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unidentified
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Coming up on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live. | |
| Then we'll discuss the recent anti-Semitic attacks in the U.S. and other news with the president of the Family Research Council, Tony Perkins. | ||
| And Michael Cohen, a former FEMA chief of staff in the Obama and Biden administrations, discusses FEMA's readiness as the 2025 hurricane season kicks off. | ||
| Washington Journal starts now. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| It's Wednesday, June 4th. | ||
| Two Senate Judiciary Subcommittees held a joint hearing yesterday. | ||
| It was titled The Supposedly Least Dangerous Branch, District Judges v. Trump. | ||
| It focuses on what Republicans call judicial overreach by liberal activist judges. | ||
| We'll take your calls on that for the first half hour of the program. | ||
| Are nationwide injunctions overreach or are they appropriate checks on the president's executive power? | ||
| What's your view of the court's role in the Trump presidency? | ||
| Here's how our phone lines are set up. | ||
| If you think that courts have too much power, call us on 202-748-8000. | ||
| If you believe that courts have too little power, call us on 202-748-8001. | ||
| And if you think it's the right amount of power, call us on 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can also send us a text. | ||
| That number is 202-748-8003, include your first name and your city-state. | ||
| And you can post your comments on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Welcome to today's Washington Journal. | ||
| We'll start with Roll Call. | ||
| With this headline, Senators Spar Over Nationwide Injunctions Stopping Trump Policies. | ||
| It says that Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee used a congressional hearing Tuesday yesterday to air grievances about district court rulings against the Trump administration, as Democrats argue judges are simply doing their job. | ||
| The joint subcommittee hearing was among the latest Republican pushback to district judges who have ruled against the Trump administration, at times using nationwide injunctions to temporarily pause or slow executive branch actions. | ||
| Senator Ted Cruz used his opening remarks to list off a string of cases in which courts ruled against the Trump administration. | ||
| Let's take a look at Senator Cruz's portion of his opening remarks. | ||
| Since President Trump returned to office in January, there have been over 40 universal injunctions issued against the federal government. | ||
| That's in four months. | ||
| 35 of those 40 came from the same five judicial districts. | ||
| Let's put this into context. | ||
| In the first 150 years of the Republic, zero nationwide injunctions were issued. | ||
| Zero. | ||
| That's for 150 years. | ||
| In the entirety of the 20th century, 27 nationwide injunctions were issued. | ||
| That's over 100 years. | ||
| Under Presidents Bush, Obama, and Biden combined, 32 nationwide injunctions. | ||
| Under President Trump's first term, four years, 64 nationwide injunctions, and now in just four months, we're already over 40. | ||
| In four months, the Trump administration has seen more nationwide injunctions than the entirety of the 20th century and more nationwide injunctions than Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden combined. | ||
| This is not normal. | ||
| This is not justice. | ||
| This is an orchestrated campaign of judicial obstruction. | ||
| Joe Biden, when he was president, nominated to the bench radicals. | ||
| I have said only slightly tongue-in-cheek that Joe Biden did something I used to think was impossible. | ||
| He made me miss Barack Obama. | ||
| But by comparison, the Biden judicial nominees were far more extreme and radical than they were under Obama. | ||
| They sought out radicals who would implement policymaking from the bench, and they are doing precisely that. | ||
| I was Senator Ted Cruz yesterday, and we're taking your calls on the question of your view of the court's role in the Trump presidency. | ||
| Do you feel like they've got too much power? | ||
| You can call us on 202748-8000. | ||
| You think they have too little power vis-a-vis the Trump administration. | ||
| That's 202748-8001. | ||
| If you think it's about right, it's 202748-8002. | ||
| We'll take your calls this morning on that topic. | ||
| Let's hear from Senator Dick Durbin. | ||
| He's the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee in the Senate, and he said this about Trump's attacks on federal judges. | ||
| The idea being pushed by my Republican colleagues is not only that judicial branch and district judges are dangerous, but they are dangerous for the plain and simple reason that some judges have had the audacity to rule against President Trump. | ||
| When the chairman from Texas starts talking about the number of times there's been ruling by the court, I have three words for him. | ||
| Flood the zone. | ||
| Flood the zone. | ||
| When Steve Bannon was asked, what's the policy, what's the strategy of the new Trump administration, we're going to flood the zone, and they did. | ||
| More executive orders issued by this president in the beginning of his presidency than any president in history, leading to more court challenges than any president in history. | ||
| It seems pretty logical to me. | ||
| By framing the hearing as they have, my Republican colleagues have shown their hand. | ||
| This hearing is not really about policy or legal issues. | ||
| Instead, it's about challenging the authority and legitimacy of the judiciary. | ||
| They are showing their undying loyalty to their leader, the president. | ||
| This hearing is merely the latest episode in an ongoing effort by President Trump and his allies to undermine the judiciary and intimidate judges who dare to rule against them. | ||
| In March, the president demanded the impeachment of a federal judge simply because he ruled against his administration, calling him, quote, and I quote, I want you to hear these words, a radical left lunatic, a troublemaker and agitator. | ||
| In May, President Trump referred to judges who rule against his administration as, quote, communist radical left judges. | ||
| Two days ago, the president posted a quote, if the courts somehow rule against us on tariffs, which is not expected, that would allow other countries to hold our nation hostage with their anti-American tariffs that they would use against us. | ||
| That would mean the economic ruination of the United States of America, end of quote. | ||
| These statements that I've just read are not normal. | ||
| That was Senator Dick Durbin yesterday. | ||
| If you'd like to watch that entire hearing, you can do that on our website at cspan.org. | ||
| We have the full hearing for you to take a look at. | ||
| This is the AP did a poll last month about this topic. | ||
| So I want to show you some results. | ||
| The headline here on the AP says, many feel Trump has gone too far in using presidential power to achieve goals. | ||
| Here's some of the top line numbers. | ||
| So, of the percentage of adults that were polled that said the following has too much power, 54% said President Trump has too much power. | ||
| 32% said federal judges have too much power. | ||
| And the Supreme Court and Congress were tied at 29% as having too much power. | ||
| Wonder what you think of that. | ||
| And if you were asked that question, where would you be on that list? | ||
| We're taking your calls. | ||
| We'll start with Mitchell in New Jersey, who says about the right amount. | ||
| Mitchell. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| We need to take a step back. | ||
| I mean, the judicial system, our system was not made for every single contentious decision to be reviewed immediately by the Supreme Court. | ||
| And, you know, this is becoming problematic. | ||
| And we also need to look to, you know, the reason that this president is getting all this court action is because he's breaking the law. | ||
| I mean, in so many different areas, he's not following congressional approval. | ||
| He's withholding funds back that have been legislatively appropriated for different offices and for different agencies. | ||
| And he's just breaking the law. | ||
| You know, a lot of his supporters say, well, Trump's getting things done. | ||
| Well, you know, it's easy to get things done if you bypass the law. | ||
| So it's going to result in a ton of litigation. | ||
| This is a very litigious president. | ||
| Even before he came down the escalator in 2015, he was involved in thousands of lawsuits. | ||
| Now, yes, corporations have lawsuits, but not to the degree that Donald Trump has. | ||
| And he just, you know, willy, nilly, you know, is doing whatever he wants to do and trying to, you know, skirt the law first. | ||
| And of course, it's going to result in a lot of court decisions. | ||
| What are they supposed to do? | ||
| Just bypass everything and go immediately to the Supreme Court? | ||
| This is no way for a government to function. | ||
| So, yeah, I understand what's happening with the courts. | ||
| The Republicans did the exact same thing, though, in terms of like looking for judges who were sympathetic to their causes. | ||
| I mean, they judge shopped quite a bit of things in Texas during the prior administration with Biden. | ||
| All right, Mitchell. | ||
| Let's talk to Robin at Roanoke, Virginia. | ||
| What do you think, Robin? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think the courts obviously don't have enough power because it's going to take a massive amount of power to put a stop to the freight train of Trump. | |
| We can't go on like this. | ||
| Children and elderly people will be hurt. | ||
| Somebody has got to do something and thank God for the judges that do. | ||
| They have true grit and tenacity, and they're not going to go for this. | ||
| And the sycophans that want to follow them over the cliff, go right on, follow them right on over the cliff. | ||
| I'm depending on our Constitution to get us through this mess. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And some comments from Facebook. | ||
| Here's Brian, who says they are rogue justices. | ||
| Jason says the judicial branch is overstepping their bounds. | ||
| Carol says this: Trump has lost 96% of the cases that he has brought to the courts. | ||
| This includes Trump judges, Biden judges, Obama judges, even Reagan judges. | ||
| Trump is a criminal president stressing our courts, and so far the courts are holding, but our problem remains the same. | ||
| Many Americans simply are thirsty for authoritarianism. | ||
| Democracy just hasn't done for the people fast enough. | ||
| And James says they are the damn holding back the deluge. | ||
| And this is Edwin in New Bern, North Carolina. | ||
| Good morning, Edwin. | ||
| You say they have too much power. | ||
| Why? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| What's happening with the Trump administration? | ||
| They're proceeding to apprehend it. | ||
| They don't want to listen to anybody. | ||
| You got people like Caroline Levitt, the dollar general runway model, and Stephen Miller, the biggest anti-Semite. | ||
| He is trying to stranglehold any judicial system. | ||
| I give you one example. | ||
| The Congressional Budget Empowerment Control Act of 1974 is alive and well. | ||
| All these judges are using this as a pushback, saying these federal employees that were fired, unconstitutional. | ||
| And it's going to take the Supreme Court to make a ruling on that act and other things, like Mr. Garcia, to rein him in. | ||
| He wants to run this country like a dictatorship. | ||
| We have three branches of government. | ||
| He doesn't even know what the Constitution is, the 14th Amendment or the Fifth Amendment. | ||
| And it's sad in this country that we have a president like this. | ||
| He's going to go down as the worst president that we ever had on the Republican side. | ||
| That's all I got to say. | ||
| And the U.S. News and World Report has a very helpful list here. | ||
| It says these are the lawsuits against Trump's executive orders and where they're standing. | ||
| So if you go on this article, it lists all of them, who's suing, and then what the status is. | ||
| So for instance, here's ending birthright citizenship. | ||
| That's temporarily blocked. | ||
| Suspending asylum, that's ongoing. | ||
| For instance, dismantling the Education Department that's temporarily blocked. | ||
| There's several that are ongoing, shutting down the Voice of America and their sister broadcasts. | ||
| There's more. | ||
| There's a few more pages of that. | ||
| The caller just talked about laying off federal workers. | ||
| That's being brought by organizations, unions, and cities that's temporarily blocked by the courts. | ||
| So you can go through those and see what is the status of those court cases. | ||
| And here's Steve, who is in Sterling, Virginia. | ||
| Good morning, Steve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| You just mentioned the birthright citizenship case. | ||
| I tell people to listen to Katanji Brown Jackson's line of questioning. | ||
| Every law student knows that when you have jurisdiction over somebody, which in these cases, what has happened is the courts have said, okay, we do have jurisdiction over the federal government, and they make a ruling. | ||
| They've been doing this forever. | ||
| This is nothing new. | ||
| I mean, you played the clip from Senator Cruz. | ||
| He just draws the wrong conclusion. | ||
| Occam's razor says, pick the most logical, the most obvious answer, which is not that all the judges have gotten together and that they're some kind, they're rogue. | ||
| The answer is that what the government is doing is illegal in all these cases, and that's why they're losing them. | ||
| So, yeah, that's what I say. | ||
| This is nothing new. | ||
| It's just that the administration has gone so far outside the law that that is why they're losing all these cases. | ||
| All right, Steve. | ||
| And from that same poll on the Associated Press, they asked about President Trump's use of presidential power. | ||
| And this is how the numbers came out. | ||
| So of those polls, 57% say that he's gone too far. | ||
| So the president's use of his presidential power, 57% say he's gone too far, 32% say about right, and 10% say not far enough. | ||
| So wonder what you think about that and where you would fall in that poll if you were being polled. | ||
| This is James in Harvey, Louisiana. | ||
| Good morning, James. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for the opportunity to give my two cents. | ||
| I think it's just right, but I think that we're looking at the wrong source. | ||
| What's going on that I think is wrong is us. | ||
| That's the people. | ||
| We're putting a man in office knowingly, knowing that he's a felon, he's a liar, he's whatever he is, good and bad, that is not wanting to comply with the rules of government. | ||
| He came in saying that the system is rigged, that things are wrong. | ||
| And we're asking him to drain the swamp and overturn government. | ||
| He's trying to do that. | ||
| Well, the Constitution and the judiciary is saying don't. | ||
| We have a system. | ||
| If he wants to change things, change it within the system. | ||
| The things called legislation, there's things called cooperation. | ||
| He wants to do it like a businessman and dictate. | ||
| And we, I'm going to say we, because there's enough people supporting him that want it to happen. | ||
| We want him to break the law. | ||
| That's just my opinion. | ||
| All right, James. | ||
| This is some more Facebook comments. | ||
| Chris says, do the job they were supposed to do. | ||
| All of a sudden, they think they run the country. | ||
| It's about the courts. | ||
| And Richard said the courts have a role as a co-equal branch of the government. | ||
| I do believe that's in the Constitution. | ||
| Well, there was an exchange between Senators Ted Cruz and Corey Booker. | ||
| They got into an exchange about security threats to judges and to Supreme Court justices. | ||
| Take a look. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The accusation that the Democrats on this committee do not care about the safety of federal judges. | |
| I did not interrupt you, sir. | ||
| I would appreciate if you let me finish. | ||
| I am sick and tired of hearing the kind of heated partisan rhetoric, which is one of the reasons why we have such divisions in this country. | ||
| The attacks we see from the President of the United States of America trolling and dragging judges through is what we should be talking about, that puts people in danger. | ||
| I'm simply taking issue with the claim that you made at the top that people on the Democratic side of the aisle do not care about the safety and the security of judges and said nothing. | ||
| You said we were silent after people's houses were protested. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That is a patent lie, sir. | |
| We were not silent. | ||
| We took action. | ||
| We've joined in a bipartisan way to protect those judges, as was done in a bipartisan way to protect a New Jersey judge after their horrific attack at their home. | ||
| So I see you now trying to shift the debate to whether we talk to an attorney general. | ||
| I'm simply taking issue with this accusation that somehow we Democrats are so bad because we don't call out threats to our judicial colleagues. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that is wrong. | |
| You could change the argument now that you want, but what you said was patently not true and was, in fact, a patent lie. | ||
| So I do enjoy the fact that my colleague from New Jersey raises his voice and says it's a patent lie and says he's doing so in defense of lowering the rhetoric. | ||
| There is some irony to doing those two together. | ||
| I'll point out that in the entire course of those remarks, Senator Booker did not dispute the central point I made, which is the Biden Justice Department arrested zero people, prosecuted zero people for violating the criminal law, and every Democrat senator on this committee was silent about it. | ||
| And this was an ongoing pattern for months. | ||
| And I would note also that the senator from New Jersey clutched his pearls about language threatening judges, and yet I do not recall a single Democrat senator of this committee saying a word when Chuck Schumer went to the steps of the Supreme Court and threatened the safety of the Supreme Court justices by name, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. | ||
| And he said, you have unleashed the whirlwind and you will pay the price. | ||
| And not a single Democrat senator had a word to say about this. | ||
| And so their outrage is selective. | ||
| And we're taking your calls on that. | ||
| You'll notice that Senator Booker mentioned a New Jersey judge whose house was attacked. | ||
| This is an article about that from mycentraljersey.com. | ||
| A New Jersey federal judge whose son was murdered says, attacks on judges worrisome for democracy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It says that this is U.S. District Judge Esther Salas. | |
| Her son, Daniel, was murdered. | ||
| Her husband was shot. | ||
| It says pizzas have been sent to judges' homes across the country with a note referencing Salas's son, which she sees as a coordinated effort to intimidate them. | ||
| Salas calls for increased responsibility in political rhetoric and stronger laws to protect judges' personal information. | ||
| The intimidation attempts follow criticism of judges from some Republican members of Congress and others on social media. | ||
| Here's Carrie in Champaign, Illinois. | ||
| Carrie, do you think that the courts have too much power, too little? | ||
| Or just right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it's just right, but the only problem is the Supreme Court, because actually, to me, the Supreme Court are fighting the federal court judges by giving Donald Trump all this power to let him do whatever he wants to do. | |
| Because why would you give this man immunity when he's threatening to kick off 14 million people off of Medicaid? | ||
