
		I worked at a very old Native American site for the parks and Ohio Historical Society.
		What are your thoughts on eliminating the Department of Education on Donald Trump and his clashes with institutions of higher education?
		I'm firmly against it.
		It leads to authoritarian control of education.
		I do agree with the gentleman who spoke earlier about indoctrination.
		There's more than one way to indoctrinate.
		We have in the past had segregation, which is another form of indoctrination about education.
		Good education for some people, bad education for others.
		I can give you a perfect example.
		When I was at 10,000-year-old Flint quarry pit, I was describing to the school group, often it was fourth graders, about the place and how the Native American used the material to make their weapons and their sharp instruments for scraping hide and such knives and things.
		And I told them that we called the group a Hopewell culture because the first mound that was excavated was on Mordecai Hopewell's property, that that is not a proper name for the people who were here.
		And the Native American people have their own names, such as Aluigi for the ancient ones.
		And one of the little girls raised her hand and said, I know another name for Native Americans, which kind of excited me that this person was so interested.
		And I asked her to please tell me.
		And she said, Heathen, that's why we need to have some form of education that is inclusive and encourages people to want to know about other people and other times and learn from the history that has been here and laid before them.
		That's all I have to say.
		Thank you.
		Mary, before you go, what was your response to that little girl?
		I said that that was a general term and it applied to many people, probably, and that I would like to specifically speak about the Native people at this time.
		And how many years did you do that in Ohio, Mary?
		Around 10 years.
		I have a master's degree in environmental science.
		So I was doing both natural science and pre-Columbian history because I'm also half Native American.
		And yes.
		Mary, thanks for telling us about it.
		Tony's next out of Brooklyn, New York, Independent.
		Tony, go ahead.
		How are you doing?
		I've been an avid listener, C-SPAN, for decades.
		And you do an especially great job.
		Look, I've been, because of my profession, I've got a ton of free time.
		So I've been going to college for the past 47 years, if you can believe that.
		What does one do in college for 47 years, Tony?
		Well, I've taken everything from A to Z. I've also lived all over this country from here.
		I'm back in Brooklyn where I started.
		I've been taking, I've lived in the deep south, in the southwest, in Northern California.
		I've taken college classes from, you know, the Ivy League, from Columbia to Stanford to, you know, Phoenix Community College, where the, you know, a third of the students were like, you know, Native Americans, like the pest woman was talking about, you know, off the reservation.
		I learned a lot from them.
		But I take everything.
		I've taken everything from auto mechanics to philosophy and everything in between.
		Because I'm a stock trader.
		So it only takes me about an hour a day to work, work-like activities, I call it.
		And then it's really great.
		I've learned so much.
		And as far as the students go, the one thing that I've noticed is these young adults that I'm around now who are, right now I'm going to, well, I just finished up the semester, Borrow Manhattan Community College.
		It's like a block from ground zero.
		And I go to Brooklyn College also.
		These young people today are A, really, really smart.
		They're way more sophisticated than I was when I was an 18-year-old in 1978, you know, going to college.
		They're definitely much more worldly.
		They're much more open-minded.
		They definitely see the world for I think they've got a hundred times more common sense than my generation.
		So the kids are okay, Tony?
		Do I think they're what?
		The kids are okay.
	They're doing all right.
	Well, yeah, I think they're okay.
	I mean, I think they're the only bad thing, I think they're kind of depressed because, you know, basically this country is sort of like it's an empire and it's like kind of falling down on their heads, but they get it.
	You understand what I'm like?
	That they can see it coming?
	Yeah, they see coming.
	But I'll say this, like, you know, it's last semester, you know, the, you know, my little clique of friends, okay?
	You know, they were from Israel.
	They're from, you know, Bangladesh.
	They're from, you know, New York City.
	They're from China.
	They're from, you know, the Middle East and, you know, Russia.
	And they're from all over the world.
	And they can handle the reality, I think, of looking around.
	Whereas, you know, my generation, I'm 65, like I said, right?
	You know, our generation, it was like raised on, you know, America's great.
	Like we, you know, whatever.
	We don't do, you know, we're a force for good around the world and all this stuff.
	And I just think that's not the way it wasn't close to reality.
	Tony, as somebody who's, as somebody who's been in college as long as you've been attending classes, what do you make of this new Gallup poll that's out and they poll on higher education issues often?
	They write, an increasing portion of U.S. adults say that they have little or no confidence in higher education.
	As a result, Americans are now equally divided among those who have a great deal or a lot of confidence in higher education, 36%, those who say they have some confidence, 32%, and those who have little or no confidence.
	32% of Americans say that.
	When Gallup first measured their confidence in higher education among Americans, that was in 2015.
	A full 57% had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence.
	And just 10% said they had little or no confidence in higher education.
	That was just 10 years ago.
	Yeah.
	I mean, let me put it this way.
	There's definitely a huge disconnect with, you know, the people.
	I mean, I'm a middle-aged guy, right?
	You know, I raised a family.
	I'm like, I've got friends all over the country of all different ages.
	Yeah, There's anti-anti-intellectualism that's been going on in America for a long, long time.
	No doubt.
	I think those polls are, I think that's accurate.
	I don't think it's the reality.
	And I'll just say this: let me say one thing.
	The greatest comparative advantage that the United States has is our colleges, right?
	Including the, you know, I've attended these community colleges in four cities where the kids are taking, you know, they get a two-year degree in HVAC, right?
	Or to be a dental hygienist or to be, you know, some sort of a mechanic or, you know, some technical thing.
	And they get a job.
	You know, they enter college at 18.
	By the time they're 20, they can make a really good living, right?
	Doing HVAC.
	So that's on the, you know, on the, on the, let's say, the lower socioeconomic stratum.
	I've also attended, you know, and in fact, I'll just throw it out there.
	I was, I, I went, I studied at Columbia University decades ago, and I went back there for the, for these protests, you know, a year ago.
	You were on the campus?
	I was on the, I, you know, well, I technically was not on the campus.
	I was with my daughters and their friends who attend, who had, some of them still had their IDs, right?
	They were like, had graduated in the past, you know, 10 years.
	They wouldn't allow.
	It was really tight.
	You could not, you can't get on that campus without an ID.
	But the protests were outside.
	It was vicious against the peaceful protesters.
	I'm telling you, man.
	And I've been to protests all over the world.
	This was as brutal, as brutal as I've ever seen.
	And it's not what the media portrayed out there.
	I mean, I've lived in neighborhoods that had, you know, there were tons of Hasidic, you know, ultra-Orthodox, Hasidic Jewish folks who were protesting against the Israeli war, right?
	These guys are anti-Zionist, right?
	They're obviously pro-Jewish.
	They were, you know, peace, they're wearing all these signs, and they had to be protected by the police.
	I'm talking like completely protected from the protesters that were for the Israeli, right?
	These were like, and then there was like church groups.
	And I was happened to be with a bunch of younger people who, my daughter's ages, and it was brutal.
	And I, and I, the people that I trust that were on that campus for the whole protest said there was no, you know, the kids were not.
	Nobody was threatening.
	Kids at Columbia University are not going up to kids threatening to beat them up.
	That's just, that's just a bunch of malarkey.
	And I literally saw with my own eyes, like there were thousands of people with, you know, waving Israeli flags and American flags.
	They looked like me.
	They were middle-aged folks from the New York area.
	And they were surrounding the peace outside the campus, surrounding us, surrounding the Hasidic Jews.
	They were throwing food at us.
	They were throwing like it was what they said to us.
	I can't even, I won't repeat it, but it's the most ugliest thing I've ever heard people like, you know, saying to other, another human being.
	And the police were just standing there.
	I mean, there were thousands of policemen.
	It's in New York City.
	I mean, it's.
	And they didn't do anything.
	That's Tony in Brooklyn, New York.
	Just about 10 minutes left to get a few more callers in.
	Mark is in Hampstead, Maryland, Republican.
	Thanks for waiting.
	Hey, good morning, John.
	Man, that last caller, 47 years spent in college.
	And I guess he must be in his 60s now and is still going to protest.
	So I absolutely agree with Trump getting rid of the Department of Education.
	That last caller is a good example of why we need to get rid of the Department of Education.
	Our test scores have been consistently going down since the Department of Education was put in place, I think, in 79 or 80.
	Something else that no one or hardly anyone ever mentions is that the curriculum in schools since 1980, particularly when it comes to world history and American history, has all emanated from one book by a guy named Howard Zinn called The People's History of America.
	And whether students had that book in front of them or not, all the curriculum about American history has flowed from that book since 1980.
	And Howard Zinn was a self-proclaimed Marxist who hated America.
	He's the guy who turned Christopher Columbus into, you know, we used to call Columbus a hero.
	We now call him a genocidal maniac, and that's because of the lies of Howard Zinn.
	I've heard a few people call in who, you know, refer to American Indians as Native Americans this morning.
	This idea that we need to hold all cultures as if they are of equal value is very ridiculous.
	I know there was a teacher that called in a few calls back who was upset because of the term that a girl used for some American Indian group.
	The fact of the matter is, all cultures are not created equal.
	If they were, no one would ever immigrate, would they?
	I think we need to go back to actually teaching kids instead of indoctrinating them.
	On your point about Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States, have you ever picked it up and read it?
	Have you ever?
	Yeah, unfortunately, I have read that piece of garbage.
	I've also read the Communist Manifesto.
	I read a lot of garbage, unfortunately.
	So that I can figure out where our country is going.
	And where do you think we're going?
	We're going right into the dumpster, unfortunately, because we have teachers.
	Did you know that the biggest group that donates to the Democrat Party is the Teachers Union?
	And there's a reason why they're against school choice.
	They don't want people of lower socioeconomic status to be able to send their kids to a better school.
	The teachers' union does not want competition.
	Competition would actually require some substance, some actual learning.
	The teachers are more interested in indoctrinating.
	Mark, do you have kids?
	Yes, three.
	Where did they go to school?
	They went to public school, but they also read books when they got home.
	I myself spent my years in public and private school both.
	And I can tell you that even when I was in school in the 1980s, they were already changing around American history.
	No, most of the historians in our country are progressives, and they've done a darn good job of rewriting a lot of our history.
	Mark, did your kids go to college?
	A couple of them did, yeah.
	Where'd they go?
	Community, community college.
	They did not go to any of these Ivy League schools, I can assure you.
	And one other thing, I don't think, I mean, strict in a constitutional sense, you know, there's 23 things the federal government is supposed to be doing.
	Education is not one of them.
	I don't think we should be putting a penny into any schools whatsoever.
	I don't think the government has any business trying to educate people.
	There was a caller a while ago that said they're concerned now that there's going to be indoctrination in schools by getting rid of the Department of Education.
	That's the opposite is true.
	We need to get government out of school.
	It has no business there.
	That's Mark in Maryland.
	Just about five minutes left.
	This is Kashaka in Georgia, Independent.
	Good morning.
	The understanding that I would like to put out there is based on the fact that the educational system throughout history has always been an institution of indoctrination.
	The foundation point is children are taught what to think, but not how to think.
	An example would be, as even a question to you and those out in the audience, what would be the name of the mathematical system that we use in our everyday lives?
	I have talked to people who have PhDs and did not know.
	Now, the indoctrination part is most people would know the name of a mathematical system that they don't even use.
	The name of the mathematical system that was used to build the pyramids, which is 10, is the Arabic New System.
	So education and the progress of Homo sapiens from one level to another is a journey.
	I remember when I was in the university, the head of the university department said that people of African descent were not capable of higher mathematics.
	How long ago was this, Kashaka?
	This was in 1972.
	So the indoctrination affects every aspect of our society.
	So the indoctrination before Trump and after Trump is basically the same.
	People aren't taught what they really need.
	When we teach American history, we do not teach that the Native Americans who went to war or was warred upon by the colonists.
	There were instances where their blankets were sprayed in smallpox.
	There's no treaty that has been fully complied with.
	The education of religion, especially the Christian religion, and this is where Trump comes in, there was a time in European history where they considered it the dark ages, where any information on the progress within science or the advancements was frowned against.
	You could actually have been killed.
	Now, in Trump's issue, there have been statistics that said most college-educated people would have the tendency not to vote to him.
	So, Trump's behavior in attacking all aspects of the social order that were against him, he's been attacking.
	That's Kashaka in Georgia.
	Time for maybe one more call.
	This is Roy Bowie, Maryland, former educator.
	What subject and what grade level?
	Middle school history and math.
	And what are your thoughts about Donald Trump's education policies, be it K-12 or higher education?
	Very quickly, a couple calls back, a gentleman called.
	Actually, he lives not too far from me in Bowie.
