| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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And we'll continue the conversation with Virginia Republican Representative Jennifer Kiggins, a member of the Armed Services and Veterans Affairs Committees. | |
| Also, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volcker on this week's summit and the latest on the Israel-Iran and Russia-Ukraine conflicts. | ||
| And Spectrum News New York One political reporter Ayanna Harry previews tonight's New York City Mayor's Democratic primary. | ||
| Washington Journal is next. | ||
| This is Washington Journal for Tuesday, June 24th. | ||
| This is a live look at President Trump at Joint Base Andrews as he is getting ready to depart for the NATO summit in the Netherlands. | ||
| As he was departing, President Trump told reporters that both Iran and Israel have violated the ceasefire agreement between Israel, between the two countries, just hours after it went into effect. | ||
| After 12 days of fighting, President Trump announced that agreement yesterday, saying both countries had agreed to a complete and total ceasefire. | ||
| To start today's program, we want to hear your thoughts on President Trump announcing the Iran-Israel ceasefire. | ||
| Here are the lines: Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can text your comments to 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 ceaseband or on X at ceaseband WJ. | ||
| Good morning, and thank you for being with us. | ||
| We will get to your calls and comments in just a few moments, but wanted to give you more information on the story as it's developing this morning. | ||
| This from the Associated Press. | ||
| Trump says both Iran and Israel violated a ceasefire. | ||
| Says that President Trump warned Israel to bring its pilots home as he tried to sustain a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. | ||
| That was in a post on Truth Social Tuesday, just a short time ago. | ||
| He also told reporters that Israel and Iran violated ceasefire's terms with attacks following an early Tuesday deadline to cease hostilities. | ||
| Speaking before departing for the NATO summit at The Hague, Trump expressed disappointment about the continued attacks. | ||
| Quote, they violated it, but Israel violated it too. | ||
| Trump said, he added, I'm not happy with Israel. | ||
| Around the same time, he said in the Truth Post, Israel, do not drop those bombs. | ||
| If you do, it is a major violation. | ||
| Bring your pilots home now. | ||
| The ceasefire agreement was announced yesterday. | ||
| President Trump posting details about it on Truth Social. | ||
| He said, this was just about 6 p.m. Eastern yesterday. | ||
| It says, congratulations to everyone. | ||
| It has been fully agreed by between and between Israel and Iran that there will be a complete and total ceasefire in approximately six hours from now when Israel and Iran would wound down and completed in their progress final missions. | ||
| It says for 12 hours at which point the war will be considered ended. | ||
| Officially, Iran will start the ceasefire first. | ||
| Upon the 12th hour, Israel will start the ceasefire. | ||
| And upon the 24th hour, an official end to the 12-day war will be saluted by the world. | ||
| During the ceasefire, the other side will remain peaceful and respectful on the assumption that everything works as it should, which it will. | ||
| I would like to congratulate both countries, Israel and Iran, on having the stamina, courage, and intelligence to end what should be called, quote, the 12-day war. | ||
| This is a war that could have gone on for years and destroyed the entire Middle East, but it didn't and never will. | ||
| God bless Israel. | ||
| God bless Iran. | ||
| God bless the Middle East. | ||
| God bless the United States of America and God bless the world. | ||
| He signed it. | ||
| Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America. | ||
| It was yesterday during, as President Trump announced that ceasefire agreement that Vice President JD Vance was on Fox News doing an interview. | ||
| He was asked about the ceasefire. | ||
| Here is his reaction. | ||
| Well, we were actually working on that just as I left the White House to come over here, so that's good news that the President was able to get that across the finish line. | ||
| I think what it means, Brett, is quite simple. | ||
| First of all, the President, without knock on wood, having a single American casualty, obliterated the Iranian nuclear program. | ||
| We are now in a place where we weren't a week ago. | ||
| A week ago, Iran was very close to having a nuclear weapon. | ||
| Now, Iran is incapable of building a nuclear weapon with the equipment they have because we destroyed it. | ||
| So that's a very, very big thing. | ||
| Now, what that means, I think, is we have to talk to Iran and, of course, to Israel about what the future holds. | ||
| Because while we have obliterated the Iranian nuclear program, our hope and our expectation is that they're not going to try to rebuild that program. | ||
| And I think that's what the president is really trying to figure out here: to build a long-term settlement here to where we can have peace in the region, where our regional allies and, of course, the American people, most importantly, can be secured, but where we can ensure that the destruction of the Iranian nuclear program that has already happened is not something they try to rebuild. | ||
| For the first part of today's program, we are asking your thoughts on that ceasefire between Israel and Iran. | ||
| The numbers there in your screen, Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748, 8,000. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| We will start with William in Ohio on the line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, William. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| How are you today? | ||
| Doing well, William. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hey, well, I'm trying, they've been fighting over there for thousands and thousands of years. | |
| And Donald Shorty Johnson, he's just trying to make a name for himself. | ||
| He's trying to block the American people and overlooking the things that we got here at home, which are very much more important, like the way they're treating immigrants, which is horrible, and the tax bill and the new bill that they're trying to pass, which is, oh, it's a piece of crap. | ||