| And people seem like they don't care. | ||
| 77 million people voted for a man to destroy the country, and they want to be destroyed. | ||
| Why would you put this man in power? | ||
| I'm talking about the Supreme Court to let this man do what he's doing to this country. | ||
| He's tearing it apart. | ||
| He doesn't care about the rule of law. | ||
| He doesn't care about the Constitution. | ||
| And people keep thinking that this is great. | ||
| This is not great. | ||
| This is a sham. | ||
| The man is nothing but a grifter. | ||
| He's taking money. | ||
| He doesn't want to want Harvard to have anything. | ||
| They don't want research. | ||
| This country is going, he's taking this country back to the stone age. | ||
| And America's not built to be in the storm. | ||
| We need to go forward and move ahead. | ||
| You got people, you got ICE and FBI agents on the street. | ||
| And that's because of the Supreme Court giving this man immunity. | ||
| People need to look at what the Supreme Court do, the Supreme Court are the ones fighting against the judges by giving this man immunity. | ||
| Got it. | ||
| Got that point, Carrie. | ||
| And this is on a text from Audrey in Philly. | ||
| Says this, all government power is too much until it's not. | ||
| Since Congress won't do its job, we depend on the legislative branch to check the executive. | ||
| And it's rich. | ||
| The GOP accusing liberal judges of being activists, considering the extreme radicalism of Thomas Alito et al. in cases like Citizens United, Dobbs, etc. | ||
| And this is what Barb in Long Grove, Illinois says. | ||
| I feel that the courts in the Trump presidency currently have the right amount of power and are the only branch of government providing a check on his executive power. | ||
| And this is Diane in Iowa. | ||
| What do you think, Diane? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think they have just the right amount of power. | |
| And I think the people that are screaming and yelling and carrying on, I think they just need to tone it back and let Trump do what he was elected for. | ||
| He hasn't been in office a year yet and give him a chance, just like we gave Iowa, or I looked up and gave Biden a chance. | ||
| And, you know, it's like the thing I just saw with Booker. | ||
| He's a bully. | ||
| He's a bully. | ||
| And his rhetoric on TV that he has had, it affects the Democrats, the people out here that are Democrats. | ||
| And that's bad. | ||
| And then they get all riled up like the man just did from Illinois, and it gets crazy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So just give him a chance. | |
| And yeah, we're not going to like everything he does. | ||
| Nobody is, even the people that voted for him. | ||
| So, Diane, regarding what the courts have been doing on some of President Trump's executive actions, executive orders, what do you think? | ||
| Do you think that that's a valid use of their constitutional power, or do you think they're going too far? | ||
| You want to think about it a little bit, Diane? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| I didn't mean to put you on the spot. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I know. | |
| Well, no, I was, I think they know where the line is drawn for them, but in some cases, I think they know they need to do what they're doing to calm him down, settle him down, and not give him everything he wants. | ||
| Got it. | ||
| Let's go to Albuquerque. | ||
| And this is, is it Nakia? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Nakia, that's correct. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I feel like these judges are definitely overstepping their boundaries. | |
| They have no authority over the executive branch or the president. | ||
| Chuck Schumer admitted to putting over 230 activist judges on the bench while Biden was in office for this exact reason. | ||
| I don't know who these judges think that they are to come in and try to usurp the president of the United States with tariffs, with the illegal situation. | ||
| Like they have overstepped their boundaries way too much. | ||
| And, you know, I also feel like all the people who say that Trump is, you know, doing all these things and he's a threat to democracy, let me remind people that we just had AIDS running the country for four years because Biden had dementia. | ||
| So let me, yeah, so let me ask you a question specifically. | ||
| As an example, the ending birthright citizenship. | ||
| The courts put a have blocked that, so that is not in effect right now. | ||
| That's still working its way through the system. | ||
| What do you think of that? | ||
| Do you think that that was overstepping their constitutional authority? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| Absolutely overstepping. | ||
| I don't feel like we could go to any other country at nine months pregnant or eight months pregnant and have a baby, and then we're automatically a citizen of that country. | ||
| So, why are people allowed to do it here? | ||
| And the Constitution doesn't read that way anyway. | ||
| People want to interpret it and put their spin on it, but that's not what it says. | ||
| It's pretty, you know, clear. | ||
| So, I think that they absolutely overstepped their authority doing so. | ||
| All right. | ||
| This is Craig in Du Bois, Indiana. | ||
| What do you think, Craig? | ||
|
unidentified
|
How are you doing this morning? | |
| Well, I think it's a good topic that you're discussing today. | ||
| My impressions follow right along with the lady from New Mexico. | ||
| I think this has all been politicized by the left. | ||
| It was really rich for a guy mentioning that Trump said that the government was rigged. | ||
| And, you know, that's rich considering they found out about Biden and all the truth about his mental issues and health issues. | ||
| And was that rigged? | ||
| So, what happened to the 7 million people that voted for him in 2020 that didn't vote for Kamala Harris? | ||
| So, we can, you know, sparse words on rigged, not rigged. | ||
| I think the court, these national injunctions are not right. | ||
| And there's a legal case for that. | ||
| If you would, you have the clippings of the hearing yesterday. | ||
| Why don't you show the one where Senator Cruz asked questions to Mrs. Shaw? | ||
| That's very enlightening. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| I appreciate your time. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And thanks for watching that, Craig. | ||
| It is on our website. | ||
| So if anybody wants to see the entire hearing, it is all there for you that you can peruse at your leisure. | ||
| And here is Jerry, Fort Worth, Texas. | ||
| Good morning, Jerry. | ||
| What do you think about the courts and the Trump presidency? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think that currently the argument that the courts are co-equal branch with the president is only through with the Supreme Court. | |
| These district courts are not co-equal with branch of any part of the government except the areas that they're responsible for. | ||
| It's like saying the legislative branch of Texas is co-equal with the presidency because it's an elective congressional body, but it only has authority over the folks of Texas. | ||
| I don't understand why a judge from Mother Breath, Wyoming, or wherever he's from, can sit there and say, I'm going to thwart the will of the people who voted for the presidency. | ||
| If we keep going down this road, what the judges are saying is our elective process, having an election at all, is pointless because all they have to do is overturn the will of the people. | ||
| When they're overturning the president's agenda, they're overturning the will of the people. | ||
| Thanks so much. | ||
| All right, Jerry. | ||
| And this is what Kevin says on X. | ||
| We have separate and distinct judicial districts for a reason. | ||
| Can judges in District A issue dissenting opinions in District B? | ||
| No nationwide injunctions unless all 12 districts do so. | ||
| And this is X from I Love President Biden. | ||
| It says, justice who have ruled against Trump have been appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents. | ||
| If they don't want the courts to rule against Trump, tell him to stop doing executive orders that are illegal. | ||
| And we'll go back to the phones now to Joe in Baltimore. | ||
| Good morning, Joe. | ||
| What do you think about the court's role in the Trump presidency? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Well, I think they have about the right amount of power. | ||
| And, you know, I could say maybe not enough. | ||
| It depends on, you know, as of generally, they have the right amount of power. | ||
| Things keep going normal. | ||
| They'll have the right amount of power. | ||
| When people talk about judicial activism, it's not really a well-founded concept. | ||
| You hear about things like textualism, originalism, pragmatism as different ways of interpreting the law that the Supreme Court uses. | ||
| And that's because there is no law about how to interpret the law besides what's written down in the Constitution and in subsequent laws. | ||
| The judges interpret the law. | ||
| That means that they are the final word on what the law is. | ||
| And the concept of judicial activism is restricted to a lens like originalism or textualism that specifically is the most straightjacketed version of interpreting the law. | ||
| It's valid to interpret them that way, but it's also valid to interpret the law in ways that people cast as activists. | ||
| That's all. | ||
| All right, Joe. | ||
| Let's take a look at Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. | ||
| He was at that hearing yesterday, and he gave statements saying that President Trump is breaking the law and that judges are doing their jobs. | ||
| Here he is. | ||
| The madcap pace and roughshod lawlessness of Trump's executive actions mean district judges across the country are striking them down, not because of judicial obstruction, because he is breaking the law. | ||
| Hearings like this prop up a narrative that bad courts are stopping dear leader Donald Trump because some cabal of Democratic judges is out to get him. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wrong. | |
| The reality is much simpler. | ||
| He's breaking the law and doing it a lot, and judges are doing their job. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's not just me saying that. | |
| Trump appointed judges from across the country have struck down his illegal actions, holding, for instance, that Trump can't punish the AP for its reporting, that his misuse of the Alien Enemies Act is illegal, and that the administration can't withhold billions of appropriated public health funds. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Trump judges. | |
| Hardly a liberal conspiracy. | ||
| As it tries to prop up Trump's illegal orders, the MAGA Justice Department is fast destroying its reputation with judges who've said about DOJ arguments, bad faith, shoddy, an admitted lack of any evidence whatsoever, deliberate evasion. | ||
| Shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear. | ||
| And we'll stick with this topic for the next five minutes, and we'll go to open forum afterwards. | ||
| So if there's other things that you'd like to talk about, you can certainly do that. | ||
| Here's Horace in Philadelphia. | ||
| Horace, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, my dear. | |
| Excuse me for calling on a long run, but I believe that the judges are doing the right thing. | ||
| Somebody must keep this man at bay. | ||
| Somebody must make him obey the law. | ||
| My opinion is ever since he was convicted 34 times of felony, it just blew his mind. | ||
| And now all he's doing is breaking the law all the way down the line. | ||
| That's a good day. | ||
| And this is Willie in Georgia. | ||
| Hi, Willie. | ||
| What do you think? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Yes, I just want to say that the media is going down a rabbit hole. | ||
| Trump did what he wanted to do when he first got in there before he got in there to go to Saudi Arabia and pick up that money. | ||
| And then he came up with the crypto. | ||
| So, regarding the courts, do you think that the courts are holding them in check appropriately, or do you think that they've gone too far? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're holding them appropriately. | |
| Okay. | ||
| Let's take a look at Senator Schmidt. | ||
| This is also from yesterday's hearing saying that it's important to keep the judiciary from becoming too activist. | ||
| Universal injunctions effectively didn't happen for the first 200 years of our Constitution. | ||
| Yet they become a fixture in our legal system in the last 20, especially when Donald Trump occupies the White House. | ||
| The courts can play an important role in reining in an executive branch that's out of control. | ||
| This is especially important when reining in actions by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who act outside of the scope of their congressionally authorized authority. | ||
| But what happens when Article 3 has no limits? | ||
| As listed in the hearing's title, Alexander Hamilton called the judiciary the least dangerous branch in Federalist 78. | ||
| And historically, in Federalist 78, Historic was responding to the anti-Federalist Brutus, who was raising the alarm bell over the seemingly unchecked power of Article III to subvert the will of the people and the rights of citizens. | ||
| Hamilton responded that judges will be forced to behave because nothing guarantees that their orders are enacted. | ||
| Judges can't raise an army. | ||
| They can't collect taxes or duties. | ||
| As Hamilton said, the judiciary must ultimately depend on the aid of the executive branch to enforce its judgments. | ||
| To date, the Trump administration has followed every court order, enforced every judgment. | ||
| It's no one's desire to put Hamilton's theory into practice. | ||
| That is why this hearing is so important. | ||
| We are not a juristocracy. | ||
| We do not want the judiciary to subjugate itself. | ||
| We want to keep it from subjugating others. | ||
| I agree with Hamilton that there is no liberty if the power of judging is not separated from the legislative and executive powers. | ||
| But this runs both ways. | ||
| There can be no Democratic accountability, no Republican government with an overly activist judiciary that allows over 600 judges to wield limitless power. | ||
| On particularly troubling, one particularly troubling example, district court judges have been assigned case, have not been assigned cases randomly or transparently. | ||
| In March, Chief Justice Bosberg, right here in D.C., has found himself into four major Trump cases, a statistical impossibility. | ||
| Bosberg took over the Alien Enemies Act and ordered planes to be turned around in the dead of night, despite not being the emergency judge on duty that night. | ||
| It seems clear that as chief judge, he has play and he wants to be able to grab cases for himself. | ||
| And again, that full hearing is on our website if you'd like to take a look and watch that in its entirety. | ||
| We're going to go ahead and go to open forum. | ||
| So if you'd like to continue talking about the courts and the Trump administration, feel free to do that. | ||
| We're going to spend the last 20 minutes of this segment just on other things that you might want to talk about. | ||
| If you'd like to bring those into the conversation, you can. | ||
| The numbers are Republicans 202748-8001, Democrats 202748-8000, and Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| One of the stories that we're following is about Elon Musk, and he posted this on X. | ||
| He said about the so-called Big Beautiful bill. | ||
| He says, I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. | ||
| This massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. | ||
| Shame on those who voted for it. | ||
| You know you did wrong. | ||
| You know it. | ||
| And then this is what Senator Rand Paul said. | ||
| I agree with Elon. | ||
| We have both seen the massive waste in government spending, and we know another $5 trillion in debt is a huge mistake. | ||
| We can and must do better. | ||
| And then this is Michael Schnell, a reporter, says this. | ||
| Speaker Johnson says Musk is, quote, terribly wrong about the bill. | ||
| Johnson said he spoke to Musk for more than 20 minutes yesterday. | ||
| For him to come out and pan the whole bill is to me just very disappointing, very surprising in light of the conversation I had with him yesterday. | ||
| Well, President Trump also responded on Truth Social to Senator Rand Paul. | ||
| He says this. | ||
| Rand votes no on everything, but never has any practical or constructive ideas. | ||
| His ideas are actually crazy, in parentheses, losers. | ||
| The people of Kentucky can't stand him. | ||
| This is a, all caps, big growth bill. | ||
| And we had Caroline Levitt, the press secretary, also responded to Elon Musk's criticism of that bill. | ||
| Here's her response. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Something that just crossed Caroline. | |
| How mad do you think President Trump is going to be when he finds out that Elon Musk said, I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. | ||
| This massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Shame on those who voted for it. | |
| You know you did wrong. | ||
| You know it. | ||
| Look, the president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill. | ||
| It doesn't change the president's opinion. | ||
| This is one big, beautiful bill, and he's sticking to it. | ||
| And we can go back to the phones now to Dan in Tennessee, Republican. | ||
| You're on Open Forum. | ||
| Dan, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I was calling because about the court judges. | ||
| Yep. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They have jurisdiction over their area, wherever they're at. | |
| There's only three accountable branches of government. | ||
| The executive branch, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. | ||
| Other than that, they're blowing hot steam trying to get away with something. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| This is Paul in Boston, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Paul. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How you doing? | ||
| Good. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, Elon Musk isn't an elected official. | ||
| I understand he's got his opinions, as all of us do. | ||
| But Donald Trump was elected to do exactly what he's doing. | ||
| And the other two branches of government, I'm going to sift through the particulars, and it'll work its way through, hopefully, through the grace of God. | ||
| But it's a transitional administration from the past administration to this one. | ||
| And it's all good that everyone has a right to their opinions and stuff. | ||
| You know, at first people were complaining that Elon was taking over and was pulling the strings with President Trump. | ||
| And now it's vice versa. | ||
| You know, I just think that the other two branches will balance out the other two branches, the other branch. | ||
| So, you know, I see hope for the future, and I hope that it continues to go that way. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And here's Catherine in Vermont. | ||
| Democrat, good morning, Catherine. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I wanted to respond to a comment from the previous segment about birthright citizenship. | ||
| The lady said that she could not be nine months pregnant and go to another country and become a citizen. | ||
| And I wanted to, and she referenced the 14th Amendment as it related to her comment. | ||
| And it's, I don't think she had read it, so I just want to read it slowly for her and all the listeners. | ||
| All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdictions thereof are citizens of the United States and the state wherein they reside. | ||
| That's what the Constitution says. | ||