	His beginning statement was that not all cultures are rated equally or deserve to be treated equally.
	It's that type of thinking that we have in the White House that's controlling our policy.
	The minute that we decide to take one group of people and prefer them over another group of people simply because of the region of the world where they're born, that's problematic thinking and it leads to, or I should say it's an offshoot of imperialism and so forth and so on.
	You can blame that on Howard Zinn, or you can just blame that on observation of history.
	That's how it is.
	To answer your question, I think there's a concerted effort by the GOP to essentially remove the ability to have critical thinking from our students.
	I saw it as a teacher in teaching 19 years each time.
	And I'm in Maryland, which is a relatively progressive state.
	So we have a bit of autonomy in terms of, well, I guess every state does has a bit of autonomy in terms of what they teach.
	But when you remove a centralized body for education to say, hey, we need to have certain standards across the country in terms of what we teach and how we teach, I get it that each state has their own personal history that they want their citizens and their students to learn or what have you.
	But when you start changing facts to opinion-based factoids, you lead to a deficit in the thinking and intelligence capacity of our country.
	We're going to have kids now who don't know proper history.
	We've got this world movement right now, but it's really big here in the United States, with these flat earth people who are saying, oh, the earth is flat and so forth.
	It's ridiculousness.
	It's like we have arguments against verifiable, provable facts.
	And the Department of Education should have been monitoring those things to make sure to say, look, Florida, Texas, and any other place, there was no personal benefit to the enslavement of human beings.
	Slavery was a terrible institution, and we should treat it as such.
	Oh, and by the way, these other things are offshoots of what happened.
	If kids feel guilty behind that, because you find out that your great-great-grandpa was an enslaver and your family's money or what have you came from that, well, then that's something that you should have a conversation about.
	But just saying, oh, we're not going to teach it or we're going to teach lies about it, put it in the closet, don't discuss it, that doesn't help anyone anywhere at any time.
	That's Roy in Bowie, Maryland, last caller in this first segment of the Washington Journal.
	But stick around, plenty more to talk about this morning.
	A little later, we'll be joined by Larry Sabadeau, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
	We'll take a look at the lay of the land 18 months ahead of the midterm elections.
	But first, former Republican Congressman Chris Gibson joins us to talk about his new book, The Spirit of Philadelphia.
	Stick around for that discussion.
	We'll be right back.
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	Washington Journal continues.
	Former Congressman Chris Gibson is back at our desk, a Republican from New York since leaving Congress in 2017.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		He's written three books.
unidentified		The latest is The Spirit of Philadelphia: A Call to Recover the Founding Principles.
unidentified		And Congressman Gibson, take us back about 238 years or so.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Explain what you mean by the spirit of Philadelphia.
chris gibson ▲ ● ▼		So, you know, we're in a tough time right now.
		And I just enjoyed your last segment.
		I understand how divided the country is, the consequences of these policies, both half the country supporting them, half the country opposing them.
		You know, it's interesting.
		I wanted to take a look at, you know, what happened.
		I mean, a lot of Americans are wondering out there, how did we get to this place?
		And so I went back to the beginning of our country.
		And I would say to encourage the viewers here right now, I believe that they were actually facing tougher circumstances.
		When they arrived in Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention in this way, they had a very difficult problem because they knew that the Articles of Confederation were failing.
		They were failing.
		We were at the time free and independent states, free and independent states.
		Closest analogy would be like the EU, because we were a confederation and we had states that were obviously coining money, states that were putting tariffs on other states, states that were being lured into trading, trading agreements with other countries, and we had insurrection, we had the Shays rebellion and we had others, and so they knew that what they had done with the articles didn't hit the mark, and so they had this problem and why?
		I think it's different.
		They actually had to adjust our governmental structure to actually give it more power.
		But at the same time, they were very ensconced and concerned about overshooting the target.
		So they had to at once, and Madison talks about this in the Federalist Papers, you know, they had to create this government that could essentially do its part of the social contract, but then also have it control itself.
		And so what they did was genius, but I believe they actually got it right.
		And the way they did it is, because they had tried.
		The thing that the viewers, I want them to appreciate is these were practical people.
		They tried to solve the problem several times and failed every single time, including the last one at Annapolis in 1786.
		And they didn't throw their hands up.
		They said, we're going to meet in Philadelphia.
		And what they did between Annapolis and Philadelphia is they studied extensively.
		They reviewed everything they could get their hands on.
		Jefferson made a difference.
		He was actually in Europe.
		He sent a truckload of books to Madison.
		And they read about Greece.
		They read about Rome and other attempts to get a republic right.
		And ultimately, what they ended up with, they created, I call the spirit of Philadelphia.
		It was actually unexpected.
		What they wanted to do was fix the governmental design.
		They wanted to, they were supposed to be there to fix the articles.
		Articles required a unanimous consent of the states to change it.
		They could never reach unanimous consent.
		They knew that that threshold was too high.
		They needed a governmental structure that could breathe.
		And they wanted the bar to be very high to bring change, but they needed it to be possible.
		And this is the Constitution that they bring forward.
		And arguably the most, you know, argumentative part about the Constitution was it required three fourths of the states to ratify it to go into effect.
		That was facially unconstitutional to the Articles of Confederation.
		And really they weren't challenged on that point.
		So the spirit of Philadelphia, yes, they worked, they brought forward this new document.
		It was different.
		It was decidedly philosophically different.
		Perhaps we'll get into that today.
		But the spirit of Philadelphia was the breakthrough.
		First of all, it took two weeks to get enough delegates there to even get a quorum going.
		And then they ended up in the same old arguments.
		It looked like for the first month, five weeks, it looked like it was going to be yet another failed attempt.
unidentified		And we should note that they first met on May 25th of 1787.
chris gibson ▲ ● ▼		Here we are almost in that week.
unidentified		We have an anniversary.
chris gibson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I know.
		And we're getting ready next year, of course, to celebrate 250 years of the Declaration.
		This is an important moment.
		We're at an inflection point for our country.
		And that's why, you know, your last segment had people who support the Trump education policies, those that oppose it.
		I'm trying to actually reach all of those viewers.
unidentified		The book, again, The Spirit of Philadelphia, A Call to Recover the Founding Principles is the subtitle.
		That subtitle, the word recover meaning we've lost the founding principles.
		And it was when did we lose the founding principle?
chris gibson ▲ ● ▼		So, you know, a little over 100 years ago, these were conscious choices, by the way.
		We started moving away from it.
		To make the last point on the spirit of Philadelphia, why it was unexpected, is they expected to tinker.
		They were practical people.
		But what ended up happening is that Connecticut compromise between large states and small states, when they finally got over that hurdle, all of a sudden the world looked different.
		Once they agreed to come with a bicameral legislative body, all of a sudden this issue over how to deal with the executive seemed solvable, which they couldn't reach consensus on.
		Now they did.
		And this, what I argue is this was the spirit.
		I mean, the viewers out there, many of them may have served in the military, been in good companies, you know, private companies that do, but there's something about us as a species.
		When we come together and we meld, we work hard, sometimes we compromise, we come together, we create something bigger than ourselves.
		That's what we did.
		That spirit of Philadelphia, you know, that's what came as an unexpected gift of the Connecticut Compromise.
		What happened to us is, you know, in the 19th century, first of all, the Civil War, okay?
		You know, the philosophy that we chose, which, you know, I argue is common sense realism, you know, essentially focused on two factors.
		In fact, it focused on human nature.
		Who are we individually?
		Who are we as society?
		And then, given that, what should we do with power?
		How should we array power?
		And they chose some conscious choices here.
		They knew they had to have enough in the government to be able to effectuate its side of the social contract.
		But what they decided is all of them, that is to say, as a collective body, there were a few naysayers, Patrick Henry, there were some folks that were opposing this, the anti-Federalists.
		But what they said is, look, given what we know about human nature, which it's conflicted, humans are neither all good nor all bad.
		We're conflicted.
		Sometimes we're amazing, we're selfless, at other times we're very aggressive and self-serving.
		And they said the best thing we can do is decentralize power to the extent we can, and then we need to separate power and we need to keep it transparent and checked.
		And we believe, the founders, that this is the best way that a republic can last.
		And so, you know, we come forward with that.
		And how did it go?
		Well, generally, well, with one major exception.
		So the Civil War.
		But what I want to say is that the system worked as designed.
		People say, well, why is it that they had trouble solving the issue of slavery?
		Well, it's a flawed assumption.
		They actually thought they had put it on a path towards extinction.
		I mean, you look at Federalist 42.
		Madison says this.
		He basically says that what we did was, he doesn't use the word genius, but this is incredible.
		We figured it out.
		When we ban the international slave trade, it's going to die out and we're going to be able to move forward as a people.
		And so when that didn't happen, what did the system do?
		Well, it did a lot.
		It launched us into the industrial age, put us on a path to becoming a global superpower.
		But whenever we hit conflict, political conflict, what happened is the system works towards compromise.
		So what did we see?
		We saw the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
		We saw the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
		We had a series of legislative actions that were, the system worked, it produced a product.
unidentified		So this system that you say, you argue was working, what happened to it about 100 years ago?
unidentified		What changed in the political philosophy of this country?
chris gibson ▲ ● ▼		Absolutely.
		So immediately what happens is because we had a flawed assumption with regard to a first order moral question, the question of slavery, is we were not able to peacefully resolve it.
		Lincoln, we fight this war over states' rights and over slavery.
		And then in his second inaugural address, Lincoln says, we're going to bind up the wounds of the nation with malice towards none.
		He had a vision.
		He had a plan to actually bring us back under common sense realism, having resolved the first order moral question.
		Of course, he was murdered.
		We never fully recovered.
		We had so many casualties of that war.
		Among those was our founding philosophy that really worked so well for us.
		So what happened?
		Well, by the 19th century, new ideas are in the ether in the world, including in Europe, German idealism.
		And among those that were very enamored with it was Woodrow Wilson.
		He was one of the first in our country to get a doctorate, a PhD from Johns Hopkins in what they were calling political science at the time.
		But in his dissertation, Wilson argues the founders got it exactly wrong.
		He said, there's no point.
		We don't have to do this.
		We don't have to decentralize.
		We don't have to separate power.
		What we really should do is come forward with centralization and allow us to move towards ideal circumstances.
		Not optimal, but ideal.
		And this is what's in his dissertation.
		So when he becomes college president, he's working on Hegel, I call it Hegelian ideas.
		It's German idealism.
		But then when he's president, what you see is, well, the war.
unidentified		What is German idealism?
chris gibson ▲ ● ▼		So, I mean, there's so much.
		It's a very dense topic.
		But what it means for us here, and particularly what we're talking about today, is the idea that the state, the state broadly defined, can perfect man.
		In fact, Hegel says, although he would really push back if he were here today saying it was taken out of context, but he said the state is what man has created.
		The state is the march of God in the world.
		Okay, now, from where he was standing, he didn't have everything that we've gone through in the last 200 years.
		But people leaned, I mean, Nietzsche leans on this.
		And then, of course, we know what happens in the 20th century, not only with Nietzsche, but with Hegel.
		But there's this movement towards greater bureaucracy, centralization.
		And so Wilson's among those believers.
		And what you see during the First World War, I mean, we have price controls.
		We have the espionage and sedition acts.
		If you speak out against the war, I mean, there was a whole number of initiatives, including the creation of bureaucracy to control.
		And, you know, there's an undertow.
		After he leaves in the 20s, we move back.
		Logical positivism, I talk about in the book, about that reaction to it.
		But ultimately, what happens over the last 100-plus years, regardless of party, even though there's some pushback, you know, here and there, Reagan, of course, has a different vision.
		But the thing to remember about Nixon, President Nixon, is the fact that he basically said we're all Keynesians now.
		And he created the EPA.
		So what I'm saying is there was largely a consensus that was inimical to the founding principles.
		That doesn't mean they couldn't do it.
		The founders themselves said the system needs to be malleable.
		But this book is ultimately about ideas and their consequences.
unidentified		That was a quick march through about 240 years of Americanism.
chris gibson ▲ ● ▼		There's a lot of philosophy.
unidentified		It's in this book, The Spirit of Philadelphia.
		I want to invite viewers to call in and join the conversation as well.
		Phone lines, as usual, with former Congressman Chris Gibson, Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		Independents, 2027-8002.
		With the philosophy that we just went through, with the history.
		What are the suggestions that you make at the end of this book?
		What can we do to do the verb there, to recover the founding principles?
chris gibson ▲ ● ▼		Well, the first thing is to recognize the moment we're in.
		I mean, I just explained the beginning, and it wasn't nefarious, by the way.
		I mean, Wilson really believed in what he was doing.
