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Reporter Steph Kite on members of Congress receiving security briefings following the Minnesota lawmaker shootings. | |
| And Migration Policy Institute's Doris Meisner on the impact of the Trump administration's ICE workplace raids and how immigrant workers' employment eligibility is verified. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal is next. | ||
| Join the conversation for Wednesday, June 18th. | ||
| Yesterday, President Trump met with top national security advisors in the situation room at the White House amid the ongoing conflict between Iran and Israel. | ||
| And this morning, there are growing signs that the U.S. could enter the conflict with officials saying President Trump is considering a range of options, including a possible strike against Iran. | ||
| To start today's program, we're asking you, should the U.S. take a more direct role in the Israel-Iran conflict? | ||
| Here are the lines. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| We also have a line for active and former military. | ||
| You can call in at 202-748-8003. | ||
| You can text your comments to that same number, 202-748-8003. | ||
| Be sure to include your name and city. | ||
| You can also post a question or comment on Facebook at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Good morning, and thank you for being with us. | ||
| We'll get to your calls and comments in just a few moments, but wanted to start with a look at the headlines from some of the major newspapers this morning on what we were talking about for this first hour. | ||
| This in the New York Times, Trump seeks surrender by Iran as he considers attack on nuclear site. | ||
| The Wall Street Journal says Trump weighs possible strike on Iran. | ||
| The Washington Post, Trump weighs joining assault on Iran. | ||
| And in the Washington Examiner, the headline, Decision-Making on Iran, tests Trump's leadership. | ||
| There were more strikes between the two countries overnight. | ||
| This is the headline from the Associated Press. | ||
| New Israeli strikes hit Tehran as Iran warns that U.S. involvement would risk all-out war. | ||
| It says that Israeli warplanes pounded Iran's capital overnight and into Wednesday as Iran launched a small barrage of missiles at Israel with no reports of casualty. | ||
| An Iranian official warned Wednesday that any U.S. intervention in the conflict would risk, quote, all-out war. | ||
| That is our topic for the first hour. | ||
| It was something, it's something that members of Congress are also talking about. | ||
| It was yesterday that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, speaking with reporters, was asked about potential U.S. involvement. | ||
| Here is his remarks. | ||
| Does the Trump administration need to seek authorization from Congress if they choose to strike Iran? | ||
| Well, I mean, I think right now the presence within his authorities, he obviously has a lot of authority as commander-in-chief to respond to incidents that happen around the world. | ||
| Obviously, we have a lot of military installations, bases, military personnel in the region right now. | ||
| And so I think he's perfectly within his right to do what he's done so far. | ||
| And obviously, I think they're giving analysis to what may happen next in that theater. | ||
| But we want to ensure that there is a good outcome there, hopefully a peaceful outcome. | ||
| And I think the president's made it abundantly clear to the Iranians that he would like to be part of helping negotiate a deal that would end their nuclear program. | ||
| One way or the other, they've got to end their nuclear program. | ||
| That's the end state of what happens with this. | ||
| And I think the president is very committed to that objective. | ||
|
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Would you allow, under those circumstances, would you then allow a war powers resolution to come to the floor so that Congress would have the authority if a strike were to occur if the administration went that done? | |
| I think right now, I think we're getting the cart ahead of the horse here. | ||
| This is something that's happened in the last few days. | ||
| I think the president is perfectly within his authority in the steps that he has taken. | ||
| You know, clearly, if this thing were to extend for some period of time, there could be a more fulsome discussion about what the role of Congress should be and whether or not we need to take action. | ||
| But I think right now, let's hope and pray for the best outcome, the best solution. | ||
| And in my view, that would be Iran coming to the negotiating table and agreeing to end their nuclear program. | ||
| More from the Associated Press says that Trump demanded, quote, unconditional surrender in a post on social media Tuesday and warned Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, that the U.S. knows where he's hiding, but that there was no plans to kill him, quote, at least not for now. | ||
| Says Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about the evolving situation over the phone on Tuesday, according to a White House official. | ||
| Bahraini, the Iranian ambassador, said Trump's remarks were, quote, completely unwarranted and very hostile, and that Iran could not ignore them. | ||
| He said that Iranian authorities were vigilant about the comments and would decide if the U.S. crossed any lines. | ||
| Once the red line is crossed, the response will come. | ||
| Our topic for this first hour: asking, should the U.S. take a more direct role in the Israel-Iran conflict? | ||
| We'll start with Fritz in Tennessee, lying for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Fritz. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I don't think we should be involved at all. | ||
| Israel started this war. | ||
| Israel should fight it. | ||
| No weapons should be given to them. | ||
| No help. | ||
| No money. | ||
| No nothing. | ||
| But I think that the opposite's going to happen. | ||
| Trump's all in on this. | ||
| He's sending the Nimitz. | ||
| It's an old ship that's about to be decommissioned. | ||
| He's going to put it in the Persian Gulf where it can be sunk either by friendly fire or by the Iranians and echoes of the USS liberty. | ||
| Fritz, what are your thoughts on previous U.S. involvement in conflicts in the Middle East? | ||
|
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It's none of our business. | |
| You know, they act like we're doing it for oil. | ||
| That's BS, because if we need oil from them, they're going to sell it to us no matter what regime's in there. | ||
| We should just be peaceful, trade with everybody, and leave people alone. | ||
| That was Fritz in Tennessee. | ||
| DJ in Georgia, lying for independence. | ||
| Good morning, DJ. | ||
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unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I'm calling to say that we should stay out of it. | ||
| We need to stop supporting people that just want to kill and destroy. | ||
| We've had enough of that. | ||
| And we need to just stop it and try to seek peace, not killing people. | ||
| DJ, do you have any concerns about the nuclear implications that are there in the Middle East, Iran's capabilities? | ||
|
unidentified
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No, I don't. | |
| You know, we overthrew their government in 1953, and we've been trying to destroy them ever since through giving them bad reputations. | ||
| And the same as we do with other countries that we want to take over, we need to leave them alone. | ||
| That was DJ in Georgia. | ||
| Sid in Pennsylvania, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Sid. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| These folks have no clue as to what's going on. | ||
| The U.S. should enter this war and end this conflict as soon as possible by supporting Israel. | ||
| Iran, under no circumstances, can have a nuclear weapon. | ||
| They're going to use it against the Saudis. | ||
| They're going to use it against Israel. | ||
| There's also another factor that's affecting this. | ||
| They're talking about an Israel-India alliance, and this war could spread to Pakistan. | ||
| That's why the Pakistani Army General is here in the United States right now, and he'll be meeting with President Trump this afternoon. | ||
| So there is another, the U.S. should enter this war and prevent any further escalation in the region. | ||
| That was Sid in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Let's hear from Charles in Dallas, lying for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Charles. | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm kind of concerned. | |
| I thought that if you had a nuclear weapon, that you wouldn't have to worry about anybody bothering you. | ||
| And Israel does have nuclear weapons. | ||
| So what is the difference between Iran having it having one? | ||
| If we read the Bible, you know, they are known for destroying whole civilizations because God had told them to. | ||
| But they got a weapon. | ||
| So shouldn't we be worried about what they're going to do with their nuclear weapons? | ||
| I just think we need to look at this from a different perspective. | ||
| Thank you and have a blessed day. | ||
| That was Charles in Dallas. | ||
| Let's talk with Prince in Lake City, South Carolina, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Prince. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I'm kind of confused because I believe that Israel started the war with Iran, and the United States just stayed. | ||
| But I actually believe that Trump and Nahu Nahu had already pre-planned this and pulling the United States in it. | ||
| Trump already made up his mind. | ||
| I believe that he's already going into it, but he's just making it seem like he's not. | ||
| We cannot trust a person that's flip-flopping all over his situation, all of the situation, and you can't trust what he believes. | ||
| That's my. | ||
| That was Prince in South Carolina. | ||
| Steve in Fairfax, Missouri, line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Steve. | ||
|
unidentified
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So I think it was all a pre-planned deal, and I think we ought to use whatever peaceful means we can to try to negotiate with Iran. | |
| And we didn't. | ||
| I don't think we gave it enough time to try to work with them. | ||
| But that's all. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Steve in Missouri. | ||
| This is from The Hill. | ||
| It says Democrat moves to prevent Trump from striking Iran without congressional approval. | ||
| The article says that Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, introduced a resolution Monday seeking to prevent the U.S. from getting involved in a military conflict with Iran without congressional approval. | ||
| The resolution reaffirms existing law directing the president to end any use of the U.S. armed forces, quote, for hostilities against Iran unless explicitly authorized by a declared declaration of war or specific authorization for the use of military force against Iran. | ||
| It says that the resolution expresses concern about the potential for U.S. involvement in the escalating military crisis between Iran and Israel, but it specifies that the U.S. can still defend itself from an imminent attack. | ||
| Senator Kaine spoke on the Senate floor yesterday about that resolution. | ||
| Here are some of his remarks. | ||
| And I told myself when I came to the Senate that if I ever had the chance to stop this nation from getting into an unnecessary war, I would do everything I could to stop us from getting into an unnecessary war. | ||
| I happen to believe that the United States engaging in a war against Iran, a third war in the Middle East since 2001, would be a catastrophic blunder for this country. | ||
| I think there are some in this body who have a different point of view than me on that point, but I think we should all be able to agree that the fundamental constitutional principle that says we shouldn't be in a war if Congress doesn't have the guts to debate it and vote on it, | ||
| we should all, having taken an oath to the Constitution, at least support the principle that war is something that should be for Congress to declare. | ||
| Mr. President, just recently, right before I walked to the floor, the New York Times published this article, and I'm just going to read this to demonstrate the imminence of the threat that this country faces. | ||
| The article in the New York Times dated today: Iran is preparing missiles for possible retaliatory strikes on U.S. bases, officials say. | ||
| And I'll just read the first few paragraphs. | ||
| Iran has prepared missiles and other military equipment for strikes on U.S. bases in the Middle East, should the United States join Israel's war against the country, according to American officials who have reviewed intelligence reports. | ||
| Fears of a wider war are growing among American officials as Israel presses the White House to intervene in its conflict with Iran. | ||
| If the United States joins the Israeli campaign and strikes Fordo, a key Iranian nuclear facility, the Iranian-backed Houthi militia will almost certainly resume striking ships in the Red Sea. | ||
| The officials said they added that pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and Syria would probably try to attack U.S. bases there. | ||
| Other officials said that in the event of an attack, Iran would begin to mine the Straits of Hormuz, attacking Mentipen American warships in the Persian Gulf. | ||
| Commanders put American troops on high alert at military bases throughout the region, including in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. | ||
| The United States has more than 40,000 troops deployed in the Middle East. | ||
| That was Virginia Senator Tim Kaine talking about the resolution he introduced in the Senate, which would require President Trump to obtain congressional approval before becoming involved in the Iran-Israel conflict. | ||
| A similar bill has been in, or resolution has been introduced in the House. | ||
| These were posted on X by Representative Thomas Massey of Kentucky, Republican of Kentucky. | ||
| He tweeted, I just introduced an Iran war powers resolution with Representative Rochana, that's a Democrat of California, to prohibit U.S. involvement in the Israel-Iran war. | ||
| This is not our war. | ||
| Even if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution. | ||
| He later tweeted that this is not our war, but if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution. | ||
| I'm introducing a bipartisan war powers resolution tomorrow to prohibit the involvement. | ||
| I invite all members of Congress to co-sponsor the resolution. | ||
| We're asking your opinion, asking you, should the U.S. take a more direct role in the Israel-Iran conflict? | ||
| Let's hear from Fred in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Fred. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| I don't think we belong there at all, and we should be out of the Middle East completely. | ||
| I'm not concerned about the atomic bomb with Iran. | ||
| That would be mutual assured destruction. | ||
| I mean, Israel would drop a nuclear weapon on them, and then it might escalate, and we might get into a nuclear war for the whole world. | ||
| The fallout from that would be disastrous. | ||
| What they're trying to do, Iran, was used to go as a bargaining chip, the way North Korea uses it as a bargaining chip. | ||
| I would be more concerned about Iran having biological weapons, such as weaponized anthrax, weaponized influenza, or weaponized Ebola. | ||
| That would be something they could bring across the border in a person, and then that person would carry the disease into the country, and they wouldn't even know it. | ||
| We have no business being there. | ||
| The Congress is the one who decides whether we go to war or not. | ||
| The Republicans and the House and Senate have been giving this president carte blanche from the day he got in. | ||
| He can do anything he wants, and that's wrong. | ||
| We have three distinct individual types of government here: we've got the legislature, legislative, we've got the executive and the judicial. | ||
| And the judicial has been not doing their job, and the legislative has not been doing their job. | ||
| And I want the Republicans and the House of Representatives and the Senate to start putting some brakes on this president because it's going to get out of control. | ||
| If we go to war in Iran, it's going to cost us a tremendous amount of human life, possibly, and a tremendous amount of financial problems, too. | ||
| It's going to cost a fortune. | ||
| So, let's get out of it now before we get involved in it. | ||
| And that's about all I have to say, and I thank you for the opportunity. | ||
| That was Fred in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Lynn in Oregon, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Lynn. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi. | |
| I just wanted to say that I heard two people towards the first two or three calls state that Israel began this war. | ||
| That's just not a fact. | ||
| The fact is they were invaded through Iran's proxies of Hamas. | ||
| And they have been given Hamas and Iran many opportunities to end this situation, and they have not taken it. | ||
| They have escalated. | ||
| The Houdis have attacked indirectly our ships, and that has been a problem. | ||
| While I don't support being directly involved in a new war, and no one wants war, I think we should be willing to support Israel in what they need to end this situation. | ||
| And I don't agree very often with a Democrat that calls in that this last man from Pennsylvania is correct. | ||
| Biological things could be entered into any country very easily and cause mass destruction. | ||
| There are a lot of things to be concerned about in this whole situation, and I'm sure that they're being taken into effect. | ||
| Thank you so much for taking my call. | ||
| That was Lynn in Oregon. | ||
| Alan in New Jersey is on the line for former military. | ||
| Good morning, Alan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I think Congress should debate whether we should be in this war. | ||
| We can't afford it, and we can't continue to give this president Carte blance to do anything he wants to do. | ||
| And that's all I have to say. | ||
| That was Alan in New Jersey. | ||
| This is new polling that is just out from YouGov. | ||
| One of the topics is Iran and Israel. | ||
| It says that half, 50% of Americans view Iran as an enemy to the U.S., 25% say it's unfriendly, and 5% said it's an ally or friendly. | ||
| It also says that 16% of Americans think U.S. military, thinks the U.S. military should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran. | ||
| 60% say it should not, and 24 are not sure. | ||
| Breaking it down, looking at the party breakdown, it says majorities of Democrats, 65%, Independents, 61%, and Republicans, 53%, oppose U.S. military intervention in Iran. | ||