| So I think that she just, I don't know if she read it or not, but just wanted to say that. | ||
| And then there was a comment just a second ago from the gentleman about courts and their jurisdiction. | ||
| These are federal judges who are speaking up for against what Trump is doing, and they do have jurisdiction. | ||
| I think a lot of folks probably don't understand like the jurisdiction of state court, appellate court, and then federal courts and the Supreme Court. | ||
| There are levels, and these are federal judges who are saying these things. | ||
| So, yeah, I just wanted to make those comments today. | ||
| Thank you for your time. | ||
| Have a wonderful day. | ||
| You too, Catherine. | ||
| And this is John and Weed, California, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| I'm calling, I'm kind of confused about this bill. | ||
| Elon Musk, he knows what's going on. | ||
| The Senate and the Congress, both parties are destroying this country and are nothing but filthy liars. | ||
| And I blame the people of this country for voting the same people back into office. | ||
| And then about the Supreme Court, you have one person that doesn't know what a woman is. | ||
| Now, how can she be intelligent enough to make a decision on anything if she doesn't know gender? | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| So, sorry, John, you had said that you were confused about what Elon Musk said about the bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I think Elon Musk is right. | |
| And like I said, the Senate and the Congress, both parties, are destroying this country. | ||
| Yep, we got that. | ||
| And this is in Politico with this headline. | ||
| Dem's call on Jim Jordan to condemn the detaining of a House staffer. | ||
| It says the top Democrats on the Judiciary Committee also want DHS Secretary Christine Noam to testify. | ||
| Here's what happened. | ||
| It says, top Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are calling on Chair Jim Jordan to condemn the detainment of a congressional aide by Department of Homeland Security authorities. | ||
| A staffer for Representative Jerry Nadler, the former senior Democrat on the judiciary panel, was handcuffed in the member's district office last week amid protests outside the building of an immigration courthouse that shares the same facility. | ||
| DHS claimed the aide, who was never arrested, was briefly detained as part of a larger security check to protect federal employees. | ||
| But in their letter to Jordan Tuesday, Representative Jamie Raskin, the top current ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, and Nadler argued the staffer's detainment followed a pattern of threatening actions by the Trump administration and urged Jordan to call DHS Secretary Noam to testify before the committee regarding her agency's posture. | ||
| Let's take a look at what House Minority Leader Representative Hakeem Jeffries responded to a question about how Democrats would respond to that ICE incident. | ||
| Every single ICE agent who's engaged in this aggressive overreach and are trying to hide their identities from the American people will be unsuccessful in doing that. | ||
| This is America. | ||
| This is not the Soviet Union. | ||
| We're not behind the Iron Curtain. | ||
| This is not the 1930s. | ||
| And every single one of them, no matter what it takes, no matter how long it takes, will of course be identified. | ||
| That in fact is the law. | ||
| And we're going to make sure that the American people have the transparency necessary to hold people accountable when they're folks who cross the line here in America. | ||
| That's what's going to happen. | ||
| And as I mentioned earlier, when I spoke to Congressman Nadler about this, our first priorities are always going to be making sure the person who was on the front line is in the best possible place to move forward. | ||
| That's the case with LaMonica McGyver, and it is also the case with Congressman Nadler's brave, young, patriotic staffer. | ||
| We've got to address those issues first. | ||
| That's the human thing to do, while simultaneously, of course, preparing to deal with the broader policy implications, which, as I mentioned, are underway. | ||
| And we've got about 10 minutes for open forum. | ||
| Just want to make sure that you saw the front pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal all have pictures of the newly elected South Korean president. | ||
| That is Lee Jae-myung, just won election in South Korea. | ||
| That's the New York Times. | ||
| Here's the Washington Post with the picture of supporters of that. | ||
| It's the Democratic Party of Korea. | ||
| And this also is celebration of that election in South Korea on the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| That's all the front pages. | ||
| Norman is joining us from New Hampshire, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi, Norman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Good. | ||
| What's on your mind? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What's on my mind is, you know, I'm a Vietnam-era veteran, served three years under three presidents. | |
| And when I think of states' rights and the power struggle that's going on here in Washington, D.C., it just appalls me to think that we can't get on the right page. | ||
| It seems like everybody is out there, you know, putting everyone else down, and states' rights is out the window. | ||
| You know, the federal government is almost like martial law. | ||
| And we're just going around in a whirlwind, and nothing seems to be getting done. | ||
| It's just everybody's going with the flow, and they're like the blind leading the blind out there. | ||
| And it's relatively disgusting to me because, you know, I was going to get drafted in 72, and I decided to enlist in the Marine Corps because, you know, if I got shot and killed over there, at least Marines didn't leave their dead in the field. | ||
| And, you know, I was told my mother would get back my remains. | ||
| But to see the government functioning like it is is stupidity. | ||
| So, Norman, explain to me what you mean by you want to see more states' rights. | ||
| Is there particular issues you want to see the states handle more? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, the president said, well, he wanted to put X amount of power to the states. | |
| But, you know, I was raised in Massachusetts and moved up here after my service. | ||
| But to think what they did the other day down there in ICE, you know, taking control. | ||
| And I think they got about 1,500, I don't know, 15,000 people down there. | ||
| You know, a young college student. | ||
| And, you know, they're going to deport them to another country. | ||
| You know, I used to think President Nixon's, his idea of getting rid of the hippies was offering a booze cruise and then sinking the ship. | ||
| You know, that's what I feel like is going on in America now. | ||
| Because there is a large population, you know, as opposed to 50 years ago. | ||
| But if we don't get on the right page and the Democrats and the Republicans can't get along, and for some reason, they're following this guy, Trump, who's a realtor. | ||
| And, you know, they're trying to admonish him in such a way that, you know, it seems like money's behind everything. | ||
| And, you know, the love of our country is down the drain or it's being controlled by, you know, the feds. | ||
| And, you know, the courts, that's checks and balances. | ||
| And they're throwing that out the window. | ||
| If we don't have checks and balances and we can't govern ourselves, then what is government for? | ||
| It means to govern. | ||
| Got to move on. | ||
| George in Missouri, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, George. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, this is ridiculous. | |
| I mean, plumb ridiculous. | ||
| That guy that supposedly calls himself President of the United States, a dictator now, his head that way. | ||
| But I think he needs to be impeached. | ||
| On what grounds, George? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, he don't know what he's doing. | |
| I think the guy's about half nuts. | ||
| Something in this country's gone completely crazy on him. | ||
| Well, I tell you, that's all I've got to say, Helene. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And here's Victoria in Rockwall, Texas, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Victoria. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Mimi. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I am in support of Donald Trump and looking into district court judges. | ||
| There have been an abuse here in Dallas, Texas. | ||
| I've been calling in the C-SPAN for the last four years. | ||
| I had property in litigation when my husband passed away. | ||
| The property had a less pendant in it, letting everyone know that it could not be sold. | ||
| However, it was sold behind my back by my heirs and Fidelity National Title Company for $585,000. | ||
| Fidelity is the court is abating and aiding and abetting Fidelity National Title. | ||
| I have six cases where they have issued defected titles to owners and turning around, suing the owners. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I am in a suit right now with the hearing on June 18th. | |
| Fidelity is the defected title to the new owners. | ||
| However, they are suing me. | ||
| I never sold any property. | ||
| I have not signed any sellers agreement. | ||
| There are six cases I have researched. | ||
| The district court, the appellate court in Dallas, I mean, in Houston and Harris County, every court, the appellant court, the district courts have all granted Fidelity National Title summary judgment. | ||
| Well, Victoria, good luck with that. | ||
| Here's Scott in New York, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Scott. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Listen, you guys, 28 years, calling 28 years. | ||
| Try to circle the calendar when I call so I don't call within 30 days. | ||
| When we tell people we call within 30 days, we're lying to ourselves. | ||
| Thank God if we're getting on there. | ||
| Now, number one, the other day when Ukraine took out 20 to 40 bombers and two of those bombers actually flew over our country in the last Trump administration, they did way more damage to the Russian nuclear arsenal than everybody did in all of these times since the Cold War. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wow, that a boy Putin is upset mad. | |
| Now I want to give everybody a bipartisan idea. | ||
| I think everybody would agree with on how to pay down our debt. | ||
| We're eliminating the penny. | ||
| So instead of just wiping out the penny, what we do is every time we go to a store and buy something, we round up to the nearest nickel. | ||
| From one to four cents, we put to the deficit. | ||
| At 350 million people a day spending 10 times a day. | ||
| Think of the money we could pay down. | ||
| I call it the penny, the penny dropping a penny tax, people. | ||
| Bipartisan idea. | ||
| Let's knock down the budget and everybody, let's get along for a month, huh? | ||
| God bless you all. | ||
| Talk to you 30 days. | ||
| All right, Scott. | ||
| And you mentioned the attack in Russia by those drones. | ||
| This is in the Washington Post. | ||
| Kiev's drone feat underscores a U.S. vulnerability. | ||
| It says Ukraine surprised Sunday strike that used relatively inexpensive drones to knock out a significant portion of Russia's long-range bomber capability was arguably the single largest blow to Moscow in its three-year war on its neighbor and a stunning display of asymmetric warfare. | ||
| The out-of-the-blue drone blitz elicited glee among Ukraine's backers in Washington, but also a chilling realization. | ||
| The U.S. is increasingly vulnerable to just such a low-tech, low-cost strike. | ||
| This is Stacey Pettijan from CNAS, who says the Pentagon should be very worried about this. | ||
| And Dale is in Columbus, Ohio, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Dale. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Good. | ||
| I just want to say, you know, I've been trying to do research on Donald Trump and his family for years and stuff. | ||
| And I wish that the Republican Party and the Democrats would do the same thing. | ||
| Just Google Donald Trump, how many lawsuits that he has had. | ||
| I Googled it, and in three decades, which is 30 years, he's had over 4,000 and some lawsuits. | ||
| The amazing part about that is that, you know, they always say that he came down the escalator and that's when they started. | ||
| No, I mean, he's been having lawsuits forever, and yet we have him as president of the United States. | ||
| I did research on how much money his daughter and Jared made when they were in the White House. | ||
| And just the president of the United States, what I read, that he makes $400,000 a year. | ||
| When Jared and Ivaka came out, they made over $640 million. | ||
| It's all online. | ||
| They don't have no people, no reason to lie. | ||
| He sits up there and tells them to don't get involved with China. | ||
| When he was president the last time, he had all kinds of stuff coming from China and stuff, selling stuff. | ||
| But he's constantly lying, and you've seen him hiding his documents and all this stuff. | ||
| I just do not understand how people could still support this man. | ||
| He tells people to listen to Fox, don't listen to his other channels, because that's fake news. | ||
| And these people, they just laugh and laugh. | ||
| But Donald Trump is really a crook. | ||
| And I don't really want to say that, but if y'all do research, you can find out all that. | ||
| God bless everybody, and thank you for the time. | ||
| Here's Fred in Jessup, Maryland, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Fred. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, everybody. | |
| This is ridiculous. | ||
| I mean, we've been through four years of warfare against President Trump, all for just being a conservative. | ||
| Democrat Party's been called out. | ||
| They're corrupt as you know what. | ||
| They're losing their slush funds for their campaigns. | ||
| They're the oligarchs. | ||
| They got billionaire buddies just like everybody else. | ||
| But for some reason, the people continue to support politicians. | ||
| We got our first citizen president. | ||
| He's one of us. | ||
| He's been beaten up by the government, beaten up by blue states his whole life. | ||
| He's finally trying to straighten this out and rein in these rogue judges. | ||
| And you guys can't see that. | ||
| The black community, try looking at yourself in the mirror and at the people you got running these blue cities. | ||
| Kids can't, they're graduating, they can't read and write, and they're read and write in the third grade levels. | ||
| You guys need to address your own situations. | ||
| Every judge has been, the Democrats are judge shopping in blue cities. | ||
| Every judgment against him has been held up by Democrat judges. | ||
| They'll go to D.C., Maryland, New York, anywhere that they can get somebody, an activist judge, that doesn't go by the rules. | ||
| I mean, Trump's the most investigative man on the planet. | ||
| Let's start with some of these Democrats. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And later on on Washington Journal, we'll have former Obama and Biden FEMA official Michael Cohen. | ||
| He'll discuss the spending cuts at that agency and its readiness as the hurricane season gets underway. | ||
| But up next, we've got a conversation with Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. | ||
| We'll talk about the role faith and family issues are playing in the second Trump administration. | ||
| And during the break, take a look at this moment from yesterday. | ||
| The House observed a moment of silence for the anti-Semitic attacks that took place in Boulder, Colorado, and in Washington, D.C. Here it is. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, two days ago, a heinous and horrific act of terror took place in the district that I represent in Boulder, Colorado. | ||
| As families gathered on the idyllic Pearl Street Mall, a group of my constituents, of Jewish members of our community, took part in a peaceful walk and vigil, as they've done every week for the past two years, to call for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza. | ||
| As they gathered, they were viciously targeted, ambushed, and attacked by a man who attempted to burn them alive with Molotov cocktails and incendiary devices. | ||
| We are praying hard for the 12 victims, several of whom I know personally. | ||
| It shocks the conscience that on the eve of the holiday of Shavat, Our Jewish brothers and sisters were subjected to yet another brutal, horrific, and anti-Semitic act of violence. | ||
| The scourge of anti-Semitism has metastasized across our country, and we have to do more now to stop this hatred and violence. | ||
| We continue to stand with the Jewish community today and always, and we'll be united in supporting the victims and their families in the weeks and the months ahead. | ||
| I'd now like to yield to my colleague, Ms. Davids of Kansas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Neguse. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart to honor the lives of Sarah Milgram and her partner, Yaron Lechinsky, who were tragically and senselessly killed in an anti-Semitic attack outside the Capitol Jewish Museum here in D.C. Sarah grew up in Prairie Village, Kansas, a community that I have the honor of serving in Congress. | ||
| She graduated from Shawnee Mission East High School and the University of Kansas. | ||
| She was a devoted member of Congregation B'nai Yehuda and was dedicated to building understanding and connection between Israel and the United States. | ||
| Her partner, Yaron, also shared that commitment. | ||
| And this hateful and targeted violence is not only heartbreaking, it is unacceptable. | ||
| Anti-Semitism has no place in our country, and yet we are seeing a deeply disturbing rise in acts of hate. | ||
| To Sarah and Yaron, may your memories be a blessing. | ||
| To the Jewish community in Kansas, Colorado, and across the nation, please know that we are all standing with you. | ||
| We mourn with you. | ||
| We recommit to creating a world where no one fears for their safety because of who they are. | ||
| And I can tell you that Sarah was committed to that. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I would now ask my colleagues to please join, rise, and take a moment of silence to honor the lives that we've lost. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now is Tony Perkins. | ||
| He's the president of the Family Research Council. | ||
| Tony, welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mimi, good morning. | |
| So let's start with those anti-Semitic attacks. | ||
| There's been two major ones, shall we say this is the one in Boulder, Colorado, and the murder of the Israeli embassy workers here in Washington, D.C. What do you think is prompting these attacks? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think we go back to October the 7th and the narrative that has come forth from that. | |
| And I've been in Israel four times since October the 7th. | ||
| I was just there about four weeks ago. | ||
| Met with the new U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, met with Israeli officials. | ||
| You know, I think part of it is the narrative that's coming out of Gaza that is not completely accurate, that is fueling this anti-Semitism in part, a lack of understanding. | ||
| And I think it's metastasized into this violence. | ||
| I mean, we had two, and I had met these young people, one of them, the young girl, Sarah, at the embassy here in the United States, the Israeli embassy. | ||
| They gunned down on the streets of Washington, D.C. Not a random act in terms of, you know, unfortunately we have too much crime here in this city, but they were targeted because they were coming out of the Jewish museum. | ||
| They were targeted for who they were. | ||
| And this is troubling. | ||
| Anti-Semitism is not new in the United States, and Jews have been attacked and murdered in this country before October 7th. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But we need to look at the trends. | |