		He believed that was what was best for our country.
		But I mean, today there are those who really criticize President Trump.
		They say he's centralizing so much power.
		He is transforming the political landscape.
		He is a highly consequential president.
		And in that regard, and it's important to note that history just didn't start in 2015 or 16 or 17.
		I mean, he is actually leaning in and moving to the front of the formation of something that started long ago.
		And so where are we today?
		Well, I mean, I understood the book explains how we get President Trump and the phenomenon of this populist moment that we're in.
		It is widespread disaffection, alienation, disappointment with institutions and their leaders.
		So now the choices, look at the choices in 2024, philosophically now.
		There's certainly ideology and platform, of course.
		We'll probably get into some of that.
		But philosophically, you had a choice between progressivism, which is a form of idealism, which believes in centralizing power as a principle, as a principle regarding power.
		Remember what I said about the founders?
		They were looking at human nature.
		And given that, what do we do about power?
		Progressives, they actually see humans as good and want to centralize power because you can achieve idealistic outcomes.
		The populists actually don't have a strong position on power from a principle perspective.
		It depends.
		Like, if power is being accumulated to President Obama, that's not a good thing because he could be working against the folk community.
		The thing about populism is it's very focused on the community.
		And they want to know what government's being used for.
		If government's being used to be helpful to the folk community, that's a good thing.
		So, you know, and Walter Russell Mead, I lean heavily on his research as regard to populism.
		But the thing about the Trump movement is that, I mean, you had Americans who were just totally turned off by what was going on.
		They looked at him and said, maybe we just need to give the power to him and he'll fix all this.
		So your choices were progressivism on one hand and populism on the other.
		And what I'm arguing here is, look, to all the viewers, and you had viewers on both sides of Trump on this last segment.
		I'm saying I'm trying to reach everyone.
		I'm saying, let's take a step back and let's take a look at history and philosophy and the consequences of the choices that we've made.
		And I could find no example in history where a nation, a people in a nation, centralized power, especially into one person, and it ever worked out well.
		Could happen, but if it does, it'll be the first time in human history.
		That's power.
		And then you look at the product.
		I mean, these deficits right now, we can't sustain them.
		There are all kinds of historical examples.
		The Roman Empire, Great Britain, frankly.
		I mean, if you spend beyond your means and keep doing it, you know, you just, you cannot, you cannot survive in that political state.
		So I'm telling you, the founders, look, they understood that too.
		So, I mean, so that's probably enough for now.
		Let's hear from some of the callers.
		But I'm glad I had a chance to sketch this.
		And I would love to, at some point, even get into education because the founders, you know, Jefferson and Adams disagreed about a lot.
		What they agreed upon was, first of all, common sense realism.
		They were on the same page with regard to human nature and what it meant for power.
		And they also believed that we would never survive if our citizens were not educated, informed, and engaged.
		Educated, they're all three different.
		Educated, informed, and engaged.
		And so that means classical education, a broad temperament, or a temperament that's influenced by a broad education.
unidentified		Chris Gibson is our guest and author in his time since leaving the Congress from 2017 on three books, the latest, The Spirit of Philadelphia.
		He's also served as professor at Williams College, the president of Siena College, before your time in Congress, served in the military, and taking your phone calls here on the Washington Journal this morning.
		And there are plenty for you.
		Peter's up first here in Washington, D.C. and Independent.
		Peter, good morning.
		Hi, good morning.
		I have a quick question for Congressman Gibson.
		Across a number of issue areas in your book, you argue for limits on the executive branch and in favor of a return to the constitutionally prescribed role of both the federal legislature and state level government.
		Absolutely.
		Is this approach to government still viable when modern politics is so fast moving and policy points feel policy issues feel so acute?
		For a quick example, I have deep sympathy with your expressed views on the War Powers Act.
		But realistically, how effectively could our 535 congressmen and senators reach consensus in a true moment of national crisis?
		And Peter, you've already read the book?
		Yes, I have.
		Yes, sir.
		I'm a big fan of Congressman Gibson's.
		I've followed his career for quite some time.
		Do you work on Capitol Hill, Peter?
		No, I do not.
		I work for a foreign policy think tank based out of New York, the Foreign Policy Association.
		Peter, thanks for the call.
		I want to say I know this young man, and he's got an incredible future ahead of him.
chris gibson ▲ ● ▼		He's a nice balance of he's very serious in his work, but he doesn't take himself seriously.
		And as you can tell, the way he just constructed that question, I mean, that is, in essence, one of the preeminent questions for all this.
		And my answer would be yes.
		But I also acknowledge.
		I mean, I was at a conference out at Stanford about two months ago, and I had a very thoughtful colleague of mine from Hillsdale College.
		And he's from Hillsdale.
		He asked the same question.
		He wondered, can we, in this information age, and I say, I believe it's true.
		I don't know it to be true, but my read of history, I believe it can.
		These principles that the founders have actually, it's amazing how much they grappled with.
		How much they had read Gibbon that was recently published.
		That's the decline of the Roman Empire.
		The first volumes came out in 1776, last volume in 1788.
		They had read all about the Delian League, the Achaean League.
		They read about the Greek republics.
		And these were principles that they believed stood the test of time about us, about who we are, and about the reality.
		I mean, that's why I call it the realism.
		And that actually comes from the Scottish Enlightenment.
		But more specifically to the point, what we're intending to do here is recognize the fact that the founders said that we're going to have three co-equal branches.
		They did put pride of place to the people's representatives.
		The first, Article 1, the Constitution is the legislature, the legislative body.
		But they knew that we needed a magistrate, we needed a leader, they understood that, but they also expected the other branches to check each other throughout.
		I believe today, in 2025, we can still do this, but what we have to do as a people, and I've got a chapter on this, it's called We the People.
		Notes for Us, We the People.
		And it's a recognition that we own some of this too.
		We have to look at our expectations.
		A great country in a good country too, and there's a difference.
		But what we need to do is really hold our representatives to account, hold them to account, and then in issues where we cannot reach consensus at the national level, we need to push that back down.
		We need to push that back down to the states until such time that we can have persuasion enough to do legislation at the national level.
		These principles will work if we use them again.
unidentified		On We the People, this is page 125 of your book.
		You're right, the founders understood that this form of government that they were creating would not work without an educated, informed, and engaged electorate.
		Channeling Montesquieu, the founders recognized that this required the widespread promotion of broad liberal education aimed at cultivating virtuous citizens capable of critical thinking, cultivated in this way citizens would then safeguard their freedoms and act as active voters would serve as a check against fanciful government proposals and actions.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Are we that people that they envisioned?
chris gibson ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think there's so much disaffection right now.
		And of course, as humans, we're also emotional.
		So this is intensely personal to us.
		And I think it makes it very difficult for us.
		But this is part of what a conflicted human nature is.
		I mean, how many times I'll say in my own life, you know, I have a reaction, an emotional reaction to something, and I ask myself, is that really the right thing to do at this moment?
		Or should I think that through?
		Maybe delay the decision if I can until I can really think it through.
		And I think as a people, we have to recognize that we're out of balance.
		And balance is a big part of this book.
		But when I say out of balance, what do I mean by that?
		So, and there's an extensive section in the book on this.
		But where we are right now is, regardless of party, by the way, we are now, rather than have a balance between the individual and the obligations we have to others, we are all for the former, or for the individual, mostly for the former.
		Whereas I don't want to live in a country that doesn't find the individual of the highest value.
		I mean, we definitely, that's one of our things we're most proud of, is that we value individuals and our rights.
		But our social contract had rights, had responsibilities balanced with rights.
		And rather than having primacy of individual obligation to others, what the founders envisioned was a balance.
		Absolutely, the celebration of the human soul, the individual, but the obligations we have towards others.
		That's just on individuals and obligations to others.
		We're out of balance.
		We're also out of balance between the now and the future.
		Okay?
		I mean, the founders envision both.
		We only live in the now.
		The now is important, but do we really, if you think about the American dream, what is the American dream?
		It's two things, basically.
		It's that you have the right to self-determine.
		You are in control of your destiny, your potential.
		But what else is the American dream?
		It's the idea that I want my family to be in a stronger position than I was when I was growing.
		We've always believed that.
		And that's why, you know, throughout the years, when you talked about when this changed, look, the election of 1896 was highly contested.
		There's, I mean, McKinley, William Jennings-Bryan, how they, but neither candidate said, I got an idea.
unidentified		We're going to spend a trillion dollars or two trillion dollars more than what we bring in.
chris gibson ▲ ● ▼		Nobody would have ever done that.
		It was beyond the pale because they knew if they did that, that was going to adversely affect their children and their grandchildren and future generations.
		This is that balance between the now and the future.
		And finally, one more thing on balance is we're out of balance between the material and the spiritual.
		And that's why, you know, I talk in the book about the angsting, the angsting that's, I mean, widespread angsting.
		I mean, Jonathan Haight writes a book called The Anxiety Generation.
		We're seeing the anxious generation and, you know, just how much young people today are suffering from anxiety and depressions.
		This has happened over time.
		It's a lot of factors.
		Haight's book's great.
		I cite it.
		But the point is, is that we are, yes, we're material.
		Of course, we have a physical dimension.
		We have an intellect, but we also have a spirit.
		And if you don't nurture the spirit, we're going to end up where we are at this moment.
		It's about getting the blend right between the physical, the intellectual, and the spiritual.
		And being out of balance in all three of those things is where we are today.
		And, you know, it's interesting because when you talk to people who are either for or against Trump, they believe that, first of all, some who are against him are surprised that what's happening now in relation to 2017, but they believe they have nothing in common with progressives.
		And my read of history is actually what they agree upon, both people who are against Trump and for him, is they believe we should centralize power for different reasons.
		But the people who are supporting Trump right now, he's the only one that can fix it.
		You know, we should give him absolute power.
		And the people who are against Trump just don't want him to have that power, but generally believe in the principle.
		You know, if somebody like President Obama had that power, they would be fine with it.
		And that's the moment we're in because I think we need to take a step back and take a look at history and philosophy and say, what are the consequences of choices?
		And where are we today?
unidentified		Bob is waiting in Texas Republican line.
		Bob, you're on with former Congressman Chris Gibson.
		Yes, I consider today a gift from God and I thank Congressman Gibson for his enthusiasm and his book and his questions.
		All right, getting back to principles and to education, I know that the first sentence of U.S. law of 1776, they only had two principles with which they declared and won independence from England.
		And those were the laws of nature.
		It's understood to be creation and the laws of nature's God.
		The Bible.
		Now, Sir William Blackstone, who wrote his first volume 11 years before the Declaration, and he was the most quoted man by our founders.
		And his most quoted quote was, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.
		So we've got to get back to the first sentence of U.S. law and get back to creation and the Bible.
		And any laws that contradict those are no law, no law at all.
		So I just want an example here in Texas.
		We had over 9,000 bills that were submitted in this session.
		And I will guarantee you that 99% of them violate Blackstone's precepts that no human laws should contradict creation in the Bible.
		Well, Bob, let me take that point, Congressman Gibson.
		Yeah.
chris gibson ▲ ● ▼		So a few things on this is one, look, again, this is a book about history and philosophy, the intersection of history, philosophy, and then the consequences for public policy.
chris gibson ▲ ● ▼		And unfortunately, today, a lot of the conversation about religion and faith is not historically based because, you know, there are those that say the founders explicitly formed a secular nation and therefore they didn't want God.
unidentified		Separation of churches.
unidentified		Yeah.
chris gibson ▲ ● ▼		So that's a misconception.
		Now, absolutely, they did not want, I mean, the issue, the challenge is maybe some of the viewers, perhaps Bob, has watched The Chosen.
		And one of the challenges you see in that rendition is which part of the Bible?
		I mean, clearly we're living now the New Testament when we're watching The Chosen.
		But the point is, is that the Old Testament was really about judgment.
		And it was, some would say, harsh, but it was about living in a certain way.
		Jesus comes and says, I'm here for the sinners, and I'm looking to bring mercy.
		And actually, he has conflict with the Pharisees over this thing.
		I really strongly recommend this series, The Chosen.
		But I'm bringing it up in this context to say that the founders, this was an issue back then.
		In fact, how it became an issue was actually very curious.
		I got more detail on this in my research.
		James Madison.
		So Madison was dealing with a legacy in Virginia about whether or not the taxpayers should pay for pastors and for the maintenance of church.
		They were.
		And Madison said, we're going to have to get out of this business.
		Now that we're talking about breaking from England, we shouldn't be paying the pastors and we should get that.
		So it's interesting what happened.
		They actually, they did this.
		They had a religious toleration bill.
