CSPAN - Washington Journal 06/05/2025

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June 5, 2025 07:00-10:00 - CSPAN

02:59:58

Washington Journal 06/05/2025

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Main

john mcardle

cspan 07:45

mike kennedy

rep/r 20:22

sarah elfreth

rep/d 15:16

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amy klobuchar

sen/d 00:53

daniel driscoll

admin 02:24

donald j trump

admin 02:13

gen randy george

00:44

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adam goodman

r 00:04

chuck grassley

sen/r 00:29

mike johnson

rep/r 00:15

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		We'll take your calls and comments live.
		Then Senior Vice President and Policy Director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Mark Goldwine, discusses the organization's recent analysis of the Republican tax and spending cuts bill.
		And Utah Republican Congressman Mike Kennedy on the One Big Beautiful bill and Republicans' efforts to advance President Trump's agenda.
		Also, Maryland Democratic Congresswoman Sarah Elfrith talks about the GOP tax cuts and spending package and Democrats' strategy going forward.
		Washington Journal starts now.
		Good morning.
		It's Thursday, June 5th, 2025.
		The House and Senate are both in at 10 a.m. Eastern today, and we begin with a question on the U.S. military.
		Defense Department leaders were on Capitol Hill this week testifying about a proposed $1 trillion military budget and answering questions about combat readiness.
		So this morning, we're asking you to give us your view on the state of the U.S. military and the impact the Trump administration has had on U.S. Armed Forces.
		Phone lines are split this way: Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		And a special phone line for active and retired military, 202-748-8003.
		You can also send us a text on that number or catch up with us on social media on Facebook.
		It's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN on X.
		It's at C-SPANWJ.
		And a very good Thursday morning to you.
		We're going to take this question for the first 30 minutes of the Washington Journal this morning.
		There's a lot going on on Capitol Hill, so we'll get to open forum after that.
		But in this first 30 minutes, your thoughts on the Trump administration's impact on the U.S. military.
		It was yesterday that the Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll and the Army Chief of Staff Randy George were on Capitol Hill testifying before the House Armed Services Committee.
		This is part of Dan Driscoll's opening statement.
daniel driscoll ▲ ● ▼		I'd like to start off this hearing with some good news.
		Yesterday, the United States Army met its fiscal year 2025 recruiting goal four months early, welcoming more than 61,000 new recruits.
		These men and women are stepping up during a time of global uncertainty and complex threats.
		And those threats are real.
		When I went through my confirmation hearings, I pledged to be the soldier Secretary of the Army.
		That commitment has guided every single step of our approach so far.
		The Army Transformation Initiative has been conceived with the soldier in mind, and your partnership is absolutely critical as General George and I begin implementing this transformation, which is now more urgent than ever.
		This week, we witnessed a stark illustration of modern warfare in Ukraine and Russia.
		Reports indicate a coordinated strike against Russia's strategic bomber force using a swarm of over 100 inexpensive drones.
		At a cost of a mere tens of thousands of dollars, Ukraine inflicted billions in damage, potentially setting back Russia's bomber capabilities for years.
		The world saw in near real time how readily available technology can disrupt established power dynamics.
		And drones are but one example of a broader shift.
		The Army needs to keep pace.
unidentified		Dan Driscoll testifying before the House Armed Services Committee yesterday will show you more from that testimony as we get your assessment of the Trump administration's impact on the U.S. military.
		Some text messages and social media posts coming in focusing on that recruitment number that Secretary Driscoll started his testimony with.
		Some 61,000 new recruits for the U.S. Army meeting their goal four months early.
		Bob Glenn on Facebook saying recruitment is up, DEI is over, and transgenders are out saying the impact has been very positive.
		Cindy saying the Army just had its highest recruitment in 15 years.
		So I would say Trump is doing a great job.
		And this from PJ Cooper saying it's unsafe.
		Heg Seth is unqualified and its power is going to be used to weaponize itself against Americans who don't agree with Trumpism.
		Just some of your comments on social media.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We're especially looking for your phone calls.
unidentified		202-748-8000 for Democrats.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		And that line for active and retired military, 202-748-8003.
		We'll go to that number as often as there are calls.
		Secretary Driscoll was writing in the Wall Street Journal, again, about those recruitment numbers, the 61,000 new recruits for the Army.
		This is what he wrote about it in that op-ed that came out this week.
		These men and women have chosen a path in a country full of opportunity, and they chose to serve their country.
		I can think of no nobler calling.
		Their decision to join, he writes, also reflects something deeper, a resurgence of pride in our country.
		Young Americans are more inspired by purpose and patriotism, ready to stand up for our values and protect our freedoms.
		They're stepping up during a time of global uncertainty and complex threats.
		The Army, Secretary of the Army, is celebrating those recruitment numbers.
		We want to get your thoughts on the Trump administration's impact on the U.S. military.
		This is Ron up first out of California, Republican.
		Ron, good morning.
		Good morning, John.
		Thanks for taking the call, of course.
		And the big thing is that it was hopeful, actually, watching the Army news secretary because he was mentioning drones and so on, because that's where the process is going.
		It's changed.
		It's going to be a whole new military.
		There isn't going to be the same old time.
		You know, I'm a Vietnam veteran or era veteran, and I'll tell you, you know, it was, you know, body bags here and body bags there.
		But the bottom line to this Secretary of Defense is that unless we focus 100% on the new technology and going forward, we're going to be left behind because the Chinese are into this already, and they're doing it.
		And Ron, you think that lesson was demonstrated this week with what happened in Russia from the Ukrainian drones?
		It gave me a thrill.
		It gave me a chill, actually, watching those Russian bombers blown up on the ground.
		It shows that the Russians aren't that hip to what's going on either.
		And of course, they're using drones, too.
		So it's the old Mad Magazine spy versus spy going on.
		And whoever gets the best technology with AI, they're going to use AI.
		They are using AI.
		And the bottom line here is across the Defense Department is you're using torpedoes with AI that can destroy our submarines to destroy any ship at sea.
		And when you do that, you know, I mean, look what happened to Ukraine taking out the Black Sea fleet there in Crimea.
		That's a very good example of being able to disable ships at sea.
		Somebody spends we spend, what, 10 years building an aircraft carrier, and the thought that they could take out our aircraft, a new aircraft carrier with sophisticated AI drone technology in 10 minutes is pretty scary.
		Ron, the New York Times today, there's a column by W.J. Henning that you might be interested in reading.
		The American Military's Achilles Heel.
		Ukrainian drone attack on Russia reveals how vulnerable the United States is, is what W.J. Hennigan writes.
		You may want to check that out today.
		I appreciate the call from California.
		We're going to head to Texas.
		Robert on that line for active and retired military.
		Go ahead.
		Hello.
		Go ahead, Robert.
		When and where did you serve?
		Well, let me move my TV.
		There you go.
		Well, I'll call him in because of recruitment for the United States Army.
		Well, I don't think the Trump administration had nothing to do with the recruitment in the Army.
		The economy is bad.
		So you always have people trying to find opportunities for young men.
		And for Donald Trump, this guy had never served in the military.
		And he talked about the way he talked about John McCain.
		I can never respect him.
		I honor him as president.
		He is our president.
		And I honor that.
		But anything else about the military, I have no respect for that.
		That's Robert in Texas.
		Mike in Massachusetts next, Independent.
		Good morning.
		Good morning.
	I'd like to comment on a trillion-dollar defense budget, spending most of my life working for a major defense contractor.
	And, you know, our economy is so heavily reliant on defense spending.
	Without that defense budget, we'd be in an endless depression or economic recession.
	You know, I believe that the reason why we're in these endless wars are for economic reasons behind all the rhetoric you hear.
	And I don't see anything changing anything soon because every chance we get, we vote to increase more and more defense spending, which translates into more and more jobs.
	Peace through strength to means more jobs through more defense spending.
	And it was something the Democrats should have jumped on that bandwagon when they were running against Trump.
	They never once mentioned in the election, the campaign, how they felt about defense spending in the United States.
	And them have to realize so many of us, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, are dependent on that defense budget.
	Mike, let me get your thoughts on this.
	This is Punch Bowl News writing this week in anticipation of Secretary Driscoll's testimony before the House Armed Services Committee.
	They talk about changes he tried to make to defense programs, acquisition buying in particular.
	They write in Punch Bowl News that Secretary Driscoll pointed out that the Army has 104,000 Humvees and the Army doesn't want and hasn't requested them for a very long time.
	But Congress forces the Army to buy Humvees, taking up funds that could otherwise be spent on other more advanced battlefield technology.
	Driscoll, the Punch Bowl News story notes, has canceled the M10 Booker light tank, which was estimated at $17 billion.
	The new Boeing H-64 Apache helicopter and Gray Eagle drones won't be purchased.
	The robot combat vehicle looks done as well, though they write, remember that when the Pentagon stops buying something, that could mean that jobs get cut in someone's district or state, and Driscoll should be ready for those questions.
	Your response to those kind of cuts and the interplay between Congress and what the Army is trying to do as they try to change their acquisition process.
	Well, my feeling is I'm being kind of redundant, but it will put people out of work that are dependent on those projects.
	And this is the problem.
	Unless they have something new to replace them by, what's going to happen to all the unemployed people?
	You know, let's go back and look at World War II.
	We were in a great economic depression throughout most of the 1930s.
	And the bombing of Pearl Harbor the following day, Roosevelt requested $50 billion for defense.
	And we put this economy, we became the number one manufacturing and technological giant in the world through defense spending.
	So getting back to what you were saying about the Defense Secretary, you mean, he's got to be wary of who he cuts, you know, what programs are being cut, because you're looking at jobs.
	And I don't like to keep emphasizing jobs and relying on defense industry, but it's the reality of the world we live in.
	Mike, we'll take the point.
	We'll take the point.
	That's Mike in Massachusetts.
	The first caller, Ron from California, was focusing on new technology and drones and how that's changing the battlefield.
	That topic came up at that House Armed Services Committee hearing as well.
	An interaction between North Carolina Republican Congressman Pat Harrigan and the Army's chief of staff who was testifying, General Randy George.
	This is part of that back and forth from Wednesday.
	As we all have seen, as the Ukrainian battlefield has fundamentally changed the rules of modern conflict, where currently drones, FPV drones, are accounting for greater than 80% of the casualties that are inflicted on that battlefield today.
	Small arms only account for 2%.
	Artillery accounts for less than 12%.
	The rules are changing.
	And if we are to win the economics of conflict, we must address SUAS.
	As we saw with Ukraine over the weekend in Operation Spider's Web, 117 different drones at an average cost of $800 per unit, costing Ukraine less than $100,000 worth of investment, inflicted more than $7 billion worth of damage against the Russians.
	This is capability that we need.
	It is also capability we need to defend against, and we have neither at scale right now.
	We know that we are significantly behind both our adversaries and our allies in our ability to produce SUAS at scale.
	Last year, China spent $29.4 billion on drones, with some experts estimating that their production volumes and capacities may exceed 500,000 units per month.
	Last year, the Ukrainians produced 4 million SUAS units and are on track to produce over 5 million units this year.
	The Russians are on track to produce similar numbers.
	And in our current posture, we in this country, we are only capable of producing 50,000 SUAS per year.
	So General George, my question for you is: given what we are seeing play out in Ukraine and across the globe, do you think that the United States is currently behind in the attributable SUAS space as well as the counter-SUAS space?
	And if so, how do we close the gap?
gen randy george ▲ ● ▼		I agree with everything you said, Congressman.
		We have to get the cost curve is a big part of it, and then we have to be able to produce things at scale.
		And I think that that's one of the things that we're talking about with our industrial base: that we need to be able to produce brushless motors, controllers, you know, all those things that we know go into that.
		That right now, Chinese companies, let's say DJI, is producing 15 million drones a year, and we need to have the ability to do that.
		So, that's where when we talk about scale, and we're doing some of that with 3D printing, that's exactly what we need to be able to do.
		And on the flip side, the same thing with scaling on counter-UAS back from yesterday's House Armed Services Committee hearing.
unidentified		If you want to watch it in its entirety, you can do so on our website at cspan.org.
		And if you want to read more from Congressman Pat Harrigan, who you just heard from there, the Republican from North Carolina, he has a column in this week's opinion section of the Hill newspaper, the headline, We Must Invest in the Army We Need, Not the One We Have.
		You can read that online at theHill.com.
		Back to your phone calls.
		We're asking the question in just this first half hour this morning, asking you to assess the Trump administration's impact on the U.S. military.
		A special line for active and retired military, 202-748-8003 is that number.
		Walter is in Richmond on the Independent line.
		Good morning.
		Hello.
		Hey.
		I know I represent the views of really elderly people.
		I grew up in the 50s, and it was a very patriotic era, you know, the World War II having just finished.
		And I entered the military, I volunteered, went into the Army at age 18, right after high school.
		And I can remember at a retreat parade.
		A retreat is in the Army, it's a closing of the day when they take down the flag.
		And I can remember being at a retreat parade as they took down the flag.
		That I said to myself, I cared enough about this country and what it stood for that I would be willing to give my life for defending it.
		Now, I grew up with the presidents that I experienced were the presidents were Eisenhower and Kennedy.
		And so I had an idea of a president being some very honorable person who had given his life or dedicated his life to the country.
		So I just don't understand how people and young people going into the military now can have any respect for the presidency at all with having a president that has taken part in an attempt to enter insurrection.
		And so I just don't understand how anybody in the military now can, when they take down the flag, can feel the same respect for the country and the president that we had in my era.
		Walter, you talk about patriotism.
		What are your thoughts on that upcoming military parade that's set to take place here in Washington, D.C., Flag Day weekend?
		It also happens to fall on Donald Trump's birthday.
		Well, it just reminds me of the Russian military parades.
		And I think it's just one man whose ego is so bad and he could, you know, didn't qualify and he was a coward and didn't take part in, you know, military service.
		And he just is just doing it for his own self-gratification.
		So I would be, I participated in several Armed Forces Day parades in New York City, and they were, it was in the 60s and prior to the some of the insurrect or you know the revolutionary times that we hit in the later 60s.
		But they were all showed us a lot of respect at that time.
		And, you know, I think I guess I could paraphrase Musk and say the military parade that Prime Minister Donald, President Trump is trying to bring about is an abomination.
		It's Walter in Richmond, Virginia, Elon Musk making that statement in reference to the one big beautiful bill.
		And we're going to be talking about that bill, the Office of the Congressional Budget Office giving its scoring on that bill yesterday, its estimate for how much it'll cost over the next 10 years.
		We're going to dive into that at the top of the hour at 8 a.m. Eastern.
		So stick around for that discussion.
		Back to your phone calls.
		This is Bill Wading in Florida.
		It's Orange Park Republican.
		Go ahead.
		All right.
		I'm the youngest of four brothers that went in the military.
		And I went in in 65 and I had three older brothers in Korea.
		But what makes me feel really good about the military now, I have one granddaughter that just graduated boot camp at Great Lake.
		I've got two granddaughters waiting to go in.
		Now one's going in next month and the one's going in nine months later.
		And Bill, what did you tell them as they entered their service?
		I'll tell you what.
		I felt so proud of them granddaughters.
		And I told them how much you were going to learn when you were in the Navy.
		And so, and I talked to the one that just graduated boot camp.
		She went into, she said at A school in Pensacola, Florida right now.
		But I told him, I said, you're going to learn a lot more when you go through officer school than you ever learned in high school.
		And that one is, she's enjoying boot camp.
		Did you enjoy boot camp, Bill?
		You damn right I did.
		And I learned how to live with other people when I was in the military.
		How long were you in for from 65 to win, Bill?
		69.
		And what were those years like being in the military amid the height of the Vietnam War, and especially 50 years after the end of that war?
		Let me give you an example.
		I came home and lead in the wintertime one time up in Illinois.
		My parents were living in the south suburbs of Chicago.
		And I came home and leave and it was snowy.
		I mean, it was bad outside.
		And I was going to the next little town from where we lived.
	And I picked up a guy that was hitchhiking.
	And I had graduated with him.
	And he asked me what I had been doing.
	I said, well, I've been working for the government.
	Well, at least you're not like one of the medias that joined up.
	I couldn't get that car stopped fast enough.
	I was on ice.
	I damn near an accident.
	I told him, you get your ass out of my car.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you ever talk to him again?
unidentified		Well, it's been a while since I've been back in Illinois, but if I ever see him again, I'll tell him something.
		Two of my best friends went in with me in the military when we joined up.
		And I just learned recently that Cook County in Illinois at that time had the most inductees in the military there ever was.
		And I was in charge of the ones coming out of my little suburb.
		I had 94 tickets I had to give to these guys getting on the electric train.
		And we all went down together and signed up.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Bill, thanks for talking about your experience.
unidentified		Out of Florida, we'll head to Illinois, to the land of Lincoln.
		This is Bob, Democrat.
		Good morning.
		Hello there, sir.
		I love Steve Stan.
		Trump, I don't believe, runs the military.
		And I think Biden ran the military more so than Trump.
		And don't get me wrong.
		They'll do little things like his birthday and all that stuff.
		But after the weapons of mass destruction with Iraq was a lie, and after Afghanistan for all them years, they got somebody in the military that tells them what to do.
		And if the president does not allow it, it don't make any difference.
		And he's going to go for what those individuals who are followed by the military, what they want them to do.
		Do you understand?
		Or do I need to give you an example about Israel?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Give me a quick example, Bob.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I've got some other folks waiting.