| That is our topic for the first part of today's program. | ||
| We're asking, should the U.S. take more of a direct role in the Israel-Iran conflict? | ||
| If you have a comment you would like to chime in, you can go ahead and give us a call. | ||
| The lines are Republicans, 202-748-8001, Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| And if you are former or active military, you can go ahead and give us a call at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Let's talk with Ahmed in Virginia, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Ahmed. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I'm an Iranian in the United States, and I cannot believe that we are going to do this again. | ||
| I was two years old when United States and British, they get together and topple the free elected Iranian government, Dr. Mossad. | ||
| And today I am 73 years old, and this is the third time in my life that I'm going through this. | ||
| 1979, they came and they cooked this new government for us in Iran. | ||
| And now again, Netanyahu and Donald Trump, they are going to destroy everything that Iran built in the past 50 years. | ||
| Netanyahu, who for 40 years had this plan in his head to go ahead and destroy Iran. | ||
| If you study and read the Brooklyn Institute from 2009, you see that clearly in that thing, this American think tank, they plan that they are going to attack Iran and they are going to destroy Iran and clearly says that. | ||
| I want all of your listeners to go ahead and look at this article. | ||
| Clearly says that we are going to start the war with Iran. | ||
| Netanyahu is going to start it, but Israel is not strong enough to destroy Iran. | ||
| And then we as Western power and Americans, we get involved and finish the job. | ||
| Finish the job? | ||
| You are talking about the life. | ||
| You are talking about the children. | ||
| You are talking about the institution. | ||
| You are talking about a country that has 5,000 years of cultures and history and literature and math and science and everything else. | ||
| Destroying things. | ||
| Don't you think so that Netanyahu in the past 20 years destroyed enough country? | ||
| General Clark said right here in the public TV in the United States and he said, I called the State Department and my boss told me that in five years we have to destroy seven countries and Iran is the last one. | ||
| They did six of them and now they are going to destroy another country. | ||
| My family right now, they are living in a mountain in Iran. | ||
| Their children, they don't have it, never had a peace in their life. | ||
| I mean, when is enough is enough is enough. | ||
| Who wants a nuclear bomb? | ||
| They said they don't want a nuclear bomb. | ||
| Donald Trump stands up in his Air Force one and say Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb. | ||
| Iran doesn't want a nuclear bomb. | ||
| This man is so uneducated and so stupid that you cannot believe it. | ||
| You still have family? | ||
| You still have family there in Iran? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, I have brothers. | |
| I have sisters. | ||
| I still have to work here and send the money to them to survive. | ||
| And then the nuclear energy, I am an engineer. | ||
| I know the science and technology. | ||
| You have to have nuclear energy to advance your country. | ||
| They said they don't want any atomic bomb. | ||
| They don't want a nuclear bomb. | ||
| But they have a facility that they have to have 20% uranium enrichment. | ||
| They have to have 3.75 for running the electricity. | ||
| Right now, Iran, they don't have electricity. | ||
| Every day, they have three or four hours of living without electricity. | ||
| Can you imagine? | ||
| Can you imagine that your bakery goes off every day at three or four hours? | ||
| Can you imagine that your traffic light goes off another three or four hours? | ||
| Can you imagine that your student cannot go to school? | ||
| Can you imagine that you cannot take a shower? | ||
| Can you imagine? | ||
| I mean, enough is enough is enough is enough. | ||
| I mean. | ||
| That was Ahmed in Virginia. | ||
| Let's hear from James in Dayton, Ohio, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, James. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning, and thank you for taking my call. | |
| I watch C-SPAN on a regular basis, and I listen to the various points of view and conflicting concepts that everyone seems to register. | ||
| The last gentleman from Iran, your perspective is understandable. | ||
| And yet, for 50 years, your leaders of Iran have done nothing but evoke hatred and violence amongst so many people that I just can't understand you trusting them to not develop a nuclear weapon. | ||
| And it's the United States that stands with the rational people of the world, and they have to deal with even the irrational. | ||
| But I'll tell you, to let this go by and not take out this nuclear system in a complete catastrophic way, it will end up on our shores or someone else's shores. | ||
| It's time to end it. | ||
| Go, President Trump. | ||
| That was James. | ||
| It was yesterday that Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican, South Carolina, was on Fox News speaking about Iran and their nuclear ambitions. | ||
| Here's a clip from that interview. | ||
| I talked to the president last night. | ||
| I just want to say this. | ||
| I'm so glad he is where he is at. | ||
| He's the right guy at the right time. | ||
| He's calm as he can be. | ||
| He's resolved. | ||
| He's steady. | ||
| I think he's done a marvelous job of handling this conflict. | ||
| And I believe the sun is about to set on the Iran nuclear ambitions. | ||
| They need our help, Israel does, to take out Furdo. | ||
| They need help from us. | ||
| I'm hoping the president will provide Israel the help they need to finish the job of the last nuclear site underground. | ||
| And if we accomplish destroying the Iranian nuclear program, it will be historic for the region and historic for the world. | ||
| This is a religious Nazi regime bent on purifying Islam, destroying the Jewish state, and coming after us. | ||
| They're religious Nazis. | ||
| And this regime does not need, nor can they ever have a nuclear weapon. | ||
| And Donald Trump is about to put a period on that statement. | ||
| Just a little over 30 minutes left in this first hour of today's Washington Journal asking, should the U.S. take a more direct role in the Israel-Iran conflict? | ||
| Let's hear from Jay in Wake Forest, North Carolina, line for independence. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi, Jay. | |
| Hey, thanks for taking my call. | ||
| Wow, I just listened to Lindsey Graham say that Iran is a religious, Nazi regime, and he is actually backing Donald Trump, who is the one to beat Hitler. | ||
| That's shocking. | ||
| Why? | ||
| It's amazing. | ||
| You know, I don't have any force in the game, but I'm just calling it like I see it. | ||
| I've read the Bible my whole life. | ||
| And, you know, there's a verse in Revelation 2.9 that says, I know those who call themselves Jews, but are the synagogue of Satan. | ||
| I would love for one pastor to explain that Bible verse to me because they never will touch that. | ||
| But because these so-called, these impostors that call themselves Jews or imposters from the Caucasus Mountains in Russia, they are not God's promise. | ||
| They are not God's chosen people. | ||
| They came and took that land over and they destroyed everywhere they go. | ||
| That's what I'm seeing. | ||
| And what they're doing to the Palestinians, is that what God's chosen people would do? | ||
| Guess where Netanyahu, and they own all the media, they own all the bank, but they got it through a lie. | ||
| And the lie is that they are God's chosen people. | ||
| Guess where Netanyahu, who is right now? | ||
| Guess where he is? | ||
| He's off in Greece somewhere. | ||
| He fled. | ||
| He dropped those bombs on Iran, and the fire came back way harder than he expected, which the media will not show. | ||
| Our local media doesn't show how they're getting their butts handed to them right now. | ||
| They don't show that. | ||
| They don't even say that Netanyahu fled and took off to Greece. | ||
| He's in Greece right now. | ||
| That's a cowardly act. | ||
| Got your point, Jay. | ||
| We'll go on to Kayana in Ohio, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Kayana. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| So I'm going to try and make this short and sweet. | ||
| The gentleman before the one who was just speaking, he was talking about how the U.S. stands by the rational people in the world, implying that Israel is the rational one in this. | ||
| And, you know, as it relates to the Israeli Iran conflict, The Israeli government is picking fights with all of its neighbors so that they could pull U.S. troops in, our soldiers, our men and women. | ||
| They're creating a problem so that either taking off Gaza and so that the Israeli government can keep killing and displacing Palestinians and taking land that the Israeli government feels entitled to. | ||
| And I want to be very differential. | ||
| I'm talking about the Israeli government. | ||
| I'm not talking about Jews because there are Jews all over the world who don't agree with what the Israeli government is doing to Palestinians. | ||
| And to the Israeli government and the U.S. elected officials who are warmongering right now, I want to say stop. | ||
| Please stop. | ||
| We have enough going on here stateside without getting involved in some other country's conflict and sending our men and women to die for a state that clearly doesn't give a crap about how their actions impact America and expose us. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Kayana in Ohio. | ||
| Let's talk with David, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, David. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi, how are you doing? | |
| David here. | ||
| This is what I say. | ||
| We lost four innocent souls in Jordan during the Bon era. | ||
| That's what happened in Jordan. | ||
| Who was that? | ||
| The parts of Bahrain. | ||
| Let's do something with them and drop the bunker bombs and end it. | ||
| That's what we need to do and get out of there. | ||
| We won't need to do any more after that. | ||
| As far as the leader, they've been shooting out our troops in Iraq and in Syria for years. | ||
| Biden didn't do anything. | ||
| Nothing. | ||
| It's time to put this to an end. | ||
| Have a nice day. | ||
| Come to Hilton Head Island. | ||
| That was David in South Carolina. | ||
| This in the opinion page of the Wall Street Journal this morning, it says, Iran is Trump's deterrence moment. | ||
| It says that Joe Biden's presidency began to decline the day he abandoned Afghanistan to the Taliban. | ||
| America deterrence collapsed and U.S. enemies saw their moment to strike in Ukraine and the Middle East. | ||
| Donald Trump now has an opportunity to reverse Mr. Biden's Afghan legacy and restore deterrence if he helps Israel destroy Iran's nuclear program. | ||
| It says, these are strategic stakes as the U.S. president contemplates whether to assist Israel in bombing Iran's nuclear sites. | ||
| Losing the war, but still resisting the dismantlement of their nuclear program, Iran's leaders are hoping Mr. Trump will come to their rescue with more delayed diplomacy. | ||
| It says the world is watching closely to see how Mr. Trump responds, especially the hard men in Moscow and Beijing. | ||
| Does he help close ally remove a global threat to peace and diminish a member of the access of U.S. adversaries? | ||
| Or does he listen to the voices of American appeasement on the left and the right to fear any use of force more than they fear a nuclear-armed radical regime? | ||
| It ends by saying if the U.S. won't help one of its strongest and most loyal allies finish the job of eliminating Iran's nuclear threat in uncontested airspace, the message to China will be that there is no chance the U.S. will defend Taiwan. | ||
| Everyone will see from the Kremlin commissioners, commissariats, to the communist bosses in Badahid. | ||
| But if Mr. Trump helps Israel enforce his own red line against Iran's nuclear program, he can send a message that American deterrence means something again. | ||
| The Afghan fiasco and the other failures of the Bideniers will recede that much further into history's rearview mirror. | ||
| That again, an opinion from the board, the opinion board at the Wall Street Journal and this morning's paper. | ||
| Let's talk with Pamela in Miami, line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Pamela. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi, good morning. | ||
| I support Trump, and hopefully he will take action against Iran. | ||
| Iran currently is controlled by the Shia Islamicist ideology, and they say they will destroy Israel and eventually the United States. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Currently, there's about 700,000 Americans living in Israel. | |
| Iran hangs gay people from cranes. | ||
| They suppress women. | ||
| They executed about 500 young people recently. | ||
| They created Hamas and Hezbollah and all the chaos in the Middle East in order to eventually destroy Israel. | ||
| Israel is a Judeo-Christian democracy. | ||
| It's a beacon of Western civilization. | ||
| And based on recent callers ranting such anti-Semitic tropes, I mean, I hope your listeners are understanding what they're hearing when people are saying such ignorant comments about the Jewish people and Israel. | ||
| Israel is the Jewish people. | ||
| If you hate Israel, you do hate the Jewish people. | ||
| And Israel is a righteous nation, and it will be victorious. | ||
| I hope people really think and give a lot of thought and learn about this very complex conflict. | ||
| And eventually, you'll come to see that Israel is a, you know, it's a biblical nation. | ||
| If you believe in Jesus, if you believe in the Bible, and you believe in Christian Judeo civilization and Western civilization, you need to support Israel. | ||
| So I hope Trump does everything he can to defend the state of Israel. | ||
| And I hope that the Iranian people eventually become freed from this Islamic ideology that is no different than ISIS. | ||
| And it needs to be destroyed. | ||
| And the Iranian people need to be free again. | ||
| And the Persian people had a great history and a great civilization. | ||
| But they have been dominated for, I think it's 39 or 49 years by this regime. | ||
| So thank you very much for listening. | ||
| That was Pamela in Miami. | ||
| Newman in San Antonio, Texas, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Newman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, this lady from Florida just got through listening to her. | |
| I'm so disgusted with people speaking on Israel and Iran. | ||
| I've been hearing the same rhetoric coming from people when they talked about North Korea. | ||
| They sneered, but they let them get a bomb. | ||
| I don't agree with neither side what they're doing to each other, but Trump should not interfere in this here. | ||
| Everything, every time something comes on going on in the Middle East, why do we have to get involved in this here? | ||
| Then, when we send our soldiers over there and they come back here dead, crippled up, I don't hear none of them crack. | ||
| They're whining about we got to take care of these people now. | ||
| Then they don't take care of them. | ||
| When are we going to sit back and learn? | ||
| If it's not, it ain't your backyard. | ||
| So, why are we getting involved? | ||
| People keep, oh, we let it go out and he's going to come here. | ||
| That's been going on for years. | ||
| I've been listening to Nick and now who for years keep howling about they disc coast and making a bomb. | ||
| Now they're coming out with the rhetoric. | ||
| Okay, where they see this coast and making a bomb. | ||
| So we're going to do like we did in Iraq. | ||
| We went into Iraq claiming they had bones. | ||
| When are we going to wake up in this here country here and start taking care of the people here in this country? | ||
| This man over there surrounded by nothing but Muslims. | ||
| That was Newman in Texas. | ||
| Lawrence, Staten Island, New York, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Lawrence. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I just wish they would uncuff Trump's hands and just take out the nuclear sites. | |
| And it's all common sense. | ||
| Protecting a part of NATO. | ||
| They're the greatest satellite over there. | ||
| And just do it. | ||
| Just go in there and give them four bombs on their nuclear sites because they're all lying. | ||
| They keep lying. | ||
| And we're not going to fund them no more and send them pallets like Obama did. | ||
| Just do it. | ||
| Lawrence, when you say just do it, what clarify, you're saying we should give weapons to take out the nuclear sites because they're not going to. | ||
| I understand they want electric and everything else. | ||
| That's good. | ||
| They're allowed 20%. | ||
| But that's okay. | ||
| But when you make nine bombs that's going to shoot over to New York and California and they want to kill us and everything else, they are right said it. | ||
| Just take out, throw four bombs in that hole. | ||
| That was Lawrence in New York. | ||
| We've been talking about the members of Congress and their positions on involvement, U.S. involvement in the Israel and Iran conflict. | ||
| It was earlier this week that Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, introduced the No War Against Iran Act. | ||
| His press office putting out a statement saying following Israel's military strikes against Iran, which threatens to further destabilize the Middle East and draw the United States into yet another military conflict. | ||
| Senator Bernie Sanders today introduced the No War Act against Iran to prohibit the use of federal funds for any use of military force or in or against Iran absent specific congressional authorization. | ||
| The bill contains an exception for self-defense as enshrined in the War Powers Act and applicable to U.S. law, applicable to U.S. law. | ||
| It was yesterday that Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat of Pennsylvania, responded to Senator Sanders' bill on Fox News. | ||
| Here's a clip from that interview. | ||
| Well, I mean, I'm going to vote that Donna. | ||
| I got in a habit of voting some of his kinds of votes down. | ||
| Of course, I'm always going to stand with Israel through this. | ||
| Now, if I'm an outlier in Democratic, I mean, I guess perhaps I'm unapologetically very pro-Israel. | ||
| And now, here, it's what's true is that Iran has nuclear ambitions, 100%. | ||
| And now we can't ever allow them to acquire a bomb. | ||
| And now, what is also true is that they have created the proxies. | ||
| They have Hamas and Hezbollah. | ||
| You know, so now let's hold them accountable for this. | ||