		But what Madison learned, he flipped on a key principle based on his experiences in Virginia.
		What he learned is that the Anglicans, who, you know, that's the Church of England, of course, they wanted to keep going in that direction.
		But there were multiple factions.
		And he was able to, he initially disagreed with David Hume, who was one of the philosophers who believed the best way to deal with faction is to have a whole bunch of factions.
		And then, you know, they'll cancel each other out and they'll check each other.
		That's eventually what we get with ambition to counteract ambition.
		That was actually contra to the council of the wise since time out of memory.
		But what's interesting about what happened in Virginia is what Madison says, I'll be darned.
		Maybe Hume is on to something.
		Because what he found is with the multiple of factions, they actually outvoted the people who wanted to keep paying.
		But the larger point is he wanted religious freedom.
		So when the left says that, you know, they meant to keep God out, that's just not true.
		I mean, the founders deeply believed in God, and they wanted to be reverent in that way.
		Now, Jefferson was a deist, so he was not in any one of the particular denominations.
		But the point is, is you can find examples.
		And John Adams literally says, when he writes to Jefferson, he says, yeah, I know you love the French.
		He goes, just explain to me how 20 million atheists are going to be able to govern themselves.
		He doesn't believe it's possible.
		He believes that you need a core set of values to be able to make a republic work.
		Now, so it's conflicted, right?
		But the point is we weren't trying to keep God out, but we did set up a constitutional system that we were going to follow through with.
		Now, what I would say is, with regards, one last point on education, because I listened to your last segment before I came on.
		I really appreciated the gentleman who called in and said culture matters.
		And he said, look, the reality is we're dealing with indoctrination.
		And he made some comments about Howard's Inn.
		Look, with regard to the Trump administration's view on education, look, I think the record is a little mixed, but I have to say the arc of what they're trying to do, which is really to teach history in a way that is constructive so that we recognize we have warts and challenges, but we are a great and a good nation.
		They're different.
		Great because we achieve, but we're a good nation because we're basically a good force in the world.
		I mean, think about it.
		We won World War II, saved the world from a dark age of fascism, and then we dedicated 5% of our gross domestic product to rebuild those nations.
		That was our money.
		And we did it, yes, for our own interests, but also for theirs.
		So we are a good nation with flaws.
		No question about that.
		But, you know, the arc, so for example, the one place where I did disagree with the caller, and again, I thought he was well communicative and had important points, is, I mean, I'm a believer in American exceptionalism to such a degree.
		The first term of the Trump administration, they published, their group that was working on that issue published a paper called the 1776 Project.
		I like it a lot.
		I like it so much that I don't have any problem debating it.
		So in my class, I had my students read both.
		They read the 1619 project and the 1776 project.
		The primary documents there, along with all the founding documents, what the founders were influenced by.
		And then we read secondary sources widely.
		So I assigned both Howard's Inn and Bill McClay.
		The previous caller talked about Howard's Inn, the people's history of the United States.
	Bill McClay writes a book called Land of Hope.
	I believe it's pretty balanced.
	But the bottom line is that I wasn't there to indoctrinate my students.
	I wanted them to read primary sources and then read secondary sources widely and make their own call.
	So I'm not for banning books.
	I think you should, if you feel strongly, I do, about 1776 project, you should be not afraid.
	But what I did insist upon was a debate.
	And in the book, I explain.
	I explain that I insist upon a debate because, you know, the fact is, and this is data, a lot of academia today is of the left.
	So I think it's important that there be a balance on that.
unidentified		Less than 10 minutes left with Congressman Chris Gibson.
		The book is The Spirit of Philadelphia.
		Several callers waiting to chat with you.
		Will, Virginia Beach Independent, go ahead.
		Yes, good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		Just want to say, sounds like a very interesting book.
		I'm planning on adding it to my summer reading list here for sure.
		And I do want to preface this statement just to sort of agree with the concept that certainly faiths of all kinds should and almost inevitably will bring their ideas into policy and legislative derivation and creation, but certainly shouldn't be the source, right?
		Exclusively.
		But aside from that then, I just wanted to sort of point out an idea of that I come from where sort of with a scientific viewpoint that when you sort of create say something like a chemical, right, it requires some sort of catalyst and reaction and in that process of creation you create the thing you're looking to create a target of some kind.
		However, there's always inevitably a byproduct, something that is not part of the target, right?
		Absolutely.
		And that consequence, unfortunately, can be very toxic sometimes, almost deadly.
		And then sometimes it can just be certainly benign.
		So in the creation of an idea, such as a policy or even legislation, to the idea of the consequences of ideas, there is inevitably going to be some sort of aspect of it that isn't necessarily the point of the creation of that policy.
		So I just wanted to see if there was any sort of idea from that that could be derived and context to your writing.
chris gibson ▲ ● ▼		Well, exactly.
		Let me just say a couple things on that is Madison actually addresses this point when he's arguing for the Constitution.
		I mean, he says that among all the things they considered, they were trying to figure out how to deal with faction, right?
		And of course, I mentioned just moments ago what his experience was in Virginia.
		He actually saw it could be a good thing.
		But he said, look, we considered just extirpation, which is basically, you know, banning it.
		The idea of factions and everything like that.
		He said that.
		He said the cure would be worse than the disease.
		So he's getting into this enterprise that you're talking about, that you have to think about ideas and their consequences.
		Consequence is now broadly defined.
		Consequence can be a good consequence or a bad consequence.
		So you couldn't be more right.
		And the founders, again, had this dilemma, right?
		They knew that the articles were failing.
		And it was failing because there was not enough energy in the national government.
		States have the taxing power.
		I went through all that earlier in the segment.
		So they understood they were trying to get it right.
		This was not about, it wasn't about like some idea of progress, which is a 19th century German idealism.
		It was about a classical idea from antiquity, which is the idea of judgment about getting it right.
		Recognizing that, yeah, you're going to create externalities.
		You're going to create, the question is, do you have a system that actually can be malleable to deal with those?
		And knowing that there are sometimes what I call in the book, optimal decisions.
		Not ideal, but optimal.
		Now, I want to say one last thing.
		Well, thank you for your commitment to read the book.
		I want to say to what I'm really trying to do is get all Americans engaged in this.
		It's a renewal of citizenship.
		Here's what I would love to do.
		When you finish reading the book, and perhaps you inspire some of your neighbors to read it as well, I recommend that you get together, maybe a book club, three sessions.
		The first session with introduction in section one.
		As you know, I mean, this is about philosophy and history.
		Then section two would be the subject of your second meeting with your colleagues, with your fellow neighbors.
		And then the third session would be the third section and the conclusion.
		You get through all that well?
		Reach out to me.
		I've got a website.
		It's easy to remember, thespiritofphiladelphia.com.
		Thespiritofphiladelphia.com.
		You can contact me.
		I'll zoom with your group.
		I'll take your questions.
		I'll interact with you.
		But what I would love to see is across this great country that we would actually take a second to actually put our partisan swords down, just take a step back and say, you know, where have we been?
		And, you know, what were the reasons?
		What were the reasons behind the initial choices that we made, which were not perfect?
		Obviously, we had slavery.
		That was a huge error.
		And we had trouble recovering from it.
		We ended up fighting over it.
		But the point is, is, you know, what did they do?
		Why did they do what they did?
		And that we've walked away from some of that.
		What has been the consequence?
		And I'm hoping that we can get a real revitalization in our citizenship to consider these things.
		I give a whole series of reforms, but you've got to get to the way to the end of the book.
unidentified		Let me get in.
		Joanna waiting, Germantown, Maryland, Line for Democrats.
		Just a couple minutes left here.
		Joanna, go ahead.
		Oh, boy.
		Okay.
		Good morning.
		There's two things that I think that are going on now.
		I actually agree with a lot of what you're saying, and I intend to order your book as soon as I'm done on the phone.
		But two things that I think that are going now that go against everything you're talking about.
		The first thing is the death of expertise and expert.
		This administration is banishing experts in their field, whether it's science, medicine, education, health, it doesn't matter, national security, they're being banished.
		And what happens when you do that and there's no expertise anymore is it destabilizes the country, destabilizes the society.
		The second thing is, and I'm going to be honest about this here, is you've got a group of congresspeople on the Republican side that are so afraid of being primaried that the exchange of ideas, the debate, they're not willing, they're not bold enough to do anything different than go along to get along because, I mean, they'll sell their integrity and their honor to stay in office.
		And I think that is not what the founders were all about.
		So I'd like you to address those two things, please.
		Yeah.
		And Chris Gibson, final two and a half minutes.
chris gibson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so let me just say, Joanna, thank you for the sentiments.
		I'm going to make the same offer to you that I made to Will is when you're done reading it, if you find other folks in your neighborhood, and hopefully regardless of ideology, if they read this book and you do these sessions, I'm willing to zoom in with you and have this conversation.
		To your two specific points on expertise, I mean, look, here's the reality.
		We're living in a moment where Americans across the partisan landscape, let's remember that this movement, in some ways, Trump gets in front of Bernie Sanders.
		I mean, a lot of what Trump was talking about, systems rigged, you can't trust these institutions.
		A lot of that actually started with populism, left-wing populism of Bernie Sanders.
		Trump gets out in front of it, and he starts moving in this direction.
		And so, I mean, it didn't come out of nowhere.
		I mean, the fact of the matter is street crash.
		Americans looked and said, we trusted, I mean, these were the experts.
		They knew so much about finance.
		How did this happen?
		And then you look at the wars that seem to be endless and pointless to many.
		They're like, what's up with that?
		We got that from the experts.
		And even now, when you look at education, they look at the fact that we pay so much for it.
		We don't seem to be doing well with regard to standards across the world.
		And people think that it's moved against some of our culture.
		And so people start to say, on both ends of the ideological spectrum, saying, who do we trust now?
		Now, I mean, obviously, we need knowledge.
		We can't live as a species without knowledge.
		And that's a whole chapter in the book.
		So I want to affirm your point that we need to get back in the space where expertise matters.
		But let's recognize that we are a republic formed on constitutional and democratic principles.
		And, you know, half the country really is concerned and moving in that direction.
		The last point on Congress being afraid, this is where you can make a difference, Joanna, and Will, is they're responding to, they're like anybody else.
		I was a member.
		I mean, they don't want to lose.
		Nobody wants to lose.
		Who wants to lose?
		So they're thinking, well, the best way for me to win is to hug Trump.
		If they hear from you, and I'm talking about Will and I'm talking about Bob from Texas, who seems to have conservative sentiments like me, if everybody reaches out to their representatives and say, look, we get it.
		We understand that there's widespread disaffection, but what we really want is this anchor.
		We know what the founders did.
		We don't believe we should centralize power.
		We don't believe we should spend beyond our means.
		And I believe that's happening right now.
		I think there's a burgeoning split in the right wing right now about these deficits.
		And you're going to see it in the Senate.
		So Joanna, I'd say don't lose faith.
		I'd say that to Bob, the conservative from Texas.
		And I would say that to Will, independent from Virginia.
		We can do this.
		We are a republic.
		We can change.
		But we have to get involved in this.
		It's not all the leaders.
		We need to look at all those dimensions of balance and ask those hard questions.
		How are we doing on that?
		So thank you.
		And I look forward to hearing from you.
		I look forward to hearing your reactions to the entire book.
unidentified		Final question before you go.
		You've been a college professor, served in the U.S. Army, member of Congress, author now.
		What job have you found most not enjoyable but fulfilling?
chris gibson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I get this question.
		It may not make people happy, but soldier.
		I mean, I love them all.
		It's a great privilege.
		I mean, to be a representative, I thought about it one day.
		I was a working-class kid.
		Nobody had ever gone to college in my family.
		You know, my dad spent most of the 70s.
		They were all working-class Irish Democrats.
		And I was the first Republican ever in my family.
		I remember sitting on the floor one day and going, oh my gosh, there's only been 12,000 people in the history of our country that sat where I sat.
		So it was an enormous privilege.
		Frustrating too, if I'm going to be candid.
		I love academia.
		I love learning.
		I love being in the classroom.
		I don't love grading, to be honest.
		But I have to say, on a scale of one to 10, being a representative was probably like a seven.
		Being a professor is probably seven, seven, or eight.
		Being a soldier was like nine on an average day, ten on many days, eight on, or maybe even less on some hard days like in combat.
		So, but, you know, there's the thing about being a soldier is, is it doesn't matter your background of any kind.
		You know, we're there for the team.
		And I've actually got a section on that because I think it's illustrative and encouraging for the country to see that section.
		So thank you for that question.
unidentified		The book, again, is The Spirit of Philadelphia, a call to recover the founding principles, the author, former Congressman Chris Gibson.
unidentified		Always appreciate your time.
chris gibson ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, John.