| I served in the previous Trump administration as the chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. | ||
| And we were tracking the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe. | ||
| Now, our mission on the commission was to focus internationally, not in the United States. | ||
| But I chaired a hearing on the rise of anti-Semitism. | ||
| And there's a lot of things that echo what we saw in the 1930s. | ||
| And there are warning signs that we should see. | ||
| And it's not just isolated with the Jewish community. | ||
| We need to realize that they're kind of the anti-Semitism is the canary in the coal mine when it comes to a rising intolerance to religious identity and participation. | ||
| We saw it, as I said, in the 30s, and it's something we need to pay close attention to and address. | ||
| And there's one thing this administration is doing. | ||
| It's addressing the issue. | ||
| States are addressing the issue. | ||
| It is not something we can ignore. | ||
| You posted on X, you said this. | ||
| Is the legacy media facilitating terrorist attacks on U.S. soil by their false reporting? | ||
| Hamas claimed IDF forces shot Palestinians in cold blood during the U.S. aid distribution last weekend, and the media reported it as fact. | ||
| Do you have facts that would back up the claim that those Palestinians were not shot? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, number one, the ambassador from the U.S. to Israel clarified that it didn't happen. | |
| I talked to someone in the Carolyn Gleck, who is an advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu, that the narrative is not correct in what happened. | ||
| It is as if the IDF opened up on civilians who were coming to get aid, when in reality, the stories we're hearing are that the Gazans are amazed that they're actually able to get this humanitarian support without paying for it. | ||
| What Hamas has been doing is selling the aid to fund their war machine to the civilians, and this now is breaking up their activity and is threatening their money supply. | ||
| And so they're doing everything they can to discredit the Israel and U.S. humanitarian. | ||
| So is your issue that those Palestinians were not actually killed or who did it? | ||
| Do you just believe that it was not the IDF that shot those people? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What the information that I have and that Ambassador Huckabee has also articulated is that the IDF did not open fire on civilians who were coming to get aid. | |
| In fact, it wasn't even, it was a distance away from the aid station, and these were not just random civilians. | ||
| They were in areas that were controlled and secured that they were not supposed to be in, and they were approaching the IDF soldiers. | ||
| And with, you know, when we just had three IDF soldiers just recently killed in Gaza, the idea to do harm to them. | ||
| I want to ask you about a new Religious Liberty Commission. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can I go back to that for just a second? | |
| The Hamas Health Agency, which has repeatedly stated, I think the last number, 54,000 Gazans have been killed. | ||
| And that number has been refuted because they don't separate between combatants and civilians. | ||
| And so there have been independent studies that have done that have questioned the accuracy of their reporting and what they're trying to do with that. | ||
| You mean the number 54,000 or who is a combatant and who's a civilian? | ||
| There's both. | ||
| Both is the over-reporting or the inflation of the numbers, but also who is in that number. | ||
| How many of those are actually combatants? | ||
| We often hear the Gazan Health Administration say that they're women and children. | ||
| Certainly there are some in that number, but they're over-inflating that number. | ||
| Again, there's independent studies. | ||
| Even if it was over-inflated by half, I mean, 25,000 people killed is still a huge number. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It is a huge number, but we have to realize this is a terrorist organization that's basically holding these people hostage. | |
| They're the ones that prompted this war on October the 7th when they invaded Israel. | ||
| And they are using, and again, these are reports that are very clear out there, they're using these people as human shields. | ||
| Let's talk about the Religious Liberty Commission and also an office of a White House faith office. | ||
| So this is Politico with the headline, Trump brushing aside separation of church and state, establishes Religious Liberty Commission. | ||
| The President is quoted as saying, we're bringing religion back to our country. | ||
| Do you consider this a setting aside of the separation of church and state? | ||
|
unidentified
|
How would it be setting aside separation of church and state? | |
| You disagree with that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I do. | |
| How is it setting it aside? | ||
| Well, here's what the group, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said about it, and I'll have you respond to them. | ||
| This is part of their statement. | ||
| We'll put it on the screen when we can. | ||
| It says, this commission is not about religious liberty, but about advancing Christian nationalism. | ||
| True religious freedom requires equality among religions and between equality among religions and between religion and non-religion in the eyes of the law and at every level of our government. | ||
| Trump clearly designed this commission to favor conservative Christians, especially those who want to use the power of our government to impose their religion on others. | ||
| Do you consider this imposing of religion on others? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's interesting. | |
| No, I don't. | ||
| It's interesting that this effort has been criticized by conservative Christians because of the makeup of some on the commission. | ||
| It's not just Christians. | ||
| You have Muslims that are involved in this. | ||
| And so there's been some criticism that it is not conservative enough. | ||
| So is this imposing Christianity? | ||
| No. | ||
| I think what it is doing is it is recognizing America's history, its Christian heritage, its Judeo-Christian heritage. | ||
| And I think as the president has articulated, as he did in his previous administration, he's making sure that there is not anti-Christian discrimination taking place in this country. | ||
| Explain anti-Christian discrimination. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you see it happening when people, because of their faith, and I guess we should go back, Mimi, and let's define what's religious freedom. | |
| Religious freedom is not the ability to choose what church you're going to attend on a Sunday. | ||
| I mean, that's never really been in question in this country. | ||
| Religious freedom is going back to the founders is the ability to live your life according to your faith. | ||
| And increasingly, we've seen a conflict between orthodox biblical beliefs and policies of governments, whether it comes down to the use of pronouns or most of it does center around human sexuality or the issue of abortion. | ||
| And the ability to adhere to your beliefs and be able to operate according to those, that's religious freedom. | ||
| And that's what the administration is working to rectify within the ranks of the federal government and use the bullied pulpit, if you will, of government to ensure that people can live out their faith in the private sector as well. | ||
| Are you going to be involved in that Religious Liberty Commission? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not formally. | |
| Not formally, but I am talking to those that are involved in it. | ||
| And as I said, previous administration, I served as chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. | ||
| My bigger focus is making sure in our foreign policy that we are articulating religious freedom in many of the countries we're working with because religious freedom, study after study, shows that a country that has vibrant religious freedom also has greater economic opportunity and security stability. | ||
| And so it minimizes our need to get involved in other countries when we're promoting this first principle, which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a top priority in that first administration. | ||
| And I think Marco Rubio is continuing with that. | ||
| If you'd like to join our conversation with Tony Perkins, he's the president of the Family Research Council. | ||
| We're talking about faith and the Trump administration. | ||
| You can also discuss those anti-Semitic attacks that have been happening recently. | ||
| The lines are by party, so Republicans can call us on 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| USA Today has this headline, how the Supreme Court could still reshape religious liberty with decisions in two cases. | ||
| I want to ask you first about the case out of Maryland. | ||
| This is on whether families have the right to excuse their children from public school lessons that feature books with LGBTQ plus themes. | ||
| First, remind us about that case and where you stand on it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So this is a case that's been working its way through the court system all the way to the Supreme Court. | |
| And what this does is at one time, you know, probably many of your viewers go back to when we had sex ed in the schools and parents could opt their kids out of it. | ||
| What's happened, in particular in this case in Maryland, is that this LGBT, as you made reference to, has been integrated in almost every aspect of education. | ||
| So it's not like isolated in one area where parents can opt out. | ||
| And so what parents are asking for is the ability to not expose to their kids. | ||
| It would be in conflict with the values that they're teaching at home. | ||
| This is a religious freedom issue. | ||
| You know, if I'm raising my kids as Christians to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and follow his words, like he said in Matthew chapter 19, that have you not read from the beginning, God created them male and female? | ||
| If the school that I'm paying my taxes to should not contradict what I'm teaching my children at home, I'm the parent. | ||
| I'm the one that has the responsibility to raise those children. | ||
| So that's what's at question here. | ||
| I would go a bit further, and I hope the court does go further, and say that these schools should not allow, not give parents this right to opt out. | ||
| Rather, it should be an opt-in. | ||
| Because I know from experience, having been a legislator and how these processes work, that oftentimes the opportunity to opt out is in the fine print, and you have to really work at opting your kids out. | ||
| The burden should be on the school to convince the parent that this is something that is good for the child. | ||
| Here's what the, this is from a statement of the ACLU's Daniel Mock. | ||
| He says this. | ||
| Religious liberty is fundamentally important, but it doesn't force public schools to exempt students from secular lessons that don't align with their family's religious views. | ||
| Mandating opt-outs would wreak havoc on public schools, tying their hands on basic curricular decisions, stoking divisiveness and disruption, and undermining a core purpose of public education to prepare students to live in our pluralistic society. | ||
| I want your comment on that very last line about the ability for students to live in a pluralistic society where they will have to deal with people that don't share their religious. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let me flip that. | |
| So what about those kids that are not exposed to Christian understanding of human sexuality? | ||
| Should they not be exposed to that Christian teaching? | ||
| Because they're going to live in a society where many of their fellow citizens have that view. | ||
| Let me tell you where I think the solution may lie as we have this increasing conflict. | ||
| And it goes back to another Supreme Court case recently out of Oklahoma where we had the charter schools that was turned at the Catholic charter schools. | ||
| But what Congress has done in the reconciliation bill is there is a voucher program for education. | ||
| This is modeled on, actually the very first came out of Arizona back in 1997. | ||
| Actually, Trent Franks, former congressman who was a state legislator at the time, authored that where it is a tax credit. | ||
| You get a dollar for dollar tax credit. | ||
| So I can put in money, I get a credit for making this contribution. | ||
| It goes into a fund, and then people who access that can use that for vouchers. | ||
| I think the voucher approach to education is one that will allow parents to make the educational choices for their children. | ||
| And I think it could address the issue here because parents can then have greater control over the education and the future of their children. | ||
| I want to ask you, we're going to take calls, but I wanted to ask you about, sorry, I'm trying to get, okay. | ||
| So this is something happening in Texas. | ||
| This is from Fox San Antonio, who says, the Texas bill mandating Ten Commandments display in classrooms heads to the governor's desk. | ||
| So it has now passed both houses of their state legislature, and the governor is expected to sign it. | ||
| So this would mandate that the Ten Commandments be displayed in all Texas public classrooms. | ||
| It says that it would have a minimum size that it would have to be. | ||
| And Texas, as you know, is a big state. | ||
| It would cover 5 million public school students. | ||
| I'm assuming that you agree with this. | ||
| What impact do you think that that would have? | ||
| What's the benefit of putting the Ten Commandments? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, so Texas is not the first. | |
| Louisiana is the first. | ||
| I actually signed it last year. | ||
| It's being litigated at present, but looks very promising because, number one, there's no government money spent in this. | ||
| These Ten Commandments, there are sizes that are laid out according to the law, but they're given privately. | ||
| So there's no money that is involved here in the state. | ||
| Who's funding that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's whoever. | |
| Donations. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Donations. | |
| Sometimes there's organizations that have stepped up that are helping. | ||
| Others it's just citizens that give them. | ||
| But there's a minimum. | ||
| There's guidelines in what they say and how they look. | ||
| So this is an unfunded mandate by the state. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| The state says, I want it in every classroom, but we're not paying for it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're not paying for it, but nor does the school pay for it. | |
| So it is being funded on the outside by individuals. | ||
| So that's happening in Louisiana. | ||
| I talked to the lieutenant governor in Texas last week about this. | ||
| He also presides over the Senate. | ||
| He's a big supporter of this. | ||
| And they're also doing other legislation, release time legislation, which allows students an hour or two a week based upon parental permission to be a part of religious education from an outside organization that would either take them off school property to nearby facility, and that's spreading across the country as well. | ||
| So part of this, a lot of this, Mimi, is a response to the secularization of our society and the concern that we're losing our moral foundation. | ||
| And that is, as George Washington said in his farewell address, we can't have morality without religion. | ||
| They're two strong pillars. | ||
| And if we want to minimize crime, we want to minimize the social pathologies, there's really no other way than to allow for a vibrant expression of religion in our society. | ||
| When you say we can't have morality without religion, are you saying that atheists can't be moral? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, but there's still a standard by which we would call it the moral law of God, which is it's the same in almost every society, whether they are Christian, whether they're Muslim. | |
| There are certain things we don't do that are, it's written on the hearts of men. | ||
| And so what we do is we bolster that with an embrace and a promotion of religion as an opportunity in our society. | ||
| And I think when we suppress religious expression, not only do we create problems for ourselves, but we begin to divide society. | ||
| Does your organization support bringing back prayer in public schools? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Voluntary prayer, yes. | |
| I authored the law in Louisiana that's currently on the books as it pertains to school prayer, allows for silent prayer, allows for, I think it should be audible, and I think it should be voluntary. | ||
| I think here's the big thing. | ||
| So there's really two issues, maybe, when we talk about religious freedom in the Constitution. | ||
| There's the establishment clause, meaning establishing religion. | ||
| That's what most of the time people are going after, for instance, the religious commission. | ||
| The other is the free expression clause, the ability to express. | ||
| That's where we see the greatest conflict, is that Christians, you know, whatever you might be, what denomination or what religion you might be, we have a freedom in this society to express ourselves. | ||
| And there's been a frustration because government has a heavy hand on really a secular religion that denies that there is a God who is our creator and that there is a need for and a path to redemption through Jesus Christ. | ||
| The ability to articulate that where kids, look, I dealt with this personally, so I know these things happen. | ||
| When a kid bows his head to pray over his school lunch and he's sent to the principal's office because there's this idea that you can't even, a student can't even pray silently over his meal. | ||
| We got a real problem in this country. | ||
| And that's what we're dealing with. | ||
| All right. | ||
| There's people that want to talk to you, so we'll start with Kurt in New Jersey, who is on the independent line. | ||
| Hi, Kurt. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Thank you, Tony, and thank you, C-SPAN. | ||
| You know, we spoke a little bit in the beginning of this show about the honor system. | ||
| You know, is our justice blind? | ||
| Are the scales balanced? | ||
| And, you know, to have that conversation means no. | ||
| So back to the honor system. | ||
| So take an oath, our leaders, they put their hand on a Bible or a Koran or whatever, I guess. | ||
| What's that mean? | ||
| So to me, it means fear of God, which means knowing right and wrong. | ||
| You know, it's your honor. | ||
| And I think that really doesn't mean anything anymore, and hence your argument. | ||
| But I would just love to give you a little quote. | ||
| You're the man I can ask. | ||
| And it goes as and all the ways that the wicked deceive those who are pursing, they purge because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. | ||
| For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion so they will believe the lie. | ||
| That's Thessalonians, the lawlessness descriptions of man. | ||
| So, um, but I believe we need an honor system again, and I would guess Jesus is going to have to come back and burn it down. | ||
| All right, Kurt, let's get a response. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Kurt, quoting from 2 Thessalonians, where it talks about the spirit of lawlessness, that is already at place. | |
| And if you read through that chapter, and I would encourage your viewers to actually read it, because what it talks about is that the spirit of lawlessness is kept in check, and it's kept in check by the, in the theological sense of that scripture, the Holy Spirit, which is law and order. | ||