unidentified		Okay, if the military tells Netanyahu to do this or do that, and, you know, they don't, they don't, they didn't do it for 10 hours.
		And ain't no way in the United States is a country going to invade the United States for 10 hours and decimate them people and get hostages.
		But they did it in Israel to get rid of Netanyahu.
		Now, it's a different story.
		It's Bob in Illinois.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Ed in Jacksonville, Florida.
unidentified		Republican, good morning.
		Good morning, John.
		You've heard from me before.
		I'm one of these rare ones that have spent two and a half years in Vietnam, Afghanistan, in 2009.
		I retired.
		I was also in Iraq as well.
		And also, currently, I have a grandson that's in the military stationed up there in Washington, D.C., where you're at.
		I had last week talked to him on the phone in regarding the effect of the new administration on the military, on the Army in particular.
		And he was telling me it was too early really to feel the effect, but he did tell me that they were getting rid of the transgender and saying that I also currently work as a legislative person for the National Guard Enlisted Association.
		So I stay in contact with the military, and I will tell you, there are not better people I've run across than I'm running across today.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What are your thoughts on Secretary Hegseth?
unidentified		And what are your grandson's thoughts?
		He rocks.
		He rocks.
		What do you like about him?
		Well, I like his military attitude.
		You can tell he comes from the special ops world.
		If he has really influenced him.
		And as an infantry leader, he knows what it takes to win the war.
		You mentioned your grandson is here in Washington, D.C. What does he think about that upcoming military parade that's gotten so much attention?
		Well, and I asked him about that.
		And like he said, he currently has himself really an effect on the administration.
		He's a staff sergeant, so it hasn't ranked down to his level yet.
		I could imagine it will eventually, though, with the administration taking action with the generals.
		That's Ed in Jacksonville, Florida.
		Appreciate the phone call.
		That military parade was also the subject of some of the discussion at yesterday's House Armed Services Committee hearing.
		Here's about two minutes back and forth.
		Secretary Driscoll, you know, diverting a billion dollars away from barracks, like sort of like a $30, $40 million parade.
		You're being forced to make 8% cuts for projects, for pet projects that the Secretary and the President wants.
		And this is all happening while we're under a CR.
		I'm kind of getting the impression that is the Army just flush with cash and got extra money to spend that it can give away?
		You know, are we giving you too much?
		And, you know, really, how is this?
		I know it's kind of been answered already a little bit, but just to go more into depth, like, you know, our service members, how is this affecting the quality of life of our service members if we're moving this money away from the barracks?
daniel driscoll ▲ ● ▼		Congressman, just to go on record, you are not giving us too much money.
unidentified		Well, you're giving it away.
daniel driscoll ▲ ● ▼		So we are, as stated earlier, dear colleagues, we are incredibly honored, and we take very seriously the duty that we have to the American taxpayer to use those dollars efficiently and effectively for the American soldier.
		For the celebration of our 250th anniversary, the planning has been going on for years.
		The Army believes that this will empower an entire new generation of America's youth to catch the spirit to serve their nation, and we are incredibly honored to be able to tell that story.
		General George and I have reflected how lucky we are to be in these roles in this moment in time and to tell the story of an institution that has impacted our country so greatly since its founding.
unidentified		You don't think that money could be better well spent on some type of recruiting campaign that would work over a period of time rather than a one-day event that's just going to take place and then it's done.
daniel driscoll ▲ ● ▼		This parade, I believe, will be seen by Americans across the country.
daniel driscoll ▲ ● ▼		And I very sincerely, and we can look at the recruiting numbers, I would hypothesize, and I will come back and justify whether I was right or wrong, that we will see an incredible filling of our pipeline of young Americans who want to join.
unidentified		Well, one thing that they know for sure, right, the thing that does affect recruiting is an investment in actual recruiting.
		But I think with these 8 percent cuts that we're seeing, I'm sorry, sure, there's going to be a big chunk that's going to come out of recruiting, and that is probably going to hurt numbers over time.
		Backschange from yesterday's House Armed Services Committee hearing.
		Time for a couple more phone calls on this topic, and then we will throw open the phones to open forum on any topic you want.
		As we said, it's a busy day on Capitol Hill.
		More hearings taking place.
		The House and Senate are both in at 10 a.m.
		We'll get to all of that.
		But a few more calls on the Trump administration's impact on the U.S. military.
		This is Landon, Port Ritchie, Florida.
		Go ahead.
		Landon, you with us?
		Then we go to North Carolina.
		This is Sarah, Independent.
		Go ahead.
		Hello.
		Go ahead, Sarah.
		Yeah, I don't understand what the big deal is about a parade.
		I'm proud of it.
		And for all these people, these young people need to hear about patriotism, need to serve their country.
		I come from a long line of military, and these people getting up there, I don't care who the president was.
		You should not do that.
		Other countries are watching us.
		Just like they bad-mouthed Biden, now they're getting back on Trump.
		People, wake up.
		Respect your government.
		Respect these young men and women are out there fighting for our freedom.
		That's all I have to say.
		That's Sarah.
		This is Sid, Upper Marlborough, Maryland, Independent.
		Sid, go ahead.
		Yes, I think the military parade is a great thing.
		It's a time to celebrate our nation.
		And I don't know what this Democratic senator is talking about.
		All the three branches and services hit their recruitment numbers.
		Also, I was a two-time college dropout.
		I served in the Navy for eight years and four years of that with the Marine Corps.
		And you know what?
		That's the best decision I ever made.
		I went on to serve in the United States government for another 20 years and retired in 2021.
		And I'm very proud of serving our country.
		And I think what'd you do for those 20 years, Sid?
		I was an acquisition, and then I was also a combat corpsman with the Navy, and then ended up going with the Marines.
		And I'm very proud of my record.
		And you know what?
		Our young people, they need to see what our country is all about, what patriotism is all about, what being an American is all about.
		And you know what?
		Russia has a big parade.
		So should we.
		And I don't really care whether it's on the president's birthday or not, but it is time to reflect on America, on us.
		And we got these senators who are going all the way to Venezuela to support MS-13 gang members.
		That's not patriotism.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Sid in Maryland.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		One more call on this topic before we go to Open Forum.
unidentified		This is John Mankato, Minnesota, Democrat.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		They told me I was on Open Forum.
		Oh.
		That I'd be on Open Forum.
		That's what they said.
		Can I speak as an Open Forum person?
		Yeah, John, let me promote the phone numbers for Open Forum.
		We'll do that.
		It's 202-748-8000.
		For Democrats, Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I did promise Open Forum here.
unidentified		As we said, there's a lot going on on Capitol Hill, the House and Senate in at 10 a.m. Eastern.
		And what's on your mind, John?
		Well, I was in the Peace Corps in Botswana in 1970, and USAID was active there.
		And we were, I started an agricultural school there.
		And the USAID was bringing corn from the United States.
		It was actually, the United States was producing too much corn, so they were sending it overseas, you know, to help out with our farmers here.
		And they brought the corn.
		The USAID guy brought the corn in a Chevrolet pickup truck.
		And in the front of the truck was the USAID worker and the tribal chief.
		Well, they dropped off the corn.
		It helped our school, you know, to keep going and get going.
		And then about three months later, the chief needed transportation.
		So what do you think he bought?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The pickup truck.
unidentified		He bought a Chevy pickup truck.
		And being the chief, it wasn't too long after that that a few of the headmen also bought Chevy pickup trucks.
		Now, if they hadn't had that experience in a Chevy pickup truck, they probably would have bought one of those British Land Rovers.
		So Trump's attempt to ruin AID is actually ruining the future of our country to create markets for our goods.
		And I don't think that anybody in the Trump administration has any common sense about anything at all.
		And you can see it so poignantly in something like this.
		I'm scared for what these guys are doing to our country.
		That's about my rant and the end of my rant.
		That's John in Bankato, Minnesota.
		It is open forum, about 25 minutes here for open forum.
		As we said, a lot going on, including this from late yesterday.
		President Trump issued a new broad travel ban on Wednesday on 12 countries and a partial ban on seven others, saying that the U.S. doesn't have enough confidence in their systems to be able to prevent national security risks from sneaking in.
		The full ban applies generally to most non-immigrant visa categories, while citizens from the partial banned countries will lose access to tourist student and exchange visas.
		The 12 countries subject to the full restrictions, Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Congo, the Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
		The seven nations facing the partial restrictions, Burundi, I'm sorry, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.
		That coming out of the White House yesterday and President Trump taking to Truth Social to talk about this new travel ban.
		This is what the president had to say.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas.
		We don't want them.
		In the 21st century, we've seen one terror attack after another carried out by foreign visa overstayers from dangerous places all over the world.
		And thanks to Biden's open door policies, today there are millions and millions of these illegals who should not be in our country.
		In my first term, my powerful travel restrictions were one of our most successful policies, and they were a key part of preventing major foreign terror attacks on American soil.
		We will not let what happened in Europe happen to America.
		That's why on my first day back in office, I directed the Secretary of State to perform a security review of high-risk regions and make recommendations for where restrictions should be imposed.
		Among the national security threats, their analysis considered are the large-scale presence of terrorists, failure to cooperate on visa security, inability to verify travelers' identities, inadequate record-keeping of criminal histories, and persistently high rates of illegal visa overstays and other things.
		Very simply, we cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen those who seek to enter the United States.
		That is why today I am signing a new executive order placing travel restrictions on countries including Yemen, Somalia, Haiti, Libya, and numerous others.
		The strength of the restrictions we're applying depends on the severity of the threat posed.
		The list is subject to revision based on whether material improvements are made.
		And likewise, new countries can be added as threats emerge around the world.
unidentified		The president's statement yesterday from his Truth Social page, he said, we will not let what happened in Europe happen in America.
		Let's go overseas to England.
		This is Paul calling in from across the Atlantic, Republican.
		Paul, go ahead.
		I love that.
		Donald Trump has opposed job buttons in those countries, those obvious countries, because you don't want to touch in the Medicaid button.
		So he's wrong, but he's done that.
		So good on him.
		And was that the topic you were calling in on, Paul, or did you have any other thoughts?
		That's Paul from England.
		This is David, Irving, Texas, Democrat.
		Good morning.
		Hey, good morning, John.
		Well, I wanted to call in about Donald Trump's effect on the military.
		I did a little over 15 years from 1983 to 1997.
		And I think he's having a tragic impact on the military.
		I think about just Heg said, you know, for you to hire a National Guard major and to fire a four-star general with 30 years of active war experience, active active duty experience in Excel, that in and of itself just speaks volumes to the ignorance that this man has brought to the presidency.
		I can't even begin.
		I'm tired of arguing it because what he does is so blatant.
		And with regard to the gentleman who called in, who said that he was from Vietnam to Afghanistan, well, if you do the math on that, that man would have to be damn near 80 years old.
		So, you know, I get tired of these people calling in, lying about being a veteran.
		It really just, that caller, he had called in before, and I asked him to go through his military service the first time he called, and he talked about a career that did last decades.
		So I had asked him about that question before about a long military service.
		And he called in again to talk about it.
		So, you know, we trust that viewers, when they talk about their biography, they are telling the truth about their biography.
		But I would encourage you to maybe go back and find that first time he called in.
		Yeah, but I guess my point is when you think about the math, I understand that it seems like a very long time.
		And he went through the decades of service that he had from the end of the Vietnam War through his current service.
		But David, I appreciate the call from Irving, Texas.
		This is Daniel in Bloomington, Indiana, Independent.
		Good morning.
		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I just want to speak to a couple things.
		First is the services C-SPAN has and its accessibility through many avenues, whether it be c-span.org or otherwise, and connecting viewers with what's happening in the nation's capital and around the world.
		Second, I'm going to do that.
		Yeah, I've been a longtime listener and participant.
		The process is definitely an open door for you guys.
		Second is the impact President Trump has had on the military.
		As controversial as a leader like Secretary Hegset is, I think it opens the doors to allowing the states to truly be the defenders of freedom and liberty that our founders spoke to and really wrote on when the nation was founded.
		The United States Army is older than the United States.
		And I think to one, celebrate it is a powerful statement.
		And the irony of it being on the president's birthday is another topic.
		I think history tells us it took long enough to, in theory, close the doors on certain immigration practices.
		And I, as controversial as some of it is, I'm happy with the direction our country is going, but we got to get prices down and wages up.
		Thank you.
		And Daniel, do you think getting prices down and wages up, do you think we're on track for that?
		There's the one big beautiful bill as they've taught, as it's being described, that has a lot, that could have a lot of impact on those issues.
		Yeah, time will tell.
		I mean, I can go buy 30 eggs or 36 eggs, whatever that count is, and it's like seven bucks.
		You buy a pack of 18, the price doesn't really compare.
		So time will tell overall what the other price is, but the price of living, the cost of living and housing is almost ridiculous, especially if you live in urban areas where they're doing these high-density projects.
		That's Daniel in the Hoosier State.
		We will head to the Empire State, Ithaca, Ray, Republican.
		Go ahead.
		Yes, sir.
		I just wanted to call on the new travel band.
		And I thank President Trump and fully support it in what he's doing on immigration.
		I think it's one of the strongest issues the president has.
		And we see that the border is much safer.
		I think this just adds to our safety.
		And after the Cod Ruddle thing, I think he's exactly right that we need this.
		And I fully support it.
		That's Ray in New York.
	It's about 7.45 on the East Coast, about 15 minutes left.
	We're doing open forum right now, planning to talk about today.
	The House is in at 10 a.m. Eastern.
	The Senate is in at 10 a.m. Eastern.
	At 11 a.m. Eastern, the Commerce Secretary, Howard Luttnick, will be on Capitol Hill to testify about his department's 2026 budget request before the House Appropriations Committee.
	You can watch on C-SPAN3 and c-SPAN.org, and of course, the free C-SPANNOW video app.
	Another event, 2 p.m. Eastern.
	This afternoon, Senator Chris Murphy will discuss the Trump administration's foreign policy and view for American leadership in the world.
	The Connecticut Democrat is going to sit down with Neera Tandon of the Center for American Progress.
	Again, 2 p.m. Eastern.
	C-SPAN 3 is where you'll find that, C-SPAN.org and the free C-SPAN Now video app.
	Back to your phone calls.
	This is Monique in Washington, D.C. Democrat.
	Good morning.
	Hello.
	Good morning, C-SPAN.
	I just wanted to just try to hit on a couple of things.
	I hear a lot of callers praising President Trump for certain, as far as the border is concerned.
	But what I'm concerned about is a $45 million parade that we as District of Columbia residents have to pay for.
	Not only that, they stole $1.1, Congress stole $1.1 billion from the citizens of the District of Columbia, forcing my mayor to cut services within our communities.
	And, you know, it's almost like it's like a tick for tack.
	My state against your state, blue state against, I don't have time for, I don't really have time for that.
	And I hear a lot of people calling in about the bill, the bill.
	Nobody has, the Republicans haven't read the bill.
	Nobody has read the bill.
	And everybody, well, I'm for the bill.
	How are you for something when you're only hearing speaking points?
	There will be millions of people who will lose their Medicare and their Medicaid.
	It will be a monopoly once it hit.
	Thousands of our fellow citizens have lost jobs for no reason.
	And what's crazy is the way that OPM is now setting up for people to get jobs, you literally have to align with the president's agenda.
	So they're not accepting people for how they think.
	They want us to all think the same.
	And this is America.
	I wasn't brought up to think the same as the person standing next to me.
	I was brought up to always have my own ideas, to always critical think about utilize my critical thinking skills so I can be my own individual.
	I don't want to be a robot.
	I don't want to think like my neighbor.
	I want to be myself.
	And this is what I thought the United States was.
	And one more thing, my daughter, who I love to death, she will be leaving me, okay, in August because she had an offer letter to work in Dubai.
	Because there is no place right now in the United States of America that are willing to hire our black educated women.
	Our black educated women are losing jobs dramatically just because they're holding bachelor's degrees, doctorate degrees.
	But my daughter said, Mom, I'm not worried about what's going on in the United States.
	I'm going to go over and go over in Dubai and enjoy my life.
	So they're pushing a lot of educated people out of the workforce.
	And I'm just behooved.
	That's Monique here in Washington, D.C. to the Nutmeg State.
	This is Gary Independent.
	Good morning.
	Good morning.
	Good morning, John.
	Thank you for taking my call.
	I have three points I wanted to make.
	Just as a backdrop, I've spoken in the past about living in Europe, living in Italy, and I do that.
	I don't spend the whole year there.
	I spend maybe half the year.
	One of the things I anticipated being a problem with Trump's economic policies is the strength of the dollar.
	So that very early in his administration, I bought Euros and Swiss francs.
	They have declined 14% since his administration has come into power.
	I'm not feeling well because I had surgery six months ago and I'm still recovering.
	I'm hoping to go back in September if I'm well enough.
	And I have purchased Euros and Swiss francs in anticipation of that.
	And as I said, 14% difference.
	Now, the fear I have is that the dollar as the premier world economic currency could start to fall and we could wind up with abortive currencies like the Euro, the Swiss franc.
	And if the dollar falls, there'll be hyperinflation in the United States.
	In anticipation of that, years ago, I got out of the stock market in 2007, didn't like the way things were going, and invested in gold, and that has done quite well.
	A friend of mine recently on the third subject advised me: you know, you should go out and buy some cryptocurrency.
	And my response was, yeah, I'm going to do that right after I buy some tulip bulbs, referring to the tulip bulb bubble in Holland, which ruined the Dutch economy in the 17th century.
	So, in any event, I'm hoping to go back for six months again, which I'm doing six months at a time, health permitting.