		Good to be with you.
		And best wishes to all the viewers out there.
unidentified		Up next, we'll be joined by Larry Sabado of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
		We'll talk about the lay of the land as the parties prepare for gubernatorial elections this fall, the midterm elections next year.
		Stick around.
		We'll be right back.
		As Mike said before, I happened to listen to him.
		He was on C-SPAN 1.
		That's a big upgrade, right?
		But I've read about it in the history books.
		I've seen the C-SPAN footage.
		If it's a really good idea, present it in public view on C-SPAN.
rachel maddow ▲ ● ▼		Every single time I tuned in on TikTok or C-SPAN or YouTube or anything, there were tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people watching.
unidentified		I went home after the speech and I turned on C-SPAN.
unidentified		I was on C-SPAN just this week.
patty murray ▲ ● ▼		To the American people, now is the time to tune in to C-SPAN.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		They had something $2.50 a gallon.
unidentified		I saw on television a little while ago in between my watching my great friends on C-SPAN.
		C-SPAN is televising this right now live.
		So we are not just speaking to Los Angeles.
patty murray ▲ ● ▼		We are speaking to the country.
unidentified		If you ever miss any of C-SPAN's coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org.
		Videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights.
		These points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos.
		This timeline tool makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in Washington.
		Scroll through and spend a few minutes on C-SPAN's points of interest.
		Washington Journal continues.
		C-SPAN viewers know Larry Sabado.
		He's, of course, the founder of Sabado's Crystal Ball, the director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.
		And Mr. Sabado, 18 months or so before the midterm elections, what would you say is the most important poll number or metric that the savvy political viewer should pay attention to to get a sense of what direction the midterms may be going?
		John, the most important word or number you used was 18, 18 months away.
		And so my answer is: don't pay much attention to anything.
		There are so many opportunities for change for one side or the other or both sides.
		It's pointless.
		All you can do is look at history and you say, well, historically, the incumbent White House party has lost X number of seats.
		And the average is around 26 or so.
		But we're in a new era of very intense partisanship.
		And while it's certainly possible it will be at 26 or higher, it's more likely, I think, than not that it will be under that, whichever party wins.
		We're having a lot of close elections.
		The Senate is much more likely to be variable because you only have a third of the states electing a senator.
		Sometimes it's a little more than that if you have vacant seats, or interim appointees.
		So that's really all you can say.
		We can talk about individual races, but that can change tomorrow, too.
		So how does one run a crystal ball in this environment of a new era that we're in?
		How do you try to know what's the important story to pay attention to and what's just noise?
		Well, we're covered by our motto.
		He who lives by the crystal ball ends up eating ground glass.
		And anybody who claims to have a crystal ball has either eaten a lot of ground glass or is lying.
		It's one or the other.
		So what we do is we try to assess what we know about the present.
		We look at some of the trends that are developing while always noting that they can change and there's plenty of time for that.
		And there's plenty of time, even if there is a certain standard by Labor Day of the actual election year.
		We're, again, 18 months away.
		So we look at everything.
		The economy usually matters more than anything else.
larry sabato ▲ ● ▼		That's why the Democrats, more than anything else, did not win.
unidentified		Immigration would be a close second.
		And we'll look at where the economy is then, too.
		By then, we'll know how the tariff thing shook out, I guess.
		It keeps changing, but you never know.
		Tomorrow could bring resolution.
		And, of course, foreign policy, God forbid, we're involved in a foreign war.
		It happens a lot if you look at American history, but so far, so good.
		And scandal used to matter.
		That used to be the third item on the agenda.
		And I think it's pretty obvious that scandal makes very little difference anymore.
		We mentioned poll numbers and metrics at the top of the conversation.
		This is one that came out, I think it was just last week from the Associated Press.
		Here's the headline: Democrats are deeply pessimistic about the future of their party according to a new AP poll.
		How surprising is that in right now, post-midterm election?
		Is that more the norm of a party that just lost the White House, lost the Senate?
		Republicans maintain control of the House.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Should we be surprised about that finding?
unidentified		Well, no, because they control nothing.
		Of course, they're depressed.
		And there's really no opportunity to get control until 18 months from now.
		I suppose you can say Democrats have influence on some votes, though not the current discussion about the big, beautiful bill, because that's reconciliation takes only a simple majority and the vice presidential vote counts.
		But they control nothing, as you said.
		They don't control the White House.
		They don't control all the appointees of the White House that run loads and loads of things beyond what we see in the headlines each day.
		They don't control the House of Representatives.
		They don't control the U.S. Senate.
		And they certainly don't control the Supreme Court.
		So, yeah, there's plenty of reason for them to be depressed.
		Although, I would just remind you that MASH was completely wrong with that opening song that said suicide is painless.
		It is not painless.
		It is very painful.
		So you have to continue living and fight, fight, fight.
		Larry Sabadeau is our guest joining us until about 9:30 Eastern time this morning.
		And he is always happy to take your questions, your comments, phone lines, as usual.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Independents 202-748-8002.
		And as the phone lines light up, Professor Sabado, there are gubernatorial races taking place this year in your home state of Virginia and New Jersey as well.
		How much should folks outside the Garden State and the Commonwealth be paying attention to those races?
		Outside, you know, somewhat.
		They're the first major indicators of how voters are reacting to the incumbent presidential administration, but also their incumbent governors.
		And New Jersey has a Democratic governor, Phil Murphy.
		Virginia has a Republican governor, Glenn Young.
		So president, probably first.
		Virginia and New Jersey usually elect the nominee of the party, not in the White House.
		But it is an absolute.
		It's not an iron rule.
larry sabato ▲ ● ▼		There's been one exception in Virginia from 1977 to the present.
unidentified		Now, that's not many.
unidentified		One out of all those elections.
larry sabato ▲ ● ▼		And we change governors every four years.
unidentified		You can't run again until another term intercedes.
		And in New Jersey, it's mainly true.
		It's not as absolute as it's been in Virginia, near absolute, but it still is a major indicator.
		So sure, you pay attention to it.
		But again, I'm going to say, and it will be a whole year until a third of the Senate and all of the House and loads of governorships across the country and state legislatures are elected.
		How much can happen in a day anymore?
		I mean, really, I have great sympathy for people who actually have legitimate jobs.
		I don't.
		You know, I have fun and I follow politics and that's what I do for a living.
		And I can't even keep up with everything that's going on.
		And so it's tough for the average person to do.
		They focus on voting when voting comes near.
		And a lot of the early voting starts in late September, early October.
		So we have a longer election period than we used to, but it's still ages away, even by November when Virginia and New Jersey elect new governors.
		By that point, is this big, beautiful bill, if it does end up passing, is it ancient history?
		Are the debates that are taking place on the floor right now?
		Do you think any of them resonate in November of next year?
		Well, they resonate in the sense that you'll see certain excerpts in political ads on both sides.
		Whatever excerpts make the other party look horrible will be defining the big, beautiful bill.
		As I always say, beautiful beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
larry sabato ▲ ● ▼		So it depends on which party you are and what positions you have.
unidentified		I don't think it's a bill.
		This was a mistake that the Biden administration made and other presidential administrations have made.
		They assume that people are following all this and know what's in these giant bills and care about it.
		Now, maybe they'd care if they knew what was in it, but you can't just, you know, pass a bill and plop it down and say, see there?
		See there what we did?
		You have to sell it daily, hourly, and it's a lot of trouble.
		But that's how you win elections and campaigns.
		And Democrats really aren't very good at that.
		Though I have to say, the one Democrat who was was Bill Clinton.
		He used to sell.
		what he could get passed, even if it was a minor bill or a minor program.
		He would sell it as though it were the New Deal.
		And that was smart politically.
		And somehow Democrats have either forgotten to do it or they don't prioritize it.
		And maybe that's one reason why their followers, their party identifiers, are so depressed.
		Who is Democrats' best salesman right now?
		Well, I'd have to think about that.
		The best salesman.
		Well, it isn't any of the former presidents, with all due respect to them.
		But their history all the way to ancient history.
		I won't say who's what, but it's pointless to have them do it.
		Look at the legislative leaders.
		I'm sure they do a fine job in their caucus, Schumer in the Senate and Jeffries in the House, but they don't, they're not even recognized by a large majority of Americans.
		They may recognize the name a little bit.
		They can't match up the name with the person.
		You know, I always remind people that an old poll showed, it's not that old, that about a third of Americans can't find Great Britain on a blank map of the world.
		I mean, my God, it's an island.
		You know, it's pretty easy to find, but they can't find it because they don't pay attention.
		They don't care about it.
		They should care about it.
		And that's just the way it is.
		I don't think you're ever going to change people as much as we try to emphasize civic education, which is what we do at the UBA Center for Politics.
		As you know, John, as a graduate, a proud alumnus of the University of Virginia.
		Yes, sir.
		Plenty of calls for you down there at the Center for Politics joining us this morning on the Washington Journal.
		Roger is up for Springfield, Illinois.
		Democrat.
		Good morning.
		You're on with Larry Sabado.
		Good morning.
		I just want to make a comparison between the Trump asking for the list of international students and taking the $2 billion from Harvard because they won't give him the list of international.
		But when we asked for the cryptocurrency dinner list, he's refusing to give that list.
		So on two other occasions, we asked for a list of dinners or private dinners that he had, but he has refused.
		Secondly, what's the end game of this Trump regime?
		Thank you.
		A couple questions there for you, Professor Savado.
		That's a great question.
		There were lots of parts to it.
larry sabato ▲ ● ▼		I wish I knew the answer.
unidentified		The end game, they'll have to talk about.
		Everybody has their suspicions of one sort or another, whether you're pro-Trump or anti-Trump.
		You've got an opinion about it.
		But what we know is what they're doing.
		Now, let's focus on disclosure, because I think that was the major part of your question.
		Absolutely.
		That whole list of crypto millionaires, billionaires should be released.
larry sabato ▲ ● ▼		This is so unprecedented to do things like this.
unidentified		You know, it's not just the 200 million to 400 million.
		I've seen different figures for the pleasure of the jumbo jet being given to Trump, the U.S. government, I guess, and then the Trump Library for his personal use after he leaves office.
		All of this should be disclosed, and it's totally unprecedented.
		Someone calculated an estimate for all the gifts given to prior presidents before Trump.
		They didn't come close to equaling the price of this one jumbo jet.
		So, and it's crypto billionaire stuff.
		Look, his family is enriching itself.
		Trump is enriching himself.
larry sabato ▲ ● ▼		He did some of it in the first term, but he's breaking all records in this term.
unidentified		And as far, and I don't approve of that, I hope you don't approve it.
		I hope nobody approves of it because it's got conflict of interest written all over it.
		And I would recommend to you a wonderful article written by Evan Osnos in this week's The New Yorker.
		And you're really, you're going to, you're going to be bug-eyed as you read it when you see what's really happening in this country.
		And a tiny group of incredibly wealthy people are controlling a great deal, not just of the wealth, but of the decisions made, even more so than usual.
		They've always been influential, but not to this degree.
		Now, as far as Harvard's concerned, hey, I'm a guy who've spent my entire career.
		I'm in my 70s, started in my 20s in higher education.
		So, guess what?
		I support Harvard.
		I know that's a shock, but Harvard individually has contributed so much to the country.
		And forget about the politics for a moment.
		I don't approve of any of the anti-Semitism that is there.
		I don't know all the details of it, but I sure recognize the tremendous advances that have been made in science and medicine because of the research done at Harvard and at other universities.
		This is not something to be played with.
		It's not a play toy for any politician or administration.
		So, yeah, I feel strongly about that, but I've got an internal bias having spent my life in higher education.
		You mentioned Evan Osnos.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		He's got a new book.
unidentified		I think it comes out next week with a great title, The Haves and the Haves Yachts, Dispatches on the Ultra Rich.
unidentified		That's, I believe, June 3rd is the publishing date for that book.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We'll be covering it on C-SPAN's book TV.
unidentified		Larry Sabado with us this morning.
		David is in your home state of Virginia, Virginia Beach.
		Republican, good morning.
		Good morning, Dr. Sabado.
		Wanted to just point out, you went to high school with my sister at Norfolk Catholic in the early 70s.
		She's retired, traveling all over the world.
		And I'm wondering, number one, when you're going to retire.
		And then two more questions.
		How do you explain?
		Is it safe to say the bias in the media and them getting it wrong the last several cycles is because of their bias?
		And then also, who do you think is going to win the governor's mansion and the House of Delegates and the Virginia House?
		He said it.
		I'll take your answer off the air.