| And again, absolutely magnificent what Israel has done since Saturday when this launched as well. | ||
| Done with such precision and lethality. | ||
| And we want to support that. | ||
| Now, I think we absolutely got to follow them into this and take out the nuclear facilities because it might not even a true path for real peace in the region. | ||
| Now, because now taking out Iran at this point, that's necessary if you ever have a chance to have any real peace in the Middle East. | ||
| When you consider how far the U.S. should be aligned militarily with Israel in this operation, the Israelis might be able to do it on their own. | ||
| But if they can't, how far and how close should the U.S. go and be with them? | ||
| Well, I think it's a great start with the 30,000-pound bunker busters. | ||
| And I just keep dropping them until you can actually confirm what exactly happened to them. | ||
| You know, we have the tools, and Israel and we all, the world, has the need to finally take this out, and we can't ever have Iran acquire a nuclear weapon. | ||
| For the remainder of this first hour, about the next 15 minutes or so, we are asking: should the U.S. take a more direct role in the Israel and Iran conflict? | ||
| The lines there on your screens, Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| And if you are active or former military, you can give us a call at 202-748-8003. | ||
| The ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran will likely be the subject or come up during a hearing this morning with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. | ||
| He will be joined by Joint Chiefs Staff Chair General Dan Kane. | ||
| They're going to testify on the President's 2026 budget request and the Defense Department's latest projections for force, resources, and programs to support military operations. | ||
| You can watch that live coverage on C-SPAN 3. | ||
| You'll be able to find it as well on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org at 9:30 a.m. Eastern this morning. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| Let's hear from Kathy in Iowa, Line for Independence. | ||
| Hi, Kathy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, thanks for taking my call. | |
| As I sit and listen to all the callers, I just keep reflecting on where we are in the world and who we're deciding that we are supporting and when. | ||
| Certainly, we should support Israel and, in fact, give them any kind of intelligence they need. | ||
| We can supply them with things, but I don't know why we would go ahead and get directly into any war there. | ||
| We are not doing that for Ukraine, and we're kind of drawing these lines and saying that, you know, that Iran is, you know, this religious zealot nation, and it's run by people who restrict the rights of people in their country. | ||
| And the same thing with Russia, and they're trying to take over Ukraine. | ||
| And, you know, Mr. Trump, if he can solve the war, great. | ||
| But he thought he was going to get it done in 24 hours, and he still hasn't been able to take care of it. | ||
| And he's trying to back away from Ukraine while he's leaning full into this thing with Israel, I get, and Iran. | ||
| He's the one that backed out of the original nuclear deal with Iran, I'd like to point out. | ||
| And part of the reason that we're here in the first place. | ||
| He talks about negotiation. | ||
| He's the best negotiator, and yet he's done no negotiating that's resulted in anything with any of these countries. | ||
| He should not have unilateral power to put us in a war in the Middle East. | ||
| He's talked about wanting to save lives. | ||
| He wants America first. | ||
| He doesn't want to put our soldiers at risk. | ||
| Yet here he is doing this and talking about this and having it be only his decision. | ||
| Congress makes this decision. | ||
| They need to stand up. | ||
| They need to put on their big boy and big girl pants and stand up and say, this is our role. | ||
| We get to make this decision and do what the people are asking them to do, not just kowtow to Donald Trump because they're afraid they're going to be primaried or they're not going to have a job. | ||
| They work for us. | ||
| This is part of the reason there should be term limits for Congress. | ||
| They shouldn't have lifetime, be able to serve their lifetime and get rich off what's supposed to be public service because this is exactly what happens. | ||
| They're afraid to lose their job and they rubber stamp everything instead of really looking at the issues and doing what is required for the people of this country who they are supposed to represent and who they voted in. | ||
| Trump needs to stay out of direct war. | ||
| He should not put us into war directly. | ||
| He can provide support just like he's doing with Ukraine. | ||
| That was Kathy in Iowa. | ||
| Joe in North Carolina, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, we should stay out of the Iran crisis that is really being run from Tel Aviv by Netanyahu. | |
| He's the same guy who ran the weapons of mass destruction debacle. | ||
| You remember that? | ||
| We didn't find any after all of these years. | ||
| And with the initial assault on Iran, the people they killed primarily were the negotiators of the peace deals. | ||
| We are also now, with Netanyahu in the lead, attacking little Syria next door. | ||
| Just got their freedom from a dictatorial regime, but we're attacking them. | ||
| Israel, under Netanyahu, says that they are trying to protect the Druze and the Kurds and the Christians and all of the little minorities there. | ||
| Ma'am, we are being gourded into a situation like Iraq. | ||
| And Iraq, you remember, didn't have weapons of mass destruction, didn't have a rowboat that could have taken a nuclear weapon to from Iraq to New York, like Miss Pauliza Rice said, in 45 minutes or 45 seconds. | ||
| We are playing a game with a known idiot called Netanyahu, and we are going to wind up fighting their wars with all of their neighbors. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Joe in North Carolina. | ||
| Let's hear from Kente in Sacramento, California, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Kente. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, what's happening? | |
| Yeah, this seems like Winston Churchill said, this is the end of the beginning of what you started, America. | ||
| And I don't know why you cut off the guy about where Netanyahu is. | ||
| That's embarrassing. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Kente in California. | ||
| This in the Hill newspaper this morning, it says Trump supporters divided over use of bunker buster in Iran. | ||
| It says that a massive bomb known as a bunker buster and the ability to deliver it is at the center of the Republican divide over direct U.S. involvement in striking Iran. | ||
| Supporters of U.S. involvement point to Iran's underground Fordo nuclear facility, warning that the U.S. cannot allow the uranium enrichment facility to stay intact, absent a deal that would ensure Iran could never develop a nuclear weapon. | ||
| But Israel, which launched a military campaign against Iran on Thursday, is limited in its ability to go after Fordo alone. | ||
| And the U.S. has the unique capability to most effectively target its capabilities that Israel does not have. | ||
| It says the latest and biggest 3,000-pound GBU 57A-B massive ordnance penetrator bomb or bunker buster would be most capable of reaching the nuclear site, which is believed to sit about 260 feet below ground. | ||
| It says, and while Israel has smaller bunker busters it can deploy, only American B-2 spirit stealth bomber planes have been configured to lift and deliver such a large weapon. | ||
| To ensure the latest conflict ends with Iran's nuclear capabilities getting wiped out, some Republicans argue the U.S. needs to step in with the bomber and bunker busters and target the Fordo site if other options are exhausted. | ||
| Just about five or six minutes left in this first hour asking, should the U.S. take a more direct role in the Israel-Iran conflict? | ||
| Let's hear from Joan in Perry Hall, Maryland, online for former military. | ||
| Good morning, Joan. | ||
| Oh, I'm sorry. | ||
| This is Diane, St. Paul, Minnesota. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and thank you for taking my call. | |
| I have five people who are in that region over there now because, as you probably know, with African Americans, that was their way to get off the farm and to get an education and do things with the joint armed forces. | ||
| And so I have Navy folks over there. | ||
| I have Marines over there. | ||
| I even have a special force person over there that I'm concerned about. | ||
| We shouldn't even be there. | ||
| That's not what we should be. | ||
| We should be trying to take care. | ||
| I work with veterans here in America who have been to those places and who now need help and they're not getting it. | ||
| And that angers me. | ||
| It really does. | ||
| And what I'm saying is, let Israel take care of Israel. | ||
| Y'all dumped them. | ||
| I was born in 1949. | ||
| 1948, y'all dumped these people over there in the midst of these Arab nations. | ||
| Why would an idiot do that? | ||
| I never going to be president, but I got sense enough not to know to take other people's land and give it to somebody else. | ||
| It's never going to be no peace over there. | ||
| And I don't want my family killed. | ||
| That's all I got to say this morning. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| That was Diane in Minnesota. | ||
| It's Dan in Perry Hall, Maryland, lying for former military. | ||
| Good morning, Dan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I'm a former naval officer, served in the U.S. Navy for eight years on an Aegis cruiser. | ||
| I just want to say, with every part of me that is a veteran, I am so grateful that we finally have the leadership in America to partner with our allies in Israel to put a stop to what Iran wants to do with nuclear technology. | ||
| We cannot be held hostage. | ||
| We cannot let Iran hold the world hostage. | ||
| They would like to develop nuclear technology to the point where they can blow up our country, Israel. | ||
| They've said countless times their goal is to blow Israel off the map. | ||
| And then what happens after that? | ||
| We finally have a president who is willing to take action. | ||
| As the last four or five presidents refused to do anything but just let this problem fester to the point of where we are today. | ||
| And thank God for the president in the White House today who has said enough is enough. | ||
| Iran will not have a nuclear bomb. | ||
| I am so grateful. | ||
| I'm so grateful for my children and for their children that he is preserving the Americans' way of life and will not let Iran hold the world hostage. | ||
| Thank you so much for taking my call. | ||
| I appreciate it. | ||
| That is Dan in Maryland. | ||
| Peter in Glen Rock, New Jersey, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Peter. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Hello. | ||
| Hi, Peter. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| We have a choice to make, and these choices are very complex. | ||
| How have we felt about a nuclear Iran? | ||
| We know that it's not going to work out if Iran gets a nuclear weapon. | ||
| So we have an opportunity here to do something once and for all. | ||
| The choices are hard, and we have to be careful about the unintended consequences. | ||
| But having Iran with a nuclear weapon, to me, is a non-starter. | ||
| We know what's going on with North Korea. | ||
| How do we feel about North Korea with nuclear weapons? | ||
| It's a constant threat to the world. | ||
| So we have to make the tough choices. | ||
| And if we can get them to the negotiation table, that'd be great. | ||
| But I don't think that's going to happen. | ||
| So we have to make some choices. | ||
| Hopefully, not unilaterally. | ||
| We can do it with our allies. | ||
| If the world gets around and decides to do something, now's the time. | ||
| That's all I have to say. | ||
| That's Peter in New Jersey, and Jack in Texas, lying for Republicans. | ||
| Our last caller for this portion. | ||
| Good morning, Jack. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Of course, the real problem is they have to go back in history when this was created and they kicked out everybody that wasn't a Jew in Israel and treated the Palestinians just terrible and took about their country and said it's just going to be for Jews. | ||
| And we haven't seen any peace since that time. | ||
| Now, as far as Iran's concerned, we always baby them. | ||
| We've never used the strength that we need to use. | ||
| I can promise you this. | ||
| We can bring peace to the Middle East. | ||
| And I've said this before. | ||
| And Israel is doing it. | ||
| You destroy their military capabilities. | ||
| You destroy their research centers. | ||
| And one thing they do understand is money. | ||
| And you level the offield. | ||
| That can be, that's a day's work for somebody, and Israel could do it. | ||
| Now, they can't finance any more terrorists. | ||
| They can't feed themselves. | ||
| And you have to do humanitarian aid in order to put food on the table. | ||
| And that aid should come through Israel. | ||
| Most of the people that the young guys are coming up, and people coming up, they have never met you. | ||
| They're taught to hate them. | ||
| And that hate resides is what we have today. | ||
| And if we've waited too long, we're fighting their kind of war, which is, you hit me and I hate you back. | ||
| You hit me and I fool you and you ain't getting up. | ||
| That pretty well ends that. | ||
| And they're not going to finance anyone else or go and give arms to anyone else in the Middle East. | ||
| And once they see what we've done and the destruction that we've done, no other country's going to want to do it. | ||
| That was Jack in Texas, our last call for this first hour of Washington Journal. | ||
| Still ahead this morning, we will talk with Migration Policy Institute's Doris Meisner. | ||
| She's going to discuss the impact of President Trump's ICE workplace raids and how immigration worker employment eligibility is verified. | ||
| But first, we're going to continue our discussion of Iran's nuclear program with Arms Control Association Executive Director Darrell Kimball. | ||
| We're going to talk about the current state and future of Iran's nuclear program. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss the current state, current state, and future of Iran's nuclear program is Darrell Kimball, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. | ||
| Darrell, thank you for being back. | ||
| Good to be here. | ||
| Why don't you start by reminding our audience about your organization, the mission, who you work with, and how you're funded? | ||
| So the Arms Control Association was established in 1971 to reduce the risks posed by the world's most dangerous weapons. | ||
| And that's one of the things we're talking about today, nuclear weapons, the prevention of proliferation. | ||
| We're an independent, nonpartisan organization. | ||
| We're a membership organization. | ||
| Our income comes from our members who support us and subscribers to our Journal Arms Control today. | ||
| And we get some foundation grants from private U.S. institutions, but no U.S. government funding. | ||
| And we're, as I said, nonpartisan. | ||
| And it is now the sixth day of Iran and Israel exchanging military strikes. | ||
| Israel has a goal of eliminating Iran's nuclear program. | ||
| How would you define the current state of their program? | ||
| Where are they? | ||
| Well, Iran has for 25 years been experimenting with and advancing a uranium enrichment program. | ||
| And uranium enrichment can, of course, be used to produce nuclear fuel for electricity production and power reactors. | ||
| It can also be used to enrich uranium to bomb-grade, 90% uranium-235. | ||
| And so over the past several years, since Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which set back Iran's capability to enrich uranium, to produce plutonium, it provided more access by international inspectors. | ||
| The Iranians have, in retaliation, been upgrading their program. | ||
| So as of just a few weeks ago, Iran had the capability to quickly produce enough bomb-grade uranium for about a dozen bombs. | ||
| They had 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium to 60%. | ||
| So they could make a dash to produce the bomb-grade nuclear material. | ||
| But U.S. intelligence community had not assessed that they'd made the decision to do so. | ||
| The U.S. intelligence community disagrees with Prime Minister Netanyahu's view that there was an imminent threat. | ||
| I don't believe there was an imminent threat of weaponization. | ||
| And it would have taken, and it would take even longer now, Iran months, if not over a year, to weaponize, that is, build the non-nuclear components and to assemble a smaller and lighter device that could be delivered on a ballistic missile. | ||
| So here we are today. | ||
| The Israeli government has, I think, chosen this moment to strike Iran in part to upset the negotiations that Donald Trump was actively and energetically pursuing with Iran on a new agreement to block Iran's pathways to the bomb. | ||
| They were about to have the sixth round of talks in Oman last Sunday. | ||
| And so now what we've seen is the Israeli strikes on the Natan's enrichment site, which is primarily above ground. | ||
| It has been damaged to some extent. | ||
| How much we still don't know because IAEA inspectors are not there. | ||
| The Iranians have hit some other sites that are part of centrifuged manufacturing and research. | ||
| They've assassinated 14 scientists. | ||
| But they've not hit the underground Ford facility, which is deeply, deeply buried. | ||
| You've been talking about this. | ||
| And it is impervious to Israeli military attacks, but perhaps not a U.S. attack using the heavy ordinance from the B-2 bomber. | ||
| So we are at a moment here where I think Donald Trump and the Congress and the American people need to decide whether we're about to enter a war of choice after having tried and was still continuing negotiations with Iran. | ||
| And I think those negotiations can and should be renewed. | ||
| But that's going to require a cessation of the hostilities because if what the Iranians have reiterated is that they were willing to continue the negotiations before Israel started bombing. | ||
| They would be ready and able to do this as soon as Israeli strikes stop, but they're going to continue to retaliate. | ||
| So the other thing I would just point out is that we should not lose sight of the fact that U.S. intervention here, even if it is to simply try to strike the Fordot facility, is not a one-off operation. | ||
| We've known for years that hitting back at Iran's nuclear program would require a steady campaign of bombing on the part of the United States. | ||