	But I am concerned about the value of the dollar.
	If you look, you'll see that it's dropped 14% just in a couple of months against the Euro and other major currencies.
	Got your point.
	That's Gary and Gary's investing strategy.
	This is Butch in Fort Smith, Arkansas, Republican.
	Good morning.
	Yes, sir.
	I was just wanting to find out why when Biden, I mean, when Obama was in office, why he gave Iraq $600 million.
	Then when Milley was in, he refused to do his duty as a general, and people are bragging about him.
	And where do we stand if they were still in office?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So, Butch, how would you answer that question?
unidentified		What's your assessment of the Trump administration's impact on the U.S. military about close to six months into the second Trump administration?
		I believe he's doing the best he can.
		I believe God's sitting there to do this job.
		And what about when Obama, one more question.
		What about when Obama sent lawyers to Mexico to help him to figure out how to get up here?
		Remember that one?
		That's Butch in Arkansas.
		This is Gage in St. Louis, Missouri.
		Democrat, good morning.
		Good morning.
		So, in my opinion, there's a lot of inflation right now with the Tweed Street bathroom and Ryan Gage is...
		I'm not quite sure where that was going.
		This is Eric, Alexandria, Virginia, Independent.
		Good morning.
		Yes, hi.
		Good morning.
		So I was in the Marine Corps of the Army.
		Now I'm in the Coast Guard Auxiliary.
		And I was in resource management in the Army Pentagon for quite many years.
		And the Army plans its training out for like a whole year, starting with small-level units and then building up to more and more bigger units and eventually culminating in major exercises.
		And all this, especially the major exercises, take a lot of coordination and logistics and training and reserving rail cars, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
		And now with the Trump plopping this parade in there, it's going to take a lot of time.
		It's going to take a lot of time to clean the equipment and make sure it's absolutely perfect and spotless.
		Money to transport it here.
		And then that puts a major hole in the whole training plan, which then will decrease the lethality and readiness that Hegsmith said we're not going to touch.
		So this is, I don't know that this is worth it.
		I don't know that it's going to increase recruiting like someone said, but it's just all the money that's going to put the money and time and lack of training time.
		I don't know that it's worth it.
		Amen.
		That's Eric in Alexandria, Virginia.
		Steve is in Painesville, Ohio.
		Democrat, good morning.
		Good morning.
		Good morning.
		I'm going to make a comment about our relationship with China.
		I think President Trump has it wrong.
		The Chinese helped build this country in the 1800s.
		They built the railroads.
		They were laborers.
		There were so many Chinese coming here that Congress passed a bill, the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882.
		It was only supposed to be for 10 years, but it ended up being for like 60-some years.
		I think it was repealed in 1943 when China became an ally with us during World War II.
		So China helped us during World War II.
		But anyways, China went in the dark for 25 years.
		They were off the grid until Nixon opened it up in 72.
		And so for 53 years, we've had this relationship with China.
		China was portrayed as being servants and peasants and whatnot.
		But now, China has risen.
		They are on the move.
		They have built your dream car.
		They're competing with Elon Musk in Europe.
		They're capturing market share.
		They're beating us on AI with DeepSeek.
		Xi Jinping is not going to call Trump.
		If Trump thinks that Xi Jinping is going to have chocolate cake at Mar-a-Lago, he's mistaken.
		And by the way, Xi Jinping lived in America in 1985.
		He lives in Iowa with a bunch of farmers.
		He knows us.
		And Trump is a flim flam man.
		He continues his grift and his swindle on the American people.
		I feel bad for you, Republicans, because you just won't stand up to him.
		You won't support the Constitution.
		You're not an arbiter of truth and justice.
		I could say that to Pom Pam Bondi.
	And she's supposed to be the Attorney General of the United States.
	She's not representing us.
	The whole thing is a sham.
	And if we survive this, I'm sure we will.
	But, you know, there are 37 million Americans who live at or below the poverty line, so they're not worried about the stock market.
	So, anyways, all this stuff that was coming from China for 53 years now, we're going to be making our own shoes.
	And your kids are going to be working making Apple phones for $2.96 an hour, which is what China pays their laborers at Foxconn.
	That's Steve in Paynesville, Ohio.
	Just a few minutes left in open forum.
	And then in the rest of our program, one of our key topics will be the ongoing effort by Republicans to pass the so-called One Big Beautiful bill.
	It ran into a bit of a roadblock yesterday in the form of a scoring, a projection by the Congressional Budget Office about the cost of this bill.
	Here's the banner headline in the Wall Street Journal.
	Megabill's toll on deficit is $2.4 trillion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates.
	The numbers the Wall Street Journal writes underlies Republicans' challenge in selling this measure as fiscally sound.
	That Congressional Budget Office projection coming a day after Elon Musk called the One Big Beautiful bill a quote disgusting abomination.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And Speaker Mike Johnson was asked about Elon Musk's comments and his turn against this bill yesterday when the speaker took questions from the press.
unidentified		Here's what he had to say.
		Well, I'll tell you, I called Elon last night and he didn't answer, but I hope to talk to him today.
		I mean, it's not, you know, it's very friendly, and we've laughed about our differences on policy before.
		I'm not upset about this.
		And I just think he understands, and he's acknowledged to me before, that this is so serious that we can't fool around with it.
		I mean, the debt cliff is approaching very quickly, right?
mike johnson ▲ ● ▼		All the things that are in this bill are so important for the U.S. economy.
unidentified		It's going to be jet fuel for the U.S. economy.
		All boats are going to rise.
		And the sooner we do that, the better.
mike johnson ▲ ● ▼		And the risk of not getting it done is enormous, not just for the Republican Party, but for the country.
unidentified		We've got to do this.
mike johnson ▲ ● ▼		We're going to have the largest tax increase in U.S. history at the end of the year if we fail.
mike johnson ▲ ● ▼		And all the other calamities that we've talked about.
unidentified		So we've got to get it done.
		And I think Elon understands the weight of that.
		And I hope he comes around.
		I'd love to talk to him this week and hope he calls him back today.
		I talked to President Trump all the time, multiple times a day.
		Obviously, we've talked about this.
		As you know, he's not delighted that Elon did a 180 on that.
		But look, I don't know what happened in 24 hours.
mike johnson ▲ ● ▼		Everybody can draw their own conclusions about that, okay?
unidentified		But I look forward to talking to my friend about it again.
		And I'm not upset about it.
		All right?
		Yeah.
		Speaker Johnson, yesterday on Capitol Hill, the House is back in at 10 a.m. Eastern today in the Senate.
		Also in at 10 a.m. You can watch the House here on C-SPAN, the Senate on C-SPAN too.
		Back to your phone calls.
		This is Marshall in Nashville, Tennessee.
		Republican, good morning.
		Good morning, John.
		How are you doing?
		Go ahead.
		I have 30 days to figure out what I want to say, and so much happens in those 30 days, so bear with me.
		I want to talk to Democrat voters, and it's the common sense thing.
		I believe it's time to abolish the Democrat Party, not the voters.
		And this is why.
		2016, you wanted Bernie Sanders.
		The DNC, through the delegates, went against the will of the people and gave you Hillary Clinton.
		Donna Brazil, who was in charge of the DNC at that time, gave Hillary Clinton the questions to his debate.
		2020, in the middle of the pandemic, you had the person who bowed out of the presidential nomination race in the Democrat Party, Conal Harris.
		She was the first to bow out, and she became the DNC's choice for the vice president of the United States because she is a woman and a person of color.
		In 2020, although it wasn't as large as 2016, the majority of your voters wanted Bernie Sanders again.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So, Marshall, I'm running short on time.
unidentified		Wrap it up for me, bring me to 2025.
		Okay, 2025.
		Right now, after the 2024 election, you have a political party who actively tried to take an American citizen off the ballot.
		They also tried through the court system with a Democrat judge, a Democrat DA, in a Democrat city, Manhattan, who tried to put the man in jail.
		Look at your party and think about what will come out, the Phoenix that will come out of the ashes if we abolish the Democrat Party today.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's Marshall in Tennessee.
unidentified		One more call.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Steve, Clifton, New Jersey, Independent.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Hi, good morning.
		You know, it's somehow appropriate that I'm the last caller.
		You know, with lots to talk about, the parade.
		Let me ask you something.
		Are you afraid to be you in public?
		How would you answer that question, Steve?
		How I am, I am, and I know many Jews are.
		Many Jews are in hiding.
		Many Jews are terrified to be Jewish.
		They're terrified to where they're keeping.
		They're terrified to where their Jewish star.
		I know Jews that are taking the zizzes off the doors.
		And we're talking about parades and we're talking about big, beautiful bills.
		There is a segment of our population that is literally terrified.
		To go into a synagogue, we need armed guards.
		A friend of mine, her autistic friend's bar mitzvah, she needed armed guards for the bar mitzvah.
		To get into a Jewish preschool is like getting into the CIA.
		I mean, it's absolutely absurd what is going on in this country and how the media doesn't even cover it.
		You gave a scintilla of coverage to this.
		Go back to your, when George Floyd happened, how much coverage did you give to that?
		Here you literally have a group of people that are terrified to be themselves and no one's talking about it.
		Shame on the press and shame on America.
		You're talking about shiny.
		That's Steve.
		Steve in New Jersey, our last caller in open forum.
		Plenty more to talk about today.
		Stick around, including a conversation with freshman Republican Mike Kennedy of Utah.
		We'll have that conversation in about a half an hour.
		Until then, further discussion on the so-called one big beautiful bill.
		Mark Goldwine will join us from the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget.
		That's coming up right after the break.
		American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2, exploring the people and events that tell the American story.
		This weekend, at 7 p.m. Eastern, Diane Kiesel, a retired New York Supreme Court judge and author of the book When Charlie Met Joan, talks about legendary actor Charlie Chaplin's legal trials and the implications for American law, celebrity culture, and Cold War politics.
		Then, at 9:30 p.m. Eastern on the presidency, Jared Cohen, with his book Life After Power, addresses the question: how does the former head of the free world spend his retirement?
		He looks at seven presidents: Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Grover Cleveland, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, and George W. Bush for the answers.
		And at 10:30 p.m. Eastern, a look back at the Allied invasion of Normandy 81 years later, with a U.S. Army Air Forces film detailing the planning and after-battle summaries of the airborne invasion on D-Day.
		Then author Garrett Graff on his oral history of the invasion.
		And U.S. Army Film details the logistics of treating wounded soldiers in the field and English hospitals during the invasion.
		Exploring the American story, watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/slash history.
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		Washington Journal continues.
		Mark Goldweine joins us now.
		He's the senior policy director at the Nonpartisan Nonprofit Committee for Responsible Federal Budget and Mr. Goldwine on the one big beautiful bill.
		We've had some disagreement about the fiscal impact of that legislation.
		The Congressional Budget Office says it'll add $2.4 trillion to federal deficits.
		The White House budget director says it'll save $1.4 trillion.
		What say you?
		There's not really disagreement among those that are seriously looking at this budget.
		By our estimates, it will add $3 trillion to the debt, including interest.
		And if it's made permanent, it will add $5 trillion.
		The way that White House is saying it'll save money is they want to ignore about $4 trillion worth of tax cuts.
		They want to sort of give themselves credit for tax cuts that are currently about to expire, extending them for free, but they don't want to charge themselves the cost of all of the new temporary policies in this bill.
		So explain that for folks who are trying to wrap their heads around it.
		Yeah.
		So I guess here's one way to think about it.
		This bill has about $6 trillion of tax cuts and new spending.
		About half of that is paid for with about $3 trillion worth of offsets.
		So that's $3 trillion total of cost.
		But what the administration is saying is we were going to extend these tax cuts anyway for a cost of $4 trillion.
		And so if you subtract that $4 trillion we were already going to do, it's about $1 trillion of savings.
	The problem with that is you don't get credit for we were ghanas.
	You don't get credit for this might have happened otherwise.
	The other problem is embedded within this bill is actually a ton of temporary tax cuts themselves that they're probably gonna extend later.
	And so if you do the ghanas on both sides, it's still a trillion dollars added to the debt.
	The Committee for Responsible Federal Budget has taken a look at this.
	CRFB is where you can go for their website.
	And one of the things in your analysis that you're write is that this bill front loads its costs and backloads its savings.
	Explain what that means.
	Yeah, so I'll give you an example.
	In 2027, that's the first year the bill is fully in effect because it takes time to get a new tax code, et cetera.
	This bill is going to add $500 billion to the deficit.
	By 2030, it's only going to add only $100, $100, $200 billion.
	That number goes down.
	But it's not going down because the bill is actually getting cheaper over time.
	It's going down, as I mentioned before, because a lot of the most expensive parts of the bill expire.
	It is a four-year defense increase.
	Then all of a sudden, we're going to go back to the old inadequate Defense Department.
	It has four years of no tax.
	That's probably not likely going to happen by members of Congress.
	Exactly.
	Inadequate by their own description, right?
	It has four years of no taxes on tip, no taxes on overtime, tax cuts for seniors, tax breaks for businesses, and then they all disappear.
	That's not their intention.
	They don't want these to disappear.
	What they're doing is they're using only four years so they can make it seem cheaper in a 10-year scoring window, right?
	If it's only four years, it looks like it's 40% as expensive, but actually it's just 40% as long.
	So let's back up perhaps.
	Explain the difference between debt and deficit and why when we're talking about the cost of this thing, why are we talking about a 10-year scoring?
	Why are we talking 10 years down the road?
	Yeah, so 10-year is the typical convention that we use for scorekeeping.
	It's not perfect.
	There's no magic over 10 years versus nine years or 11.
	But I think the thinking is it's long enough that you capture all the policies having gone to effect.
	Because policies sometimes take a while to implement.
	But it's not so long that it's ridiculous.
	Like, who knows what's going to happen 50 years from now?
	We'll all have flying cars or something.
	And when we look at this, we look at two aspects.
	One is we look at the deficit effect.
	That is basically what's the difference between spending and revenue every single year and how much is this going to worsen it.
	So already we are running $2 trillion deficits each year.
	Under this bill, it's going to go up to $2.5 trillion deficits each year.
	Then it looks at the debt effect.
	That's the accumulation of all the past deficits.
	That's how much we owe.
	It's not how much more we spend than we raise.
	It's how much we owe in total from all our past spending in excess of all of our past revenue.
	And from that perspective, this bill is going to add $3 trillion over 10 years and climbing.
	And by the way, $5 trillion if we make all of these temporary provisions permanent.
	CRFB.org is where you can go to see the breakdown of the costs and the savings in this bill, how we get to some of these numbers that we've been talking about.
	For people for whom it's hard to wrap your head around trillions of dollars in debt and deficit in 10 years down the road, what does this mean for things like inflation and interest rates, the things that impact everyday Americans every day?
	Yeah.
	So what we've learned, what economists have known, and I think the public has recently learned, is that debt is actually really bad for people's standard of living.
	When you have a huge increase in debt like we did in 2021 and 2022 for the pandemic, what you can see is high rates of inflation.
	And that's what we saw.
	But even if the debt is gradual and so the Federal Reserve can fight the inflation part, debt pushes up interest rates.
	That means your mortgage is going to cost more.
	It means your car loan is going to cost more.
	Your student loan, your credit card debt.
	And it also means costs are actually more expensive for the federal government.
	So I don't think many people know this, but right now, interest is the second largest line item in the budget.
	The only thing bigger is Social Security.
	We spend more on interest than on defense, more on interest than Medicare.
	Think about that.
	We are spending more servicing our debt than defending our country or providing health care to our seniors.
	That's amazing.
	Does the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget take policy positions on things like Medicaid work requirements or clean energy tax credits, the things that make up the numbers that add up to the trillions that we're talking about?
	Yeah, so we are a nonpartisan organization, and legitimately, we're down the line.
	Our board is pretty evenly split between Democrats, Republicans, some Independents.
	They have all sorts of different views on specific policies.
	The positions we do take are about overall fiscal responsibility, right?
	So we don't want a bill that's adding to the debt.
	We need a bill that's actually reducing the debt because debt is already at record levels.
	Now, within that, we're actually very pleased to see some offsets in this bill.
	Remember, I mentioned there's $3 trillion worth of offsets.
	That would be a great start towards deficit reduction.
	The problem is, those are being used to pay for tax cuts and then to borrow another three trillion leverage to borrow another $3 trillion rather than being used to help reduce our massive levels of debt.
	Explain what a rescission is.
	Yes, so Congress every year is supposed to appropriate money.
	You know, they appropriate defense money and State Department money, et cetera.
	There's then an opportunity to claw back the money that's not being spent.
	And so this administration has asked for about $10 billion of rescissions.
	They want Congress to claw back about $10 billion of money they've appropriated.
	And there's a special process they can do that with only a simple 50-vote majority, exempt from the normal filibuster that makes almost everything in the Senate require.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How does CRFB feel about rescissions in general?
unidentified		Are they a good thing?
		Yeah, absolutely.
		We should cut spending we're not using, right?
		So again, we can debate over is this specific rescission the right one?
		But if there's money that's not being used, this money is not being used efficiently, we ought to claw it back.
		And this is the appropriate process.
		The president identifies the spending that he views as wasteful, and then Congress has an opportunity to vote on it and decide whether or not they agree.
		Can we fix the long-term debt issue via rescissions or things like Doge cuts?
		No.
		Only about a quarter of the entire budget is appropriated every year.
		And only about 13% of that is on the non-defense side.
		And only a small share of that are things that are actually subject to Doge rescissions, et cetera.
		So like, even let's say we're able to somehow cut a quarter of that non-defense discretionary.
		That's a ridiculously high number.
		Even a quarter, that's only like 2% of our budget, right?
		3% of our budget.
		That's not going to solve the debt.
		To solve the debt, we've got to look at the major spending program, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and we've got to look at taxes.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So if we have to look at Medicaid, then is Medicaid work requirements something that you would support?