| And as we have a religious expression that recognizes the morality of God, it keeps that lawlessness in check. | ||
| And I agree with him. | ||
| I think we are losing the fear of God. | ||
| And it's interesting, Mimi, many polls suggest that voters actually want elected officials that recognize God because they know they're not able to hold these politicians accountable. | ||
| And so for those who recognize that there's a God who sees everything, maybe there's a higher level of accountability that they will be held to. | ||
| And do you think that that's happening right now in the country? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I do think that there is a shifting that's taking place. | |
| I wouldn't say we're at a tipping point yet, but I would say that there is a shift that is taking place. | ||
| Here's Jerry in Reedfield, Maine, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Jerry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How you doing? | ||
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Tony Perkins, I can see God's hand on your shoulder. | |
| You're a good man. | ||
| We're facing good versus evil. | ||
| And you know what bothers me is, excuse me, everybody seems to think they have the right to their opinion. | ||
| And, you know, I'm Penobscot Indian, and our religion was not Christian until we were taught the Christian theology about Jesus Christ and everything about truth and what's right and what's wrong. | ||
| So I've basically surrendered what my ancestors were taught about Mount Katardin and Guskabi and all this stuff. | ||
| And I understand that Christ is our Savior. | ||
| And what bothers me the most is television when I see a commercial and two men are laying down in a bed together and two women and they're kissing. | ||
| And I have to explain to my children what the heck is going on here. | ||
| This has nothing to do with the religion of Jesus Christ. | ||
| And I gave up the Penobscot religion. | ||
| I don't believe in the God of Mount Katardin. | ||
| It's not reality. | ||
| Reality is Jesus Christ. | ||
| So that's the battle we're all facing, basically good versus evil. | ||
| And we can't have a country with 300 different cults and religions. | ||
| We need to go back to what the framing, the framers of our country created, and that is Judean Christian, and we've got to follow the laws of God. | ||
| All right, Jerry. | ||
| Tony. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, and I think to Jerry's point, the way we go about that is allowing a vibrant expression. | |
| You know, the reason he left his religion that he had grown up in is because someone told him about Jesus Christ, and he probably saw it modeled. | ||
| I was the same way. | ||
| I wasn't born into a church at home. | ||
| I was six years old before I ever went into a church. | ||
| And it was because of the freedom of expression to be able to live out that faith that I saw it in others. | ||
| And you see it modeled. | ||
| And I think that's a part of, not intentionally by political leaders, but as Jerry said, there's a battle between good and evil. | ||
| There is an effort to suppress that which is good as opposed to suppressing that which is bad. | ||
| So I am, let me be very clear on this, maybe, I'm not for the government forcing anybody to believe anything, but you can't. | ||
| And that's not what God does. | ||
| God is not forcing himself on anybody. | ||
| We go back to Genesis where Adam and Eve were given a free choice whether or not they wanted to follow him and obey him. | ||
| Now they chose poorly and we're all paying the consequences for it. | ||
| But God gives us a free choice. | ||
| And what we're advocating for is the ability to live out that choice in such a way that it impacts the world around us. | ||
| We don't have to hide the fact that we're followers of Jesus Christ. | ||
| And we don't have to allow a system to teach our children something that is counter to what we believe. | ||
| And so we believe as parents that we have the right and the responsibility by God to teach our children. | ||
| And we shouldn't have to take them out of the public school system if we don't want to. | ||
| I actually recommend it given where the state of affairs today. | ||
| But we should not have to constantly be fighting a system that is funded with our tax dollars that works counter to the values that we're trying to teach our children. | ||
| There's, again, the front page of USA Today about two high court cases could alter religious liberty in the U.S. | ||
| So this is the Supreme Court's May 22 deadlock prevented the establishment of the nation's first religious charter school. | ||
| It says a decision allowing such an institution would have dramatically overhauled long-standing norms about public education and religious freedom in the United States. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Your view on that was the case out of Oklahoma. | |
| I mean, I applaud them for trying. | ||
| I don't necessarily think that's the best way to go. | ||
| It's a religious public charter school. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| I do not think that's the best way to go. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Well, because it is a government. | ||
| I know it's separate from government and it's funded by government. | ||
| But my concern is just understanding how the educational lobby works, is that that is ultimately they'll find a way to control what is done within that school. | ||
| That's why I think, going back to what I said earlier, I think what Congress has done in the reconciliation bill setting aside, I think, $5 billion for individual voucher program that parents then can access. | ||
| And it's, again, funded by a tax credit. | ||
| It kind of severs the controls of the state over the education, if you understand, the curriculum and how it's taught. | ||
| I do think there needs to be a line of separation between church and state. | ||
| I don't want the state dictating what the church should be teaching or that the two are wed. | ||
| That didn't work in England, and that's one of the reasons our founders came here. | ||
| They want government to do what government is supposed to do. | ||
| They don't want it to be hostile toward them. | ||
| And the church is more of a prophetic voice. | ||
| It is supposed to be that standard of what is right and wrong, holding those in government accountable. | ||
| And you can't do it if it's wed. | ||
| All right, here's Roseanne, who's calling from Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, in a line for Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| The founding of the country was based on separation of church and state. | ||
| And the hypocrisy about all of it is the founding fathers were slave owners. | ||
| And Thomas Jefferson fathered children through a female slave. | ||
| Christianity and whatever religion you're talking about, yeah, you have the right to express those views, but don't impose your views on everybody else because you think it's the only way to be. | ||
| Like when you talk about pro-choice, pro-life. | ||
| Okay, well, if you don't want to have a child, that's your decision. | ||
| But for someone else to impose upon you that you have to, and then once they're here, under your conservatism, you don't want to take care of the children because you keep making cuts on helping people that don't have things. | ||
| So I think that a lot of what you're talking about, and even in your own conservatism, you have your, what would you call that, the log cabin Republicans. | ||
| They're gay. | ||
| You're talking about something that God is not going to pray away the gay, you know, or you can't pray away the gay. | ||
| You are who you are. | ||
| That's who you are as a human being. | ||
| Okay, Roseanne, let's get Tony Perkins to respond. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, that was a basket full of things. | |
| So, first off, I think it's important to have these conversations, and that's why I appreciate C-SPAN, is that you can actually have a conversation. | ||
| Because I think a lot of misinformation was thrown into that basket that she was just talking about. | ||
| Everyone, as I've made very clear, we're not trying to impose religious views on anyone. | ||
| What we're saying is secular views should not be imposed upon us or our children. | ||
| We should have the freedom to live out our faith. | ||
| And just before she called in, I articulated that, yes, it was the separation of church and state, that it was not to be a separation of God and government, but a separation of church and state where the state and the church were separate. | ||
| And we've seen that. | ||
| The idea that, let's go back to the reconciliation bill. | ||
| Let's talk real things here. | ||
| The reconciliation bill, let's talk about abortion. | ||
| What it simply does is get taxpayers out of the abortion business. | ||
| I think we should not be funding something that roughly half of the American people are opposed to. | ||
| In fact, when you look at the funding of it, it actually goes up to almost 65 to 70 percent do not want to fund abortion. | ||
| That's what we're seeing in policy at the federal level. | ||
| Let's talk to Scott. | ||
| He's in Tampa, Florida, online for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How are you doing this morning? | |
| Good morning. | ||
| This is for the gentleman. | ||
| One of the things you just said is that in this bill, you believe the taxpayers shouldn't be funding federal or federally funding abortion, correct? | ||
| Correct. | ||
| They don't. | ||
| That's already against the law. | ||
| This is a false flag. | ||
| No, it's not. | ||
| Number two. | ||
| Wait, Scott, let's let him respond to that, and then I'll let you get to your second point. | ||
|
unidentified
|
In the ACA and the Obamacare, there are provisions that allow for abortion that circumvented the Hyde Amendment. | |
| But what we're talking about, organizations like Planned Parenthood that received last year $800 billion in taxpayer money. | ||
| Now, we know that money is fungible. | ||
| You can pay $800 billion. | ||
| In one year. | ||
|
unidentified
|
In one year. | |
| Okay. | ||
| When you money is fungible. | ||
| When you pay the overhead of the funds, whether it's your rent or whatever. | ||
| Now, there was the provision we've had in the past about co-location that separates the abortion and family planning counseling from Title X. That's the issue, is that organizations that provide for abortion... | ||
| I'm sorry, I'm thinking through that number. | ||
| It was $700 million, not billion. | ||
| Okay, good. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm trying to do two things at once. | |
| So yes, but that's $800 million in taxpayer money. | ||
| This simply says that that money is not going to go to them. | ||
| So you're not going to be getting, abortion industry is not going to be getting money. | ||
| So that's the issue, Scott, is that we shouldn't be funding it or facilitating it in any form or fashion. | ||
| Right. | ||
| I'm getting about $670 million. | ||
| That was the federal funding. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That was the previous year's review report that just came out within the last couple of weeks. | |
| It went up to $700. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It was almost $800. | |
| Almost shy of $800 million. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Scott, you still on? | ||
| You had another point. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let me respond to this point first. | |
| Only 4% of Planned Parenthood clinics provide abortion service. | ||
| So you are advocating cutting off 96% of the support for women and their health care. | ||
| That money is being redirected to other clinics that actually provide health care services. | ||
| Excuse me, 100% of them provide health care service. | ||
| What do you describe as 1%? | ||
| And look at their latest report, and you will see the percentage of abortions that they provide. | ||
| In fact, a record number of abortions this year, I think it was 462,000 abortions that they did this year, a record number. | ||
| And by their own reporting, they are showing a decrease in these other services that you are alluding to. | ||
| Having abortions, what business is that of yours? | ||
| I don't want to fund it. | ||
| I don't want to fund it. | ||
| Now, let me make my second point, and I'll let other callers get on the line. | ||
| The founding fathers made a serious mistake in drafting the First Amendment. | ||
| Instead of saying freedom of religion, they should have said freedom from religion. | ||
| I don't want your religion or the Arabic religion or the Jewish religion or the Christnas or anybody else to be providing legal support for lawsuits to make things go your way. | ||
| Now, thank you. | ||
| I appreciate your conversation. | ||
| I hope you have a great day. | ||
| It's interesting. | ||
| I've been to the library of, or I've been to the National Archives and looked at the language of the original First Amendment that was drafted in the House and it sent over to the Senate. | ||
| And interestingly, that was the first standalone amendment was the religious freedom. | ||
| It didn't have freedom of speech. | ||
| It didn't have the press and all that. | ||
| It was just religion. | ||
| But it was the right of conscience and religious expression. | ||
| So the idea that But there's this freedom from religion. | ||
| That was never the founders' intent. | ||
| It was the ability to live according to your convictions, shaped by religion. | ||
| And so the founders actually took the conscience out for fear that that would be outside the lane of religion. | ||
| Janet in Florida on X says there should be no taxpayer funding for religious or private schools in any way. | ||
| Taxpayers' public money must only go to public schools. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What you have here in the vouchers are parents who pay taxes, and many of these are funded by nonprofit organizations like we're seeing in the States, where people put money into these tuition plans, and then people can take them out. | |
| Here, again, it's a tax deduction, a tax credit, I should say. | ||
| It is the taxes that the people are paying. | ||
| These are taxes that people pay. | ||
| Now they get a full credit on it, and they can apply it to education. | ||
| I think, again, giving people the ability to control the education of their children is critical. | ||
| Here's Bob in Tacoma, Washington, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Bob. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How's it going? | |
| Good? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| So I think that the gentleman on there is a white evangelical nationalist. | ||
| I think that he's fighting a battle of white supremacy that has been fought for the longest. | ||
| We're in our third version of the Civil War. | ||
| What I think is she's hiding the truth. | ||
| She wants to redo undo the Brown versus Pika case. | ||
| She wants segregation academies, and they've always been fighting for that. | ||
| Okay, Bob, let's get Tony Perkins to respond to that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Based on what? | |
| I mean, you should come to church with me on Sunday and see the diversity that is within the congregation. | ||
| And that's almost every Bible-believing evangelical congregation. | ||
| Come to the Family Research Council and look at our staff. | ||
| Tony, what does Christian nationalism mean to you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know. | |
| What does it mean to you? | ||
| Actually, let's ask our caller, what does that mean? | ||
| I don't know what it means. | ||
| It's thrown around as a pejorative that it's like one of those, when did you quit beating your wife? | ||
| You know, it's like, what is this? | ||
| What does it mean? | ||
| I have yet to hear a definition given by those who throw that term around. | ||
| Now, if it means you love your country and you're a Christian who loves the Lord and you want to see a country prosper by having Christians involved in shaping policy, okay. | ||
| I mean, that's what most Christians are working for in this country, to influence the world around them, to be what Jesus said to be salt and light. | ||
| And that's what we're working for. | ||
| I don't see that as Christian nationalism. | ||
| It's like this spooky term that people want to basically shut down a conversation when you throw that out there. | ||
| It's kind of like the Trump card that you throw out. | ||
| Conversation over, you're a Christian nationalist. | ||
| One more call for you. | ||
| Here's Helen in Chile, New York, Independent. | ||
| Hi, Helen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, how are you doing? | |
| First of all, I want to talk about the abortion issue with these Christians and stuff. | ||
| Didn't Jesus come to save the world and not just USA? | ||
| Also, children, rape, in the Bible, it states that a man rapes a woman, he should be put to death. | ||
| Leave the woman alone. | ||
| Second of all, raping a child, 10-year-old child, is not God's will. | ||
| Okay, it's in the Bible. | ||
| Also, if you love, if you use the same people that are going against immigrants, children, every child should matter. | ||
| And the guns that are killing these children. | ||
| Oh, so don't start. | ||
| Because I know what the Bible says in the Holy Spirit, man cannot teach you what the Holy Spirit can. | ||
| Anything you want to respond to there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Again, a basket of items. | |
| I would just say, number one, I don't think, and I do want to make sure this is correct, when you talk to most evangelicals in this country, their concern is not just for the United States of America. | ||
| That's why the U.S., the church in the U.S., has funded more missionaries and spread the gospel than any other country in the world. | ||
| Because we do want others to come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ. | ||
| It's one of the reasons that at the Family Research Council, we focus not only on religious freedom here at home, but internationally, as I mentioned earlier, when there's religious freedom, there's more economic opportunity and greater stability. | ||
| And we want that for all people, as the Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 from the United Nations said, that religious freedom is a human right. | ||
| We don't see it as an American right, we see it as a human right. | ||
| All right, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. | ||
| They're on the web at frc.org. | ||
| Thanks so much for joining us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks, Mimi. | |
| And coming up next, we'll talk about the hurricane season that has just gotten underway with Obama and Biden FEMA official Michael Cohen. | ||
| There's spending cuts at FEMA and the impact that that could have on its readiness. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, no doubt about it. | |
| This is today's historic in many ways. | ||
| The proceedings of the United States Senate are being broadcast to the nation on television for the first time. | ||
| This week, we mark the 39th anniversary of the U.S. Senate's first live television broadcast on C-SPAN 2. | ||
| Join us as senators take to the floor to reflect on this landmark moment in American democracy. | ||
| Thanks to C-SPAN2, this public service allows our constituents to see the swearing in of newly elected members, watching all-night sessions during Votoramas, and tune in to history being made. | ||
| That's why on its 39th birthday, Senator Grassy and I wanted to highlight how important it is for all television providers, including major streaming services like YouTube TV owned by Google and Hulu Plus Live TV owned by Disney, to provide the American public with C-SPAN and the opportunity to see their government work on the Senate floor. | ||
| C-SPAN does not receive one penny of taxpayer dollars. | ||
| It's funded primarily from satellite and cable providers. | ||
| We're at a different stage in our history and a lot of people are seeing their news this way, so we need to expand it and make sure we're on all of those platforms as well as the ones we already are on. | ||