| Ultimately, the knowledge that Iran has accumulated over two decades plus can't be bombed away. | ||
| And Iran can and will reconstitute this program eventually. | ||
| We would also see, I think, a widening of the war. | ||
| The Supreme Leader just this morning threatened massive retaliation if the U.S. attacks. | ||
| So we're putting at risk American troops, civilians throughout the region. | ||
| And it also risks a disruption of the oil supplies that go through the Straits of Hormuz. | ||
| So that could lead to massive increases in gas prices, oil prices, et cetera. | ||
| So the idea of hitting Ford with B-2 bombers using these massive bombs does not guarantee that Fordot is eliminated, and it will not by itself eliminate the threat for all time. | ||
| So that is an illusion. | ||
| And I think it's important that Congress debate this on the basis of the facts. | ||
| The President step backs from the emotions of the moment and looks at the consequences of the U.S. getting involved in yet another Middle East war. | ||
| Our guest is Darrell Kimball. | ||
| He is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. | ||
| We are talking about the state, current state and future of Iran's nuclear program. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in now the lines. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Darrell, wanted to ask you about Iran's nuclear program. | ||
| They've said that it's for civilian purposes only, and it currently imports the enriched uranium that it does need. | ||
| What is the country's motivation for continuing to want to retain enrichment and increase its level of uranium enriched? | ||
| Well, I don't believe that it is solely a civilian program. | ||
| I think the clerical regime wants to have the option to pursue nuclear weapons in the future. | ||
| They want to have the leverage that a nuclear program like this, which brings them close to the capability of producing materials for nuclear weapons, provides. | ||
| But they also want to achieve sanctions relief, economic normalization to some extent. | ||
| The Iranians have been sanctioned over the years time and time again with punishing sanctions that have made life difficult, especially for ordinary Iranians. | ||
| And many of the people in the regime have benefited from this by getting around the sanctions. | ||
| But I think that has been the objective for the last several years. | ||
| And the thing that we need to be thinking about as we consider the options and the effects of Netanyahu's strike, strikes that began on June 13th, is how is this going to change the thinking inside Iran? | ||
| The Iranians have had the capability, technically, to build nuclear weapons. | ||
| They have done research on nuclear weapons, especially prior to the 2003 period. | ||
| So they have the knowledge, they almost have the material, they have the delivery systems. | ||
| Why haven't they actually built nuclear weapons? | ||
| Well, nuclear weapons are not particularly useful except to deter nuclear attack and to deter conventional attack. | ||
| And so here we have the Israelis striking at Iran to try to set back the program, maybe to take down the regime. | ||
| And I think many in Iran now are going to be thinking, all right, we do need to cross this threshold. | ||
| We do need to pursue nuclear weapons secretly. | ||
| So I think this could be one of the terrible side effects here, is that Iran takes some of the nuclear material that they have, which I'm sure they still have secured, and they pursue a secret program. | ||
| And they may also, we might hear in the coming days and weeks, if this keeps going, Iran might say, we're going to pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. | ||
| That treaty bars Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons. | ||
| It requires the IAEA safeguards, the inspections. | ||
| That would be, I think, a terrible step on their part because it would raise the concern that they're pursuing nuclear weapons even more. | ||
| And I should just note that Israel has nuclear weapons. | ||
| It has an arsenal of about 120 nuclear weapons. | ||
| It too has a secret nuclear weapons program. | ||
| It's never been formally declared, but this is the biggest open secret in international affairs, and it is not a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. | ||
| So another thing we need to think about is, you know, what impact does this whole series of events have on how other countries perceive the utility of nuclear weapons? | ||
| If a nuclear-armed country that's outside of the non-proliferation treaty is allowed to attack a non-nuclear weapon state, however terrible the regime may be, however many times Iran may have violated its safeguards requirements, what does that tell them about the utility of nuclear weapons? | ||
| I fear that it is going to make it more attractive for some states to try to think about building nuclear weapons. | ||
| There is this discussion about Iran's ability to have nuclear weapons if they should or not. | ||
| You mentioned the NPT. | ||
| What does Article 4 say about the ability to have weapons? | ||
| What doesn't it say? | ||
| How does that come into play? | ||
| So the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968 is considered kind of the bedrock agreement that sets out the nuclear rules of the road. | ||
| It binds the non-nuclear weapon states, which is the vast majority of the world's countries, not to pursue nuclear weapons, to abide by safeguards, meaning International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of any civilian facilities they have to make sure there's no diversion to military purposes. | ||
| It also gives them the so-called right to pursue the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. | ||
| That's Article 4. | ||
| And this is what Iran often hides behind. | ||
| They note that we have the right under this treaty to produce nuclear energy, to produce Nuclear energy to produce medicine for cancer therapy, which is very important and which Iran has been doing. | ||
| But that also, as I said, with uranium enrichment, can provide the opportunity to build nuclear bomb material. | ||
| It also binds the five nuclear-armed countries of the NPT, the U.S., China, Britain, France, and Russia, to pursue nuclear disarmament, to engage in good faith negotiations. | ||
| They've not been doing that as of late. | ||
| So the NPT is the framework, but the NPT by itself does not solve this crisis at the moment. | ||
| I think the goal needs to be to keep Iran inside the NPT in compliance with its obligations and to make sure that inspectors, as soon as this fighting is over, get back into Iran so we can understand what exactly has been damaged, what Iran may have done with some of its sensitive nuclear material that could be used to make bombs, so that we can understand how we go forward at this point. | ||
| We have callers waiting to talk with you. | ||
| We'll start with Chris in Stanton, California, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Chris. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I'd like to, it's kind of a statement, but a question. | |
| I'd like to know if he has any more intelligence than I have, you know, through the intelligence communities, and we could bring France and Britain into this as well. | ||
| Whether Iran has the technology to implode the fizzable material upon itself in order to make the atoms collide enough, you know, and split off electrons, which causes the explosion. | ||
| And if not, then why are we clamoring so much to go in there and blow everything up? | ||
| And I believe that there is not evidence because otherwise you would have Britain, France, and the U.S. intelligence agencies all clamoring to do it, all wanting to do it. | ||
| And since they're not, I don't believe there is any intelligence information that says they have that technology. | ||
| And I want everyone to understand that it's the hardest part of making a nuclear weapon. | ||
| If you don't have that technology, you can't make it happen. | ||
| And it is the most difficult part to implement. | ||
| And that's all I have to say on this at the moment. | ||
| Well, what we do know, as I was describing generally before, is that Iran has material that can be enriched to bomb grades to produce a handful of bombs. | ||
| But those bombs would have to be assembled. | ||
| The electronics would have to be built. | ||
| Iran has probably already done some experimentation and testing on that. | ||
| They would have to be able to then deliver, be able to deliver these devices on most likely ballistic missiles. | ||
| So we do know that they have had access to warhead designs that are relatively small and light. | ||
| But the U.S. intelligence community has consistently assessed for several years now, as have the British and the French, that Iran has not made a decision to weaponize. | ||
| So one thing I think we can say with certainty is that even before these strikes, Iran was at worst months away from having even a crude nuclear device. | ||
| Now that makes me very uncomfortable as somebody who's devoted my professional life to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and to eliminating the nuclear threat. | ||
| But what that means to me is that there are other ways other than taking the ultimate step of using the enormous force of the U.S. military and our men and women in the military forces to throw them into this battle, which was instigated by Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has other designs, other purposes here, other than to just set back Iran's nuclear capabilities. | ||
| I wanted to ask you about this headline that was from the Associated Press. | ||
| U.S. spies said Iran wasn't building a nuclear weapon. | ||
| Trump dismisses that assessment. | ||
| Talk a little bit about where the U.S. gets how we collect our intel on these countries and the current state of their programs, and how reliable is it? | ||
| Well, I don't work at Langley, and if I did, I couldn't speak about it. | ||
| So, I mean, I can answer that in general terms. | ||
| You know, one enormous source for the U.S. and other countries about what Iran is doing is the International Atomic Energy Agency. | ||
| We can't understate the importance of the IAEA in Iran and other countries. | ||
| It provides us with information about which centrifuges are operating, at which places, how much material is there. | ||
| And so this is not just Iran declaring this. | ||
| This is Iran reporting and the IAEA checking. | ||
| So this is very much the foundation of what the U.S. intelligence community is checking its information against. | ||
| The U.S. and other intelligence agencies, including Israel, have human sources who are helping to provide information about what is happening on the inside. | ||
| How reliable this is, I'm sure, varies greatly. | ||
| They also have enormous satellite capabilities and electronic eavesdropping capabilities. | ||
| So all of this combined goes into the assessments that we're hearing the Director of National Intelligence talk about. | ||
| Now, I think, you know, I think it's very disturbing that President Trump, while standing in the corridor of Air Force One, coming back from Canada to Washington, casually dismissed the assessment of the combined U.S. intelligence community and disagreeing with it. | ||
| I mean, that is not how considered decisions about the U.S. entry into force are made. | ||
| So I think the president needs to step back, think about the consequences and the options. | ||
| And I think Congress needs to force the White House to consider what lies ahead to answer questions about what is the ultimate mission of the United States. | ||
| Where does this end? | ||
| Is this an open-ended military engagement that goes beyond striking the worrisome Ford facility? | ||
| We need to have this conversation. | ||
| Kevin in Oklahoma, Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Kevin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| We can have a discussion on it. | ||
| You guys jumped again on Trump. | ||
| He didn't give any indication. | ||
| And when did you ever read that he did it casually? | ||
| He talks to the media, unlike most of our previous presidents. | ||
| They didn't have an answer, and you don't either, sir. | ||
| Are we going to wait until they do get everything together and then have a nuclear bomb when you're guessing on everything that you've said so far? | ||
| You have no clue what they've got. | ||
| And Trump intends to end it. | ||
| He tweeted 60 days, 61 hit, and he said, what do you do now, Haran? | ||
| He hasn't given any indication, and that's what the negotiator does, is they leave it wide open. | ||
| You, sir, are overly educated guessing, and I'm not trying to be rude to you, but you guys all have a problem with Trump. | ||
| Give him a chance and then talk about what he did after the fact, okay? | ||
| And then we can have a discussion. | ||
| Because you guys got DJT so bad you can't see straight. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Have a great day. | ||
| Well, sir, I think we do need to keep the conversation civil. | ||
| That is a little rude. | ||
| I want to be clear that I have, my organization has supported President Trump's initiative to engage with Iran to negotiate a deal to block its pathways to the bomb. | ||
| This is an urgent issue. | ||
| We cannot wait to deal with this. | ||
| We were frustrated with Joe Biden in that he did not pursue this more aggressively, and the situation is urgent. | ||
| But we do have options aside from entering into a military conflict that, in our considered judgment and of many others, cannot quote unquote end the nuclear program of Iran forever. | ||
| So, you know, what could happen right now, let me just outline an alternative, which is that, you know, President Trump, who has more leverage right now than he did before the Israeli attacks, could press Israel and Iran to halt their exchange of fire, which is killing civilians in Israel as well as in Iran, and to call on the Iranians to allow the inspectors back into the facilities. | ||
| They're not there right now. | ||
| They can't be there while the bombing is going on. | ||
| And to take up Iran's offer to begin negotiations immediately after there is something of a ceasefire and to pursue on a short timetable a deal. | ||
| Now, good negotiations are not based upon arbitrary deadlines. | ||
| And just until last week, Donald Trump was optimistic that a deal was in the making with the Iranians when Netanyahu cut that short and changed the course of the conversation. | ||
| So that's an approach that I think the president can and should consider, his advisors should consider, that takes us in a different direction that also aggressively and quickly deals with the Iranian nuclear threat. | ||
| Deborah in South Carolina, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Deborah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| My understanding is that Israel did not consult our administration before starting this war. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And so to me, it feels like it would be a manipulation of the U.S. if now we go in and help Israel destroy that deeply buried nuclear facility. | |
| And I'm just wondering, is that accurate thinking? | ||
| Well, there is some reporting in the last few days. | ||
| There was an extensive report in the New York Times and a couple of other places about the conversation that President Trump had with Prime Minister Netanyahu about 24 hours, 36 hours before the Israeli strikes began. | ||
| And according to the reports, Prime Minister Netanyahu informed President Trump that this attack would begin. | ||
| President Trump did not, and I'm paraphrasing the reporting, did not say unequivocally, no, don't do that. | ||
| He came back to his advisors according to the reporting saying, we may need to help the Israelis. | ||
| So, you know, I think this was something that was, you know, Netanyahu was determined to pursue. | ||
| We, historians, and maybe President Trump can clarify whether he agreed with this approach all of a sudden or whether Netanyahu was making choices for President Trump. | ||
| And we do know that Netanyahu has always been opposed to negotiations between the United States and Iran about its nuclear program and is extremely skeptical about a negotiated solution. | ||
| He opposed the Joint Conference of Plan of Action, the Iran nuclear deal. | ||
| He has opposed these negotiations being pursued by President Trump. | ||
| So it's a great question, but that is my understanding based on some of the public reporting that's out there. | ||
| You've mentioned the IAEA, that's the International Atomic Energy Agency. | ||
| It was last week that they found, formally declared that Iran breached its nuclear non-proliferation obligations for the first time in nearly 20 years. | ||
| Explain the role of the IAEA and what happened. | ||
| So the IAEA's job is to report to the Board of Governors, the world's nations, a subset of the world's nations, on its inspectors' findings on its interactions with Iran and as well as many other countries. | ||
| But big focus has been on Iran by the IAEA. | ||
| Director General Rafael Mariano-Grossi delivered a report to the Board of Governors about 10 days ago that was required by the board to assess whether Iran is complying with all of its safeguards obligations. | ||
| And one particular issue that he was directed to examine was the whereabouts of some material that the IAEA had detected at two sites that were formerly part of Iran's nuclear weapons program in the pre-2003 period. | ||
| And Iran had not been able to explain what happened to a relatively small quantity, but still a significant amount, of enriched uranium. | ||
| Not enriched to bomb grade, but it was the Iranian, it was clear the Iranians were enriching uranium way back then. | ||
| What happened to that material? | ||
| The Iranians, the IAEA reported, had not been able to accurately account for that, and so there was a missing quantity of enriched uranium. | ||
| And so on that basis, the IAEA reported that Iran has not met its safeguards obligations. | ||
| So this was not news to anyone who's been watching the Iranian program for a long time. | ||
| We have known that they were involved in these activities prior to 2003 before the U.S. intervened in Iraq. | ||
| And it's concerning, but what's more concerning to me is the need to have IAEA inspectors access to the much larger, much more worrisome facilities that Iran is using to enrich uranium and manufacture centrifuges and to understand the whereabouts of this material. | ||
| Jimmy in Athens, Georgia, Line for Independence. | ||
| Hi, Jimmy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Kimball. | ||
| You have been very informative. | ||
| I'd like to go back a few years and ask a history question about SutchNet. | ||
| I know it helped us in this effort. | ||
| Specifically, whose idea was it? | ||
| Who paid for it? | ||