unidentified		Are they finally looking at one of those programs that is the big drivers of long-term debt?
		Yeah, I think they are.
		I mean, they're not looking at Medicare, and that's a problem, but I think it's actually a very big deal.
		This bill is looking at Medicaid.
		And if you look between their Medicaid savings and their Affordable Care Act savings, it's over a trillion dollars.
		That's a great improvement.
		Again, my problem is it's not being used for deficit reduction.
		But there's also a lot of good stuff in here.
		You talked about the work requirements, but one that I really like is states right now are basically scamming the federal government out of money.
		They're working with hospitals to make the cost look more expensive and then sending the federal government the bill.
		This bill, this legislation, starts to put an end to that, at least going forward.
		That would be a really good policy.
		I also think things like redeterminations, the work requirements, other stuff, there's a lot of money to be saved here.
		Again, should be going to deficit reduction, not for deficit increasing.
		That's a lot of numbers in about 14 minutes of discussion.
		So let me pause and let viewers ask the questions that they want to ask.
		Mark Goldwine is with us until the bottom of the hour at 8:30.
		202748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8,000 for Democrats.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		And there are plenty of calls for you already.
		John in Georgia, Republican.
		Go ahead.
		Yes, good morning.
		In 2017, the CBO scored the tax bill that the Republicans passed as having a $1.4 trillion addition to the deficit.
		But that deficit never showed up.
		If you look at the numbers from the CBO, in 2019, the country collected $3.5 trillion, spent $4.4 trillion, and mandatory spending was $2.7 trillion.
		During the COVID years of 20 and 21, the government spent $6.4 trillion in those two years, but $4.5 trillion was directly related to COVID.
		If you take that out, that means that the country spent $8.9 trillion in two years, which is $4.45 trillion per year, which is consistent with what happened before COVID.
		If you go to 2022, the country collected $4.9 trillion.
		Tax revenue to the United States government went up $1.4 trillion.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So John, is the question about CBO and how well it does its job in predicting costs?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Is that the question?
unidentified		I want to know how this gentleman, how his organization scored the 2017 tax bill, because it seems like that when the CBO or somebody scores something, it never materializes.
		Got your point.
		That's John.
		Yeah.
		So the Commercial Budget Office is the official scorekeeper of the U.S. government.
		They work with the Joint Committee of Taxation that scores tax policy.
		But there was actually about 10 different groups at the time that all estimated this tax bill would cost between $1 and $2 trillion, about that $1.5 trillion you mentioned, over 10 years.
		And when you look at the numbers retrospectively, actually, it's pretty much played out as we expected.
		You throw out a bunch of numbers, but one thing you didn't do is adjust them for inflation.
		And so if we go back and we look at the revenue that was collected in 2018, 2019, basically it exactly matches what CBO predicted.
		Of course, 2020, there was a pandemic, and so we had a little bit of chaos.
		But if you kind of look beyond that, if you look actually at an average of 2020 and 2021 and you look at current revenue collection, it essentially, again, matches CBO, but for the fact inflation is way higher.
		And so the big issue here is prices are much higher than we thought.
		We had this huge bout of inflation, and so everything's more expensive, right?
		Your car is more expensive, your eggs are more expensive, and guess what?
		The revenue is higher.
		When you go back and adjust this for inflation, that explains two-thirds of the difference.
		The other third was a one-time revenue surge in 2022 and 2022 alone.
		That was really because of the pandemic recovery, had nothing to do with the tax cuts themselves.
		Pittsburgh, California, Denise Independent, good morning.
		You are on with Mark Goldwine.
		We lost Denise, and we will go to Robert in Cedar City, Utah.
		Independent line, go ahead.
		Yeah, good morning.
		First off, I want to say this is way out of my pay grade, but I'm just a basic guy.
		This big, beautiful bill, from I understand, is going to add $3 trillion to the deficit.
		Now, I haven't heard anybody talk about the increase in tariffs that would cancel that out.
		Do we take that into consideration?
		And as far as the Medicare, Medicaid, cuts, I'm all for them.
		Maybe I shouldn't say this, but here in Utah, we have people who are just gaming that system with, and I'm not, I think you understand what I'm trying to say, people with multiple people living in a house and claiming issues.
		I'm trying to be as delicate as I can about that.
		But I'm sure it happens throughout the United States.
		But anyhow, I don't hear anybody talking about the additional tariffs, how that would cancel out the increase to the debt for this bill.
		Robert, got your point.
		So this is a great point.
		While Congress is trying to add $3 or $5 trillion to the debt through this tax bill, the president is actually increasing tariffs, which would reduce the debt.
		And we just got a score that they would basically over the same time period over that.
		that nine years reduce debt by two and a half trillion dollars or so.
		Now I have two big concerns with using the tariffs to pay for the tax bill.
		The one is the timing doesn't work.
		And so even though it's the same over nine years, remember that gimmick I mentioned before where all the stuff expires.
		And so if you look at it on kind of an annual basis, it's actually about half the cost.
		But the other is, I don't know how sustainable these tariffs are.
		A huge number of them were actually just ruled illegal by the U.S. Trade Court.
		They're still in effect under awaiting appeal.
		But if those go away, then we're talking about tariffs only paying for maybe 10% of the bill.
		That's better than 0%, but it's not going to stop us from going deeper into debt.
		In general, do you think tariffs are a good thing or a bad thing?
		I think tariffs are a way to raise revenue.
		It wouldn't be my number one top way to raise revenue.
		But what I'm really concerned about is our debt is rising out of control.
		Our debt to GDP is headed for record levels and is eventually going to lead to a debt spiral.
		So everything should be on the table.
		What is the right way to raise revenue right now?
		I think the best thing we can do is basically cut tax breaks.
		This is something that Tax Cuts and Jobs Act 2017 started to do.
		And we should be doing more of it instead of less of it.
		The tax code is such a mess that we treat different types of income differently in so many ways that it distorts behavior.
		It means that we have higher rates than necessary, higher deficits than are necessary.
		We're pushing up housing prices, causing people to borrow more, making health care more expensive, getting businesses to invest bad.
		So we ought to cut those tax breaks.
		One of my big problems with the one big, beautiful bill, which maybe is it's one, it's big, it's a bill.
		I'm not sure it's so beautiful, is that it actually adds a bunch of new tax breaks.
		We don't need tax breaks for auto loan interest or for tipped income.
	That makes the tax code more complicated, less pro-growth, and less revenue generating.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Valley Center, California, Mike Independent.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You're on with Mark Goldwine.
unidentified		Hey, I wanted to make a comment that in addition to the $3 trillion that it's going to add to the national debt, that the tariffs are adding $4,000 a year to each family that's going to cause a lot of hardship in addition to the Medicaid cuts.
		And this is all part of the Republican Party and Donald Trump's grift.
		And I think it's a terrible thing for our country heading in the wrong direction.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Mark Oldwine.
unidentified		Yeah, so if you look at the overall distribution of tariffs, what you see is they're pretty evenly distributed, which if anything, they kind of skew toward the lower middle class.
		Not very poor people because they mostly have inflation index benefits.
		Very rich people save a lot of money, but kind of the lower middle class, middle class, they pay a lot of the tariffs.
		The tax cuts are skewed more towards the upper class and the upper middle class.
		And so there's a distributional component to this for sure.
		Of course, distribution of income is always changing throughout policy.
		And my maybe bigger concern is the generational issue, is that we're imposing more and more burden on future generations regardless of their income because we're not letting them pay our own bills.
		Less than 10 minutes left this morning with Mark Goldwine.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Let me come back to the CBO scoring, as it's called, that projection, the prediction, essentially, of what's going to happen over 10 years.
unidentified		This is what the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal writes today.
		I want to get your response.
		We're now at the Congressional Budget Office panic stage of the budget debate as Democrats and the press pretend to care about the federal deficit and the debt.
		The trigger was Wednesday's release of the CBO's budget scoring of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
		They write, do you recall the consternation when Joe Biden and Democrats passed their Inflation Reduction Act?
		We don't.
		What do you make of that?
		Well, one thing I find funny about this Wall Street Journal piece is they criticize the CBO and then they go on to use a ton of CBO numbers to make their other very good points in the bill.
		For example, how they should remove various provisions and how much they cost.
		Scorekeepers don't have a crystal ball.
		They're sometimes going to get things wrong.
		It is true.
		The Joint Committee on Taxation, actually, not the CBO, but the Joint Committee on Taxation did underestimate the cost of the Inflation Reduction Act.
		And thankfully, I think there's now an effort to kind of correct that.
		We can disagree with the specifics of the policy, but they're looking into it.
		But they are very high-quality scorekeepers, the CBO and the JCT.
		They do better than just about anyone else.
		And when it comes to the last round of tax cuts, they were almost exactly on the mark.
		The Wall Street Journal, what they argue for in terms of changes to this bill, is taking away the no tax on tips or overtime or things like car loan interests on the no tax on tips.
		Where are you on that?
		No, they're exactly right.
		Look, tax reform should work to make the tax code simpler, to treat similar income more similarly, and to promote economic growth and to have permanency.
		These things do the exact opposite, right?
		No tax on tips means that if I work at Denny's, I have lower taxes than if I work at Wendy's.
		That makes no sense, right?
		No tax on auto loans means that if I put money into buying a car, I pay lower taxes than if I invest in my education.
		That also makes no sense.
		We ought to be treating income more similarly.
		And so we should ditch, like, there's about 20 temporary policies in this bill.
		They're temporary to make their score look lower.
		We should instead maybe have three or four of them and make them permanent and do the best ones, the ones that are pro-growth, not the no tax on tips that makes things worse.
		What is the best one?
		I think that the deductibility, extra deductibility of factories is a pretty good idea.
		You've got to work out some of the details of it.
		But this is actually going to encourage business investment that can help support manufacturing, support higher wage growth, get businesses to have some more equity between their investment in big buildings and their investment in small equipment.
		So that's one that I would focus on.
		The other I would focus on is bringing back the full expensing of research.
		Now, I'm a deficit reduction guy, so I mainly want to focus on the things that raise revenue.
		But in terms of the things that lose us money, I think those are some of the most pro-growth policies.
		And we're better off making those permanent rather than doing a bunch of temporary giveaways for special interests.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Boynton Beach, Florida Independent Alicia, good morning.
unidentified		Hi, everybody.
		Hi, Mark.
		Good morning.
		My question is relating to section 70302, which basically limits the judicial and let's see to prohibit federal courts from enforcing contempt orders.
		And then also the second part of my question would be, will they be removing the section relating to the AI, not having to be part of the rule of law in this country?
		Yeah.
		Well, Wendy, I think you've mostly stumped me because I'm a budget guy, not a lawyer.
		But what I can say is that in the Senate, there's very strict rules called the Byrd Rule about what can and can't be in reconciliation, and it has to be things that are budget-related.
		And so things that have no budgetary consequences will probably get stripped in the Senate.
		Elliot in New York, Democrat, good morning.
		Good morning, and thank you for C-SPAN.
		Yeah, I have a question.
		It is, what are your goals for this project?
		Because I noticed similarly with the Ryan Gershaw Foundation, they saved a lot of 2089 with.
		Elliot's going with that.
		Jessica, Missouri, Republican, good morning.
		Yes, I have several ideas for Trump.
		He needs to use his ingenuity.
		And these terrorists are just crazy, crazy, crazy.
		They don't need to have people on 72-hour holds on Medicaid to begin with.
		The psychologists are taking advantage.
		People need their Medicaid.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Well, Jessica, we'll take your points and do have plenty of colors waiting unless there was something you wanted to jump in on.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Then Victoria Akron, Ohio, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		And Victoria, the best thing to do is to turn down your TV and talk through your phone.
		Okay.
		I want to know more about the cuts that they're talking about Medicare.
		I understand that they want to take a better look at Medicaid, but I worked all my life, and now you're going to cut my Social Security for some reason.
		So the legislation has no changes to Social Security and cannot.
		It's not allowed.
		It also currently has no changes to Medicare, but the Senate is looking into them.
		With that said, nobody is looking at changes in Medicare benefits.
		The kind of policies they are looking at are changes that are going to lower the cost of Medicare, both for the government and for the beneficiaries.
		I'll just give you two quick examples.
		Right now, the Medicare program pays a doctor more if they happen to work in a hospital versus if they give you the exact same treatment in a private doctor's office.
		We ought to equalize that.
		That's something they're looking into called site neutral payments.
		Also, right now, the federal government pays more for Medicare Advantage plans, the private alternative Medicare, than for traditional Medicare, despite them often being more efficient.
		The reason is that these plans are kind of fudging the numbers on how risky their enrollees are.
		And so if we just reduce their ability to fudge those numbers, there's a significant amount of savings, again, while lowering people's premiums and making sure they have the same quality of care.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You said the bill can't do anything when it comes to Social Security.
unidentified		Why?
		So there's a rule called the Byrd Rule, named after the late Robert Byrd, which basically says reconciliation has to meet a certain number, has to meet several tests.
		The one is has to be things that are budget-related, right?
		So you can't just do regulations.
		It can't touch Social Security because that's off-budget, and it can't add to the long-term deficit.
		They've maybe figured out a workaround to that long-term deficit, which maybe we can talk about.
		But those other two are pretty ironclad.
		And so changes to Social Security just are not allowed under this particular process.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How ironclad is the BIRD rule?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We've seen the Senate change its rules at times over the years.
unidentified		Is this a rule that can be changed?
		The BIRD rule is actually in law.
		It's not just a rule.
		So they can't change the rule per se, but sometimes they can find workarounds.
		So for example, the Byrd rule says they're not going to add to the long-term deficit.
		But technically, the chairman of the budget committee or chairwoman is the one that determines the deficit number.
		That's always been sort of an honorific.
		They turn to CBO, but it looks like Republicans might try to actually change the numbers for purposes of getting around the Byrd Rule.
		So there's opportunities to skirt it, but you can't repeal it without future legislation.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Ed in Danbury, Connecticut, Republican.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I think one of the key things is how fast can you grow the economy to help reduce the deficit?
		And I think if they can cut the international trade deficit by, say, half, right now it's about 0.9 trillion.
		And if half of that comes back to us and you put a Kensing multiplier on it, that would be about $2 trillion of incremental domestic spending.
		So if the government gets 20% of that, it's like $400 billion for each and every year.
		We do that.
		Right now, I mean, half of the American currency is held in foreign hands.
		And I think two-thirds of the world's debt is dollar-denominated.
		So of that $9.9 trillion each year that we lose in trade, I'd assume that really only half of that is coming back and half of it isn't.
		So that would be a big, big implement to the domestic economy, which is one of the big things that would reduce the deficit.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Take the question, Mark Goldwine, give you the final 60 seconds.
unidentified		We're not going to grow our way out of our debt, and there's no evidence that tax cuts like these pay for themselves.
		We would need something like a 50% increase in growth just to cover the cost of these tax cuts.
		The best estimates out there think that maybe we'll get a 10% or a 5% increase in the growth rate.
		Tax cuts can help grow the economy, but not enough to pay for themselves.
		And the real danger is the higher debt actually puts downward pressure on that growth.
		And that means not just less debt sustainability, but lower incomes for everyday Americans.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		CRFB.org is where you can go to see Mark Goldwine's work and work of his colleagues.
unidentified		And we always appreciate your time in the Washington Journal.
		Thank you for having me.
		Coming up at the top of the hour, we will be joined by Democratic Congresswoman Sarah Ellsberg of Maryland.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We'll talk about Democrats' strategy when it comes to the one big, beautiful bill.
unidentified		And we will continue our discussion about that bill next with Congressman Mike Kendi, Republican of Utah.
		Stick around for that discussion right after the break.
		Sunday night on C-SPAN's Q&A, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the pro-peace feminist grassroots organization Code Pink, talks about her life as an activist and the nonviolent disruptive actions taken by Code Pink at congressional hearings and elsewhere to bring attention to their causes.
		We don't disrupt every hearing.
		The majority of hearings we go to, we don't disrupt.
		We sit through to learn.
		We use the opportunity to talk to the members of Congress when they're on their way in and when they're on their way out.
		So, you know, when you're there every day, you have developed a relationship not only with some of the members of Congress, but with the officers.
		And some of them are quite nice to us.
		They recognize that we are nonviolent people, that we are passionate about these issues, and that this is part of what a vibrant civil society should look like.
		Some of them don't like us very much and are meaner to us.
		We try to report them when they abuse our rights because, again, we go on this principle.
		It is the people's house.
		They are no better than us.
		They are public servants and they should be listening to what we, the public, want to say.
		Medea Benjamin, Sunday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's QA.
		You can listen to Q&A and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app.
		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.
		Joining us now for the first time on the Washington Journal, it's Utah Republican Mike Kennedy.
		He represents the Beehive State's third congressional district.
		Congressman, welcome to you.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		John, good to see you.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		Thanks.