		And I'll say, Professor Sabado, I hope you don't retire anytime soon, but go ahead.
		You're very kind to say that there are loads of people rooting for my retirement.
		So we'll just, we'll see.
		I'm going to stay as long as I enjoy it, and I've enjoyed it always.
		And I'll stay as long as my health permits it.
larry sabato ▲ ● ▼		And I'm envious of this gentleman's sister.
unidentified		And I did go to NAFA Catholic, and he should write me and tell me who his sister is.
		I don't recognize the voice because it's not his sister's.
		I had 13 years of Catholic education, and it was a tough 13 years.
		Corporal punishment was in in the 50s and 60s, but I learned a lot.
		Probably because I was afraid, like everybody else in that school.
		But it worked.
		And I got a wonderful grounding in Catholic education.
		And I salute them, and I will always be grateful to them.
		Now, as far as there were a lot of questions in there, I believe it was media bias and then who's going to win the governor and the house of delegates in Virginia.
		Yeah.
		All right.
		Media bias, answer, yes.
		Let me go to Virginia Governor.
		I don't mean to take it lightly, but there are so many biases in so many places in different directions.
		And this is a very different environment since I'm guessing this gentleman's age.
		He's not that far away from me.
		And as a result, he remembers when we had three, really two national networks.
		PBS hadn't even been created and ABC wasn't really together.
		So you had CBS and NBC with a half an hour of news as of 1962 for CBS, 1962.
		Before that, it was 15 minutes of news on television.
		And you had the same anchors and the same tiny number of reporters, all white male.
		Not that there's anything wrong with that.
		I think we've accomplished a lot.
		But, you know, same perspectives and pretty much in the same order.
		The stories were in the same order.
		And that's what we had.
		Plus our newspapers.
		We all read a morning newspaper.
		We all read an afternoon newspaper.
		And those newspapers are mainly gone, I'm sorry to say, or they're online.
		And that's a whole different environment.
		And now you have social media full of misinformation and disinformation, some intentional, some unintentional.
		But you also have media organizations from every conceivable point of view.
		So there may be, there are a lot of problems with today's media.
		But I go back so far, and I'll bet you do too, that you can see we're in a much better place, except for the disinformation, than we were many decades ago.
		So let's look on the bright side.
		Always look on the bright side of life.
		And no, I won't sing.
		And who's going to win in Virginia?
		Oh, you see, I already forgot the second question.
		That's why I'm here.
		What they use against me to encourage retirement.
		Virginia, look, right now, I would go with the historical average in the sense that the Democrats are more likely to win than the Republicans because Trump is in the White House.
		Republicans are in control of everything.
		And there are controversies that build up.
		And Virginia has become a light blue state.
		It's not a dark blue state.
		It's a light blue state, and there are purple edges to it.
		And it can still go the other way.
		Lots of things can happen.
		But you start from that premise.
		I wouldn't say necessarily the same thing in New Jersey, by the way.
		New Jersey can end up being very competitive as it was four years ago when the Republican nearly won, nearly ousted the incumbent Democratic governor, who's retiring because it's the end of his two terms, and it looks likely to be the same Republican nominee.
		So that would be unusual.
		I'm not predicting.
		It's too early, but it would be interesting if the Republicans took over New Jersey and the Democrats took over Virginia.
		But that's just one of the possible outcomes.
		And the House of Delegates will probably go the way of the gubernatorial election.
		And the other two statewide positions, lieutenant governor and attorney general, often are just coattail elections, depending on who's winning the governorship.
		I don't want to oversimplify, but that's the way it's been recently, at least in Virginia.
		From Virginia and New Jersey to the Empire State, here's a headline on the front page of the New York Times, Son of Harlem, who ascended to 23-term pillar of the House.
		It's the obituary for Charlie Wrangel, 1930 to 2025.
		What should viewers know about Charlie Wrangel?
		Well, he was a Korean war veteran and someone who was meddled appropriately.
	He was a very brave serviceman.
	I'm thinking of it because, of course, Memorial Day yesterday, we should think of it at all times.
	But I start there, and he was a very constructive congressman for a long time.
	He was one of the founders of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971, I believe it was.
	He was in for 46 years.
	That's either good or bad.
	I like to say Charlie Wrangell and a lot of others are pretty much the polar opposite of term limits.
	And unfortunately for Wrangell, because I think he had a distinguished career, he had a lot of ethics questions in the final years of his service.
	And I mean a lot.
	There were so many pieces to it, I can't even remember all of them.
	Now, he survived it.
	He didn't survive as chairman of Ways and Means, partly because the Democrats lost control in 2010 of the House of Representatives.
	But he managed to get reelected and he retired on his own accord in 2016.
	So it was a long, distinguished career, and parts of it were undistinguished.
	And you know what?
	That probably applies to all of us, whatever we do.
	The New York Times, I'm sorry, the Wall Street Journal obituary on Charlie Wrangell delves into some of those issues that you refer to just to spark your memory on.
	This was after he becomes chairman of Ways and Means in 2007, his leadership short-lived.
	News outlets reported that he solicited donations on Congressional Letterhead to a public service center named after him at City College in New York in 2009.
	A nonprofit sent Wrangell on several trips to the Caribbean and a sponsorship later found to have violated House rules.
	And they go through some of the history there.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The headline on the Wall Street Journal obituary, longtime Harlem congressman was a power broker and a veteran.
unidentified		And if viewers want to check out Charlie Wrangell, there are hundreds of hours of him on the House floor in the C-SPAN video library.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's probably thousands of hours, if I'm guessing it correctly.
unidentified		Frank is go ahead, sir.
		One insertion there on Charlie Wrangell, and this is more general.
		Here's what happens with a lot of congressmen and how they get in trouble and get involved in financial scandals like the one you just mentioned and conflicts of interest.
		They often call before their committees some of the wealthiest, most powerful people in the country, and they're the ones grilling them.
		They're in charge at those hearings.
		And then they look at what they consider their puny salary, and it is quite small given that they have to run two households, one in their home district and one in Washington, D.C.
		And they say, huh?
		How's this?
		I should be doing much better.
		Maybe I don't make as much as this guy over here who runs Company X, but I certainly should be paid more.
		I'm the one in charge.
		And once they accept that premise, it justifies a lot of what they do.
		And this applies to congressmen from both parties.
		And if you say it's only one party, you are really a partisan.
		Just look at history.
		So that's the origin of a lot of the scandal in Congress.
		And of course, there are loads of very wealthy people who get elected to the House and Senate.
		And for them, the congressional salary is barely a rounding error on their 1040s.
		So they aren't subject to that.
		But there are actually some middle income and even a few below middle income representatives in Congress.
		And I'm just explaining why it happens and why people are always saying, gosh, they're all corrupt.
		They aren't all corrupt.
		But you hear a lot about the corruption of ABCDE.
		About 15 minutes left with Larry Sabado this morning.
		Frank is out in Utah, the Beehive State Independent.
		Good morning.
		Oh, good morning, Larry.
		Pleasure to talk to you.
		I am a true independent.
		I don't like either party.
		What drove me away from the Republicans was Trump's first election when he eliminated that whole field.
		The last man standing on the Republican side that he eliminated with John Kasich would have made an excellent president.
		On the other side, the Democrats, you had Bernie and Hillary slugging it out, and they had another guy in there was Martin O'Malley, would have made an excellent president.
		Either one of those guys would have been fantastic.
		And we would not be in the mess that we are in today.
		And I cannot stand Trump, so you know where I'm coming from.
		I was very disappointed in Biden.
		He should have been eliminated much, much sooner.
		And it makes it hard for an independent.
		You have to vote for one of the major parties.
		It's all a numbers game.
		And so as disappointed as I am with the Democrats, I have to go with them because I can't stand Trump and all his minions that he's got in there and what they're doing to the country.
		And when you're stuck in deep red Utah, everything's 100% MAGA in Utah now.
		So I'd like to get your opinion on what the Democrats could possibly do to gain a little bit of ground because on the Republican side, they have all these Dutch uncles.
		They show up on C-SPAN all the time.
		And these guys are praising Trump, saying he's going to make the country so fantastic.
		And the Democrats are just kind of wandering around out there trying to find something to run with.
		And it's very disheartening.
		So I don't know what's going to happen.
		I hope we're not stuck with MAGA Trumpism forever.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Well, Franklin.
unidentified		It looks like it's that way now.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Frank, let me give Larry Sabado a chance to respond.
unidentified		Well, it was very interesting.
		I think the gentleman obviously follows politics closely and has a well-thought-out point of view.
		He said it himself, you got to vote for one of the two major parties.
		You don't have to, but you're just not going to elect in the vast majority of elections anybody outside the Democratic-Republican spectrum.
		Given that, and given Americans' practicality, I think they end up doing just that, even if they aren't pleased with either candidate and they don't like the candidate they're voting for, but they consider him or her better than the other person running.
		And that's life.
		We all make compromises like that in all sectors of life.
		Look, personally, I would like to see, given the diversity that exists in America, with every perspective you can think of and every ethnic group imaginable and all the rest of it.
		I mean, we're one of the most diverse countries on the face of the earth, if not the most diverse country.
		As a result, in order to keep the country together, which I think is kind of important, I hope everybody out there agrees.
		Despite our differences, we want to stay together.
		The best thing the two parties could do is to give us a choice, but also to stay in the mainstream, would be for the Republicans to nominate moderate conservative candidates and the Democrats to nominate moderate liberal candidates.
		And some would say, well, they both ought to nominate moderates.
		Okay, let's get real.
		It's about choice.
		But if we could stay in the mainstream and have a choice that's reasonable, we're not going to change everything in a day or a week or a year, or as John Kennedy said, not in the first thousand days, not in the life of this administration.
		That would be ideal.
		Now, let's get real.
		It's not happening because so few people relatively participate in party primaries and caucuses when the candidates are being nominated for president and senate and house and all the rest.
		And the people who tend to participate are a bit more extreme.
		You know, they're closer to the right end of the spectrum or the left end of the spectrum.
		And that's how we get, I can remember so many voters saying this to me, or writing me and saying, how did we end up with these two turkeys?
		Well, we ended up, I'm not going to call them turkeys, but we end up with the people you think are turkeys because you probably didn't participate in the nominating process.
		That is part of citizenship too.
		We have so few obligations left as American citizens, no draft, no public service required, no anything compared to other societies.
		You just pay taxes.
		Well, I'm not going to get into that.
		But one of the most important obligations, one of the few left, is paying attention, learning the basics, at least, the fundamentals of who's running for what and why, and then voting, not just in November, but in the party of your choice or one of the primaries, maybe getting out there and volunteering or working or going door to door, but that's extra.
		I realize most people don't have the time to do that.
		But most voters don't pay enough attention.
		Sorry, but you don't.
		I want to follow up on Frank's comment.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		He said Biden should have gotten out sooner or words to that effect.
unidentified		I want to get your take on all these 2024 recap books that have come out.
		And it's not just Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson.
		Chris Whipple has one out, Uncharted, How Trump Beat the Odds, Beat Biden Harris in the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History.
		And there's another one, Josh Dawsy, coming out with 2024, How Trump Retook the White House and Democrats Lost America.
		What's your take in all these books?
		Well, you left out the most important one, which is coming out in July, entitled Campaign of Chaos.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And who's the author?
unidentified		That Center for Politics team.
		There you go.
		I don't want to mention myself, my whole team, you know, Kyle Kondick and Miles Coleman.
		And I'm in there just because my family buys a lot of books.
		But all I can tell you is I agree he should not have run again.
		I didn't know how much of a decline he had been in because he was so isolated.
		You know, I live in Charlottesville.
		Most of what I saw, almost all of what I saw of Biden, was on TV, just like everybody else.
		And you could see him shuffling to Marine One and shuffling out of that little room where he read the teleprompter.
		And it was pretty obvious that this wasn't the vigorous Joe Biden of earlier years.
		Of course, who among us who's 81 or 82 is going to be all that vigorous compared to how they were when they were young?
		But he did a terrible disservice to the country and to the party.
		And in a very real sense, he turned the presidency back over to Donald Trump.
		And obviously, Democrats, that was the one thing they didn't want to happen.
		Now, let's not ignore that he did plenty of good things and kept from doing some outrageous things while he was president.
		And thank God he didn't tweet.
		So, you know, there are good things you can say about anybody who served in office, but that was a terrible mistake.
		And had Democrats had the opportunity to have an open presidency because he promised over and over again he was going to be a transitional president.
		I listened to it.
		He promised over and over and over again, he was going to be a transitional president.
		Well, the transition did not mean eight years, that's for sure.