| And overall, did it work? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, the caller is referring to a program that the United States developed and pursued, I think, with some collaboration with Israel, but it was a U.S. program to use cyber intrusion into Iran's nuclear program to damage and destroy the very sophisticated, | ||
| delicate machines, the centrifuges, which are about the height of somebody's room. | ||
| They're about 12, 15 feet high. | ||
| These are cylinders that spin at supersonic speeds to separate out the uranium-235 from the much more plentiful uranium-238. | ||
| So these machines are very delicate, and if you change the speed, if you disrupt the electrical inputs or the directions, it can throw them out of kilter and they can be easily damaged. | ||
| So this operation, which the U.S. was behind, which is reported on extensively by David Sanger in the New York Times and others, damaged Iran's centrifuges. | ||
| But as we know now, it rebuilt them and has built even more. | ||
| Hank in South Carolina, Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Hank. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| I'm not disputing your claim to know about whether Iran's got to build a weapon or not. | ||
| But those mullahs are crazy, I'm telling you. | ||
| And if they get a bomb, they're going to use it. | ||
| They said they're going to use it, and they will use it. | ||
| And they don't care about, they don't care about life. | ||
| They just, you know, they're 99.9% Shia Muslims. | ||
| And all they worry about is their religion there. | ||
| So if you're wrong about your intelligence, it could be very bad for a lot of people. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, first of all, I don't know, and no one knows for sure what Iran may choose to do, what the clerical regime may choose to do down the line about whether it actually does or doesn't build nuclear weapons. | ||
| But we have been worried at the Arms Control Association and many others about that possibility, which is why we've been working to prevent that for years and years. | ||
| The Iranian regime is despotic. | ||
| It is despicable. | ||
| I agree with that. | ||
| But I think, like many other governments, their primary goal is to defend themselves, to prosper as a regime. | ||
| And it is not certain that Iran, if it had nuclear weapons, would be all of a sudden striking other countries, giving them to terrorist organizations. | ||
| That is a real possibility. | ||
| But that would bring down upon Iran destruction. | ||
| And they realize that. | ||
| I mean, even Kim Jong-un, who I think has a case to be made that he's as despotic as some other autocratic regimes, he has resisted using the nuclear weapons that he has against South Korea or against U.S. forces because he understands that that would bring about the destruction of his regime. | ||
| So I think those are some of the realities. | ||
| And I think we need to consider the fact that we don't negotiate with their friends alone. | ||
| We've got to negotiate with the so-called bad guys in order to prevent the bad guys from doing the worst things. | ||
| Michael in Wilmington, North Carolina, line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Michael. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| A couple of questions. | ||
| When President Trump pulled us out of the original agreement, and he's now negotiating a new agreement, is there any real difference between what the President pulled us out of and what he wants to see now? | ||
| That's a great question. | ||
| So the Joint Conference of Plan of Action, the 2015 deal that Obama, along with European leaders and the Russians and the Chinese, negotiated with the Iranians, it was a very sophisticated agreement that set limits on Iran's uranium stockpiles, kept them extremely low, limited the number of centrifuges it could operate and what type. | ||
| It required that the International Atomic Energy Agency had additional access. | ||
| It barred Iran from pursuing the production of plutonium, among other things. | ||
| Now, some of these limits expired after 10 years. | ||
| If the JCPOA were still in effect, they would be ending about now, but other limits were for 25 years. | ||
| Some were indefinite. | ||
| So that was a very sophisticated agreement that was designed to deal with the Iranian nuclear program as it existed in 2015. | ||
| And it was a worrying program in 2015. | ||
| Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018, arguing that the JCPOA was insufficient and he could negotiate a better deal. | ||
| He was unable to get the Iranians back to the negotiating table. | ||
| The Iranians waited a year before the other thing that Trump did, I should say, is that he re-imposed U.S. sanctions on Iran immediately thereafter. | ||
| The Iranians postponed their response for a year to see if the Europeans could turn the Americans around or if the U.S. would change its mind. | ||
| They didn't. | ||
| And Iran has started since 2019 amassing more capability, more uranium, and here we are today. | ||
| So the agreement that Trump wants to negotiate today is got to be designed to deal with the Iranian program as it is today. | ||
| And one of the key questions that has been befuddling the talk so far is President Trump has said that the ultimate goal is to have Iran stop the enrichment of uranium altogether and to somehow dismantle its program. | ||
| That is a red line for the Iranians. | ||
| They've been resisting that call since the 2005-2006 period when that was what George W. Bush was demanding. | ||
| And then Iran went on to build many thousands of centrifuges. | ||
| I think there is a way in which a compromise can be reached. | ||
| The Iranians would agree to enrich uranium to just 3.67%, which means very low levels for that can only be used for nuclear energy production in very limited quantities and for medical purposes, additional IAEA inspections. | ||
| And then that really should be seen as an interim deal. | ||
| And there are many various creative solutions by which Iran would phase out the very extensive infrastructure it has, which it would not need to maintain years down the line if it has just this very limited capability. | ||
| So we should not be comparing the current negotiation to the outcome that Obama got. | ||
| I think there's some Democrats, Chuck Schumer in particular, I want to call out, who have been, I think, knee-jerk political in their criticism of Donald Trump, arguing that Trump is not going to get a deal that's better than the JCPOA. | ||
| I mean, that is not a useful or fair or appropriate comparison because the Iranian program is simply different and more expansive than it was in 2015. | ||
| Bob in Pennsylvania, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Bob. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| A refreshingly good conversation. | ||
| I appreciate you having this guest on. | ||
| He seems well informed. | ||
| Typically, the guests you have from think tanks toward a rush to war. | ||
| This guest seems to be a little bit more balanced, which is great. | ||
| I would like to take us back to just looking at what Eisenhower said in the 50s when he said, you know, beware of the growing power and influence of the military-industrial complex. | ||
| I would then like the Americans to think about the Vietnam War and the Gulf of Tonkin incident and how our government lied to get us into that war, saying that the Vietnamese attacked our ships. | ||
| And that simply was not true. | ||
| We fired first. | ||
| I would like to take us to the Iraq war, where again, we had smoking guns. | ||
| We had Colin Powell lying and saying they had WMDs. | ||
| And now we're rushing into yet another war. | ||
| And it makes me very worried. | ||
| One thing that worries me a lot about Israel is that when you sort of mix religion and state, whether it's Saudi Arabia and you have the Quran mixed in with the state, or if you have Israel and you mix in the Torah and you have that and there's no separation, and it's a Jewish state, both of those countries seem to be engaged in genocide, you know, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. | ||
| And Israel is currently engaged in a genocide in Gaza. | ||
| And it seems like some of this war is just a good distraction from that. | ||
| Global opinion was changing. | ||
| Trump was also politically in a very weak position. | ||
| And it seems like this is a nice, fresh news cycle. | ||
| And I wonder if your guest could speak to what extent you think that this is just a nice way to change the news cycle. | ||
| And other thoughts about the U.S. history of lying to get the American people to support wars that are not in our best interest. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, I think this will change the news cycle. | ||
| It has changed the news cycle. | ||
| I mean, there's less attention being focused on the terrible war in Darfur and Sudan, less attention being focused on the famine that's going on in Gaza as a result of the Israeli occupation. | ||
| But I think we need to be clear-eyed here. | ||
| I mean, the Israeli government has long sought to use military force to set back Iran's nuclear program. | ||
| The motivation is understandable. | ||
| The tactics, however, have their limitations and their severe drawbacks. | ||
| So I think, you know, Netanyahu chose this moment because he saw that there was progress, maybe even the possibility of an actual deal between the U.S. and Iran to push back on its nuclear program, maybe lead to its dismantlement. | ||
| That's something that Netanyahu has been skeptical about and opposed. | ||
| And he, I think, has been quite transparent in seeking to get the U.S. involved here because Israel's military capabilities have their limitations, and the United States can do things militarily that Israel cannot in terms of hitting and destroying Iran's nuclear sites. | ||
| But let me just bring this back to a couple of facts about the American Constitution. | ||
| I mean, the Congress has the constitutional authority to declare war. | ||
| I think it is extremely important, as it was in those earlier times, though, with different sets of information, as the caller says, to debate and consider the choices and the facts. | ||
| And it is vital as a part of the American democracy for the president to come to Congress if he wants the United States to be involved to make the case for why the U.S. should be involved and to debate this and to allow the Congress to vote, the people's elected leaders to vote on whether to authorize the use of American force. | ||
| That's the way our system is supposed to work. | ||
| I think that's what we need to focus on here. | ||
| And the moment is here for Congress and the President to follow the Constitution. | ||
| So that's what I learned in high school and college. | ||
| And that's what I see as one of the key issues for us all. | ||
| Darrell Kimball is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. | ||
| You can find the organization online at armscontrol.org. | ||
| Darryl, thank you as always for being with us this morning. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Later this morning on Washington Journal Migration Policy Institute's Doris Meisner discusses the impact of the Trump administration's ICE workplace raids and how immigrant workers' employment eligibility is verified. | ||
| But next, it's open form. | ||
| You can start calling and now here are the lines. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| And while you are dialing in, it was yesterday that actor and comedian Steve Corell gave the commencement address at Northwestern University. | ||
| Here's a clip from that speech. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Another stumbling block to kindness is the act of holding a grudge. | |
| We've all done it, and it's an easy trap to fall into. | ||
| 18 years ago, I attended the Academy Awards for the first time. | ||
| As I walked down the red carpet, I was nervous and anxious, and I felt terribly out of place. | ||
| And then I stepped on the dress of a very famous actress, stopping her in her tracks. | ||
| She turned around and was so mean to me that I held a grudge against her for 17 years. | ||
| Just the mention of her name put me in a bad mood. | ||
| Then, a year ago, we ran into each other again. | ||
| And you know what? | ||
| I was right the first time. | ||
| She is horrible. | ||
| So, I guess what I'm saying is that in 99% of cases, grudge holding is completely a waste of time, but the other 1% can be extremely satisfying and perfectly valid. | ||
| And now, as is the tradition at Northwestern commencement, I'd like to ask you to all please rise if you are able. | ||
| Please stand, if you can. | ||
| And it is time now to follow me in the mid-commencement address dance break. | ||
| There we go. | ||
| Come on! | ||
| And I keep stalling and keeping it together. | ||
| People around gotta find something to say now. | ||
| Holding back every day and same. | ||
| Don't wanna be alone. | ||
| Hey They call me Stacey. | ||
| They call me Help. | ||
| They call me Jane. | ||
| That's not my name. | ||
| That's not my name. | ||
| They call me twice now, but I'm all right now. | ||
| Maybe Joe Lee Sha, always the same. | ||
| That's not my name. | ||
| That was as invigorating as it was disturbing. | ||
| Wow, am I out of shape? | ||
| I will forever. | ||
| I'm so out of breath right now. | ||
| You guys can keep dancing. | ||
| I will ever be connected to Northwestern. | ||
| Wow, I am not kidding. | ||
| I'm going to pass out. | ||
| And if you would like to watch more from that commencement address or any of the others from the class of 2025, you can find them on our website at cspan.org. | ||
| We are in open form for the next 25 minutes or so. | ||
| We will start with Doug in Falls Church, Virginia, line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Doug. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I'm a big fan of C-SPAN. | ||
| Yeah, I just wanted to comment a little more on the Israel-Iran conflict. | ||
| You know, I was against the forever wars. | ||
| I think going into Iraq was a huge mistake. | ||
| And I would love a peace agreement with Iran. | ||
| But, you know, given what we've learned around their history, around, you know, under the initial JPOA, it doesn't seem like they're fully abiding by it. | ||
| Like, I know there's a bunch of locations that didn't have cameras on. | ||
| And I think a previous guest acknowledged that there's some enriched uranium that they don't know exactly where it is. | ||
| Biden was negotiating for four years. | ||
| Trump tried to negotiate again. | ||
| I mean, at the end of the day, I think we need to take the facts as they are and make decisions based on that. | ||
| And I think the strike was warranted. | ||
| And I think the U.S. should support Israel and do whatever it takes to knock out the remaining nuclear facilities. | ||
| And I don't think we should put troops on the ground. | ||
| I don't think we should disrupt their Ayatollah civilian leadership. | ||
| And I think that'd be a win. | ||
| I don't know what the alternative is. | ||
| So I just wanted to share that. | ||
| That was Doug in Virginia. | ||
| Noah in Oregon, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Noah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hi, Noah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Yeah, I'm running for president in 28. | ||
| And I was just wondering if you guys could put my name out there, Noah John Bedwell. | ||
| Noah, what party are you? | ||
| What ticket are you running on? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Democrat. | |
| Okay. | ||
| And tell us about some of your policy positions. | ||
| What's your number one policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it was going to be the Iran conflict, but that's getting taken care of. | |
| So I guess we're just going to work on getting people jobs and putting people to work. | ||
| That was Noah in Oregon. | ||
| Let's hear from Steve in Florence, Alabama, line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Steve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning, Tammy. | |
| I just wanted to say that I think a lot of people fail to understand what the state of Israel is really all about and the history of the Jewish people. | ||
| I'd like to state a few quotes, if you'll give me the rat to freedom of speech here in America, to quote a few known figures throughout history. | ||
| We are anxious, quote, we are anxious to avoid having our nation pushed into another war by Jewish propaganda, which there is already too much. | ||
| Charles Lindbergh, 1939. | ||
| We, the Jewish people, control America. | ||
| Ariel Sharon in a debate with Shimon Perez, October 2002, Israel. | ||
| Give me control of a nation's wealth, and I care not who the king is. | ||
| Amshel Rothschild, Germany, 1806. | ||
| When the Messiah comes, every Jew will have 2,800 slaves. | ||
| The Jews are beast. | ||
| The Goyum are beast put up on earth by God to serve the Jew that's from the Talmud, the religious book that is truly followed by the Jewish people. | ||
| That's all I have to say this morning. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Steve in Alabama. | ||
| Mark in Texas, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Mike. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mark. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| That gentleman just made some good points for people that study history. | ||
| People quickly did forget that on the first or second day Judge Joe Biden was in office, he sent Iran $9 billion. | ||
| It was exposed briefly in the media, but then it was forgotten about. | ||
| And, of course, we see what Iran has used the money for. | ||
| And people forget that America is a republic. | ||
| And people forget about the Bolshevik Revolution, which occurred. | ||
| And either way, Iran has been known for extreme violence against surrounding countries. | ||
| And I'm glad that they're being taken care of now. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Mark in Texas. | ||
| We will return to your calls and comments in open form in just a few minutes. | ||
| But joining us now is Steph Kite, Axios Politics Reporter, to discuss members of Congress receiving security briefings following the Minnesota lawmaker shootings. | ||
| Steph, thank you for joining us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having me. | |
| Talk to us about the briefing yesterday. | ||
| Why was the briefing wanted by members and who got it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, certainly there's been a lot of fear and concern after the shootings in Minnesota. | |
| It really has rattled members of Congress in the House and in the Senate, Republicans and Democrats alike. | ||
| And so there was a call from both Majority Leader John Thune and Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer in the Senate for one of these briefings for Capitol Police and other law enforcement officials to come in and give lawmakers an understanding of their security and security precautions that could be made. | ||
| And so that happened yesterday in the Senate. | ||