unidentified		The one big beautiful bill, you voted for the bill last month.
		Since then, we find out from the Congressional Budget Office this week that they expected to add $2.4 trillion to the deficit over 10 years.
		Elon Musk has called this now a pork-filled abomination.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Is this still a bill that you support?
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		Absolutely.
		The reality is with this aircraft carrier that we call the United States of America, is we've got to get it heading in the right direction.
		And with all due deference to Elon Musk, who's obviously an intelligent person, is we are making steps in the right direction.
		This bill is going to cut our deficit by $1.5 trillion.
		With economic growth estimated at 1.8% by the CBO, the reality is they're not factoring in the dynamic aspects of cutting taxes on the American people.
		And I'm proud to be a part of supporting this bill.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Explain that a little bit more for people who are hearing these numbers.
unidentified		2.4 adding to the deficit, 1.5 in savings that you're saying.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Explain how we get to the number that you're talking about.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		The Congressional Budget Office has been wrong over and over again.
		And the reality is that when we cut taxes, they count that as a deficit.
		It increases the deficit.
		The reality is when we're cutting taxes on working-class people, people that are working overtime, people that are actually getting tips.
		So these are the working-class Americans that my family comes from.
		The reality is we're cutting taxes on those people, but the CBO counts that as a deficit increase rather than a deficit decrease.
		When people have more money in their pocket, when their tips aren't taxed, when their overtime isn't taxed, what are they going to do with that money, John?
		They're going to actually go out in the economy and they're going to spend money.
		They're going to buy things.
		And if they own a small business, if they have a side business, a side hustle, which many people do, the reality is they're going to invest in their business.
		They're going to build our economy and actually we're going to see our economy grow.
		And then what happens, John, and for you and your listeners, they're going to pay more taxes as a result of that because they're buying items.
		So they pay the taxes associated with those purchases.
		They invest in their business.
		Their business grows.
		They have more customers.
		They pay more taxes because they're more successful.
		So this bill does the exact opposite of what they're suggesting in the media.
		And I understand the media wants to tear this bill down.
		They hate to see Republicans successful because most of them are not supportive of the Republican Party.
		But I believe we are moving this aircraft carrier in the right direction.
		And we need to continue to move this thing forward.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What is your view of what's going to happen in the Senate?
unidentified		How different do you expect the bill to be when they finish with this bill and you have to come back and agree on a final product here?
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		I've served as a state House of Representatives member and a state senator.
		The reality is as a state senator, when the representatives in my state, Utah, sent over a bill to the Senate, we would have our way with it.
		We're going to make changes.
		The Senate usually thinks itself, the House of the Lords is what it came from in England.
		And the reality is they're going to have their way with it.
		And actually, I invite that.
unidentified		No product that Washington produces is perfect.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		So for the senators to weigh in, for the bird rule, which I heard some of your previous discussion talking about the bird rule, we need to have it go through that process.
		The Senate parliamentarian is also going to determine if these are actually budget reconciliation pieces or policy pieces.
		And there's a process between now and when this thing ultimately gets to President Trump's desk.
		And I invite that.
		Why?
		Because our Constitution and our founders, they set it up this way.
		People complain, why aren't you moving faster?
		Why aren't you doing more?
		The reality is, is we have 435 reps, 100 senators, and a president.
		Everybody should weigh in on this for the good of the American people.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Before you took this job, you were a physician in family practice.
unidentified		Explain the changes in Medicaid that this bill makes and why you think they're needed.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		Thank you for being clear on that because Medicaid and Medicare, if you went out there and asked 100 people, including in this House of Representatives and our senators, and if you asked them the difference between Medicaid and Medicare, many of them would not be able to tell you.
		And I'm sad about that fact.
		So I want to be clear.
		Medicare and Social Security are not part of this.
		Medicare is, and I heard some of your listeners before, talking about Medicare, like this bill does something with Medicare.
		It doesn't do anything with Medicare.
		It doesn't do anything with Social Security.
		In fact, the Byrd Rule mandates that we can't do anything with that.
		Medicaid is a program, and this is where, as a doctor, for 25 years, I've taken care of people.
		I know people by name.
		I have taken care of them for decades, and they are on Medicaid.
		They need Medicaid.
		Frankly, my family has been on Medicaid before.
		And the idea that a doctor like me and many of us in the House of Representatives would damage the system we call Medicaid is laughable and actually disturbing.
		And many people, it's outright lies.
		They're saying Medicare and Medicaid, and they're conflating those two things.
		Medicaid is a program for pregnant women, indigent people, and the disabled.
		It is not for illegal immigrants.
		John, the reality right now, and you're looking at states like California and New York who don't like this bill, why?
		They have registered illegal aliens on Medicaid.
		They are using the Medicaid system.
		They're going to break the Medicaid system.
		In fact, they are breaking the Medicaid system, which is for pregnant women.
		So we need to make sure we preserve Medicaid.
		And the 1.4 million illegal immigrants that are on Medicaid right now, I'm sorry to say they're not going to get health care.
		And if you call that a health care cut, that American citizens are not going to get health care through Medicaid because we're serving illegal aliens, then I guess you can call it a cut.
		But what I call that is right-sizing of a program that is in desperate need for indigent people, the disabled, as well as pregnant women.
		And we're trying to preserve that.
		And actually, we're going to save money with that, which actually preserves Medicaid.
		I'm a big fan of this.
		The other piece about the Medicaid reforms that we're doing, we are asking people, and it's an important step in the right direction because I've been working since I was 12 years old.
		An individual on Medicaid that's able-bodied and no dependents, if you have children or you're disabled, this requirement does not apply to you, is that you need to go out for 20 hours a week, which that's pretty nominal, actually.
		I've worked diligently since I was 12 years old.
		20-hour work week doesn't sound bad, but you need to go out and try to find a job.
		You need to try to find training for a job.
		You can do this virtually.
		Or you need to be in a school program to learn so that you can get a better job.
		So the work requirements are part of this.
		And frankly, work has been a great benefit in my life.
		I'm really grateful since I was a kid that I was able to work, cutting grass and busting tables.
		I was a janitor.
		I've been a box handler at United Parcel Service.
		The reality is work is a great thing.
		And if you're going to be able-bodied without dependents adult, then you need to spend 20 hours a week trying to find a job.
		And I think that that's a positive step in the right direction with this big, beautiful bill.
unidentified		Congressman Mike Kennedy, Republican of Utah, with us until the top of the hour at 8 a.m. Eastern, taking your phone calls, lines for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents as usual.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And there are plenty for you already, Congressman.
unidentified		This is Earl in Seneca Falls, New York, Republican.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Earl, good morning.
unidentified		Well, good morning.
unidentified		With your permission, I'm going to be a little long-winded.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Well, Earl, I'm short on time, and I've got a lot of calls.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, good to talk to you, Earl.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		How you been?
unidentified		I'd like to know why this administration wants to Put the people of Ukraine back under a Soviet/slash Russian government-controlled government.
unidentified		We don't want to do that.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		We want to support the good people of Ukraine wherever we can, but this is Europe's war and Europe needs to back them up.
		The United States of America, I'm not going to support sending our young men and young women off to Ukraine.
		But when we can sell them weapons, then we should sell them weapons and they should pay for them.
unidentified		You know, that's a false statement.
		Why is that, Earl?
		Because it's one of those gotcha lines that the Republicans are.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		I'm a big fan of freedom-loving people, and the Ukrainians want to support themselves.
		In fact, I got neighbors that are Ukrainians.
		They've come over here since the war, and I want to see Ukraine strong.
		The reality is, Russia is not the United States of America's friend, and I stand with Ukraine.
		The reality also is that we need to make sure that we're not sending our young men and young women over there.
		But Ukraine, if they can't pay for the weapons and supplies that they need, then we should put it on a tab and they'll pay for it later.
		And that's where this critical minerals deal that President Trump's working with Ukraine on is, I think, a vital part of this.
		Let's do a deal with Ukraine so that if they can't pay for it, then they provide critical minerals for us, which is an important need for the United States of America.
		There's ways to make this work, and we want peace.
		As a Republican Party, President Trump wants peace.
		Vladimir Putin is playing hardball, and we understand that.
		The guy's a dictator.
		So I think we need more sanctions on Russia.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How do you see this war ending?
unidentified		Do you think Ukraine is going to have to give up some of its territory to end this war?
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		The reality is it's complicated, and Ukraine and Russia are going to have to sort this out with the assistance of the United States of America.
		But this is Europe's problem.
		This is their back door.
		And Europe needs to step up.
		They've for ages stood down while the United States of America and our taxpayers are the police officers for the world.
		And it's not appropriate.
		We can't health care the world.
		We can't police officer the world.
		We can't feed and clothe the whole world.
		We need to make sure we're taking care of United States of America interests.
		And I'm entirely supportive of freedom-loving people, and we will sell weapons to Ukraine.
		But when it comes to Russia, Russia's never been a sincere, they don't deal sincerely with these issues.
		Russia is a war, war-happy country.
		Vladimir Putin wants to propagate war.
		And President Trump's promoting peace.
		So when it comes to this, we need to be very skeptical of the intentions of our Russian and our Chinese Communist Party adversaries.
		These people do not look out for the interests of the American people.
		And I'll just promise you, on my part, as well as President Trump, I know that President Trump is working to put the American people first.
		So am I. We'll make sure that the world is as safe as possible, recognizing it's a dangerous place.
		There's a lot of problems out there, and we can't fix all the world's problems.
		Europe needs to step up, and President Trump's demanding that.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Allen, Texas, Gary, Independent, good morning.
unidentified		You are next with Congressman Mike Kennedy.
		Hello.
		Thank you for taking my call.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Gary.
unidentified		First, I'd like to find out since 1980, we've been hearing that we were going to get a trickle-down benefit from the Republican tax cut.
		Now we're being told that it's going to, the trickle-down or the tax cuts are going to be beneficiary and actually pay us out of our national debt.
		It's ridiculous.
		Every time the Republicans come up with a tax cut, our national debt blows up even bigger.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		President Reagan and President Bush, for 12 years, we had, and I was a young fella at the time, but we saw when was the budget balanced?
		It was after President Reagan and President Bush during the Clinton administration.
		And I'll just tell you, it wasn't the Clinton administration that did it.
		It was the tax and economic benefits associated with Republican policies for 12 years.
		It translated the last time our budget was balanced.
		And I'm happy to say that those policies actually have impacted my life in a significant fashion.
		So, when it comes to cutting taxes, my question to the people that are listening: do you want the government to have money in their pocket that they've taken from you, or would you prefer to have it in your pocket to use as you see fit?
		For those who want to see increased taxes, then fight against the Big Beautiful bill because every American taxpayer, every family, is going to pay $1,700 more dollars in taxes.
		So, we're trying to cut the taxes, keep money in your pocket instead of the government's pocket.
		And I'm a big fan of that as a state legislator.
		I saw over and over again that when we made sure that money was in the pockets of the people, that they used it more responsibly and the economy grew.
		So, and I saw that during my young man's lifetime is when Republicans were in charge, President Reagan, as well as President Bush.
		There were economic, it was an explosive economic benefit that came to the people.
		And this big, beautiful bill gets us moving in that same direction.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		They're calling all the way from Hawaii for you, Congressman.
		This is Alan in Halewa.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hey, hi, John.
unidentified		Yeah, that's actually Holly Eva.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Hali Iwa.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		Thank you for calling because love it.
		How do you think?
		I think really importantly is the big, beautiful bill may harm the solar industry immensely, which requires, you know, it's going to take all the incentives away.
		And the problem is that solar is a really big part of our energy mix and growing faster.
		And a lot of Republican advocates are talking about that we need it for AI, data centers, all kinds of stuff.
		Do you really want to make solar die on the vine by doing that?
daniel driscoll ▲ ● ▼		That's a great point.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for bringing that up, and especially from a sun-happy state, and God bless you in Hawaii, it's a great place.
		And actually, Arizona, and I'm from the West, so I'm from Utah, which is a very sun-happy place as well.
		Solar is a significant energy generator, and I'm a big fan of solar.
		So, what has happened with this bill?
		And I'll just say we, because of Democrat amendments, this bill was passed in the early morning a couple of weeks ago, actually.
		And they had made changes, meaning leadership in conjunction with some negotiations have made changes where solar was put on the chopping block.
		And my state is a heavy residential solar state, and I'm a big fan of what they do.
		So, we're actually working with the Senate to see those provisions altered in a way that the solar industry is not damaged.
		The reality, I'll say this too, is every industry that is on the take where the taxpayers are subsidizing them, we need to get off that process.
		We need to make sure that actually people stand on their own two feet.
		Everybody needs to put on their big boy and big girl pants.
		And when it comes to this, I'm not a fan of government taxpayer subsidies for many of the things that we subsidize.
		But when we, for over 20 years, have been subsidizing solar and it cut the feed out from under these people is I don't think that's appropriate.
		We need a glide path down, and I'm working with my Senate colleagues to make sure that that happens for solar because it's a viable version of energy.
		But let's be honest, we need to move into the nuclear world.
		We need to make sure that we have strong energy resources to build the information infrastructure that we need.
		So, artificial intelligence we can win that race against our adversaries across the globe.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned you're from a sun-happy state.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What should viewers know about the 3rd Congressional District of Utah?
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		Love the place, man.
		It's the southeastern Utah part.
		Arches National Park is part of it.
		And come to Utah, people.
		So, I was born and raised in Michigan, and the Great Lakes are amazing.
		Moved out west to go to school, raise my family, and it's been a great place, business-friendly as well.
		And in the state of Utah, you got the Delicate Arch, which we were just there last week.
		And if you want to see an amazing structure that man did not make, actually, it's God-made structures, it's remarkable to walk through these beautiful, vast lands that we have.
		And we can use our lands in a functional fashion and not abuse them.
		And I'm a big fan of the West.
		There's great power in the West and many fronts.
		And it's a privilege to represent those good people.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		A question from Teresa in Arkansas via text message.
unidentified		Do you support the selling of public lands, federal lands in Utah?
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		Teresa, the reality, and thank you for that important question, is we have a housing crisis, not just in Utah, but throughout the West and particularly throughout the country.
		And if we can sell small tracts of lands, which Senator Mike Lee has proposed that contiguous to, if there's a city or county with contiguous federal lands, meaning right next to the city or county, and they're going to actually take small acreage and build houses on that, I am entirely supportive of using small tracts of public lands for necessary needs.
		The reality in the state of Utah is over 60% of our land in the state of Utah is locked up in federal lands, which we love our national parks, and we actually love to be in our national parks and we invite the world to our national parks.
		But when it comes to housing crisis and the fact that my children can't live in my area because houses are so hard to find and also so expensive, is we need to open that up so that people have an opportunity to actually have houses.
		So small tracts of federal land, absolutely, I think we can use those in a responsible fashion.
unidentified		Line for Democrats, Michelle Toma, Wisconsin.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		You're on with Congressman Mike Kennedy.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Michelle.
unidentified		Good morning.
		My question is about the ACA and the subsidies.
		I've been working my whole life like you.
		I started my job at 12 and I've been working my whole life.
		And my employer that I've been with for the last 10 years is, and I'm in health care, and my employer does not offer health insurances.
		So I rely on the ACA for my health insurance.
		Absolutely.
		And I rely on those subsidies.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		Yes, a lot of people do.
unidentified		I will be 64 and I will continue to work as long as my health will allow me to.
unidentified		But however, the reason why I rely on the ACA and the subsidies is because I have COPD, stage 3, and I also have a liver deficiency called Alpha One Antrotrip.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah, that's a devastating trouble.
unidentified		I'm sorry.
unidentified		So if they were to do anything as far as cuts or the subsidies or anything, I will be royally screwed.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Michelle, got a good point.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Michelle.
		We want to make sure we're supportive of that too.
		Also, when it comes to Medicaid, and in this case, the Affordable Care Act, which it is what it is, I'm stepping into this, and there's a bunch of things that have happened before that translate into what Michelle is talking about, is we need to make sure that people have access to affordable health care.