| So thank you again to Senator Grassley for working with me to highlight C-SPAN's critical role and thanks to everyone who has had a hand in C-SPAN's success. | ||
| Happy birthday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
C-SPAN 2:39 years of bringing the U.S. Senate live into homes across the country. | |
| Thanks to the support of our cable partners. | ||
| Together, we bring you Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| There are many ways to listen to C-SPAN radio anytime, anywhere. | ||
| In the Washington, D.C. area, listen on 90.1 FM. | ||
| Use our free C-SPAN Now app or go online to c-SPAN.org/slash radio on SiriusXM Radio on channel 455, the Tune-In app, and on your smart speaker by simply saying play C-SPAN radio. | ||
| Hear our live call-in program, Washington Journal, daily at 7 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| Listen to House and Senate proceedings, committee hearings, news conferences, and other public affairs events live throughout the day. | ||
| And for the best way to hear what's happening in Washington with fast-paced reports, live interviews, and analysis of the day. | ||
| Catch Washington today, weekdays at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern. | ||
| Listen to C-SPAN programs on C-SPAN Radio anytime, anywhere. | ||
| c-span democracy unfiltered in a nation divided a rare moment of unity This fall, C-SPAN presents Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins in a town where partisan fighting prevails. | ||
| One table, two leaders, one goal, to find common ground. | ||
| This fall, ceasefire on the network that doesn't take sides, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| We're talking about FEMA, the cuts there, hurricane season, disaster response. | ||
| We've got with us former FEMA Chief of Staff Michael Cohen. | ||
| Welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Gigi. | |
| So explain to us your previous roles with FEMA and your experience with disaster management. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Recently, I was chief of staff to Administrator Dean Criswell at FEMA during the Biden administration. | ||
| I was also chief of staff for Craig Fugate during the Obama administration at FEMA. | ||
| I started my career in emergency management working for James Lee Witt during the Clinton administration at FEMA. | ||
| Well, as you know, hurricane season has kicked off. | ||
| It started this past Sunday and it goes through November. | ||
| Do you think FEMA is ready for that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think FEMA has robust capability. | |
| I don't think they're as ready as they have been in the past. | ||
| I believe with staff departures, morale, you know, cuts to training and travel has reduced FEMA's coordination with states and local governments. | ||
| There was an internal document that was released recently where FEMA said that they're not ready. | ||
| What do you make of that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that that's them being realistic of what their challenges are for this season and them preparing their leadership for the challenges ahead and directing and presenting to their leadership that they need direction on what is expected of them based on the reduced capability at the agency, | |
| and letting the new executive, the new acting administrator know up front, you know, this is not going to be easy. | ||
| I want to talk about the acting administrator, but first, if you can kind of delineate those changes that have taken place as far as budget cuts and how many people from FEMA have been laid off. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so there was only 200 people that actually have been fired. | |
| Most of the departures have been people that have left because of morale, because of the unknown of what's going to happen with the agency. | ||
| From the first week of this administration, President Trump and senior leadership in the administration have talked about the role of FEMA and whether it should be eliminated. | ||
| For career employees, that's troubling. | ||
| Your agency is being talked about and not being valued. | ||
| Do you stay and continue to put your all when you're eligible to retire, when you're not being respected? | ||
| So a lot of employees, I estimate maybe about 2,000 employees have departed since January 20th. | ||
| Do you think that there's bloat in FEMA, that that level can be absorbed and that they can be more efficient with less people? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, a lot of the leaders that have left are left with a lot of institutional knowledge. | |
| There's a lot of experience in emergency management. | ||
| We learn every year from responding to events. | ||
| And with this continuous improvement, we become stronger and better in responding to new challenges. | ||
| With the departure, there's going to be a lack of capacity. | ||
| Also, you know, as far as cuts, some of the programs that were cut were in particular in mitigation, the building resilient infrastructure communities, which was really focused on reducing future disaster costs by helping states and communities build resilient infrastructure. | ||
| When you say a lack of capacity, lack of capacity to do what? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Lack of capacity to support multiple events simultaneously, support the coordinate forest fire on this side of the country, a hurricane. | |
| A hurricane or it could be earthquake, could be two hurricanes. | ||
| You know, FEMA doesn't always have the opportunity to just respond to one disaster at a time. | ||
| Sometimes multiple things happen at the same time. | ||
| And if there's two catastrophic events happening simultaneously, it's going to be a challenge. | ||
| And you also mentioned mitigation strategies. | ||
| Can't that, and shouldn't that be done by the states themselves? | ||
| Why would the federal government need to get involved in that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The states do. | |
| All states have mitigation plans in place. | ||
| The states do put robust resources into mitigation, but the federal government is an important resource as far as funding to fund projects across the country. | ||
| If you'd like to join our conversation with Michael Cohen and talk about FEMA, the cuts there, hurricane season, that is already underway, you can do so. | ||
| Our lines are by region this time. | ||
| So if you're in the eastern or central time zones, call us on 202-748-8000. | ||
| If you're in a mountain or Pacific, it's 202-748-8001. | ||
| Especially want to hear from you if you have lived through a disaster, if you have used the services of FEMA in the past. | ||
| Let us know. | ||
| Call us and give us your impression, your experiences, and also any questions. | ||
| If you want to text us, you can do that on 202-748-8003. | ||
| What are your thoughts on the current FEMA management and specifically the acting administrator, David Richardson? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it's unfortunate that we have the second acting administrator since January 20th who has no experience in emergency management. | |
| So the career staff will be spending a lot of time just educating him on the basics of emergency management, the functions of FEMA, the processes in place. | ||
| It's a challenging job being the FEMA administrator when you do have a career in emergency management. | ||
| So it's a challenging time. | ||
| This is an article on the Hill who says FEMA chief was joking with hurricane season awareness remarks, according to DHS. | ||
| And I want to show you Caroline Levitt, who was responding to that, and we'll get your comments. | ||
| Well, of course, we know that we are into hurricane season now, and I know FEMA is taking this seriously, contrary to some of the reporting we have seen based on jokes that were made and leaks from meetings. | ||
| But Secretary Christina and the FEMA leadership are all over this. | ||
| They are committed to ensuring that federal resources and tax dollars are there for Americans in need. | ||
| And the President continues to review requests for emergency aid and carefully considering them. | ||
| However, this president has made it clear we're not going to enable states to make bad decisions with federal tax dollars and then have the federal government later have to bail these states out. | ||
| We want to see states be responsible with their tax dollars to do as much as they possibly can. | ||
| And then the president will deeply and thoughtfully consider any requests for federal aid that come to his desk. | ||
| And I think some of the media reporting we've seen on this is frankly sloppy and irresponsible. | ||
| There are serious people who are taking this issue seriously. | ||
| And what do you think of that? | ||
| And also about what happened to President Trump's original FEMA director, Cameron Hamilton? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| So in regards to Acting Administrator Richardson, I don't believe it was a joke. | ||
| Why would you, what's the joke about hurricane season and not understanding that hurricane season had started? | ||
| How is that a joke? | ||
| So I don't believe it was a joke. | ||
| I believe the administration, Department of Homeland Security, and the White House is trying to cover up the inexperience of the current acting head of FEMA and trying to make it out that he was making a joke. | ||
| I don't know why you would make a joke about hurricane season if you're the acting FEMA administrator. | ||
| In regard to Cameron Hamilton, I believe Cameron Hamilton came in with good intentions to be a loyal political appointee in the Trump administration. | ||
| He, over time, gained an appreciation for the mission at FEMA, the complexities. | ||
| And when he testified to Congress, I believe he was a man of integrity and was testifying based on what he had learned during his time at FEMA. | ||
| And unfortunately, because of that, he was reassigned. | ||
| President Trump has said he wants to get rid of FEMA. | ||
| He said that it has not worked in the past. | ||
| Do you think it works? | ||
| And what changes are needed to make FEMA better and more responsive to the needs of disaster victims? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I do believe that FEMA works. | |
| FEMA is a misunderstood agency. | ||
| It's an agency that distributes about over $30 billion a year when you're responsible for administering tax dollars of that volume. | ||
| There has to be controls in place. | ||
| There's also an unexpected expectation of what FEMA is going to provide after disasters. | ||
| And it's different. | ||
| Everybody's disaster experience is different, whether you had insurance and whether you didn't have insurance, what other programs are available besides FEMA. | ||
| So, you know, I think FEMA plays a critical role in helping communities go from response to recovery. | ||
| All right, let's talk to callers. | ||
| John is in Delaray Beach, Florida. | ||
| John, you're in a hurricane area. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, hi. | |
| Thank you, C-SPAN. | ||
| So I've lived in South Florida since 1973, and welcome to the hurricanes season. | ||
| We also, these tornadoes, just our thunderstorms recently are getting violent with huge wind. | ||
| And what I'd like to say is you mentioned insurance is my biggest concern. | ||
| My insurance had gone from a doable $2,000 a year to about $7,000. | ||
| And I'm worried about increases. | ||
| And the fact of the matter is the country is subject to emergencies of all types, whether it's earthquakes, hurricanes, natural, or man-made disasters. | ||
| I'm getting to the point where I can't afford the insurance. | ||
| And between the deductible and the cost of insurance, I'm almost out $18,000. | ||
| So I really think we need to nationalize the insurance, not just for disasters and property, but for health and everything else. | ||
| And why should I pay insurance if the insurance companies probably won't even pay? | ||
| I'll just go ahead and, if God forbid, there's a problem, I'll just admit that, okay, instead of paying $7,000 for deduct for premiums and a $7,000 deductible, well, okay, that's already $14,000 in the hole. | ||
| All right, John. | ||
| What do you think, Michael? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, John, thank you for that. | |
| Insurance is a significant issue across the country. | ||
| We see it in the hurricane-prone states, earthquake-prone states, wildfire states. | ||
| And there needs to be a conversation nationwide about insurance. | ||
| FEMA does administer the National Flood Insurance Program, but there's, you know, families across the country are having to make decisions on how they're going to be able to keep their insurance and pay their insurance. | ||
| And that's why mitigation is so important, because the insurance industry wants to provide coverage, but if the risk is too high for them, they have to raise their rates. | ||
| If a community is mitigated and John's home is in an area that maybe isn't going to flood or is going to have minimal risk to response to a disaster, you know, maybe the insurance can come down. | ||
| Explain the National Flood Insurance Program. | ||
| How does that work? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So the National Flood Insurance Program is administered by FEMA. | |
| Congress put the program at FEMA primarily because flooding is really an uninsurable risk. | ||
| I mean, the insurance companies can't make money on flood insurance. | ||
| So the mortgage industry won't provide a mortgage unless you have insurance. | ||
| And if you have a flood risk, you live in a flood hazard area, you're required to have flood insurance. | ||
| So the flood insurance is really a backstop to ensure that your mortgage is protected after a flood. | ||
| And you mentioned mitigation a couple of times. | ||
| What about people that build houses in places that are prone to hurricanes and to being destroyed by natural disaster in areas of Southern California, let's say, that could have a forest fire? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so the building industry has made a lot of strides and are, you know, we see this in California now, we see this in Maui, building back stronger, building back to be able to be more resilient to fire, building so that that structure can actually be insurable. | |
| The challenge is in some communities they're still building in at-risk areas like a floodplain or communities want those tax dollars. | ||
| They want more people living in their community. | ||
| So there's a challenge there. | ||
| So mitigation needs to be part of the conversation at the local, state, and federal level. | ||
| Let's talk to Mary Alice in Missouri. | ||
| Good morning, Mary. | ||
| Mary Alice, I should say. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| We live in Texas County, the south central part of Missouri, and our gravel roads are supposed to be controlled by the township. | ||
| But the township people claim that they're waiting for FEMA money to fix that old gravel roads. | ||
| And many, many people have trouble getting in and out. | ||
| There's been so much damage to the gravel roads. | ||
| Plus, the people who do, if they ever go dead, they're unqualified. | ||
| They don't know how. | ||
| And they do it the wrong way. | ||
| So any rain and flooding, it just ruins the roads. | ||
| And so, but they all claim they're waiting for FEMA money to repair our roads. | ||
| And meanwhile, if we're lucky, we have a pickup or a four-wheel drive or something. | ||
| Otherwise, and even by going slow, you have to be so careful or sometimes you can't get out at all. | ||
| So I'm just wondering why, why it takes so long and why we can't have more help on these rural roads. | ||
| I know there's not thousands of people living on a gravel road in this area, but. | ||
| All right, Mary Alice, let's get Michael Cohen to respond. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So Mary Alice, not knowing the particulars of why this is considered a FEMA project, you know, I would encourage you to really work with your, you know, your member of Congress, and they can, you know, work with FEMA if this is a project that is funded by FEMA. | |
| It could be it's a project that is currently on hold. | ||
| A lot of grant funding at FEMA is on hold and was under review by this current administration to ensure that the grants met all the requirements in the president's executive orders. | ||
| So, yeah, unfortunately, I can't speak specifically to this roads issue. | ||
| Well, something that is a FEMA issue is the Hurricane Helene. | ||
| And Dave in Dalton, Georgia says, if you want to know how good FEMA works, ask the people in North Carolina and Tennessee, the storm victims, still waiting on FEMA. | ||
| What's happening there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
In North Carolina, over 150,000 families were applied for FEMA assistance and are receiving assistance from FEMA. | |
| Last year was a busy year for FEMA. | ||
| We saw Helene impacting multiple states other than North Carolina. | ||
| We also saw multiple other hurricanes, including Hurricane Milton, impacting Florida. | ||
| You know, I would encourage people, if they applied for FEMA, to continue to follow up with FEMA to ensure that they get everything that they deserve. | ||
| Explain how you file with FEMA for people that have not ever gone through this. | ||
| So let's say a hurricane comes through your area, you're homeless, your home's been destroyed or is unlivable. | ||
| What do you do? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So the first step is the governor makes a request to the president. | |
| If the president declares a federal disaster declaration and offers assistance to disaster survivors, then FEMA will provide a 1-800 number. | ||
| FEMA will also provide a website. | ||
| And FEMA will work with the state and set up disaster recovery centers. | ||
| Those are all different ways that people can apply. | ||
| People can apply for FEMA assistance on their phone. | ||
| They can apply online. | ||
| They can apply in person. | ||
| Until recently, FEMA would actually go door to door. | ||
| There's a current proposal that FEMA won't be going door to door in future disasters. | ||
| I'm not sure whether that'll be next year because the current acting administrator said that they were going to continue with the plan on how they responded to disasters last year. | ||
| So why would they not go door to door? | ||
| I mean, some people can't get internet connection or don't have a phone, whatever. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, I believe going to where people are at is the best way to reach people and register people. | |
| Not everybody has a car. | ||
| Not everybody has a computer. | ||
| And some people just need someone to sit down with them in their home or wherever they're staying following that disaster and take the steps to fill out that application. | ||
| So Erin from Texas survived Hurricane Harvey. | ||
| She said, I don't recall ever seeing a FEMA employee. | ||
| We prepared and have a generator. | ||
| Our goal is to not expect much from the government. | ||
| Families have to be self-sufficient. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Yeah, you won't always see FEMA. | ||
| But when urban search and rescue is in your neighborhood, FEMA coordinated that. | ||
| FEMA's paying for that. | ||
| When helicopters are helping people to evacuate off of roofs like we saw after Katrina, FEMA is coordinating that, working with the Coast Guard, working with the National Guard, working with the Army. | ||
| So there's a lot that happens behind the scenes. | ||
| In North Carolina, FEMA coordinated with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to pick up all the debris. | ||
| That's still an ongoing project more than seven months after the disaster. | ||
| So you might not see people in FEMA shirts, but FEMA is there and FEMA is coordinating the recovery efforts. | ||
| Let's talk to Kelly, Nashville, Tennessee. | ||
| Good morning, Kelly. | ||
| Hi. | ||