| The House, of course, is out of town currently, but we have also heard of calls that have been made to kind of brief House members on their security concerns as well. | ||
| And one thing that we are continuing to hear in kind of a bipartisan fashion is an insistence that security be increased for members of Congress. | ||
| Many of them feel like, given the current political environment, that they are even more at risk. | ||
| We do know that some have had beefed up security in recent weeks. | ||
| And so that's something we are consistently hearing. | ||
| The question here is whether we see Congress move to actually allocate additional funds for their security. | ||
| Steph, who gave the briefing and exactly what did it cover? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, the sergeant of arms and capitol police were involved in the briefing. | |
| You know, these are people who are charged with the protection of lawmakers, of senators, and house members when they're on Capitol Hill. | ||
| So, they were really leading the briefing. | ||
| But senators also heard from two freshman senators, Democrat Adam Schiff from California, and then Republican Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Both of them, kind of in a bipartisan fashion, were presented on what they felt like was the need for additional investment in security. | ||
| We didn't get super detailed information from that briefing. | ||
| We do know that there's discussion of ramping up security, as mentioned. | ||
| There was an overview of the Minnesota situation, but beyond that, you know, senators weren't wanting to go into too much detail. | ||
| Some of these conversations can be pretty sensitive when security is involved. | ||
| So, we don't know at what level Capitol Police were briefing them. | ||
| And, Steph, you mentioned security changes. | ||
| What has changed since the shooting over the weekend, and what are the challenges to increasing security for members, both here in the district and back in their home districts? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, even Senator Padilla, who of course was, you know, a focus just last week when he was detained briefly by federal law enforcement in California, he's had some additional security this week. | |
| It's unclear exactly what that's related to. | ||
| But, you know, many of the senior leaders in particular have security detail who follow them when they're in the Capitol, who have, you know, they have security when they're back at home as well. | ||
| It's still a question as to how much we might see that ramped up. | ||
| Of course, the big question here is funding. | ||
| It costs money. | ||
| Taxpayer dollars would likely have to go toward ensuring some of these lawmakers are protected. | ||
| And the question is: how far do you go? | ||
| Does everyone get additional protection? | ||
| Do you really focus on some of the most well-known and most powerful members of Congress, people in leadership, et cetera? | ||
| And how have members of Congress in general responded, reacted to the shooting? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, there really has been quite a bit of concern. | |
| We were hearing from lawmakers during, you know, right after the shooting, the news of the shooting broke, who were very worried about their safety, the safety of their colleagues, the people that they work with on Capitol Hill, and of course, at home. | ||
| We do know that there was some additional security provided for some lawmakers, especially those who were on the list of potential targets, people in Minnesota, for example. | ||
| So there was quite a lot of concern about that. | ||
| Of course, there was some partisan fighting when Senator Mike Lee posted some insensitive posts on X. | ||
| We know that Senator Tina Smith from Minnesota confronted him this week. | ||
| Others as well confronted him over what they felt like was hurtful messaging around the shooting. | ||
| He did ultimately take those posts down. | ||
| So that has been one conversation that has been ongoing this week, after the shooting. | ||
| And we have heard from leaders who have urged all lawmakers to change the rhetoric, to lower the temperature. | ||
| That was something that Majority Leader John Thune mentioned as senators were getting back into town after the weekend events. | ||
| He did say, you know, everyone needs to lower the temperature. | ||
| Senator Mark Wayne Mullen was another one who kind of said both parties, every person needs to take ownership of their role in escalating political partisanship. | ||
| Steph Kite is a politics reporter for Axios. | ||
| You can find her work online at axios.com. | ||
| Steph, thank you for your time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| We will go back to your calls during open form, and we'll hear from Roy in California, line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Roy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for having me. | ||
| I'm calling you about the Iran-Israeli conflict. | ||
| My question is, why can't they have a nuclear weapon? | ||
| Why can't Iran have a nuclear weapon? | ||
| Pakistan, India, China, Israel, North Korea, the United States, they all got nuclear weapons. | ||
| Okay, and we, Russia, we're the only ones that ever used it. | ||
| And it's ironic to me that the staunchest people who are against them having a nuclear weapon are the Second Amendment people who use that rationale. | ||
| Everyone in the United States should have a gun to protect themselves. | ||
| Well, in the world community, why can't Iran have a weapon equal to everybody else's? | ||
| That's the deterrent. | ||
| And it's astounding to me how we keep backing Israel. | ||
| They are the aggressors in this situation. | ||
| It started with Gaza now all the way over to Iran. | ||
| Netanyahu needs to be stopped. | ||
| And we're going to get dragged into another world conflict because Donald Trump doesn't know how to handle it. | ||
| He's actually a coward. | ||
| He doesn't want any conflict. | ||
| But he's going to let Netanyahu drag him into this. | ||
| And that's all I have to say. | ||
| That was Roy in California. | ||
| Antar in Washington, D.C., line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Antarct. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Thank you for having me. | ||
| I'm going to kind of go in a little bit of a rant. | ||
| It's not going to be a rant, but a bit of a rant about right to life and pro-life. | ||
| I saw this video of the wedding party in Lebanon, and they were playing a saxophone and watching all these bombs go across being shot down. | ||
| We're watching Sudan, Congo, Ukraine, Gaza. | ||
| People are starving in Gaza right now, by the way, and they're being killed looking for food. | ||
| That same nation attacked other nations in its vicinity. | ||
| And we're literally watching World War III while everybody in the world is singing and dancing, as Nero did. | ||
| Ukraine was attacked last night over the past few days more viciously than they ever been done. | ||
| What we're watching is just human rights, people's rights, the right to life, pro-life. | ||
| These pro-life, right-to-life people. | ||
| I just heard a Republican come on saying we need to stop them because they might get a bomb and we should stop this. | ||
| We were in Afghanistan for, I forgot how many years. | ||
| 9-11 got us dragged into that when Afghanistan and Iraq weren't the perpetrators of the attack. | ||
| Right now, we haven't been attacked. | ||
| We're backing up a nation that's starving people, killing people, and attacking other nations. | ||
| This is madness, and anybody who tries to explain it as anything besides psychotic is actually psychotic. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Antarct in Washington, D.C. David in Dallas, Georgia, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, David. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| I would just like to make the comment that I feel like a number of the callers say we shouldn't be in the Gulf War. | ||
| I think they're just looking at why we shouldn't be in the Gulf War instead of why we should be in the Gulf of War. | ||
| If they would do a little research, they would find out in that region, our only ally is Israel. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And if we lose Israel, we're going to lose the Middle East. | |
| And if we lose the Middle East, we're going to lose the oil in Saudi Arabia. | ||
| There's a lot of natural resources in the Middle East. | ||
| And the person that would like to take the Middle East, and they might not know this, but they need to check it out, is Mr. Putin. | ||
| So he's just laying back and he's waiting for the right time. | ||
| And if the time is right and the cards are right, he will make a move. | ||
| So you people that don't want to stand up and fight for our only ally and for our resources in that country, just give them to Mr. Putin. | ||
| He'll take them. | ||
| And when he takes it, he's going to take the United States. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So you don't need to complain when that happens. | |
| So that's why we're in the war. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| That was David in Georgia. | ||
| This headline from Axios Padilla calls Trump a quote tyrant. | ||
| In emotional Senate floor speech, it says that Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat of California, called President Trump a tyrant surrounded by yes men and underqualified attack dogs who is testing the boundaries of his power during a Senate floor speech to fellow lawmakers on Tuesday. | ||
| It says why it matters. | ||
| Padilla was forcibly removed from a Homeland Security press conference last week where he wanted to get answers about Trump sending the military to Los Angeles following pro-immigrant protest. | ||
| From yesterday, here is Senator Padilla on the floor. | ||
| It doesn't matter if you're a Republican or a Democrat or an Independent. | ||
| We all have a responsibility to speak up and to push back before it's too late. | ||
| So I do encourage people to keep peacefully protesting. | ||
| There's nothing more patriotic than to peacefully protest for your rights because no one's going to liberate Los Angeles but Angelinos. | ||
| No one will redeem America but Americans. | ||
| No one is coming to save us but us. | ||
| And we know that the cameras are not on in every corner of the country. | ||
| But if this administration is this afraid of just one senator with a question, colleagues, imagine what the voices of tens of millions of Americans peacefully protesting can do. | ||
| I thank you all for being here to hear me. | ||
| And I thank you, Mr. President. | ||
| Just about 10 minutes left in this open forum. | ||
| Wanted to give you a couple programming notes for coverage today at 9:30 a.m. | ||
| This morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Dan Kaine will testify on the President's 2026 budget request and the Defense Department's latest projections for forces, resources, and programs to support military operations. | ||
| They'll also likely face questions about ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran. | ||
| Again, you can watch that live at 9:30 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3. | ||
| You can also find it on C-SPAN Now. | ||
| That's our free mobile app or online at c-span.org. | ||
| Also, this morning at 10:15 a.m., the Senate Judiciary Committee will meet to investigate former President Biden's fitness to serve out his presidency. | ||
| That hearing will be again live at 10:15 Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| And at 2:30 p.m., Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will give an update on interest rates in the U.S. economy after meeting behind closed doors with other Federal Reserve officials. | ||
| That news conference will be live at 2:30 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, and online at c-span.org. | ||
| Back to your calls, Ralph in New York, New York, line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Ralph. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I'm calling because I'm aghast at the hypocrisy of Republicans talking about lowering the temperature of political discourse in this country. | ||
| I used this description with my son once. | ||
| I said, Trump is responsible for so much of this hatred that's devouring our political discourse because he put suits and ties on the devils. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| He speaks only the language of terror, of hatred, of threat. | ||
| And the country showed, the country showed last weekend that we don't want this anymore. | ||
| It's all lies. | ||
| Now he says he's going to go after the blue state. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| This is all political. | ||
| This is all nonsense. | ||
| And look at what the results are. | ||
| The results are this shooting in Minnesota. | ||
| The results are people being grabbed off the streets like the Gestapo. | ||
| The results are what happened to Senator Padilla. | ||
| And I hadn't heard his speech before just now. | ||
| You played what happened there. | ||
| The results. | ||
| I did see yesterday online this guy who shot the people in Minnesota giving a holy Jesus, holy roller speech to a bunch of people. | ||
| Jesus loves me speech. | ||
| This is a man who has no love, and neither do the Republicans who are going to try to destroy the social safety net because they basically want all the money for themselves and they don't like poor people. | ||
| They don't like colored people. | ||
| They don't like brown people. | ||
| This is all hatred and it all comes from the Republicans. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| That was Ralph in New York. | ||
| Jordan in Massachusetts, lying for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Jordan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'd like to talk on the Ayatollah and Iran. | ||
| They've shown since they took over from the Shah of Iran, they've shown that they are using terrorist tactics, utilizing extreme Islamism. | ||
| Even their fellow Muslims in their neighboring countries are afraid of extremist Islamists. | ||
| The Ayatollah seems to have ideas of a reincarnation of the Persian Empire. | ||
| And he and his generals are using tactics that seem to support this. | ||
| And they've been doing this for many years now. | ||
| You are not going to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons until there is a regime change. | ||
| Now, that has to happen because the Ayatollah is an Islamic extremist. | ||
| His generals are Islamic extremists. | ||
| They don't know anything but dying for Allah. | ||
| That's all I have to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Jordan in Massachusetts. | ||
| Sonia in Minnesota, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Sonia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm just calling about the killings in Minnesota. | ||
| And as horrific as all of this is, we have to understand as American people that this kind of stuff goes in on day in and day out to just common people. | ||
| And the news doesn't pick up on that. | ||
| But as soon as it's a politician, it's just all over every newscast in the whole world. | ||
| And it's just, it's getting so ridiculous. | ||
| Until the shoe fits you, you don't squeak. | ||
| But as soon as the shoe fits them, then they start having a holy fit about everything. | ||
| It's time that we get together and figure out what we can do for our country, not what our country can do for us. | ||
| Be responsible and stand up for your rights. | ||
| You have that right. | ||
| And I don't like being labeled a Republican or a Democrat. | ||
| I am an American. | ||
| Thank you and have a wonderful day. | ||
| That was Sonia in Minnesota. | ||
| The House is out this week for a district work period. | ||
| The Senate will be in at 11 a.m. | ||
| And it was yesterday that they passed a bill, this headline in this morning's Wall Street Journal, Senate passes bill regulating stablecoin. | ||
| It says the Senate passed legislation to regulate a widely used type of cryptocurrency, a key victory for the digital asset industry after it poured money into last year's election. | ||
| The bill, the first of its kind to put federal guardrails on digital currencies, set up oversight of stablecoin, a popular crypto asset typically pegged to a government currency like the U.S. dollar. | ||
| That peg keeps the price steady, making them attractive to traders looking for a store of value while they buy and sell more volatile cryptocurrencies. | ||
| Stablecoin can also be used for cross-border payments, known as the Genius Act. | ||
| The bill passed the Senate 68 to 30. | ||
| It now moves to the House, where passage is viewed in Washington as likely, but could take time. | ||
| President Trump said he wants to sign stablecoin legislation before Congress's August recess. | ||
| And one other note for today, President Trump posting this on Truth Social last night says, it is my great honor to announce that I will be putting up two beautiful flagpoles on both sides of the White House North and South lawns. | ||
| It is a gift for me of something which was always missing from this magnificent place. | ||
| Says the digging and placement of the polls will begin at 7:30 a.m. Eastern tomorrow morning. | ||
| Flags will be raised at approximately 11 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| These are the most magnificent polls made. | ||
| They are tall, tapered, rest-proof, rope inside the pole, and of the highest quality. | ||
| Hopefully, they will proudly stand on both sides of the White House for many years to come. | ||
| And our last call for this morning's open forum segment is Derek Waco, Texas, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Derek. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| My problem is with what's going on now. | ||
| I don't really know very much about the war too much for what I see on news. | ||
| We still got the Russia war over there. | ||
| He really can't get that straight. | ||
| So why are we running over there trying to figure out our Iran war with Israel? | ||
| You know, I heard one general talking about all the resources they got over there. | ||
| If they let Russia run over there and take over all that, look what China is doing in Africa. | ||
| You know, they're trying to buy everything over there. | ||
| And that's one of the even richest countries in the world. | ||
| You know, we should have been more so investing over there than over there in Iran. | ||
| You know, the thing is, both presidents, Biden and Trump really making a lot of mistakes right now. | ||
| Everybody can point the finger, but can't nobody solve no problems. | ||
| You know, and that's the whole dip in a nutshell right there. | ||
| You know, I hear Republicans talking about Biden's fit. | ||
| Everything Biden did is over with. | ||
| It's for Trump now to figure out what's going on. | ||