		Medicare is, if you're almost 64, Michelle, if I heard you right, is you're almost on Medicare, so in that case, you'll have access to great insurance through that.
		But we need to make sure we're supporting access to high-quality health care in an affordable fashion.
		And those premium subsidies that are part of the Affordable Care Act, it's an important thing for us to look carefully at because we don't want to damage people's access to health care.
		Thanks, Michelle.
unidentified		Let me go to the Peace Garden State.
unidentified		This is Margaret in North Dakota.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Republican, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		I was wondering, whatever happened to the International War Crimes Bureau that is supposed to arrest someone like Putin.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		Hello, Martyr, and thanks for bringing that up.
		I think it's very clear that Putin is an international war criminal.
		And the fact that he invaded Ukraine unprovoked, trying to take over territory.
		The reality behind any international conflict like that is somebody would have to go into Russia and try to extract Vladimir Putin and bring him to justice.
		And that's called a war.
		If somebody's going to go in and actually try to take Vladimir Putin out, that's going to start an international war.
		And you kind of don't see Vladimir Putin traveling a whole lot.
		Why?
		Because the man knows that if he travels, he's going to be vulnerable.
		And so there are international complaints and efforts that way.
		But Vladimir Putin stays in the country that practically he owns along with his oligarchs.
		And that's why for us in the United States of America, we need to make sure we sanction and use every tool available to us to push back and to fight vigorously with those that are our adversaries.
		And in this case, I think we need more sanctions on Russia.
		Russia is not, they're not interested in peace.
		They're warmongers the way that Vladimir Putin is acting.
		And we need to make sure we vigorously fight.
		Once again, this is Europe and Ukraine's issue, and we want to be supportive, but it is not our conflict, and it's not our responsibility to police office the world.
		So in that case, I think we can use economic sanctions to push back on Vladimir Putin and the terrible things that he's doing.
unidentified		Just about five minutes left with Congressman Mike Kennedy this morning.
		You are just over five months into your congressional career.
		First time on the Washington Journal.
		Have you had a chance in those five months to introduce legislation?
		And if so, what about?
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, thanks, John, for asking.
		The reality is we didn't just introduce, but we passed off the House floor a bill to protect our critical research from the Chinese Communist Party.
		They are not our friends, and I'll tell you, John, proudly, we passed that within our first 100 days.
		The reality behind the Republican Party is we are moving the agenda forward.
		And I'm proud to be a sponsor of internationally important legislation that's actually protecting our critical research from the Chinese Communist Party.
		John, you and your listeners know, and it's shocking to see, and I've seen it actually in the course of my lifetime as a state legislator, Chinese Communist Party has infiltrated our state governments and also our institutions of learning.
		Harvard and Columbia, there are many, we're here in numbers, 300,000 Chinese citizens are part of our higher education system.
		And by the way, my dad is an immigrant.
		I'm a big fan of immigrants, and our country is better when we bring people that are honest and they want to learn to this country.
		And we learn from them and they learn from us.
		But if they're going to steal our secrets and bring it back to the Chinese Communist Party to our detriment, we will push back vigorously on that.
		And these people need to be deported if they're affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party.
		So those kind of investigations need to be done.
		But I'm proud to actually have sponsored and passed my first bill off the House floor.
unidentified		John, you and your listeners know I need 60 votes in the Senate.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		And actually, I think I can get it.
		But the Senate has been so occupied by a variety of things that they're slow to take our things up.
		And this reconciliation package is actually the biggest thing that they need to work on right now.
		So God bless the Senate.
		We're looking forward to them to move my bill and many other bills off the Senate floor so that we can actually get it to President Trump's desk.
		But yeah, we've sponsored many pieces of legislation.
		Here's another one that we're sponsoring.
		Methadone is a narcotic.
		It's a strong narcotic with a fairly unusual distribution in a person's body.
		And I have a friend who actually gave another medicine that could suppress breathing to a patient, didn't know this individual was on methadone because of federal law that prohibits methadone from being disclosed to a practitioner data bank.
		And this person ended up overdosing and dying because the doctor didn't know that the patient was on another medicine.
		So I'm sponsoring a bill actually to open that up so that actually states can disclose to doctors that the patient is on methadone.
		Right now the federal law prohibits that and I think we need to change that to promote life and well-being of our citizens and better health care from our doctors.
unidentified		You mentioned there that your father was an immigrant.
unidentified		Where did he immigrate from and what does he say that process was like?
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's actually, so this back in the 80s, Ronald Reagan, my dad many years ago came from Canada to Michigan and that's where he met my mother and I was number two out of seven in my family and I'm proud of that fact.
		The reality is United States of America, all over the world people want to come here.
		It's a place for people to prosper under liberty and freedom and economic opportunities that are unheralded throughout, unparalleled throughout the world.
		So I'm a big fan of the United States of America.
		The process back then was easier, I believe, than it is now.
		And part of it is that there's a lot of people.
		I mean, Joe Biden let 10 to 15 million illegal immigrants cross the border.
		We have a big problem in our country with open borders and President Trump has done a great job.
		We didn't need a new law to protect our border.
		What we needed was a president that actually cared about the border and we've got one.
		And I've been to the border and nobody's coming across the border that doesn't have a compelling need.
		And in that case, we want people to come.
		But I'm sponsoring a bill and I've asked my staff to start working on this.
		We need to promote legal immigration.
		I want people to be able to come here that want to come here and do good.
		But if you're a gang member, if you're a human trafficker, you stay out of this country.
		We will not let you in.
		And if you're in this country, we will throw you out and you're going to make sure that you're going to pay for your crimes.
unidentified		Last minute, last call.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Dalton from Killeen, Texas, Republican.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning.
		Good morning, Dalton.
		I'd just like to make a couple comments.
		One, I think that there should be more term limits on all elected officials.
		This thing of people like, you know, being up for 50, 60 years is a little bit too long.
		Dave Homer did it too long.
		The other thing is I think our health care system and the cost of living for the everyday average people in this country is way too high for some people that they can't hardly put food on their table, clothes on their children, and things like that.
		And the competition of dressing a child for school today is just so outrageously high priced.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		It's a big problem.
unidentified		They need a break.
unidentified		Dalton, let me take those because there's a lot there and we're in our final minute.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		Those are great.
		Thank you very much for those points.
		And the reality is the inflationary trends associated with the Biden spending spree as well as Congress, it actually created inflation and made everything more expensive.
		We need government to take less money and spend less money.
		We're working on doing that with this big, beautiful bill.
		And I'm a big proponent of that effort.
		I saw Jerome Powell during the inflationary pressures associated with COVID.
		Oh, this is just transitory inflation.
		He knew what was happening.
		And Joe Biden and the effectless Biden administration did the inflationary trends to us.
		And we're trying to rein that in with this big, beautiful bill.
		And John, I'm grateful to be here with you and promote something that's really important that's happening in the United States Congress.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And we appreciate your time.
unidentified		That caller had mentioned term limits.
unidentified		Do you have an idea on how many terms you'd like to serve?
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		I know you're going to first.
		Term limits.
		I believe senators and congressmen ought to be on term limits, but we need to term limit bureaucrats as well.
		Everybody that serves the federal government, whatever position they're in, bureaucrats should also be on term limits because we don't want them to sit here forever and just wait until the term limited representative or senator leaves.
		So yeah, actually, if we can get bureaucrats on a term limit of 10 years, congressmen and senators 10 to 12 years, absolutely go back and get a job.
		For you to sit here forever, I don't think it's healthy for the United States of America.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Mike Kennedy is a freshman from the 3rd District of Utah Republican.
		Appreciate your time.
		Hope to talk to you again down the road.
mike kennedy ▲ ● ▼		Great to be with you.
unidentified		Coming up, another perspective from Capitol Hill.
unidentified		We will be joined by Sarah L. Spreth, Democratic Congresswoman from Maryland.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Stick around for that discussion right after the break.
unidentified		Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
		Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
		At 2:30 p.m. Eastern, Book TV presents coverage of this year's Gaithersburg Book Festival in Maryland.
		Authors will discuss wrongful conviction, AI and art, the American Revolution, and more.
		Then, at 8 p.m. Eastern, Pennsylvania Republican Senator Dave McCormick and his wife Dina share their book, Who Believed in You, which talks about the importance of mentors and shares stories of successful politicians and business leaders who have had their lives changed by them.
		And at 10 p.m. Eastern on Afterwards, Stephanie Land discusses her path from working as a maid to earning a journalism degree and later writing about the working poor in her book, Maid.
		She's interviewed by Rachel Schneider, co-author of The Financial Diaries.
		Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
		this show and c-span is one of the few places left in america where you actually have left and right coming together to talk and argue And you guys do a great service in that.
		I love C-SPAN too.
		That's why I'm here today.
		Answer questions all day, every day.
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		Sometimes I get to do fun things like go on C-SPAN.
adam goodman ▲ ● ▼		C-SPAN is, I think, one of the very few places that Americans can still go.
unidentified		C-SPAN has such a distinguished and honorable and important mandate and mission in this country.
		I love this show.
		This is my favorite show to do of all shows because I actually get to hear what the American people care about.
		American people have access to their government in ways that they did not before the cable industry provided C-SPAN access.
		That's why I like to come on C-SPAN is because this is one of the last places where people are actually having conversations, even people who disagree.
		Shows that you can have a television network that can try to be objective.
		Thank C-SPAN for all you do.
		It's one of the reasons why this program is so valuable because it does bring people together where dissenting voices are heard, where hard questions are asked, and where people have to answer to them.
		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.
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		There's something for every C-SPAN fan, and every purchase helps support our non-profit operations.
		Shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org.
		Washington Journal continues.
		Joining us now is Freshman Congresswoman Sarah Elfrith, a Democrat from Maryland.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		She represents Maryland's third congressional district.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning to you.
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, John.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I want to talk first about Elon Musk, considering your federal employee-heavy district and his Doge cuts when it comes to the federal government.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So, I imagine you and he haven't agreed on much in your time in Congress, but do you agree with him this week when he described the One Big Beautiful bill as a pork-filled, disgusting abomination?
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		Listen, I wouldn't use that language in a typical day, but here I completely agree with him.
		I have 44,000 federal employees in my district in Maryland, and about two to three times that in contractors.
		And so, we have been disproportionately and acutely impacted by Doge's sledgehammer, reckless sledgehammer.
		I mean, there's been no strategy whatsoever, from what I can tell, as to who should stay and who should go, what services should remain for taxpayers.
		But this week, I think he's hit the nail on the head.
		This was never about fiscal responsibility.
		This was never about fiscal conservatism.
		This was about tax breaks for billionaires at the expense of the most vulnerable in our communities in terms of folks on Medicaid and folks who are hungry and receive snap benefits.
		So, yeah, hell has frozen over.
		I agree with Elon Musk on this one.
unidentified		What role can House Democrats play at this point in the process to influence this bill?
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		The role we're playing, you know, we fought really hard through the night, through two consecutive nights right before the bill was passed in the wee hours of the morning, 7 a.m.
		I think the sun had just come up when we walked out.
		What we are doing is talking to our Republican colleagues.
		I was on a Codell last week, and I spent the entire time trying to make sense of this, trying to understand my colleagues' perspectives in their districts and why they believe it's a big, beautiful bill when I believe it's going to, again, hurt the most vulnerable in my community.
		And, you know, we're going to keep having those old-fashioned conversations.
		That's what used to happen here in Washington.
		It's frankly why I came to Washington, left my job at the state senate in Maryland to come and try to bring some semblance of diplomacy back to this place to have those conversations.
		And that's what I've been doing really since I've got here.
		I came here about 153 very long days ago.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And I want to talk about your work in that time, but let me come back to strange bedfellows for a second.
unidentified		Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Donald Trump, the president, saying on his True Social page that he agreed with her on the need for an elimination of the debt limit.
unidentified		Where do you stand on debt limit?
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		Oh, wow.
		I do not follow the president.
		I'm not even on Truth Social, so I didn't see that one this morning.
		You know, the debt limit is a responsible check on all of us to have those meaningful debates every few years about how we spend taxpayer money.
		And so it's interesting that this president, a Republican, seems to want to just spend freely without regard for that debt limit.
		I happen to disagree with that.
		I come from, before I came to Congress, I mentioned I was in the state Senate.
		I had to balance the budget every year.
		We don't have to do that here, but the way that we handle things of just writing blank checks.
		And traditionally, as you know, it's been Republican presidents who increase our debt as opposed to Democratic presidents.
		So I'm going to disagree with my colleague in the Senate and the president on this one.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Should we have to balance the budget here on Capitol Hill every year?
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		It would be an interesting conversation.
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		It would be very, very difficult to do, but I think it would ground some of our policies more in reality.
unidentified		Let me come back to that 150-some days or so.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We started talking about Doge cuts.
unidentified		What has actually the impact been in your district?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How many federal employees are in your district?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How many lost their jobs over the past five months or so?
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		So, 44,000 direct federal employees, and then again, about two to three times that in contractors and thousands of federal employees.
		I've done 13 town halls in my first almost six months in Congress, and I can't even go to the grocery store, let alone a town hall, without somebody coming up to me begging me to help get their job back.
		We're talking about scientists at NOAA, we're talking about folks who make sure our food is safe at FDA, we're talking about folks at Social Security, U.S. Naval Academy is in my district.
		All of these people have been impacted.
		And again, Elon Musk and the president cannot argue to me how they made these decisions.
		It seemed to be arbitrary, it seemed to be vitriolic without regard for things like national security.
		I have the outskirts of Fort Meade where NSA and Cybercom live.
		So, all of those folks responsible for safety and security of this nation, you know, a lot of them were axed.
		And a lot of them were fired in such a way that really gives me pause in terms of are we truly respecting people who have some of the hardest jobs in our country.
		So, disproportionately impacted in my district.
unidentified		Congresswoman Sarah Elforth is with us until the bottom of the hour at 9:30 a.m. Eastern.
unidentified		Peter, take your phone calls.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's 202-748-8000 for Democrats.
unidentified		Republicans, 202-748-8001, and Independents, 202-748-8002.
		As folks are calling in, you mentioned the U.S. Naval Academy.
		What should viewers know about the Naval Academy and book bans?
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		Well, I also have the privilege of serving on the Board of Visitors for the Naval Academy, and it's literally my backyard at home.
		I thoroughly disagreed with that book ban.
		Now, since then, and that, to be clear, I want folks at home to know, this came from the very top from Secretary P. Texeth.
		And the fact that our Secretary of Defense is personally spending time, energy, and resources thinking about what midshipmen can or cannot read when they have banned Maya Angelou, I know by the Cage Bird Sings, but kept Adolf Hitler's Meying Kampf is ridiculous to me.
		Now, thankfully, cooler heads have prevailed, and most of those books are now back in the library.
		And again, we're training and teaching the future officers and leaders of our military.
		We should be able to trust them to read the books that they feel they should read and prepare for that leadership role.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Plenty of callers for you already.
		This is Dorothy in Baltimore, Maryland.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Hello, John.
		Give me a chance to speak to my Democrat representative.
		She might not be from my state, but she's still a Democrat.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		She's from your state, Dorothy.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Oh, she is?
		Okay, well, I'm from the United States.
		The great state of Maryland.
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		I'm from Annapolis.
unidentified		Oh, wonderful.
		Then you're not too far from me.
		I would like to just give you a piece of advice, and I'm going to ask you a question if John give me a chance.
		Now, I'm messaging when I talk about that.
		The last year and a half of Trump's administration, but y'all never keep telling people about this.
		We had massive shortages of everything.
		We had long food lines.
		We had massive evictions.
		We had to the point that they had to do a moratorium on evictions.
		Massive foreclosures.