| Hi, go right ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, so I'm actually calling because I want to volunteer in any way I possibly can and hope I'd like to stay more East Coast and in the center, but there's disasters going on everywhere. | |
| I mean, where can I call? | ||
| What can I do here? | ||
| Because it seems to me that volunteers are needed and I'm available. | ||
| I don't have children. | ||
| I can pick up and go. | ||
| So give me a phone number. | ||
| Tell me who I can talk to. | ||
| I can help. | ||
| I know I can. | ||
| Just point me in the right direction. | ||
| Well, it's nice of you, Kelly. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, thanks, Kelly. | |
| No, there's always volunteers needed for responding to disasters. | ||
| We've seen the flooding and tornadoes this spring. | ||
| We're expecting an above-average hurricane season. | ||
| I would encourage you to contact your local Red Cross chapter and let them know that you want to volunteer. | ||
| You can also go online and look up voluntary organizations active in disaster, voad.org, v-o-a-d.org. | ||
| Kelly, thank you for your support, and you'll get more out of that volunteering than the people will get from your services. | ||
| So thank you. | ||
| And Gus in Brooklyn, New York wants to know if FEMA has a weather prediction division. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So FEMA does have forecasters. | |
| FEMA has forecasters primarily that are some are detailed from the National Weather Service. | ||
| There's also forecasters that work for FEMA that are embedded in NOAA operations. | ||
| So the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, there's a team of about three FEMA staff there that are forecasters that work to make sure there's coordination between the National Weather Service and FEMA operators who are planning for what that response might be for any storm, you know, from when it's out in the Atlantic to when it comes ashore. | ||
| There has been cuts at NOAA. | ||
| Are you confident that those cuts haven't affected the nation's ability to predict these storms and to prepare for them? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so I have been tracking the cuts at NOAA, and I know that that is going to be a challenge for them. | |
| It's been a challenge this spring to make sure that they have the coverage in their different weather service stations around the country, especially when you have to be ready to put out alerts and warnings, whether it's for tornadoes, hurricanes. | ||
| So, you know, I think the National Weather Service, the career staff will find a way, but I am concerned that something might fall through the cracks. | ||
| Here's Mary in Philadelphia. | ||
| Good morning, Mary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| You know, having seen the devastation on, you know, the south side of one of the barrier islands in New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy, it was shocking. | ||
| And houses piled up on top of each other, boats on roofs and things like that. | ||
| And it always, you know, the last woman from Texas talking about like self-reliance. | ||
| It's like in the face of certain things, I mean, it's really kind of this John Wayne approach to things that people have. | ||
| You know, we all have to be self-reliant until disaster strikes. | ||
| And I just wanted to ask, though, the gentleman on what happened in Asheville, North Carolina, because I have family members in that region, and they're on the other side of the political spectrum than I am. | ||
| And they insisted there was no FEMA help down there. | ||
| And I took that with a total grain of salt because, you know, understanding how a flash flood works, washing out roads and things like that. | ||
| And so I was confused by them, and I didn't want to get into a big hoo-ha. | ||
| So, could you explain some of the issues you had with Asheville? | ||
| Yes, thanks, Mary. | ||
| Yes, I mean, what happened with Asheville is really a telling story for communities across the country. | ||
| Hurricanes don't just impact coastal areas. | ||
| Hurricanes can impact inland areas like North Carolina, Asheville, North Carolina. | ||
| So, you know, when you talk with your family, ask your family who's picking up the debris in North Carolina, who's repairing the roads. | ||
| All the progress to critical infrastructure, there's been a significant volunteer effort helping individuals, you know, gut their homes. | ||
| So it has taken a whole community approach. | ||
| But a lot of the government work that has taken place to repair or replace bridges, pick up debris, that has been FEMA. | ||
| FEMA has coordinated all of that and up until about a month ago was paying for that 100% federal FEMA was paying for that 100%. | ||
| So when you talk with your family in North Carolina, just I think they'll acknowledge that there's been a significant amount of progress. | ||
| They may not know it was FEMA, but when that bridge was replaced, it was done by FEMA. | ||
| Let's talk to Ben in Florida. | ||
| Hi, Ben. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Listen, Mike, for my own, just my own knowledge, the budget for FEBA is what? | |
| So there's a significant budget for the disaster relief fund, about $30 billion a year. | ||
| And then you have funding for grants, Homeland Security grants, grants for mitigation. | ||
| So probably another $8 billion a year, and then maybe another $2 billion for administering FEMA's operations across all the states and territories. | ||
| So say about $40 billion a year. | ||
| Forgive me for interrupting you. | ||
| I hope you could clear something up. | ||
| Here in Florida, we were told a lot of the times that FEBA did not have allocations of money, and we do understand that the disasters scared a huge area, including California. | ||
| How much of this budget was allocated to non-Americans, to illegal aliens that utilize FEBA money for their purposes? | ||
| I was told that there was something like $200 million or billion dollars. | ||
| Is that a fact or just something that you hear on the other street? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So, yeah, that's a good question. | ||
| So FEMA is not appropriating any money for people who are not U.S. citizens. | ||
| FEMA was directed by Congress to administer a grant program for CBP, Customs and Border Patrol. | ||
| Customs and Border Patrol had a grant program to provide money to nonprofit organizations that were supporting migrants. | ||
| And that I don't know the exact amount. | ||
| It was different every year. | ||
| It started during the first Trump administration, the grant funding for that program. | ||
| And this administration has indicated that they were not going to continue that program. | ||
| But FEMA did administer that, but there was no FEMA funding. | ||
| The funding was transferred from CBP to FEMA to administer this grant program because FEMA has experience in managing grants, and FEMA actually manages probably 99% of all grants for the Department of Homeland Security. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, Jerry in Kentucky has been affected by adverse weather. | ||
| Jerry, what happened? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, I live in Plasky County, and I'm a volunteer farming. | |
| And one of the first things I've done when, after the, of course, Plasky in all counties, the ones that got hit, one of the first things I done was go out and start cutting trees out of the road so people get in and out. | ||
| After that, we went on and started working with the electric company, going ahead of and checking to see where lines were down and posts were broke and if there's any trees online. | ||
| And when FEMA came in, the first thing he asked us to do was keep track of all the errors. | ||
| We've been out. | ||
| And they surveyed the area, and then they came in and set up offices and places where people could come and report any damages and everything ahead. | ||
| So I just wanted to give you a report on that. | ||
| Thank you, FEMA. | ||
| We appreciate you. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Thank you, Jerry. | ||
| Kentucky's had a tough spring with tornadoes and floods. | ||
| Thank you for the support that you've provided to your community. | ||
| You talked about FEMA coordinating with local and state authorities. | ||
| What happens when those local and state authorities really don't have the capacity to do the things that you need them to do? | ||
| Does FEMA step in and cover for that capacity, or what do you do? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So just like with police and fire, all local communities have compacts with neighboring communities. | |
| So states have the same thing. | ||
| They have cooperative agreements where communities helping other communities, states helping other states. | ||
| When it exceeds the capacity of the state, that's when a governor makes a request to the president. | ||
| Here's Harold in St. Louis, Missouri. | ||
| Good morning, Harold. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you doing? | ||
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And you're looking, yes. | |
| I was calling about the tornadoes that hit St. Louis late 16th. | ||
| And when they hit, we hit a very poor neighborhood right in the middle of the St. Louis city. | ||
| And when we hit it, when it hit, it created a lot of damage for about 20 miles. | ||
| And it really destroyed St. Louis. | ||
| And now the state of Missouri is hesitating. | ||
| We're not talking about FEMA. | ||
| We're talking about the state of Missouri. | ||
| Is talking about comparing a football stadium, a baseball stadium, against the disaster that St. Louis had. | ||
| And they're putting deals together with a baseball bill and helping be in there to build a baseball stadium. | ||
| Baseball state land a football stadium in Kansas City. | ||
| This is a terrible situation, and we need some help. | ||
| So. | ||
| All right, Harold. | ||
| Let's get a response. | ||
| Michael Cohen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So St. Louis did experience a traumatic event with that tornado. | |
| And, you know, people are, it's going to be a long road to recovery. | ||
| As far as the stadium, that's not something I can really speak to. | ||
| But, you know, I encourage you and everybody who lives in St. Louis to listen to your local weather forecasters, listen to your local officials, because you do live in a significant tornado risk area. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| How much notice does one get for tornadoes? | ||
| I know hurricanes do take a while to move. | ||
| They can be erratic, but tornadoes, how much time do you have? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So the National Weather Service, they become a lot more sophisticated over the years. | |
| And, you know, tornado watches and warnings, we've even seen it here in the D.C. area just, I think, a week ago. | ||
| And the alerts you get on your phones, you know, they save lives. | ||
| So, you know, I think we're getting better every year. | ||
| It does require significant funding, and that's why funding from Congress to NOAA is significant because, you know, the satellites and the experience in monitoring these systems, you know, can save lives. | ||
| Here's Al in Newcastle, Delaware. | ||
| Good morning, Al. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Good morning, Mr. Cohen. | ||
| I served with the Delaware Air National Guard during Katrina, and through the chain of command, I guess from FEMA, put out a request through the National Guard Bureau and everything down to the state adjutants looking for people to come assist. | ||
| So we got a contingent together and went down there. | ||
| We were based out of the Jackson, Mississippi Airport, Air National Guard base there. | ||
| And we went out and deployed into the different areas as we were called. | ||
| We had guys up in Hattiesburg. | ||
| We had guys down in men and women in Bay St. Louis. | ||
| We had people everywhere. | ||
| Working like the gas lines, people were lined up for half a mile or more, you know, asking us if there was gas, was there going to be gas? | ||
| And if they told us, you know, we'd pass that information on. | ||
| But other than that, you know, you couldn't do anything. | ||
| Anyway, one of the parishes that we were assigned to, and the name escapes me now, but the trucks were coming in. | ||
| They were getting deliveries of food. | ||
| They were getting deliveries of ice. | ||
| It was amazing watching everything coming in. | ||
| And they had just a simple concrete platform for the forklifts to go up to access the trucks. | ||
| Well, folks from other parishes, counties, were inquiring to the guy that was there. | ||
| He was like, how come you're getting all this stuff? | ||
| And the gentleman there, I don't know the sheriff or what, but he says, I submitted the paperwork. | ||
| So they knew what assets he had locally to help. | ||
| And apparently, the other areas did not. | ||
| But it was heartbreaking. | ||
| But on the other side of the cooling, it was very encouraging because a tremendous amount of stuff flowed out. | ||
| I was on one day, we were on rural roads in the back of a douche and a half, two and a half ton truck, five ton now, distributing food and water. | ||
| And we had guys up ahead, like clearing the roads so that we could get through. | ||
| Thanks, Al. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks, Al. | |
| Yeah, what Al is describing there is really, you know, states coming to the assistance of other states and then FEMA reimbursing those states for that support. | ||
| As far as the commodities, you know, every state, you know, after an event like that, there'll be lessons learned. | ||
| There'll be an after-action report. | ||
| And, you know, so that way all the communities will have the knowledge of, you know, what they should be requesting. | ||
| You know, maybe it sounded like maybe those other communities hadn't made a request and said that they needed commodities. | ||
| So, you know, each one of these events, these disaster responses, there's opportunities to improve. | ||
| And one more call for you, Hank, in Calamay City, Illinois. | ||
| Good morning, Hank. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| My response is that we have had flooding in this area quite a few times. | ||
| I've been here about 30 years and about seven different times we have had emergency flooding. | ||
| And FEMA came in and they gave us money for a grocery. | ||
| We lost it because we had electrical problems when the storm came through. | ||
| So your basements would flood. | ||
| Also, we had issues with our sewage and they have came in and given us money to revamp our sewage system where it will stop flood. | ||
| And I myself have mitigated, put in a backflow preventer in my home where the sewage will not come back in. | ||
| It only flows one way. | ||
| So FEMA has been spectacular. | ||
| They don't make you 100%, but they are there to help when there is an emergency where there's just a disaster where it's just overwhelming to everyone in the neighborhood. | ||
| They have came in and moved trees and everything. | ||
| So FEMA has been just spectacular for our area. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All right, Hank. | ||
| Last comment, Michael. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Hank. | |
| Well, you know, people like Hank talking about their experience with the federal government, that's important because a lot of times the loudest voices are the people who are frustrated. | ||
| And it leaves the impression sometimes that agencies like FEMA aren't effective and aren't responsive to the needs of the American people. | ||
| So thanks for, Hank. | ||
| Thanks for sharing your story. | ||
| And Michael Cohen, former FEMA chief of staff, thanks to you for coming in. | ||
| Appreciate it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| Thank you, Gigi. | ||
| And coming up after the break, it's Open Forum. | ||
| You can start calling in now. | ||
| Anything on your mind related to public policy you'd like to hear about it? | ||
| It's Republicans are on 202-748-8001. | ||
| If you're a Democrat, call us on 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Get C-SPAN wherever you are with C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app that puts you at the center of democracy, live and on demand. | |
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| Shop now or anytime at cspanshop.org. | ||
| As Mike said before, I happened to listen to him. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He was on C-SPAN 1. | |
| That's a big upgrade, right? | ||
| But I've read about it in the history books. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I've seen the C-SPAN footage. | |
| If it's a really good idea, present it in public view on C-SPAN. | ||
| Every single time I tuned in on TikTok or C-SPAN or YouTube or anything, there were tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people watching. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I went home after the speech and I turned on C-SPAN. | |
| I was on C-SPAN just this week. | ||
| To the American people, now is the time to tune in to C-SPAN. | ||
| They had something $2.50 a gallon. | ||
|
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, we are speaking to the country. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| It is open forum. | ||
| We'll start your calls shortly, but wanted to make sure you knew about this for your program at 10 a.m. | ||
| So in about 25 minutes, over on C-SPAN 3, we've got the acting FAA administrator. | ||
| He'll be on Capitol Hill to testify on his department's 2026 budget request before a House Appropriations Subcommittee. | ||
| Again, that's C-SPAN 3 at 10 a.m. | ||
| That's live coverage. | ||
| Also, C-SPAN Now, our app and online at c-span.org. | ||
| And this is the Washington Post. | ||
| Businesses brace for steel and aluminum tariffs, which double today. | ||
| It says cars, cans, and coffee tins are all poised to get more expensive as U.S. manufacturers adjust to 50% import taxes. | ||
| The article says that tariffs on steel and aluminum are doubling today to 50%, adding higher costs and new uncertainty for businesses across the country that rely on metal imports for machinery, construction, and manufacturing. | ||
| It takes effect, it took effect 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time this morning. | ||
| President Donald Trump wrote that the higher levies will, quote, provide greater support to those to these industries and reduce or eliminate the national security threat posed by imports of steel and aluminum articles and their derivative articles. | ||
| And here is Christopher is calling us in Chicago. | ||
| Democrat, good morning, Christopher. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mimi. | |
| A couple of days ago, you were hosting and you asked their gentleman about the effects of the current proposed budget on Medicare as opposed to Medicaid, and he never gave you an answer. | ||
| And I think it's very important that C-SPAN do an entire segment on the effects of the current bill and the sequestration and its effects on Medicare. | ||
| And what effect do you think it will have, Christopher? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I read online it'll lose $550 billion over four years. | |
| And this is something that people have not been talking about. | ||
| Everybody stopped Medicaid, Medicaid, Medicaid. | ||
| Medicare is going to be cut drastically under this bill. | ||
| And people just don't know about it. | ||
| This administration is swore up and down they would never touch Medicare and Social Security, but they are. | ||
| And people need to know this is going to affect people's health. | ||
| Their premiums or their co-pays are going to skyrocket. | ||
| And you really should do an entire segment on this, I think. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| This is an organization called Medicare Rights. | ||
| It's MedicareRights.org. | ||
| It says House passes bill that would devastate health coverage for millions in Medicaid and Medicare. | ||