| And Trump is making a lot of bad decisions for us in the United States. | ||
| And they need to get that straight first. | ||
| You know, I don't know if Trump needs to be impeached. | ||
| His committee needs to sit down and change some of the things he's doing or what. | ||
| But it's not really good. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Derek in Texas. | ||
| Our last call for this open forum. | ||
| Next on Washington Journal, Migration Policy Institute's Doris Meisner joins us to discuss the impact of the Trump administration's ICE workplace rapes and how immigrant workers' employment eligibility is verified. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
| It's a story from the 1920s, 30s and 40s. | ||
| The book by Claire Hoffman is called Sister Center: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Amy Semple McPherson. | ||
| FSG, the publisher, further emphasizes that the story is, quote, the dramatic rise, disappearance, and near fall of a woman called Sister Amy who changed the world. | ||
| Author Claire Hoffman, who has a master's in religion from the University of Chicago, says Amy Semple McPherson may not be known to many today, but she was a global star at the inception of global media. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Claire Hoffman with her book, Sister Center, The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Amy Semple McPherson on this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host Brian Lamb. | |
| BookNotes Plus is available on the C-SPAN Now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. | ||
| BookTV, 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 1:15 p.m. Eastern, University of Richmond School of Law professor Karina Lane, with her book Secrets of the Killing State, takes a critical look at the use of lethal injection as a method of capital punishment and argues that it's more brutal than is widely understood. | ||
| Then at 4:15 p.m. Eastern, Book TV's coverage of the 2025 Gold Coast Book Fair from Oyster Bay, Long Island. | ||
| Authors discuss Long Island history, American myths, the creation of New York City, and World War II spies. | ||
| And at 8 p.m. Eastern, Chef Jose Andres with his book, Change the Recipe, on the life lessons he's learned through the World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit he founded in 2010 to feed people in conflict and disaster zones. | ||
| 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. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss the impact of the Trump administration's ICE workplace raids and explain how immigrant workers' employment eligibility is verified is Doris Meisner. | ||
| She is the U.S. Immigration Policy Program Director for the Migration Policy Institute. | ||
| Doris, thank you so much for being with us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Why don't you start by reminding our audience about your organization, the mission, who you work with, and how you're funded? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So the Migration Policy Institute is a think tank in Washington, D.C. | |
| We are nonpartisan. | ||
| We are funded by mostly philanthropies of various sorts. | ||
| We do not take government funding. | ||
| We do research and analysis, and we are interested in migration issues globally, but as well as in the United States. | ||
| So we look at the United States, but we also do comparative work with migration issues around the world. | ||
| And Doris, we can get into the news of the day over the past week or so. | ||
| There have been reports of the Trump administration trying to recalibrate its policy toward immigration enforcement in the workplace. | ||
| How have immigration raids in workplaces, places like farms, hotels, restaurants, how have those changed since President Trump took office again this past February or this past January? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, we have seen a real shift, it seems, in the last couple of weeks. | |
| So let's go back a little bit and go to the beginning, which is that we know how important immigration as a priority has been to President Trump. | ||
| He was very clear throughout the campaign for the presidency that immigration was at the top of his policy agenda and that he certainly followed that up once he was inaugurated with a whole set of executive orders right from the outset. | ||
| But his most prominent effort has been in bringing about mass deportations. | ||
| And in an effort to bring about mass deportations, he has promised that there would be about a million deportations during his first year in office. | ||
| That's a very large number as compared with what has been the case in the past. | ||
| And he has been very continuously focused on keeping his promise and on being sure that that mass deportation program goes forward. | ||
| Now, the mass deportations idea, the organization that is responsible for delivering on that is ICE, which is immigration and customs enforcement. | ||
| That's a agency within the Department of Homeland Security. | ||
| And it has, according to the president's words, attempted to focus on criminal aliens, people with criminal backgrounds. | ||
| And the president was very clear and has continued to be very clear that he wants criminal aliens to be removed from the United States. | ||
| That's what ICE has been trying to do. | ||
| But ICE has not been able to come up with the numbers that put the administration on pace to meet that million removals goal. | ||
| And so the ICE operations are now moving beyond criminal aliens. | ||
| And even in the case of criminal alien removal, ICE was doing what is known as collateral arrests. | ||
| In other words, it would be looking for people that had criminal backgrounds, but anybody else that it came across who was in the country illegally were also being arrested. | ||
| And so even during the criminal alien removals of recent months, it's been about half people who have true criminal backgrounds and about half people who have violated the immigration law, but have not been criminal violators. | ||
| Immigration law is a civil law enforcement issue at the first instance. | ||
| So in trying to make the numbers, and there's been considerable heavy pressure from the White House to increase those numbers. | ||
| And so ICE has begun to do more workplace raids. | ||
| They would call them enforcement actions. | ||
| In general, the public calls them raids. | ||
| And that is a different kind of an operation because what happens in workplace enforcement is that many people get swept up or people get swept up in workplace enforcement who have been often in the country for many years, | ||
| who have been employees of employees, who have been employed by employers who want their labor, who treat them repeatedly with jobs and need those workers because often they are in jobs that Americans are not willing to do. | ||
| And that has caused a whole nother level of concern, which ultimately led to protests in Los Angeles because some of this workplace enforcement began to take place in earnest in the Los Angeles area. | ||
| And it has also led to real pushback from employers that these are workers now that are being threatened and potentially removed from the country that enterprises depend on. | ||
| So we're now seeing the real tensions develop within the administration over this kind of enforcement because some people in the administration have believed that, | ||
| and the president himself issued an order that it looks like perhaps they should be less concerned and less focused on, he named agriculture and he named restaurants and he named hotels and tourism as areas where perhaps it was not such a good idea to have, in his words, aggressive enforcement. | ||
| But that then, within a very short period of time, got pushback from others within the administration saying, we're going to be enforcing everywhere. | ||
| We need the numbers. | ||
| It's business as usual. | ||
| And so there have been now, in the last several days, three or four very conflicting pieces of guidance to ICE on what ICE should be doing. | ||
| It's now the case, the most recent guidance is that ICE should go back to doing what it was doing earlier, which is in addition to criminal enforcement, also doing very aggressive enforcement on collateral arrests as well as on workplaces. | ||
| But how that translates to ICE operations on a day-to-day basis remains to be seen. | ||
| Our guest for the next 35 minutes or so is Doris Meisner. | ||
| She is the U.S. Immigration Policy Program Director at the Migration Policy Institute. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for her, you can start calling in now the Lions: Republicans 202-748-8001, Democrats 202-748-8000, and Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Doris, I want to go back to something you were just talking about, and that was the pause that was put in place for some workplaces that was then rolled back. | ||
| I want to share with our audience some statistics. | ||
| It's unauthorized immigrants in the workforce. | ||
| It shows that they account for 4 to 5% of the total U.S. workforce. | ||
| They make up about 15 to 20% in industries such as crop production, food processing, and construction. | ||
| That is according to 2023 census data from Goldman Sachs research. | ||
| The fact that the Trump administration felt like they needed to put a pause on those specific industries in the first place, what does that tell us about how dependent we are on those industries? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It does tell us, just by those statistics that you cited, that there are industries that heavily rely on migrant labor. | |
| And some of that, a lot of that migrant labor are people that are illegal in the country. | ||
| In addition to agriculture, construction, as you've mentioned, construction was not on the list of things that the president talked about. | ||
| The president talked about agriculture and about hotels and about eateries, but where agriculture is concerned along the food chain, including meatpacking and things that are beyond picking in the fields. | ||
| But there are other areas of the economy. | ||
| Construction in particular, which he did not mention, has been very heavily reliant on migrant labor. | ||
| And when you think about a place like places like California, with the terrible fires that they've experienced this year, construction is especially important in California. | ||
| Construction is always very important in hurricane areas, Houston, Texas, Florida, and we're, of course, entering into hurricane season now. | ||
| Migrant workers are also very heavily concentrated in health care at every level of health care, from home health care to nurses' aides to technicians and including physicians. | ||
| So we do have an economy and we do have a labor force that meets economic needs, but our laws are not aligned with those labor market needs. | ||
| And so very critical areas of our productivity and of the services and the products that we all depend on rely on labor that does not have illegal status in the country. | ||
| That, of course, goes back to the Congress and the fact that our immigration laws have been in a stagnant state for decades and have not been updated to reflect the fact that people wanting to come to the United States to work, employers who are looking for workers that often are the most plentiful among the foreign-born, are just not in sync. | ||
| Doris, you just mentioned employers. | ||
| How are they and also trade groups responding to the heightened enforcement and audits of their hiring? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, they are protesting. | |
| And that's the protesting that we're seeing in the switches of policy coming from the administration just in a matter of days. | ||
| I do think that there is a stronger also public dimension to this, which is that the public has been generally in strong support of the president's efforts to focus on criminal aliens and focus on removing people with criminal backgrounds from the country, also people that have had outstanding orders of deportation. | ||
| But once the enforcement begins to strike at schools and neighborhoods and workplaces where people are not in a not defying the law from a criminal standpoint, do not represent a public safety threat, there the public support gets much shakier. | ||
| And so that's also a dimension of how it is that the administration is proceeding and what the pressures might be on the administration in carrying forward with an aggressive mass deportations initiative. | ||
| Doris, we are having some problems with our phone lines, but we do have this question coming in from text. | ||
| It's from Kristen in Portland, Maine. | ||
| She says, good morning, Doris. | ||
| Wouldn't you say Donald Trump is needlessly targeting blue cities and states creating instability for them when he could find many more and easily found undocumented workers in the meat packing plants and fields in the Midwest? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, that blue states issue is an interesting one because, yes, we are certainly seeing that from the president himself in this back and forth that's been taking place over the last several days. | |
| One of his more recent tweets is very strong about blue states. | ||
| We need to get to those cities in the blue states that are defying our laws, that are looking for ways to that are failing to cooperate with the federal government on immigration enforcement. | ||
| And so he is certainly wanting to strike out at the big cities, and he names cities like Chicago and New York. | ||
| Now, it is the case that cities like Chicago and New York do have significant numbers of migrants who are subject to deportation, particularly because they in large shares arrived in recent years. | ||
| And the Trump administration has just recently removed from many of those populations, particularly Venezuelans and Cubans, Haitians, and people that have come to the country under the prior administration through parole programs and legal actions that gave them temporary protection. | ||
| The Trump administration has revoked all of those temporary protection programs. | ||
| So there are large numbers of people that are newly vulnerable to deportation. | ||
| But at the same time, it's also true that in red states, and some of the workplace actions that have taken place recently have been in Florida, in Tennessee, in Mississippi. | ||
| Red states that are more willing to cooperate with the federal government on immigration enforcement also offer important areas of enforcement that the administration has been trying to pursue with its workplace enforcement. | ||
| So it's quite a mixture. | ||
| We now have callers for you. | ||
| We'll start with Roxanne in Stockton, California, Line for Independence. | ||
| Hi, Roxanne. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| I'm first time caller, and I'm married to an immigrant from South America, from Bolivia. | ||
| And he came here on a student visa. | ||
| Once we knew his student visa, and we fell in love and got married, once we knew the student visa was running out, we went and did the right thing. | ||
| We went to the Immigration Department and filled out the paperwork and everything. | ||
| And he is now a United States citizen. | ||
| But I'm curious, these people who have been here 20 and 30 years, why don't they apply? | ||
| Why don't they do it legally? | ||
| I mean, if they know they plan to stay, I don't understand why they're not doing it legally like my husband did. | ||
| I'm just curious. | ||
| And I'm from California, so I live in where all the crop pickers would come every year and they followed the crops to pick them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I understand that. | |
| And it was great. | ||
| And I have a lot of friends and I've learned so much from them. | ||
| But if you plan to stay, then go through the proper channels. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Okay, Roxanne, we'll get a response from Doris. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'm so glad that you asked that question, Roxanne, because it gives me an opportunity to clear up a very exactly the point that you've made. | |
| Why don't people go through the process to do it legally? | ||
| The reason people don't go through the process to do it legally is because there are very few ways actually for people coming to work in the United States to get a legal avenue to apply. | ||
| In your case, of marrying, your husband married you. | ||
| And so he was married to a United States citizen and had come as a foreign student. | ||
| And so he had a unique eligibility to apply for legal status in that he was married to a U.S. citizen and had come on a student visa from which he could then adjust his status, | ||
| probably either based on the fact that he was married to a U.S. citizen, is married to a U.S. citizen, or had a job that qualified under the immigration laws for an employer sponsorship. | ||
| But there are very few people relatively that are in that position. | ||
| The millions of people that are here illegally do not have a relative in the United States that makes them eligible under our immigration laws to apply for legal status. | ||
| And if they have an employer who wants to employ them, there are very few visas available for employers actually to sponsor workers. | ||
| And typically they are only people that are highly skilled, computer programmers, software engineers, nuclear scientists. | ||
| So that's where my point earlier about our laws are not aligned with our labor market needs is so relevant to this circumstance that people find themselves in. | ||
| Those people in the country illegally who want to stay, who are fulfilling a labor market need, who are complying with all the rest of our laws, would dearly, dearly wish to be able to apply legally to be in the country. | ||
| But there are no visas and provisions in our immigration laws available for them to do that. | ||
| And the ones that do exist, such as the one of which you're the beneficiaries, are a very small proportion of the population of people in the country illegally. | ||
| Let's talk with Armin in Lakeland. | ||
| I'm sorry, Lakeland, Florida, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Armand. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Yes. | ||
| Good morning, C-SPAN. | ||
| How are you doing? | ||
| I've got a question. | ||
| Well, it's a long question, but not very long. | ||
| But I'm in Florida. | ||
| It's a right-to-work state. | ||
| We have immigrants working in construction, agriculture, restaurants and hotels, and it's a right-to-work state. | ||
| And we have a lot of employers here that are hiring illegal immigrants. | ||
| It doesn't matter if you're legal or illegal. | ||
| They need the help. | ||
| So they have a lot of help. | ||
| But what my question is, why, if they're going after all these immigrants and we need them so bad, why are they not, if they really want to enforce going after, like on a rooftop when you have a bunch of roofers and you know half of them are not legal and they can't speak English, why are they not going after the employers and charging them for aiding and betting? | ||