		Hospitals completely overrun with people sick with COVID to the point that they didn't even have the gear to wear the healthcare.
		They were trash bags and homemade masks to put on their faces to cover that.
		All the people were dying so fast that they had to storm and freezer trucks.
		This is massive unemployment.
		You all never, the people, the people, the Republicans always say, how was your, the last four years for you when Trump was in, that's what he left.
		That's what Trump left.
		Now, Medicaid, let me get to that.
		When you hear Republicans say able body, they're going to take able body off of Medicaid.
		I want you, but they would look up the meaning of able body.
		I'm going to give it to you.
		Fit, strong, healthy, not physically disabled.
		They're not even using Medicaid if they have it because they're not sick.
		The only way they can take that $850 billion that they're talking about is from the seniors, the disabled, and the sick, because those people that they're saying they're going to do it are not sick.
		They don't have no health care from it.
		Dorothy, let me get the Congresswoman to jump in on Medicaid and Trump 1.
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, Dorothy, I completely agree with you.
		And certainly the shortages of almost everything we're going to see in this country are only going to be worsened by the president's laxadaisical tariff strategy.
		So I completely agree with you.
		And we're talking about that as House Democrats.
		And then on Medicaid, you've hit the nail on the head.
		You know, Medicaid recipients aren't necessarily what people don't look like people think they look like.
		We're talking about disproportionate children, seniors, folks with disabilities.
		And when we've had these work requirements in the few southern states that have implemented them, we have seen drastic cuts to health coverage for those folks.
		And let's be clear, it's not like those folks aren't going to get sick and go to the hospital.
		And our hospitals and the rest of taxpayers are going to have to fund what's called uncompensated care.
		We call that here in Maryland.
		So one way or another, I think it's the best fiscal, most fiscally responsible for us to offset the cost of health coverage for the most vulnerable in our communities.
		I completely agree.
unidentified		Out to the Golden State.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Miyoshi in Beverly Hills, Independent.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Hi, Sarah.
		I have a huge treaty request of you.
		I really, really hope that you hear what a lot of us are afraid of.
		How Trump has dismantled the federal government, pulled back entitlements for us, the working class.
		We're going to go hungry.
		If you guys could speak in terms of the future of what's going to happen a year, two years down the road, take it case in point.
		Farmers, if farmers can't sell their crops to Canada overseas, it's just going to rot.
		So what are we going to eat?
		They don't have the help to pick their crops.
		That's going to be a very dangerous, critical situation for us down the road.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Congresswoman.
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		I completely agree, just taking the farmer's example, when there's not a single loan officer within a 500-mile radius of a small farm in the middle of the country.
		You know, that's of no help to food production here in this nation.
		I just spoke on the floor yesterday about a program out of USDA that the president has cut.
		It was, you know, it's hard, I'm hard-pressed to think of a win-win-win in terms of public policy, but this program literally connected food banks, schools, and local farms.
		And it's just such a beautiful idea of how we feed children and, again, folks who are vulnerable and can't put food on the table, and connecting them to local farms so we have that through line in the market.
		And yet the president cut that.
		And that's just one example of what I think is just a short-sighted cut.
		But to your point, you know, I represent a lot of folks who work at Social Security.
		The president likes to talk all day long.
		He's not going to cut that benefit.
		But if you're cutting 7,000 employees of Social Security, when there's no one left in HR or IT, there's no one left to answer the phone, when he's closing down field offices across this country and phone lines are jammed, that's a de facto cut to benefits.
		I've been talking about it quite a bit because I have so many federal employees in my district.
		We're going to see the cascading impacts of this divestment in public services for taxpayers, not just years down the line, but my fear is generations down the line.
		Why would any young people want to go into public service if they're going to be treated like this, especially in those really hard to fill public service positions like cybersecurity where we're competing with the private sector?
		I mean, this is incredibly short-sighted, I agree.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Less than 15 minutes left with Congresswoman Sarah Elfrith.
unidentified		The committees that she's serving on in her freshman term in Congress include the Natural Resources Committees and Armed Services Committee on Armed Services.
unidentified		We began our program today in the wake of that hearing yesterday, asking viewers what they thought of the Trump administration's impact so far in these first five months or so on the military and military readiness.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How would you answer that question?
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		You know, we had the Secretary of the Army in front of us yesterday.
		We had an in-depth conversation.
		We talked a lot about this parade for the president's birthday that I just think is an incredible waste of money.
		The good news is that recruitment is up, which is great, but it's also been up for two years.
		And we've had a strategy and my colleagues on that committee have been really thoughtful about how do we incentivize people to join armed services, but we also have a quality of life challenge.
		We also have a real problem when, you know, I've toured, gosh, probably, you know, eight or ten different military installations just in my first six months on the committee.
		And the challenges I see at mess halls, in rec rooms, in housing, childcare for our service members, we have to do a much better job, not just at recruiting, but retaining.
		And that's a readiness issue.
		Also a readiness issue is the very real threat of, I know the president doesn't believe in it, but climate change.
		I represent, again, the U.S. Naval Academy.
		Our friends down in Norfolk, Virginia, incredibly susceptible to sea level rise in bases that have billions of dollars of taxpayer infrastructure, and yet this president doesn't believe that they could go underwater.
		And so I'm very concerned about readiness from that perspective.
		I talk a lot about energy efficiency and resilience on our bases, the fact that they should be as energy independent as possible so they're not relying on the grid from 50 different states.
		We have a lot of challenges when it comes to readiness.
		I'm not convinced the president's focus on lethality accurately or strategically thinks through readiness, particularly as it relates to, well, we haven't even talked about Russia yet, but certainly China.
		I'd love to talk about Russia, John, if we have time, because I don't think he's right on that one at all.
unidentified		What do you think the most likely outcome here is in the war between Russia and Ukraine?
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		You know, I hope better angels prevail.
		I'm really proud to be on Armed Services, where we have a bipartisan commitment to the people of Ukraine, to standing with our Democratic allies and standing against — I have one colleague on the committee who never refers to Putin as Putin.
		He calls him war criminal Putin, and I think it's just, he's a Republican and I love it every time he says it.
		We have a bipartisan commitment on that committee to supporting Ukraine.
		I'm really, I mean, disappointed doesn't even begin to explain my thoughts on how the president has approached Zelensky or Putin here.
		I mean, our role is to help bring peace, but not at the expense of asking our Democratic allies to give more than they should.
		And his approach to Putin is disturbing.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What should Ukraine give?
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		What should Ukraine give?
		Ukraine should get back the territory that it's lost.
		I mean, let's be clear.
		They were attacked without provocation.
		They have lost untold civilian lives in this fight for their own independence and ability to self-govern.
		And I think it's really clear that if Putin gets an inch, he's going to take a mile.
		I mean, he's not going to stop with Ukraine.
		And I think that's something I'm not quite sure the president appreciates.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Springfield, Virginia, Chris, Democrat, good morning.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for waiting.
unidentified		Hi, Congresswoman.
		I'm a neighbor, I guess, since you're in Annapolis.
		I'm concerned.
		I'm a federal employee that has worked for the federal government for 35 years.
		continuously.
		Actually, I did some work before that too for the federal government under contract.
		But my job was rift in a mass rift this year.
		And I've been on administrative leave since March, late March, not doing my job.
		Okay, so the government is paying for me not to do my job and now it's going to get extended because of injunctions.
		And at a certain point, I really feel like I need to report what I consider waste.
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		I mean, they talk about waste, fraud, and abuse.
		I mean, this is extremely inefficient.
		We have statutorily required requirements.
		We have Congress, you know, reporting to Congress that we're supposed to do every year that can't be done because they fired virtually all of us.
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
unidentified		And now, what, you know, I'm just like left.
unidentified		We're all left wondering how this is all going to play out.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Chris, do you mind me asking what agency that you work for?
unidentified		I kind of don't want to say I'm actually calling under a pseudonym because of this whole not being resolved crisis.
unidentified		But just to let you know, I work in statistics and mathematics.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Gotcha.
unidentified		I'm like a mathematician.
		I have graduate degrees and everything.
		I got extra schooling to continue to do my job as best as I could do.
		I spent five more years at the University of Maryland, for instance.
		So, Mike, my point about all of this, and I keep trying to bring this up, is I just don't see that this makes any sense.
		Yeah.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Well, Congressman, let me let you jump in.
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		Well, first of all, I know your name's not Chris, but let me just thank you, and I know that you're not hearing that at all from this White House, but thank you for your decades of public service.
		I know I can tell that you don't, no one really does it for the money.
		You do it because you truly believe in public service, and the fact that you went on to get more education to serve the American people is incredible.
		So first of all, thank you.
		Second of all, I could not agree with you more.
		The fact that tens of thousands of federal employees are just sitting at home on administrative leave, not doing their jobs, not delivering services to the American people, is an abomination and a complete waste of taxpayer dollars.
		And I don't quite understand why my Republican colleagues also don't see it that way.
		And again, just the nonsensical, unstrategic way the president has gone about it.
		I'm sure, Chris, you've also seen it at NOAA when they fired so many people in the National Weather Service and now frantically trying to rehire people who are not necessarily going to be as qualified as the folks that they fired at the beginning of hurricane season, which impacts you and I.
		This could be catastrophic.
		And it's, again, it's an abomination.
unidentified		Pasadena, Maryland, I think, is in your congressional.
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		It is.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Debbie is on the line for Republicans.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Debbie, you're on with your Congresswoman.
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Debbie.
unidentified		Hello, how are you?
		Good.
		You said something, excuse me, about Trump and his parade.
		Wasn't that parade set up long before Trump got back in office?
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		I do not believe so.
		It's going to be the Army's 250th anniversary.
		I believe it's next week or the week following.
		It also just happens to coincide somehow with the president's birthday.
		And so, no, there's a plan for a military parade that's going to cost, I believe, upwards of $10 million and bringing in assets from across this nation into Washington.
		And, you know, I just don't see how that's a good use of taxpayer dollars.
unidentified		Some estimates have it as $25 to $45 million, depending on the parade and the cleanup.
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
unidentified		Jay, Fort Wayne, Indiana.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Congresswoman, thank you for C-SPAN.
		Good morning, Congresswoman.
		Thank you for C-SPAN.
		Thank you for being around this morning.
		I have a really quick story to tell you.
		I'm a TV cameraman.
		I travel all over for mostly live sports events.
		One of the events I work every year is the National Firefighters Memorial in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
		Yep.
		As you know, that is the site of the National Fighting Academy where firefighting units all over the country are eligible, come free charge.
		They just have to pay their own travel, and they go and they get the most advanced firefighting techniques taught to them for free.
		There's also the National Emergency Management Center where FEMA trains its people.
		And those, as you know, shut down because of Doge with no warning.
		They took online classes only from now on, which you can't teach firefighters online for crying out loud.
		And what really got me, and I'm having a hard time with this, at the Athenian Memorial, I was sat down for a meal with a bunch of volunteers who are there as escorts for the family.
		Now, this memorial brings families of fallen firefighters to Emmitsburg, Maryland for this service.
		Every year, they receive a flag and are paid tribute by these firefighters.
		It's a very moving ceremony.
		And I got sat with these guys for lunch.
		This guy told me his story.
		I told him.
		I was like, hey, it's sad this thing is shut down.
		He's like, well, yeah.
		A few weeks ago, he's a firefighter investigator.
		He told me they had fired his friend with decades of experience.
		His boss had a heart attack and died.
		Two weeks before he died, he went to the doctor because his wife said, hey, I've got to go to the doctor.
		You're waking up in the middle of the night.
		You can't breathe.
		And you got to go to the doctor.
		Damn, I'm running short on time with the Congresswoman, and I want to make sure I get to your question.
		I just want to make, are these schools getting back open?
		And what are we going to do for this guy?
		They killed his boss.
		They fired his trainer, and then they sent him off somewhere.
		And Congressman, really quick, I know it's short at time.
		What you said about them treating public servants like this, what they said to these people, you need to do something else.
		You need to do something better with your life.
		That is no way to treat firefighters and emergency workers and all the good people in Emmitsburg, Maryland at that academy that were doing that good work.
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		I couldn't agree with you more.
		And one of my first speeches when I got to Congress, because I was also visited by my firefighters in Maryland who came to me incredibly concerned.
		And you know, you started talking about this, the five-person investigative panel who literally, they spend their careers investigating every line of duty death of every firefighter in this nation and take, you know, sometimes years to build a report that has tangible, real-world examples of ways that firefighters can better improve the way that they respond, the way they run into burning buildings.
		It has saved lives in Maryland.
		And Doge cut that board from five to three, to two, forgive me.
		And then the president's skinny budget sought to eliminate it entirely.
		I have been fighting.
unidentified		Thank you so much for bringing this up.
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		I talk about it at every town hall.
		This five-person board that saves countless lives in this country.
		I gave that floor speech and we have a motto in my office, make it more than just a floor speech.
		I'm leading an effort to try to reinstate that five-person investigative group because again, to your point, there are some things that need to be national.
		What's lost in this whole Doge conversation is the public good.
		I don't think Elon Musk knows what public good is, but to me, it's treating our first responders who save lives and run into burning buildings with the respect that they deserve.
		They need to be reinstated, and frankly, that group needs to be doubled or tripled to meet the moment and meet the need for the American people.
unidentified		Thank you so much for bringing this up.
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		I'm also a little lit up about it, too.
unidentified		Just a minute or two left.
		Let me try to get in.
		Terry in Rogers, Minnesota Republican line.
		Good morning.
		Good morning.
		Say, Sarah, do you support sending American troops to Ukraine to stop them from going all through Europe?
		And do you think if Putin went into Europe, nuclear weapons would be used?
		Of course they're not going into Europe.
		I also wonder, Sarah, when you mention about the federal employees being fired, if you get a federal job, does that guarantee you a lifetime job then that you can't ever fire them?
		Is that what you're saying?
		Let me give you the final two minutes, Congresswoman.
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I don't think I ever said that.
		So let me rephrase what I said was that we should be strategic about how we approach our federal workforce.
		I don't think any Democrat on the Hill is here to defend that, you know, you get a job out of college and you deserve to be there until retirement.
		We are here to say that services need to be delivered to the American people that you are paying for as a taxpayer.
		And that's not happening right now because of the lack of strategy and thoughtfulness and respect being delivered from Doge.
		So I'm not sure I said what you think I said.
		My point here was that as a taxpayer, you and I deserve to have certain services delivered for us.
		Those services are not being delivered under this lack of strategy.
		And that's what deeply, deeply concerns me.
		To your point about Ukraine, I'm not sure what would stop Putin from encroaching further and further into Europe if Ukraine hadn't put up and isn't putting up such an incredible fight.
		I mean, the fact that civilians have been engaged in this, the fact that Zelensky is, you know, pulling and holding together all of the allies to support this effort again for self-governance, it is an incredible feat and deserves, again, as a Democratic ally, deserves the American support.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Congresswoman Sarah Elfrith is in her first district serving the 3rd District of Maryland, a Democrat out of central Maryland.
unidentified		And we appreciate your time on the Washington Journal.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We'll see you again down the road.
sarah elfreth ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, John.
unidentified		Less than 30 minutes left in our program.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		In that time, it'll be open forum.
unidentified		Any phone call that you want on any political issue or any public policy issue, go ahead and start calling in now, and we will get to your calls right after the break.
		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.
chuck grassley ▲ ● ▼		Thanks to C-SPAN 2, 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.
amy klobuchar ▲ ● ▼		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.
chuck grassley ▲ ● ▼		C-SPAN does not receive one penny of taxpayer dollars.
chuck grassley ▲ ● ▼		It's funded primarily from satellite and cable providers.
amy klobuchar ▲ ● ▼		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.
		Washington Journal continues.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Here's what's going on on Capitol Hill today.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		In about 25 minutes from now, both the House and the Senate will reconvene.
unidentified		You can watch House proceedings, of course, here on C-SPAN, the Senate on C-SPAN 2.
		On C-SPAN 3 at 11 a.m. this morning, 11 a.m. Eastern Time, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick comes to Capitol Hill to testify on his department's 2026 budget request.