| If you're interested in reading that there to find out more about what Christopher is talking about. | ||
| And here's Joe, Lake Ozark, Missouri, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I just wanted to talk about that FEMA person that was on there. | ||
| He mentioned that FEMA handles 99% of grants from Yale Texas Tribute, which is interesting to me because why. | ||
| FEMA, they shouldn't be accountants or issuing money. | ||
| They should be focused on emergency strictly for federal, any type of I guess you could say whether man-made or not man-made natural disasters. | ||
| And that's just another responsibility that who knows why they take on or where they have. | ||
| And second, what I hear from all these phone calls is people, you got the people on the ground blaming the FEMA. | ||
| You got the people in FEMA blaming the local states. | ||
| You got the local states blaming the local small governments and towns. | ||
| So it's usually nobody accepts the blame. | ||
| It's just back and forth, and it kind of keeps the people in Lowell thinking, well, I guess FEMA did what they did, and I think this state's fault. | ||
| No, it's his fault. | ||
| Nobody's taking responsibility. | ||
| And who should be taking responsibility, which should be FEMA, because that's their whole purpose is to handle disasters like that. | ||
| So if they're pushing the blame on local governments, then there's no, somebody's not doing their job. | ||
| So if FEMA is not handling the situation 100%, then they shouldn't be given the authorities and all the purse, the government money, to handle it. | ||
| They should be pushed down to the states where there's less bureaucracy. | ||
| And you just go to one place that has provoted the ground level where everything is, you could see what's needed and not needed. | ||
| Got your point, Joe. | ||
| Let's talk to James in Alliance, Ohio, Independent. | ||
| Hi, James. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Hi. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was calling in there on the Doge when he was in. | |
| Yes, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, I would like to know where he had cut and sliced all of this programs. | |
| What I'm really concerned would like to know, whatever happened to where he said and the president said they were supposed to give back some of the money to the people like they did the COVID program, but they ain't never said no more about it. | ||
| And I would like to know what ever become of that. | ||
| All right, James, here's Jonathan, Minneapolis, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Jonathan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and thank you for taking my call. | |
| First off, you look absolutely stunning this morning. | ||
| And first off, also, I would like to talk to the American people behind you in that big, beautiful white building there, you know, in the House and the Senate. | ||
| The American people asked for change. | ||
| And with that, we got the lovely and talented President Mr. Trump. | ||
| With that being said, he is slashing everything. | ||
| I'm going to be the first person that says, I told you so. | ||
| Second of all, with that being said, I also want to talk to people saying about Jewish hate in America with everything that has been happening in the world and the country. | ||
| Stop it. | ||
| Use your brain. | ||
| We are not here to change you. | ||
| We don't care about your religion. | ||
| I am sick of these people that came on your show earlier, Tony Perkins, whatever his name was, coming up here blaming people for everything that's wrong in this country. | ||
| I'm absolutely appalled that you had him on, number one, and I believe in the freedom of speech, but that was pure hatred. | ||
| What he was talking about with LGBTQIA and left out the QIA part of it, excuse me, get a life. | ||
| We all know that man is sitting up behind his computer by himself and spewing this hate. | ||
| And that is exactly what is happening in this country. | ||
| I am disgusted with the people of this country right now. | ||
| We have all got to come together because that man in the White House is not doing a damn thing for you. | ||
| Good luck to you when the hurricane season starts, which is today. | ||
| All right, Jonathan. | ||
| Let's hear from Senate Majority Leader John Thune. | ||
| He discussed that GOP budget bill and was asked about what Elon Musk said criticizing the bill. | ||
| You criticize the Democrats saying they're going to fight against this with everything they've got. | ||
| That doesn't seem to be your problem. | ||
| Elon Musk seems to be your problem. | ||
| Absolutely torching this bill here, saying everybody who voted for that should be ashamed. | ||
| Well, look, we obviously respect everything that Elon did with Doge on this particular issue. | ||
| We have a difference of opinion. | ||
| And I think it's rooted in the fact that he's accepting the CBO assumptions that are built upon a static scoring assessment of the effect, the macroeconomic effect, growth effect that these changes will have on our economy. | ||
| And all the modeling that we've seen suggests that the changes that are being made in the tax policy, particularly making permanent bonus depreciation, interest deductibility, R D expensing, are going to lead to significant growth. | ||
| And you couple the growth with the biggest spending reduction in American history. | ||
| And you will see a reduction, not an increase in the deficit. | ||
| So we have a difference of opinion. | ||
| He's entitled to that opinion. | ||
| We're going to proceed full speed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Are you concerned that he could help tank this bill and whip members against it? | |
| Do they listen to him or they listen to you? | ||
| Well, my hope is that as he has an opportunity to further assess what this bill actually does, he'll come to a different conclusion. | ||
| But nevertheless, I mean, we have a job to do, the American people elected us to do. | ||
| We have an agenda that everybody campaigned on, most notably the president of the United States, and we're going to deliver on that agenda. | ||
| And the legislation, as passed by the House, can be approved here in the Senate, can be strengthened in the Senate in a number of ways. | ||
| We intend to do that. | ||
| But when it's all said and done, we'll send it back to the House and hope that they can pass it and put it on the president's desk. | ||
| And as I said, it does everything that we set out to do. | ||
| It modernizes our military, secures our border, extends tax relief and makes permanent tax relief that will lead to economic growth and better jobs in this country and makes America energy dominant, coupled with the biggest spending reduction in American history. | ||
| Those are our agenda items, and that's what we campaign on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's what we're going to do. | |
| And for a previous caller, asked about those checks that were proposed from Doge Savings. | ||
| Newsweek has this article. | ||
| It says Donald Trump Stimulus Check 2025, What Musk Exit Means for Doge Dividend. | ||
| It says that the future of the proposed $5,000, quote, Doge dividend stimulus check faces uncertainty following Elon Musk's departure from the Trump administration and the end of his tenure at Doge. | ||
| Let me find out a little bit more information for you on that. | ||
| It says that Musk said that it's up to Congress and maybe the president as to whether any checks would be distributed. | ||
| However, the Doge dividend has so far failed to receive sufficient backing from Republicans in Congress. | ||
| That comes from Newsweek. | ||
| And here is Rick in Gulf Breeze, Florida. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Boy, I tell you, I just don't know what's happening here. | ||
| I sit and watch. | ||
| I've watched Elon Musk dismantle the federal government. | ||
| I've watched Donald Trump destroy the best economy in the world. | ||
| And yet there's still people out there who support him. | ||
| These tariffs he's put on there are completely illegal and unconstitutional. | ||
| And they're not going, these people who think that's going to the National Treasury to pay down the debt are just naive and ignorant, okay? | ||
| This is going in Trump's pocket. | ||
| All of that money is going into Trump's pocket. | ||
| How do you say that the tariff revenues are going into Trump's pocket? | ||
| Explain that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, show me one piece of information that you've seen on TV: how much the tariffs have already paid down our debt. | |
| Have they said anything about it? | ||
| Not a word. | ||
| Not a word of the trillions or billions of dollars they have taken in that have gone to pay down our debt because it ain't happening. | ||
| Trump's not interested in paying down our debt. | ||
| Trump's not interested in lowering our cost of living. | ||
| He's interested in lowering our standard of living. | ||
| There won't be any national. | ||
| They keep talking about 2026 and the midterms. | ||
| There aren't going to be any national midterms. | ||
| The elections are over. | ||
| You've got a king now with immunity from the Supreme Court. | ||
| I mean, it's over. | ||
| Democracy's dead. | ||
| Trump killed it. | ||
| Elon Musk helped him. | ||
| Why he needs $4 trillion more of the debt amazes me because there hardly is any federal government anymore since Elon Musk went in there and cut and slashed. | ||
| So why does he need all that money? | ||
| He's the king of debt. | ||
| He's the king of bankruptcy. | ||
| I talk to neighbors here and they tell me, well, he was a businessman. | ||
| Trump was never a successful businessman. | ||
| He stole the $400 million inheritance from the rest of his family that his father left. | ||
| He squandered that. | ||
| Then he laundered money to the Deutsche Bank for Russians. | ||
| All right, Rick, got it. | ||
| And we are in open forum for the next 10 minutes until the House comes in. | ||
| You can give us a call. | ||
| The numbers are on your screen. | ||
| It's 202-748-8001 for Republicans. | ||
| It's 202748-8000 for Democrats and 202748-8002 for independents. | ||
| Well, regarding tariffs and trade policy, here's White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt. | ||
| She confirmed reports about a letter sent by the Trump administration to other countries encouraging them to finalize their trade deals with the U.S. Here she is. | ||
| I can confirm the merits in the content of the letter. | ||
| USTR sent this letter to all of our trading partners just to give them a friendly reminder that the deadline is coming up. | ||
| And they are in talks. | ||
| Ambassador Greer, Secretary Besson, and Secretary Luttnick are in talks with many of our key trading partners around the globe. | ||
| As you know, Brian, I know the Wall Street Journal has covered this quite heavily. | ||
| And they continue to be engaged in those discussions. | ||
| And this letter was simply to remind these countries that the deadline is approaching and the president expects good deals. | ||
| And we are on track for that, I will emphasize. | ||
|
unidentified
|
On the trade side, though, when the deal with the United Kingdom, there was this idea of a reprieve on the auto tariffs. | |
| Is the president looking to do another similar deal on the sector-by-sector reduction tariffs? | ||
| Or is this more going to be deals related to the reciprocal tariffs that were announced once ago? | ||
| Well, as I've said previously from the podium, and the president has discussed as well, each country has unique advantages, unique challenges to it based on their markets and what they export to us and what we export to them. | ||
| And so that's why the president smartly advised his trade team to engage in tailor-made dealmaking. | ||
| And we saw that with the United Kingdom, and we will see that with other countries as well. | ||
| That was Caroline Lovitt yesterday. | ||
| All of our programming is on our website, c-span.org, if you'd like to see any of that in its full format. | ||
| Here is Cheryl in Houston Independent. | ||
| Cheryl, you're on Open Forum. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| The thing that I am very upset and worried about, and that I don't think most people are talking enough about, is the $500 billion, that's billion with a B, dollar cut to Medicare if this, I call it the big bastard budget from hell, actually passes, especially with more cuts. | ||
| My husband is 81 and a half, and actually he just found out he has some kind of heart trouble. | ||
| I just turned 80, and we're lucky enough to go to a Medicare primary care medical group for people 75 and older. | ||
| So our main primary care doctor takes care of geriatric patients. | ||
| And I go in every six months, and I was at the doctor on Monday, and we started talking about what $500 billion worth of cuts to Medicare is going to do to the ability to get timely and excellent health care for people on Medicare. | ||
| And he said it's absolutely going to decimate Medicare because he said that every month something like 10 million more people become eligible because of their age. | ||
| They're turning 65 to get on Medicare. | ||
| So this is a huge, tremendous cut to Medicare at the same time that more and more people are turning 65 and will need Medicare. | ||
| So Cheryl. | ||
| Yep, yep. | ||
| Let me explain a little bit more. | ||
| I've got this for you from KFF. | ||
| That's the Kaiser Family Foundation. | ||
| Health provisions in the 2025 Federal Budget Reconciliation Bill. | ||
| So it says this. | ||
| In addition to the changes included in the provisions of the legislation, if the reconciliation bill is enacted into law in its current form and Congress takes no further action, the increase in the deficit would trigger mandatory cuts, also known as sequestration under the statutory Pay As You Go Act of 2010. | ||
| These cuts would total approximately $500 billion to Medicare over the 2026, 2023 years, according to the CBO. | ||
| You can find that at kff.org if you want to know more information about that. | ||
| Here's David, California Republican. | ||
| Hi, David. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| First of all, I'd like to say Kaiser Perneti nearly killed me and they did kill my sister. | ||
| So so much for that. | ||
| It's nice to see that it's almost laughable if it wasn't so tragic. | ||
| People are so filled with lies. | ||
| I cannot believe it. | ||
| Oh, Trump is making money off of it. | ||
| Trump has lost billions while he's in office doing a job for nothing. | ||
| These people that are saying all these cuts, what they are going to do is cut people, illegal aliens, lazy Americans who refuse to get off their butts and work, who are probably these people wearing the battle gear and the riot helmets, attending these antique Borelles and the protesting. | ||
| And a lot of these people are sitting on their bus collecting Medicare, Medi-Cal, and any other benefits. | ||
| And you can bet there's a lot of fraud in the system. | ||
| They are cutting fraud. | ||
| What do you have against cutting fraud? | ||
| What do you have against deporting dangerous criminal aliens that rape and kill Americans? | ||
| What do you have against the secure border? | ||
| What do you have against lower gas prices? | ||
| What do you have against inflation falling? | ||
| The Atlantic Bank has stated they expect 4.6 growth in the next quarter. | ||
| They were predicting 3.2. | ||
| Trump thinks on his feet. | ||
| He has done it all his life. | ||
| You have to in his business. | ||
| I have followed this man for 40 years. | ||
| I saw him on the Rona Barrett interview in the mid-80s, and I knew the man loved his country and he loved his people. | ||
| And at that time, he was saying, we are getting screwed. | ||
| Our tariffs need to be enacted to level the playing field. | ||
| If it had been level, we wouldn't be $37 trillion in debt. | ||
| Democrats are afraid that kickbacks from USAID and people like Lindy Graham getting money that they donate, they give our money to foreign countries, and then they donate to their campaigns. | ||
| Got it, David. | ||
| Let's talk to John and the Bronx. | ||
| Democrat, good morning, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I mean, do you realize that there has been no evidence so far that the people are in this country illegally? | ||
| Okay, that's illegal, but there's no evidence that they're murderers, rapists. | ||
| Donald Trump is very good at making somebody look like they are the enemy of this nation. | ||
| He's very good at that. | ||
| He's very good at lying, and he lies on a daily basis. | ||
| He makes you think that, oh my God, I'm going to do this for you. | ||
| I'm going to do that. | ||
| And he winds up doing the opposite. | ||
| I want you to realize that Donald Trump's suits are made in China. | ||
| His ties are made in China. | ||
| All those things he sells are made in China. | ||
| And he's going to mess around and make China the bad guy. | ||
| China is not always the bad guy, but a lot of these countries are going to go to China. | ||
| They're going to stop coming to the United States, and we're going to be in major trouble. | ||
| Don't look at this guy like he's a good guy. | ||
| Donald Trump is not a good guy. | ||
| He's a terrorist, and he's an evil, and he's going to kill this country. | ||
| He's doing it now. | ||
| Got it, John. | ||
| And here is ABC News. | ||
| U.S. and Europe trade negotiators discuss tariffs in Paris. | ||
| Europe and the United States are meeting in Paris to negotiate a settlement of a tense tariff spat with global economic ramifications between the two global economic powerhouses. | ||
| And here is Paul in Virginia, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Paul. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking the call. | ||
| So I just wanted to comment on the big, beautiful bill, which looks like it's going to lead to a big, beautiful bankruptcy. | ||
| Even Republicans understand that it's going to explode the deficit. | ||
| Elon Musk, who led the whole failed Doge effort, knows that it's going to explode the deficit. | ||
| So I'm glad that there's a couple of Republicans out there that showed a little bit of courage to speak the truth. | ||
| But one of the things that I'm really sad was left out of the bill was the no-tax on Social Security. | ||
| It's another Trump promise, another Trump promise broken. | ||
| Seniors are the ones that most deserved relief out of that bill. | ||
| And if there was going to be any tax cuts, it should have been directed there. | ||
| Thanks so much. | ||
| All right, Paul. | ||
| And we've got this from CNBC. | ||
| Private sector hiring rose by just more than 37,000 in May. | ||
| That's the lowest in more than two years, according to the ADP. | ||
| That's at CNBC if you'd like to find out more about that. | ||
| But that has just now come out. | ||
| Let's take a look at what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said about that GOP budget bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Here he is. | |
| Well, I hear something happened while we were at lunch, which led me to make some news here today and say something I didn't think was imaginable. | ||
| I agree with Elon Musk. | ||
| Within an hour, within the hour, he put on X the following. | ||
| I have it right here so you can all see it. | ||
| He said, I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. | ||
| This massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. | ||
| Shame on those who voted for it. | ||
| You did wrong, he said to them. | ||
| You know it. | ||
| It will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to 2.5 trillion and burden American citizens with crushingly unsustainable debts. | ||
| It's right here. | ||
| He's right. | ||
| Here, Jim. | ||
| Republicans should listen to him and actually to their former selves, outraged about the national debt. | ||
| Because it's here, Donald Trump's big, ugly bill is in the Senate. | ||
| Behind the smoke and mirrors lies a cruel and draconian truth. | ||
| Tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy, paid by gutting health care for millions of Americans. |