| Because, I mean, if you're going after senators and you're going after mayors and you're trying to put them on the ground, why are you not putting the employers who are actually magnets for these people? | ||
| I mean, if they're magnets, it's because we need them. | ||
| But I mean, it's still the fact of the matter that you're not going after the employers. | ||
| I haven't heard of one employer getting arrested for aiding abetting in illegal immigration. | ||
| Could you take my question, answer off here? | ||
| Yes, I very much want to answer that question because the point about employers and employers' accountability and responsibilities is central to this issue. | ||
| Employers are accountable for who they hire. | ||
| It is illegal for employers to hire people who are in the country illegally, but the ways in which that law is enforced and the way in which that law is written is very weak. | ||
| It's extremely difficult actually to hold employers accountable, even though they are, as you point out, engaging in illegal activity with recognizing that they do need the workers. | ||
| So in order to try to explain that a little more fully, employers comply with the law by filling out something called the I-9 form. | ||
| When they hire workers, they are responsible for filling out a form that says that they have checked the documents that workers show them that workers are able to use for the employer to satisfy the requirement that they check the documents. | ||
| The difficulty is that the documents that workers are able to show are numerous. | ||
| And part of that is because we as a country don't have a single national ID card in the way that many other countries do that makes it straightforward to be able to know who is truly a citizen in the country and authorized to work and who is not. | ||
| So there are a range of documents in the regulations as the law lays out that workers can show. | ||
| And many of the documents that workers show, therefore, could be fake documents. | ||
| There's a very healthy, robust, fraudulent document industry that exists in the country to help workers help the employer comply with the law in filing that, in filling out that I-9 form. | ||
| So employers fill out that I-9 form, workers show them documents, employers fill out the I-9 form, and then when it comes to enforcement, ICE goes to a workplace and asks the employer for those I-9 forms. | ||
| If the employer can show those I-9 forms, he has complied with the law. | ||
| What ICE then does when they're looking to hold the employer accountable is take those I-9 forms, check those documents against the federal databases and systems, comes back to the employer and says, well, these of your workers do have the right documents. | ||
| These of your workers don't have the right documents. | ||
| You need to go back and ask them further for documents, which if the employer is trying to comply, will do. | ||
| But at that point, it's becoming quite clear that there are people in the workforce that are not supposed to be there and that the employer has employed them improperly. | ||
| And generally, then things begin to disintegrate because it's then very difficult. | ||
| The workers often disappear, go to a different job. | ||
| The employer drags its feet in being able to follow up with the workers. | ||
| And in order for ICE to actually make a case against the employer, that the employer was willfully violating the law, that's a difficult case to make. | ||
| So it is absolutely correct that the employers are accountable. | ||
| Proving that they are accountable is a whole different matter. | ||
| Doris, along those same lines, there's a headline from the Associated Press. | ||
| An Omaha food plant owner says he followed the rules for hiring immigrants. | ||
| He was rated anyways. | ||
| Explain what eVerify is. | ||
| That's what he was using. | ||
| Who's required to use it and how reliable is it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
EVerify is a program that employers can use that is a federal database against which, which is a combined database of social security information, immigration violations, immigration, criminal information. | |
| It's a very robust database that employers can use to check what I just described: the workers and the documents that they are showing. | ||
| However, eVerify is voluntary. | ||
| Employers are not required to use the e-Verify database and the e-Verify system because Congress has kept the E-Verify program voluntary. | ||
| It has not made it be a requirement for employers. | ||
| However, in the case of this person in Nebraska that you're talking about, he is as an employer, he or she as an employer. | ||
| That company is certainly trying to comply with the employer laws by using E-Verify. | ||
| That is one of the things that employers do and are able to show ICE. | ||
| I'm trying to comply. | ||
| I've been using the E-Verify program. | ||
| But it is also true that even by using the E-Verify program, sometimes there will be workers who have had a Social Security number, for instance, that actually belongs to somebody else. | ||
| So E-Verify is a protection for employers in their efforts to show they're complying, but it is not foolproof. | ||
| And so ICE does still have the authority to check, even though the E-Verify has been part of the I-9 process that the employer used. | ||
| Let's talk with Jack from Georgia, Lion for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Jack. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, ma'am. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I would like to say that I think if somebody has been here 10 years or more, I mean, I am completely for deporting anyone who's illegal. | ||
| But if you got people that's been here 10 years or more and hasn't been in trouble with the law, there should be some way, you know, a passageway for them to be citizens. | ||
| Now, I completely agree with what Trump is doing. | ||
| I was glad to see that he said he would leave people alone who's been here working for the farmers or working in hotels or even in the medical field. | ||
| I have no problem with that. | ||
| What I don't understand is why there are certain states that when they go in to enforce the people with records, the riots and the backlash they're having. | ||
| I mean, he's only doing what the people of this nation, like myself, voted him in to do, but he shouldn't have to have the controversy. | ||
| ICE are people just doing their job. | ||
| But the illegal immigrants that came here over the past four years, I can see them going after them. | ||
| But they should leave alone the people that's been here a decade or more. | ||
| There should be some way for these people to become citizens. | ||
| But like I said, ma'am, I am completely against any illegal alien. | ||
| Care if they're from Europe, Germany, or whatnot. | ||
| But if somebody's been here a decade or more, there should be some type of way for these people to become citizens because it's not right for them to be here a decade or more. | ||
| And I don't know how they could do something like that, but as Ms. Doris would explain this to me, it would just clarify a lot. | ||
| And again, there are certain states that will not even help ICE. | ||
| And then you got the people that are being counter-protesters flying foreign flags in this nation. | ||
| That is something that I don't like seeing at all. | ||
| Jack, we'll get a response from Doris. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So the point that you make about 10 years is a really critical point. | |
| And I'm glad that you raised it. | ||
| The data are very much along the lines of the case that you're making. | ||
| More than 60% of the people in the illegal population, more than 60% of the people who are illegally in the country have been here for 10 years or more. | ||
| So that is a substantial number of people and a substantial number of people who, just as you describe, are working hard. | ||
| They are filling a labor market need. | ||
| We are all the beneficiaries of the food that they pick, of the products that they help to produce, the taxes that they pay, et cetera. | ||
| And yet there is not a way for them to become citizens. | ||
| This, again, goes to the Congress and the failure, really, of us as a country, but certainly the Congress as a branch of government to update our laws to make it possible. | ||
| The only way for the people that you're describing, and that's 60% who have been here for more than 10 years, the only way for them to regularize their status is for the Congress to make it possible, enact a provision that makes it possible for them to apply for a legal status. | ||
| They don't have a way to do that at the present time. | ||
| And so that's the dilemma that we find ourselves in. | ||
| And it is definitely the case that what the administration is doing with ICE enforcement is originally to try to focus on criminal aliens and people with criminal backgrounds, but that has now expanded because they are not able to make the numbers that the president has been asking for. | ||
| They're on pace right now to probably make about a half a million deportations this year rather than the million that the president has promised. | ||
| But among those will be people, given the way that the enforcement is now unfolding, will be people who have been here for more than 10 years. | ||
| And we can all be sure that those people would do anything that they could to have an opportunity to get a legal status, but the law does not provide that way. | ||
| Let's talk with Barbara in Vermont, Line for Independence. | ||
| Hi, Barbara. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| So I know Doris mentioned that she's also familiar with global migration. | ||
| Is that true? | ||
| Somewhat. | ||
| Somewhat. | ||
| So my question is, over the last four, five years, there has been a global migration into mostly the Western countries. | ||
| And I want to know if she knows anything about what's happening in Britain, Ireland, Germany, and how they've been impacted by illegal migration into their country, which is changing them culturally. | ||
| And I think that Donald Trump is aware of the cultural impact on our country as well. | ||
| And I think he's doing the right thing. | ||
| There used to be something called the cultural lag, that's some sociology, where you bring in immigrants and they come in and they abide by the rules and they become us citizens per se. | ||
| And that's fine. | ||
| But do you know what's happening in Europe? | ||
| That's my question for you and how it's impacting the citizens there. | ||
| Well, you're pointing to the idea of what we're experiencing being part of a global phenomenon, and that is true. | ||
| It is certainly the case in recent years that the West, Western countries, which of course have living standards and often job opportunities that are not available in parts of the world that are beset with violence, | ||
| poverty, low job, fewer jobs available than the population have experienced similar migrations to what it is that the United States has been experiencing from within the hemisphere. | ||
| So all the countries that you've named, Germany, Ireland, Britain, France, all of those countries, Europe in general, are struggling with the issues similar to how the U.S. is struggling with the issues. | ||
| And I would have to say that none of the Western nations to which migrants aspire to come and to live have found effective ways of solving it. | ||
| You know, ultimately, the way to solve it is way out of reach in our lifetimes, and that is that living standards need to improve worldwide, and violence and poverty needs to be much more effectively reduced worldwide. | ||
| But those incredibly sharp differences do lead to the push factors for why it is that people migrate. | ||
| I do think that for the United States, the United States is in a better position to be able to manage these issues of migration because we do define ourselves as an immigrant nation. | ||
| We have experienced migration throughout our history. | ||
| We know how to make immigration work effectively. | ||
| But in order to make it work effectively, we have to have laws that make it possible for people to come for work purposes so that those labor market needs are met and also to come for purposes to some extent of protection when there are real refugee needs, as well as, of course, family unification, which has always been a central tenet in our immigration laws. | ||
| But our immigration laws are entirely out of date. | ||
| And so we are not in a position as a country to effectively manage a system that invites and makes it possible for people to come legally who meet our needs, but at the same time then makes it possible for us to deny entry to people who don't meet those qualifications. | ||
| There needs to be a reasonable way and legal structure for managing flows that recognize that we have a need for immigration. | ||
| So let's put more visas into the system that make it possible for people to come for work purposes and at the same time then have strong enforcement that creates a managed system. | ||
| We don't have that now. | ||
| Doris, we're going to get in one more call. | ||
| It's Jim and Parsons, West Virginia, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Jim. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning, Ms. Meisner. | ||
| It's nice to see you and hear you speak on there. | ||
| You seem like a good person. | ||
| That's cool that it's good to hear people speak in level tones of voice about these things. | ||
| And some things you were mentioning, I wanted to throw out a couple points and then ask you a question if I could. | ||
| You were speaking about, and this is important, needs to be brought to people when they start screaming about it. | ||
| And that is, well, why can't we give them a path to citizenship? | ||
| Now, President Obama and Vice President Biden, back when President Obama was president, they spent like two years working on a proposal for immigration reform and border security. | ||
| And it called for doubling border security. | ||
| Republicans wouldn't even look at it. | ||
| And it called for updating our ports of entry, you know, some bigger detention and holding facilities, recognizing that down in Central and South America, there's a lot of failed states. | ||
| That's no reason for Republicans to declare it's an invasion. | ||
| These people are coming here and working. | ||
| And I've heard they make up like maybe 80, or not 80, but like around 40% of America's labor force, like in the hospitality industry, the agriculture and food production, so on and so forth, construction. | ||
| And I don't see many Republicans that want their children to have to go out and do all this hard work that these people are very willing and anxious to do to come live in a peaceful, safe place. | ||
| You know, President Biden pointed out the incidence of crime among citizens in the U.S. is quite a bit higher than it is among immigrants. | ||
| Yet these people get demagogued when it comes time for a State of the Union speech or a campaign rally. | ||
| You know, and another thing I wanted to ask you about, first of all, where do they keep getting these numbers? | ||
| It seemed like at every Trump rally, they'd go up another million, you know, and as it turned out, you know, they are not eating our cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. | ||
| The people like them there. | ||
| These people work there. | ||
| But Social Security. | ||
| It's my understanding. | ||
| When you were talking about like the I-9s and the E-Verify, a lot of these people are, they just give a fake Social Security number, and they contribute a ton of money into our Social Security system that they're never going to pull from. | ||
| So people should be aware of that. | ||
| And I just want people to be decent and human about the whole situation. | ||
| Jim, we'll get a response from Doris because we're running short on time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Every single point you've made is true. | |
| And the concentration of workers in particular industries, you know, it's certainly not 40% nationwide, but it is definitely 40% in agriculture and in industries like construction, et cetera. | ||
| So I would ratify the points that you're making. | ||
| It does take us back to the fact that where our politics is concerned, it's the politics where we're paralyzed. | ||
| There are solutions to this issue. | ||
| Solutions have been put forward again and again, but the politics has kept the issue being a wedge issue in our political life. | ||
| And until that changes, we're not going to be able to solve the issue, even though the policy solutions have been there and we know what we could do that would fix it. | ||
| Doris Meisner is the U.S. Immigration Policy Program Director, the Migration Policy Institute. | ||
| You can find the organization online at migrationpolicy.org. | ||
| Doris, thank you so much for being with us this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| That does it for this morning's Washington Journal. | ||
| We'll be back tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern and 4 a.m. Pacific with another edition. | ||
| Until then, enjoy your Wednesday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee meets to investigate former President Biden's fitness to serve out his presidency. | |
| Watch that hearing live starting at 10.15 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at cspan.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. | ||
| Sometimes I get to do fun things like go on C-SPAN. | ||
| 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 fight to be objective. | ||
| Thank C-SPAN for all you do. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's one of the reasons why this program is so valuable, because it does bring people together where dissenting voices are heard, where hard questions are asked, and where people have to answer to them. | |
| It's a story from the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. | ||
| The book by Claire Hoffman is called Sister Center, Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Amy Semple McPherson. | ||
| FSG, the publisher, further emphasizes that the story is, quote, the dramatic rise, disappearance, and near fall of a woman called Sister Amy, who changed the world. | ||
| Author Claire Hoffman, who has a master's in religion from the University of Chicago, says Amy Semple McPherson may not be known to many today, but she was a global star at the inception of global media. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Claire Hoffman with her book, Sister Sinner, The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Amy Semple McPherson on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host Brian Lamb. | |
| BookNotes Plus is available on the C-SPAN Now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. |