		He'll be before a House Appropriations Subcommittee again on C-SPAN 3 at 11 a.m., also on c-SPAN.org and the free C-SPANNOW video app.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This afternoon, 2 p.m. Eastern, Senator Chris Murphy will discuss the Trump administration's foreign policy and his view on American leadership in the world.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The Connecticut Democrat will sit down with Neera Tandon of the Center for American Progress live at 2 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN3, also C-SPAN.org, and the free C-SPAN Now video app.
unidentified		And for the next 25 minutes, it's open forum here on the Washington Journal.
		Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, now is your time to call in, ending our program as we often do with your phone calls.
		This is Bill in Alabama up first, Independent.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Bill, thanks for waiting.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I have a couple of questions that I was hoping one of the congress people could answer, but since they're gone, we spent billions of dollars in the last administration on the infrastructure plan that was going to bring high-speed internet to rural areas.
		Every house in rural areas was going to have high-speed internet.
		I live in rural Alabama.
		Don't have high-speed internet.
		There's no plans on getting it here.
		I was just wondering with all the money that was spent, how much of rural country in America has received high-speed internet, and what are the plans for having it to all the places that we were told with all the money we spent on getting high-speed internet to rule out to rural areas.
		Bill, thanks for that.
		Maybe a topic for a future segment of the Washington Journal.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I appreciate that.
unidentified		This is David in Vandalia, Ohio.
		Democrat, good morning.
		Good morning.
		That was a good question that gentleman just had.
		I just got to say here, I think Congress needs to stop worrying about making tax cuts permanent and start working on loopholes in the tax codes to help raise some taxes.
		If not, they need to actually raise taxes on the rich instead of taking all this stuff from the poor.
		I understand people don't like people getting Medicaid and all this, but there's not that much fraud.
		I don't believe in Medicaid.
		David, is there a loophole that particularly gets under your skin?
		Just me.
		I can't name a specific one, but I'm sure there's a lot of, you know, if you got this business or that business, plus they need to do for the utilities, gas and oil, the lands are going to be given to the oil companies.
		How much of that royalty will come back to the American people from all that gas and oil going to be taken?
		That's David in the Buckeye State to the volunteer state, Dandridge, Tennessee.
		Teresa, Republican.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I am a MAGA conservative who does not agree with Trump's big beautiful bill.
		I don't like, there's a lot I don't like about it.
		And I agree with Elon Musk.
		And one of it's dirty.
		It's them behind closed doors, you know, giving every senator in the world a kickback and a secret deal here, so he'll vote for that.
		I mean, it's just so dirty.
		You know, it's like when Republicans, when Democrats write a bill.
		But, you know, the main part is the Republicans don't realize how out of touch they are with their voters exactly the same way Democrats were in 2024.
		They think, you know, that we agree just because it's got a little tax break for people making over $450,000.
		It really don't affect someone like me who makes $150,000.
		It's really not that much, you know.
		Teresa, you say that, I'm sorry.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you say the lawmakers are out of touch in coming up with this bill?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you think Donald Trump is out of touch?
unidentified		Absolutely.
		This is the first thing that's really showed me the truth of how Donald Trump is.
		I mean, he used Elon Musk for $270 million to help him get elected.
		And I think Elon Musk is part of the main reason he did get elected.
		Then, too, you know, the lawmakers won't codify none of the cuts.
		Republicans won't codify anything.
		You know, and it's just that the whole party is out of touch with what we sent Donald Trump there to do.
		And it wasn't add two to five trillion dollars to the deficit.
		He's not who he said he was.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Teresa, what do you think this all means for the midterm elections?
unidentified		I think it means if they don't change that bill, I didn't vote for a Republican for Senate or House to begin with in 2024.
		I'm done with the House and the Senate Republicans.
		I voted for Trump.
		I didn't vote for them.
		And I can guarantee you we're not going to vote for them again.
		We were perfect.
		We were set up to stop Democrats from ever holding office again at the presidency or the House or Senate.
		But they blew it.
		They blew it.
		The Republican Do-Nothing Party blew it.
		I mean, just completely.
		I still love Trump.
		I like him.
		I think he's done a lot of great things and everything.
		But he's not standing up to these Republicans that's not wanting to pass his agenda.
		But the Big Beautiful bill is just, and I don't like the tax on tips.
		You know, that's picking winners and losers.
		And I just don't like nothing about it.
		And I stand with Elon Musk to kill the bill.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Teresa in Tennessee to John Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, Independent.
		Good morning.
		It's Open Forum.
unidentified		Good morning, John.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		I've got three issues here.
		Earlier in the first open forum, one of the speakers talked about how we need to cut prices need to come down and wages need to go up.
		Well, that's what Biden tried to do and what caused inflation.
		I mean, it's common sense.
		If prices increase, or I mean, I'm sorry, when wages increase, prices are going to go up because that's just the natural, it's common sense.
		You know, I mean, it's McDonald's was never meant to be a full-time job to make house payments and car payments.
		It was supposed to be an initial job when you get out of high school or whoever and graduate to learn some skills and show up for work on time and be responsible and that type of thing.
		And one of the other things I had was I was watching a couple of programs yesterday on MSNBC, and the people on a couple of ladies on the one program, they talked about the big beautiful bill and how the Republicans have to own this bill because they dropped it eight days beforehand and 1,100 pages.
		How are you supposed to read it?
		And I'm like, well, they're either gaslighting us, which I believe is what they're doing, or they're just, they're being hypocrites.
		Did everybody forget what Nancy Pelosi said?
		We have to read the bill or we have to pass the bill before we find out what's in it.
		So the Democrats did the same thing.
		I agree with the previous caller, too, that, you know what, it's both sides.
		Being independent, both Republicans and the Democrats, they do these big bills.
		I mean, they should do separate, several single, like 10, 20-page bills and just pass them.
		I'm sick and tired of this huge government thing, to be honest with you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We'll take your points out of Wisconsin and head to California.
unidentified		Will is in Cyprus, Republican.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		All right, good morning.
		How are you?
		Doing well.
		Having a positive day today.
		I'd like to talk a little bit about something other than these fear-mongering, negative calls about the bill.
		Basically, they say that this is going to add to the deficit.
		It will actually take away $1.4 trillion from the deficit in the long run.
		So people who are fear-mongering about it's going to cut Medicaid and Medicare, they are FOS, if you know what I mean.
		And let me say a couple things, please.
		It has been really bothering me.
		I've been watching all week.
		Not one person is calling in about an illegal alien setting Americans on fire in Colorado.
		That's really shocking.
		Our news media is doing a real bang-up job on getting the stories to our people.
		Those are the important stories.
		Here's another major story.
		Biden's cognitive decline and the auto pen that is being used, was being used.
		I find that the most incredible scandal in the history of our country, and no one's even really talking about it.
		They don't even want to mention it.
		And I know you've got your finger on the button.
		You're about to disconnect me, but I just can't believe the negative against our president, the negative stuff in your open forum.
		You never, even Republican callers, they don't even call in to be positive and support our president when we had a 50, pretty much 50-50 down the line election.
		It's crazy.
		And the media are to blame.
		We have no positive news about our president.
		It's really tough to deal with each other.
		And I have a heart.
		Where do you go for your news?
		Well, I try to watch more conservative news.
		News Nation is doing a really good job.
		They have people on from, in fact, Chris Cuomo, who was, I guess, tossed out by the left, is now on NewsNation.
		He reports, and he gives pretty much a fact-based, unbiased opinion now.
		I'm not promoting him.
		I'm not promoting that channel.
		I just say that that's a step in the right direction.
		Fox News is pretty much telling what's happening, but they seem to come off very biased.
		And I can see why the left would say, oh, they're all lies.
		They're all lies.
		Because it's unbelievable some of the news that's coming from there.
		It's not unbelievable.
		It's really happening, but it's just not being reported on any of the other stations.
		That's Will in California.
		Lewis is in Salisbury, North Carolina.
		Democrat, good morning.
		Good morning, C-SPAN.
		Look, you know, this bill that the senators now have to go through, if they don't think of their constituents, then they know what they have to do, the constituents, the Republicans, the MAGA, the GOP.
		But, you know, I hear a lot of people saying that Biden was, we were going into a recession.
		And you can look at last year, December, where all those people were shopping.
		You guys, C-SPAN, you have the total of one of the, it was one of the greatest for the merchant and everything for PEFCO.
		They were buying products left and right.
		But let me let the people know something about the Democrats because you got a lot of people who was Democrat and went to Republic because of Trump.
		The Democrats gave the white women the first time to vote.
		The Democrats also gave Social Security to American people.
		The Democrats also went on and put FEMA in the play and USAID.
		The Democrat also gave a surplus to America.
		The Democrat also gave an ACA for America, for the people.
		The Democrat also gave the PAC Act, gave all the infrastructure, gave things to people, to people.
		And the Republicans are taking everything away that we march for.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Lewis.
		This is Paul in New Fairfield, Connecticut, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you, John, for taking my call.
		I want to talk about Vladimir Putin.
		I noticed that the president had a call with Vladimir Putin yesterday, and Vladimir Putin let him know that he was going to attack Ukraine in retaliation for their drone strikes.
		And I really kind of wonder.
		I would have loved to have heard his response to that.
		I find it incredible that the President of the United States is allowing this to continue to occur.
		I know he says he's a peacemaker, but there's no way you're going to stop Vladimir Putin without some kind of really firm response.
		Now, what should that firm response be?
		It doesn't have to be military.
		There's a bill in the Senate.
		I believe it has 80 co-signers to start to hit the nations that are buying the Russian oil.
		That's what must be done.
		You have to hit him economically, and I hope that President Trump does that.
		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		To the Silver State, this is Terry in the Lakes, Republican.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		This is Terry Davis.
unidentified		And Trump, in my opinion, he's doing a really good job.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		For that, Margaret in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Could I remind everyone to actually read out loud the Declaration of Independence and what the Revolutionary War was fought over?
		And I just want to remind you of the first sentence.
		He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, which is happening.
		And for depriving us of benefit of trial by jury, that just happened.
		And so I think if you read the Declaration of Independence, people should be reminded about what our country was founded upon.
		And to address some of the previous callers about Donald Trump, he commuted a sentence of a man named Philip Esformes.
		$1.3 billion.
		This man defrauded our government through Medicare fraud through nursing homes in the state of Florida of $1.3 billion, B billion dollars.
		And Donald Trump commuted his sentence.
		The man was recently arrested for domestic violence charges.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Margaret, you still there?
unidentified		She went and paid $100 million to have her son get out of jail free.
		And when anybody referred to 50-50, you know, 50% of the people voted for Donald Trump, that is not accurate.
		That is not accurate because 36.2% of eligible voters did not vote at all.
		So that's all I have to say.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Margaret in Pennsylvania.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Patricia in North Dakota.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning.
		I'm just wanting to know more about our ID system.
		Like we have the real ID, and I've heard our system has been defrauded in a lot of ways because people have fake IDs.
		Is there any way to verify our ID?
		Does it have a chip in it?
		And why does Mexico have a fingerprint on theirs and we can't have like a fingerprint on ours to make sure that it's verified?
		I just don't see what good is an ID if there's fake IDs in the system and they can't tell the difference.
		So I'd just like to know more about it.
		Thanks.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Patricia in North Dakota.
		Less than 10 minutes left before the House comes in.
		We'll, of course, take you there when they do come in for gavel-gavel coverage here on C-SPAN.
		More of your phone calls, open forum 202-748-8000 for Democrats to call in 202-748-8001 for Republicans.
unidentified		Independence, it's 202-748-8002.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Here's a story from the front page of today's Washington Times, the lead graph saying things are so bad for Democrats that President Biden's press secretary has quit the party.
		Speaking of former White House Press Secretary Corine Jean-Pierre, her shock announcement they write was paired with a sneak preview of her new book coming in October about her decision to abandon the party and become an independent.
		The publisher said the book will provide Corine Jean-Pierre's, quote, revelatory assessment of America's broken two-party system and detail the three weeks last summer that preceded Mr. Biden's withdrawal from the 2024 race and the, quote, betrayal by the Democratic Party that led to his decision.
unidentified		A story that made the front page of the Washington Times today.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		If you want to see what the cover of Corine Jean-Pierre's new book is supposed to look like, this is from the publisher's page, an image of her book, Independent, A Look Inside a Broken White House Outside the Party Lines.
unidentified		Back to your calls.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Ron in Orlando, Republican.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning, sir.
		So I am a 60-year-old man, grew up in Louisiana and working here in Florida, but I also own a manufacturing plant where I manufacture aluminum doors and windows in Costa Rica, and I own a real estate business.
		The thing that saddens me is because my parents moved to the Americas after World War II because of what, well, basically, this was the play as immigrants.
		They came here and I'm first generation.
		But I'm seeing what my mom and dad used to tell me about, about the fascism that we saw with the Nazis and in Italy and Spain.
		And I hate to see it, but I think a lot of us due to lack of education are ignorant to the past.
		And I was taught to always look to the past because if you don't, it will repeat itself.
		And sadly, what I see Trump is doing, and I am a registered Republican, unfortunately, I did not vote for the first time in my life for him because he's scared me for what he's doing.
		And basically what he's doing right now.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Did you vote for him in 2016 or 2020?
unidentified		No, I'll tell you why.
		Because of what my family did, we were in the hotel business, and my family had done business with Trump.
		We're talking 30, 40 years ago, and they didn't trust him.
		So my dad always told me to get, and at that time, he was a Democrat.
		And this was up in New York.
		My dad at that time had told me, do not trust this man.
		Don't ever do business with this man.
		So again, as a grown man, I had always had a bias against him, and I won't deny that.
		But I was hoping, because I'm more of a centrist, and what I mean by that, I think of, I look at as a business owner and all the, oh, I own three companies.
		I look at what's good for the country, and usually what's good for the country is beneficial to me.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And Ron, those three companies, aluminum, real estate, and what's the third?
unidentified		The third company is basically, well, so we do construction.
		We do real estate sales.
		We working with international investment coming to the U.S. to buy properties in the U.S.
		And we develop properties in Costa Rica.
		And then my manufacturing company is in Guatemala, which we ship windows and aluminum doors to the U.S.
		And the reason we had to do that because of the cost, which is competitive.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Which business of those three is doing the best right now?
unidentified		The real estate side is doing the best in Central America, but it's getting smaller because most of we don't have funding in Costa Rica.
		Everything is cash fires.
		Because of what's happening, my clientele are being affected because of what's happening in the markets because they're so volatile that they're now not that they're not able to, but they're not looking to liquidate any assets to where the market is right now to move them to a foreign country to buy properties to retire in.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Ron, thanks for talking about it out of Orlando, Florida.
unidentified		Just a couple minutes before the House comes in.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Rachel in Baltimore, Maryland, Independent.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Yeah, hi, good morning.
		I am actually calling in reference to the gentleman a few callers back talking about big stories that the media is not covering, referencing Joe Biden, Autopen, cognitive decline, you know, six months and more in our past.
		So, in reference to the current administration, how about Trump's cognitive decline?
		When you're posting on social media about Biden being assassinated in 2020 and replaced by a robot, that raises some concerns.
		Also, the Alien Enemies Act.
		Trump said to reporters several weeks ago that he never signed anything invoking the Alien Enemies Act.
		So, was that an AutoPen?
		Did he, who signed that?
		I'd like to know.
		That's it.
		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's Rachel in Baltimore.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Nancy in Florida, Republican.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning, gentlemen.
		Listening to this show today, very, very good as usual.
		I'd like to respond to the caller in the first open forum, Steve in New Jersey, I believe was Jewish and afraid to even show his religion in public.
		I pray for this, and it's very upsetting to me what's going on, especially in Colorado with the burning of the Jewish people and our media covering their concern about the Egyptian family possibly being deported.
		And I'd like to see more concern and more prayer for our Jewish Americans here.
		That's it.
		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Nancy in Florida.
		See if we can get in.
		Nancy in Connecticut, Democrat.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Hi.
		Yes.
		Hi, good morning.
		The Alabama man who called in asking why the high-speed internet bill under Biden is not in effect.
		Well, sir, if you're listening, the reason you don't have it in Alabama is because Trump announced his intention to end it.
		He said it was racist, unconstitutional, and a woke handout, whatever that means, I don't know.
		But, sir, you should be calling your Republican representative to speak out.

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