		And Democrats would have had a long primary process, probably with 20 people running, you know, beating each other up, but they might have picked a candidate who could have won.
		Instead of having a candidate in the vice president, Vice President Harris did the best she could with the tiny number of days she had from the point in the summer when Biden finally accepted reality after the worst debate performance in American history.
		Finally got out, but it was too late to put a real campaign together.
		So I'm sorry.
		He's got good things to praise and to talk about in the historical record, but he is bearing a terrible burden.
		And Democrats are right to complain and to hold him responsible for this.
		Campaign of Chaos is the name of the book, Trump Biden Harris.
		By the way, I've heard is great.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And the 2024 American election, July 24th, I believe is the publication date.
unidentified		Sound correct?
		Somewhere around there.
		They don't tell me the exact dates anymore.
		Just in time for the holidays.
		Selton.
		Well, it's too late for July 4th, but Labor Day will be coming up and people should be giving gifts at Labor Day.
		I made that up.
		Selton is in New York line for Democrats.
		Go ahead.
		Yes, how are you doing, Mr. Larry?
		I just want to go back a bit about when you spoke on the best Democrat president was Bill Clinton.
		I got to disagree with that because when you first think of Bill Clinton, you think of Monica Lewinsky.
		I personally think Obama was the best president.
		When you think of Obama, you think about him capturing Bin Laden.
		Why people don't ever talk about that?
		I don't understand.
		You know, nobody talks about that no more.
		George Bush was in office for how long looking for Bin Laden?
		And Obama comes right in, no more, goes right over there and gets the job done.
		So I just don't disagree with Bill Clinton being the best Democratic president.
		I mean, I don't know why people don't like to give Obama his dues, you know, for some reason.
		This is nothing new.
		It's always been like this on TV shows and everything.
		Nobody wants to give him the dues.
		But Selton in New York, Professor Sabado.
		Yes, I didn't say Bill Clinton was the best Democratic president.
		I said he was the best at selling things.
		And my proof is given by your favorite, Barack Obama, who called Bill Clinton over and over the explainer-in-chief.
		And in fact, he recruited Bill Clinton to be the explainer-in-chief for his 2012 reelection campaign because Obama, Obama's very professorial, obviously a very, very good trait, something that everyone should try to emulate.
		But he's professorial, which means like me, he goes on and on and on.
		And, you know, he gives, he adds footnotes to his speeches.
		You can't do that.
		Clinton was much better at getting to the point and using language that middle-class Americans could identify with.
		And so that's what I meant: that if Biden had had the Clinton ability to explain or even had recruited Bill Clinton, maybe he tried and Clinton is much older now and didn't want to do it.
		I don't know.
		But Biden did a terrible job of that during his administration, at least in the final couple of years.
		So that's what I meant.
		And I understand totally about bin Laden.
		And there's a wonderful new documentary on Netflix, which I watched over the Memorial Day weekend about the capture of Bin Laden.
		It traces it all the way back to 9-11.
		I was fascinated.
		I thought I knew the story, but I didn't.
		There was a lot in there that was new to me, and I'd highly recommend it to you.
		I apologize to C-SPAN.
		Maybe you can get that eventually and show it.
		About five minutes left with Larry Sabado.
		This is Sam, back in the garden state of New Jersey, Republican.
		Go ahead.
		Hi.
		Hi, how are you?
		Thanks for having me on.
		I just want to say one thing as a Republican.
		I feel like the Republicans have a hard time articulating the Democrats are morally right, but in practice wrong.
		And what I mean is, let's say, for example, like taxes.
		100%, there are people that are poor and there are people that deserve the money and need the money.
		And morally, they have a very strong case, the Democrat Party.
		But at the end of the day, that's charity.
		And it becomes a thing that it should be forced, where really it shouldn't be forced.
		It should be by decision that you should give the charity, even though it's the right thing to do.
		And that's why I think someone has to finally say that I paid thousands of dollars in taxes this past year.
		I don't own a property.
		I rent.
		So everything that I gave, I didn't get any tax deductions from my charity giving.
		As a religious person, I gave more than 10% of my money to personal charities at my own will.
	And I think if someone gives their own money to charity, it should automatically count for any social taxes and be deducted.
	And then that way, we should get people to rather give their own charity on their own and help people in their community in a personal way, which would either create that, either you have to give your taxes and then you have, which will go for people or do it in your own personal way.
	Because I'm paying my charity.
	I'm giving my charity.
	I'm giving thousands of dollars a year personally in my own decision charity.
	And then I'm also paying for everything for people to get on their Medicaid and who knows what, while other people are not paying a dollar of charity and they're paying less.
	So that's what I think that's reproposed.
	Got your point.
	Larry Sabado, thoughts on charitable giving?
	Well, first, congratulations to this fellow for tithing.
	That's what he's really doing, giving 10% or more.
	I think everyone who's upper-middle class and beyond should do something similar.
	Maybe upper-middle class, you have kids in college and colleges are charging large amounts of money these days.
	But there are millions and millions of Americans who can afford and should tithe.
	Now, a lot of them do.
	You think of Warren Buffett right away as super rich, but is going to give it all away.
	And there are other billionaires who are doing that.
	But there are also some very selfish and greedy wealthy people.
	Again, I would refer you to Evan Ognos's excellent article in then book.
	The articles in the New Yorker excerpt, I guess, from the book that's coming out.
	And they should be made to feel guilty, frankly.
	They should be shamed into doing it.
	And people say that's terrible.
	No, I don't think it's terrible at all.
	I think shame makes people do things they should have done anyway.
	So I'm pro-shame.
	I have tenure.
	I can't be fired.
	So I can be pro-shame.
	And, you know, all I can say is the fact that you're doing it, whether you get a tax benefit or not, that should be a reward in and of itself.
	And I'm sure it is.
	And you can be very proud of your record there.
	And maybe your example and even coming on this C-SPAN show will encourage other people to do the same thing.
	It's important.
	We have to, no matter what government does at the federal or state or local level, there are still so many unmet needs that are legitimate that people can't help their health problems, for example.
	that some of them just can't pay the money for the prescriptions or the doctor visits or the tremendously expensive tests that are miracles, yes, but that the hospitals give you.
	So all of us can and should help.
	And so I salute this gentleman and I think it's a great note on which to end, John.
	That's upbeat.
	So you were so depressing during much of this session.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Well, I've got one more for you in the final 90 seconds.
unidentified		And I think we always ask with your experience down there at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We spent the first hour of the show talking about education and higher education.
unidentified		Are you optimistic about the kids today and the future of this country?
		John, you know, I hear people say, oh, it's terrible.
		What's it?
		This generation, well, they always say the older generation always says the world is going to hell.
		And often at their alma mater, they say, you know, my institution started going downhill the day after I graduated.
		That's really what they're saying.
		It's ridiculous.
		I've been teaching since my early to mid-20s.
		And I just am so grateful for having had contact with, you know, 25,000 plus students that I've personally had in the classroom or have been advising or whatever.
		They are, they're fantastic.
		The vast majority of them have ideals on all sides of the spectrum.
		They're left, right, everything in between.
		But they really want to accomplish something with their lives.
		And yes, they want to build a personal life that's rewarding too.
		But they're going to contribute and they are contributing in major ways to the health of this country and the world.
		And I'm very, very proud of them.
		And I think the whole country should be.
		And they should be criticizing them a whole lot less and helping them a whole lot more.
		And I know those students down at the University of Virginia appreciate you, Larry Sabado.
		We always do when you come on the Washington Journal.
		Thanks so much.
		We'll talk to you again down the road.
		Thank you, John.
		Look forward to it.
		It's just about 9:30 on the East Coast.
		We have about 30 minutes left this morning.
		In that time, more of your phone calls.
		It's our open forum.
		Any public policy issue, any political issue you want to talk about, phone lines are yours.
		go ahead and start calling in and we'll get to those calls right after the break.
		This show and C-SPAN is one of the few places left in America where you actually have left and right coming together to talk and argue.
		And you guys do a great service in that.
		I love C-SPAN too.
		That's why I'm here today.
		Answer questions all day, every day.
		Sometimes I get to do fun things like go on C-SPAN.
adam goodman ▲ ● ▼		C-SPAN is, I think, one of the very few places that Americans can still go.
unidentified		C-SPAN has such a distinguished and honorable and important mandate and mission in this country.
		I love this show.
		This is my favorite show to do of all shows because I actually get to hear what the American people care about.
		American people have access to their government in ways that they did not before the cable industry provided C-SPAN access.
		That's why I like to come on C-SPAN is because this is one of the last places where people are actually having conversations, even people who disagree.
		Shows that you can have a television network that can try to be objective.
		Thank C-SPAN for all you do.
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		Washington Journal continues.
		Here's where we are on Capitol Hill today.
		The House and Senate are away for the Memorial Day break, though the Senate will be in briefly for a pro forma session.
		It shouldn't take more than just a couple minutes.
		That's happening at 1:15 p.m. Eastern today.
		An expected pretty empty chamber when those pro forma sessions happen in the House and Senate.
		Here's what else is happening on the C-SPAN networks today.
		King Charles is speaking at the opening of the Canadian Parliament, and we will be airing that speech here on C-SPAN at c-span.org and the free C-SPANNOW video app.
		That's at 11 a.m. Eastern.
		That invitation to speak coming at the invitation of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
		The king expected to outline the government's agenda as the head of state in Canada, which is, of course, a member of the British Commonwealth.
		And again, live coverage here on C-SPAN.
		2 p.m. today, a discussion on the future of financial services regulation.
		And that's being hosted by the Brookings Institution here in D.C. Christy Goldsmith Romero, a member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, joining the discussion there.
		C-SPANC-SPAN.org and the C-SPAN Now app at 2 p.m. Eastern, also at 2 p.m. Eastern over on C-SPAN2, a discussion on transatlantic policy in the Indo-Pacific with experts and scholars from the U.S. and Europe.
		That's being hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
		Again, 2 p.m. Eastern, C-SPAN2, C-SPAN.org, and the free C-SPAN Now video app.
		With that, and with the 25 minutes we have left in our program today, it's open forum.
		Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, we'll put those phone lines on the screen for you as we hear from Barbara in Tennessee on the Independent Line.
		Good morning.
		Hello, how are you?
		Doing well.
		What's on your mind?
		Yeah, I'm kind of, I was wondering about the Harvard thing that's been on the news that Trump and the administration is trying to punish Harvard, I mean, Hartford for the anti-sen senatism and just keep cutting off things that don't even apply to that for a punishment.
		And what I found out this morning, I was talking to my husband, he says, Well, you know, his son did get accepted to Harvard.
		Don't you know that's why?
		And I'm going, like, oh my God, that's right.
		He didn't get accepted to Harvard.
		Does that have anything to do with it on the back side?
		Are you kidding me?
		Barbara, for a history of Donald Trump and Harvard, you actually may want to go to the Washington Post today and they run through what's been happening over the previous weeks and months.
		The headline of the story, Pushing for Change, Trump Escalates His Attacks on Harvard.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Angie Aureliana is the reporter on that story.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And there it is online if you want to take a look at it.
unidentified		Robert in Fort Mill, South Carolina, Republican.
		Go ahead.
		Yes.
		Hi.
		Good morning.
		I wanted to talk about, can you hear me?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I can, Robert.
unidentified		Okay.
		I wanted to talk about the issue with Trump and Linda McMahon cutting education.
		And I just, I'm actually a teacher.
		We watch the Washington Journal a lot of mornings.
		I teach government down here in South Carolina.
		And there's just seems like so much misinformed viewers who are saying that the administration wants to cut help for kids and cut for minorities and cut, and they don't like this.
		And it's just really, I don't think it's true.
		For years, our school system across the board, public schools have been suffering in cities.
		I mean, our local Charlotte scores are like 15% reading and math at the fifth and eighth grade level.
		And this abolishing education, reducing the Department of Education, has to do with trying to get that back in line and make better education systems.
		I don't think the administration is intentionally targeting disabled kids and minorities.
		And I hear caller after caller say that.
		And I just, you know, I wanted to make that point.
		Robert, in your experience, how much interaction do you have as a teacher have with the Department of Education or how much does the DOE impact your experience as a teacher?
		I think it's very little.
		I currently am in a private school and I taught in the public schools in Atlanta.
		And really, if you, you know, from my understanding, the Department of Education covers a lot of money for special education services, which is very needed.
		It's very important.
		We're talking about putting it closer to the schools in the state, not eliminating it.
		But it's really, there's not, at the federal level, should not have big sweeping educational initiatives and programs because the way Maine does things, the way Canada, I'm sorry, Alaska does things, the way we do things is all different.
		And we have different histories.
		And that's the beautiful system of our system.
		I don't think the Department of Education being reduced is not going to hurt.
		It's going to help.
		And it's just, I wish, you know, these listeners, especially these Democrat listeners, would research that.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Robert in South Carolina.
unidentified		Jesse is in Newport News, Virginia.
		Democrat, good morning.
		Good morning.
		I would like to speak on the fact of our government and our present administration.
		And how this all come about?
		Well, from my perspective as an African-American man, male, 73 years old, I take it and speak on history.
		If we would go all the way back to George Washington up until now, and who I've seen over these years been in charge, have power, is an ethnic group of people who are of that state.
		Now, the gentleman was on the guest that was on there was speaking as a high educator.
		I wonder why people like himself, who is a high educator caterer and know what's going on in our country and have been knowing for years because he teaches that haven't run for president to see the change that will take in this country from a person who know to do the right thing.
		Jesse, you want Larry Sabado to run for president?
		Of course.
		Yes, I would like for people like him who know because he's a high educator and he knows how the country is run or how who does what and who takes from this the poor and give to the rich and and who's he knows a lot about government because he teaches it.
		So a person like that hopefully could run the country better than any of the presidents that we've had over from George Washington clean up to now.
		Bill Clinton, they spoke about Barack Obama, they talk about George Bush and all these men was, I think, was good presidents.
		But there's a government that is not only the president, there's a government who is running the country.
		And it's by one ethnic group of people.
		And I'll say it out honestly, the white people.
		I call them the white man.
		The white people.
		It's always been that way.
		So what we get now is a repeat of history of how they started in the beginning, and now they can't come to fix it at all.
		That's Jesse in Newport News, Virginia.
		Catherine is in Hewitt, New Jersey, Independent.
		Good morning.
		Good morning, John.
		I have a quick comment and a request, actually.
		I want to follow up on the caller who was talking about charitable giving and how that should be a deduction.
		As an independent and someone who works in the ministry, I just want to remind viewers that a lot of people who receive assistance in this country also work, yet they're the working poor, and they do contribute.
		They contribute to Social Security, they contribute to unemployment, they do contribute from their paychecks into those funds.
		So it's not always necessarily a handout in those situations.
		A lot of people are working as hard as they can and are making a contribution for others.
		Also, John, I have a request.
		I want to follow up on something very important that Mr. Sabado said, especially being from New Jersey and we're coming up on the primary here.
		I realize as an independent, whether I like it or not, I'm going to have to declare and run in this particular primary.
		My graduate school background is in political science.
		Catherine, just explain.
		In New Jersey, you have to declare a party to be able to vote in the primary.
		Is that what you're saying?
		In the primary, yes.
		If you're an independent, you need to declare one way or the other.
		And my understanding, but don't quote me on this, is since we've had early voting, that you can actually declare by going to the polls during early voting and whichever way you vote, then you're declaring in that moment.
		And then in my case, I'll immediately go back to my town hall and get the application to sign up again as an independent because I am a true independent.
		So I just wanted to, I constantly have conversations with people in my circle who say to me, well, we don't really have a choice.
		You know, these are the two candidates that we have.
		And I say, well, did you vote in the primary?
		Because if you didn't vote in the primary, then you can't say that that's the only choice that we have.
		Primaries make a difference.
		So John, I would be very excited if you guys did something very specific about primaries, the importance of primaries as we creep up on another primary, and just letting viewers know that, you know, down the road when we complain about who we have in office because we're not happy with that, what a difference primaries make.
		And Catherine, we certainly do cover primary days, and in a lot of these 2024 and gubernatorial segments, talk about not just the general election, but the primary as well.
		But we'll keep doing that this cycle for you and hope you watch down the road.
		That's Catherine.
		This is Steve, Cincinnati, Ohio Independent.
		Good morning.
		Good morning, John.
		I just wanted to make a comment about how the process of education has changed today.
		When I was in high school and college, if I wanted to write a paper, I had to go to the library, do research, find different books on the topic, write the paper myself.
		Today, students can look up almost any topic under the sun on the internet and get a detailed explanation.
		So the whole process of education has changed.
		And Steve, you're saying because you don't have to work as hard for it, it's not as rewarding.
		Is that what you're saying?
		Yeah, we, yeah.
		In other words, we had to, we were like the depository of knowledge once we learned it.
		Now the internet knows everything.
		Steve, do you have kids or grandkids?
	Excuse me?
	Do you have kids or grandkids?
	No, I don't.
	Just your thought on what's happening with higher education right now.
	There's a lot of, we spent our first hour today talking about the Trump policies on higher education in K-12.
	What's your thought on that?
	I'm inclined to agree with him that we need to move more toward an emphasis on trades in education and away from this emphasis on everybody going to college.
	And that was Donald Trump's true social post yesterday, considering taking some money that would have gone to Harvard and sent it to trade schools.
	No further details on how that would happen just yet, but he targeted it at something like $3 billion in his post yesterday.
	About 15 minutes left in open forum, your phone calls.
	202-748-8000 for Democrats.
	Republicans, 202-748-8001.
	Independents, 202-748-8002.
	This is Roger in New Mexico.
	Democrat.
	Good morning.
	Good morning.
	My concern is that the Democrats don't seem to have a process for change.
	The Republicans found a way to change with Trump, and many, many millions of our citizens voted for them and made the change.
	The Democrats don't seem to understand that they need to make some significant changes.
	And I think one of the things that they could do is make a change in the financial campaigns donations.
	I think that they are they want the people to see that Trump is so bad that they'll vote for the Democrats the next time, and we're just exchanging one set of billionaires for another set of billionaires who seem to be running the country.
	I'd like to see a financial campaign change that would be appropriate and help the election of good people that could help run the country.
	That's Roger in the Land of Enchantments.
	This is the land of Lincoln.
	Brenda is an independent.
	Good morning.
	Yes, I call it about education in America today.
	I think throughout my lifetime and many others, we've been educated on the history of Western civilization.
	It's about time public schools started thinking about Eastern civilization, Asia, India, and China, of course, and that we start to appreciate the Eastern civilizations much more than we do.
	It may help the whole world situation in general.
	Are you saying that because the world is becoming more interconnected, Brenda?
	Of course.
	And why not?
	The United States needs to understand Asian peoples more.
	They have a great history, much longer than ours.
	And why are we narrowed to just the history of Europe and America?
	It should be much more than that.
	And why not start considering expanding public education to 14 years instead of 12?
	We are wealthy enough to be able to afford to give a good education to all of our students for a longer time than 12 years.
	That's Brenda in Illinois.
	This is Gary, Tampa, Florida, Republican.
	Good morning.
	Yes, good morning.
	How are you?
	Doing well.
	Okay, the first thing I have to say is we are placing way too much emphasis on going to college.
	You have young people who will not do well in that system, but are really bright, hardworking people that would do well for themselves and for the country to learn a trade.
	Try finding a corporate today.
	Try finding a plumber, an electrician.
	These people are valuable to our society, and we're not giving them sufficient attention and representation.
	That's Gary in Florida.
	This is Jim Saginaw, Michigan, Democrat.
	Good morning.
	Good morning, sir.
	Thank you for taking my call.
	I'd like everybody to be aware of the Election Truth Alliance.
	They're doing evaluations of the last election.
	Hello.
	And how did you get to know this group and who are they?
	They're a nonpartisan group, ElectionTruthAlliance.org, and they're checking out the anomalies in the last election in all the seven swing states.
	They're finding anomalies that doesn't look good.
	It looks like the election was stolen by Elon Musk and his boys.
	So please.
	Hey, Jim, you don't believe Donald Trump won in 2024?
	No.
	I think they cheated.
	And I think they're going to try out at all the seven swing states where he won.
	They're all anomalies where they won just enough where they didn't do a recount.
	Jim, how did you feel?
	I think we need to look at it.
	Thank you.
	How did you feel in 2020, Jim, when Republicans said that they didn't believe that Joe Biden won that election?
	Right.
	And I think Trump is using that as cover so that they could cheat in this election.
	That's Jim in Saginaw, Michigan, speaking of President Trump yesterday, Memorial Day.
	President Trump was at Arlington National Cemetery, just across the Potomac River, here in Washington, D.C., and doing what presidents often do and traditionally have done on Memorial Day, pay tribute to fallen service members, Gold Star families.
	Here's a little bit of what President Trump had to say yesterday.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Every Gold Star family fights a battle long after the victory is won, and today we lift you up and we hold you high.
		Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving America the brightest light in your lives.
		That's what you've done.
		We will never ever forget our fallen heroes and we will never forget our debt to you.
		This Memorial Day is especially significant as we commemorate 250 years since the first American patriots fell on the field of battle.
		Two and a half centuries ago at Lexington Green, Concord Bridge, Bunker Hill, brave minute men and humble farm boys became the first to give their lives for a nation that did not yet have a name.
		With their deaths, men like John Brown, 23, Samuel Hadley, 28, and Abnel Hawsdra, 21, ignited the flame of liberty that now lights the inspires everybody and the entire world.
		Those young men could never have known what their sacrifice would mean to us, but we certainly know what we owe to them.
		Their valor gave us the freest, greatest, and most noble republic ever to exist on the face of the earth.
		A republic that I am fixing after a long and hard four years.
		That was a hard four years we went through.
		Who would let that happen?
		People pouring through our borders unchecked.
		People doing things that are indescribable and not for today to discuss.
		But the republic that is now doing so very well, we're doing so very well right now.
		Considering the circumstances and we'll do record setting better with time, we will do better than we've ever done as a nation, better than ever before.
		I promise you that.
unidentified		President Trump yesterday from Arlington National Cemetery, if you want to watch his full remarks, you can do so on our website at cspan.org.
		That's one of the Memorial Day stories from here in Washington yesterday.
		Here's another one.
		This is the front page of the Metro section of today's Washington Post.
		Petula Dvorak is the author on the story.
		America's story, as told by a rock star and a hundred-year-old veteran, is the headline.
		Here's just the first couple graphs.
		Harold Hal Urban in the same dress wool Eisenhower jacket that he wore after helping liberate a concentration camp 80 years ago gave the man standing next to him a head-to-toe inspection on Monday morning.
		Quote, he's the one who sticks his tongue out, is the question that Urban asked before he met Gene Simmons on Memorial Day.
		Not really my music, he said.
		I like Bing Crosby and Lawrence Welk.
		Simmons in leather pants, white snakeskin boots, and dark glasses, no kiss makeup on, did not show his tongue when he met Mr. Urban.
		He stuck his hand out and held Urban's hand for a long, long beat, thanking the 100-year-old World War II veteran and Purple Heart recipient for his part in the iconic rockers' history.
		Simmons' mother, as a teen, was held in that concentration camp.
		The two men rode together on a sparkling red and white and blue float through the nation's capital on the 20th annual Memorial Day parade that afternoon, bonded by a war story.
		And the story goes on from there.
		Petrula Dvorak is the author of that piece.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		If you want to read more about it, today's Washington Post.
unidentified		Time for just one or two more phone calls this morning.
		Ron is in Garfield, New Jersey, a Democrat.
		Go ahead.
		How are you doing?
		I just want to say that this president is quite insane.
		I think he should be impeached.
		Anything else, Ron?
		Yeah, I think that Jasmine Crockett is probably one of the brightest people we have, and she should run for president.
		That's Ron in Garfield, New Jersey, a Democrat.
		Our last caller in today's Washington Journal.
		Reminder this morning on some of the programming happening today on the C-SPAN networks on C-SPAN 2 at 1:15 p.m. Eastern, a brief pro forma session, 11 a.m. Eastern today here on C-SPAN.
		We're going to be showing King Charles's speech to the opening of the Canadian Parliament.
		Again, that's 11 a.m. Eastern, and then at 2 p.m. Eastern, your choices.
		Here on C-SPAN, it's a meeting on the future of financial services regulation.
		And on C-SPAN 2, a policy discussion on the Indo-Pacific region.
		You can watch here throughout the day on the C-SPAN networks.
		And of course, we will be back here tomorrow morning.
		It is 7 a.m. Eastern, 4 a.m. Pacific.
		In the meantime, have a great Tuesday.
		Well, coming up, King Charles III is delivering a speech at the opening of the Canadian Parliament.
		He'll outline his government's agenda as the head of state in Canada, which is a member of the British Commonwealth of former colonies.
		King Charles' speech begins at 11 a.m. Eastern, plus, shortly, we'll join live coverage leading up to the speech from CPAC.
		The preview from Ottawa getting underway soon here on C-SPAN.
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		Here's the latest when it comes to the president's concerns, particularly about higher education and Harvard University in particular.

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