|
unidentified
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And, you know, they know it is. | |
| And he wants to get involved overseas. | ||
| Leave the Israels and the Palestinians do what they want to do to each other. | ||
| They've been doing it for a thousand years. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| That was William in Ohio. | ||
| More on the strikes happening this morning. | ||
| This from the Associated Press. | ||
| It says Israel and Iran on Tuesday accepted a ceasefire plan proposed by President Donald Trump to end their 12-day war that roiled the Middle East after Tehran launched a limited and retaliatory missile attack on U.S. military bases in Qatar. | ||
| It says the acceptance of the deal of both sides came after Iran launched a final onslaught of missiles targeting Israel that killed at least four people early Tuesday morning, while Israel launched a blitz of airstrikes targeting sites across the Islamic Republic before dawn. | ||
| It says, however, Israel's military said it had detected another Iranian barrage hours after the start of the ceasefire, showing how dangerous the situation remains. | ||
| Sirens sounded in northern Israel and explosions could be heard as Israeli air defense defenses fired. | ||
| Let's hear from Brenda in Indiana, Pennsylvania, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Brenda. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| This back and forth between Israel and Iraq, I'm sorry, Iran, is just another example of how Donald Trump isn't the respected, strong world leader that he claims to be. | ||
| Apparently, Israel and Iran don't respect him. | ||
| They don't fear him because he's not that great of a negotiator and a deal maker. | ||
| And he doesn't have, and he's not such a strong leader. | ||
| When people talk about eradicating Iran's nuclear program, eradication and bombing and killing don't work. | ||
| Diplomacy is the only thing that works. | ||
| Such as after our civil war, did our civil war end racism, all the bombing and killing and destruction of our civil war, did that eradicate racism? | ||
| Did all the bombing and killing in World War II, did that eradicate Nazism? | ||
| No, it didn't. | ||
| So bombing and killing and destroying do not eradicate an ideology. | ||
| And I'll posit that it actually entrenches people's ideologies. | ||
| So diplomacy and education are the only things that really work. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Brenda in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Cheryl in New York, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Cheryl. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| This is so utterly ridiculous. | ||
| Israel and Trump bomb this weak nation, and then Trump says, oh, I got a ceasefire. | ||
| I mean, it's laughable. | ||
| And the thing is, our intelligence said they weren't close to getting a bomb. | ||
| And as usual, Trump doesn't listen to our intelligence. | ||
| He thinks he knows everything. | ||
| And it's just, Israel is the one who are the terrorists. | ||
| Okay, Syria, as soon as they got their independence, what did Israel do? | ||
| They start taking their land. | ||
| And they constantly take land and justify it by using the Bible. | ||
| Metanyaho looks out onto the screen and says, this is in the Bible. | ||
| Meanwhile, he's starving the Palestinians, killing the Palestinians. | ||
| It's just horrible. | ||
| And my heart breaks for the Palestinians. | ||
| And I feel guilty because we are complicit. | ||
| That was Cheryl in New York. | ||
| Dee in Reno, Nevada, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Dee. | ||
|
unidentified
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Oh, hi. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Can you hear me? | ||
| Yes, go ahead, Dee. | ||
|
unidentified
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Oh, hi. | |
| Oh, this is so embarrassing, and I am just repulsed. | ||
| And again, this attitude of, okay, oh, they have a ceasefire. | ||
| Everything's going to be hunky-dory now. | ||
| This is absolutely embarrassing. | ||
| No, Iran has been around a lot longer than America. | ||
| This is not going to be what they're thinking at all. | ||
| We're going to take the eye off the ball. | ||
| And again, our problems here in our country are so big. | ||
| What we have to take care of here at home, but this is so dangerous. | ||
| And we're in for a huge, huge surprise from Iran. | ||
| This is not going, and Russia, because you know, the Iranian guy was representative, was with Putin yesterday. | ||
| This is absolutely deplorable. | ||
| A real estate man who filed bankruptcy six times is in charge of all of this. | ||
|
unidentified
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Unbelievable. | |
| Thank you so much. | ||
| That was Dee in Nevada. | ||
| Franklin in California, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Franklin. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi. | |
| Good morning, C-SPAN. | ||
| Good morning, America. | ||
| I'm a three-time Trump voter. | ||
| I voted for him the last time for two main reasons: secure our southern border and get us out of these infernal foreign wars, which I think I'm not a MA guy, but you know, like a lot of MAGA Republicans, we just don't want any more foreign wars. | ||
| So when I heard on Saturday that he had decided to, well, that he had authorized the drop of the mobs on the hots, I just had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. | ||
| It really, well, I was really upset. | ||
| Let's put it that way, because that wasn't what I was expecting from this administration. | ||
| But, yeah, I guess I don't know. | ||
| That's pretty much all I had to say. | ||
| So, well, I guess I do have some more to say. | ||
| About half my family is Iranian. | ||
| So, I got a half-Iranian sister. | ||
| I've got an Iranian aunt and cousins in Vancouver, Iranian uncle who gave me my first tennis racket in Los Angeles. | ||
| By the way, Los Angeles, I don't know if you know this, it's also called Terrangelis. | ||
| It's got the largest expatriate community of Iranians of any city in the world. | ||
| Don't know if that's here or there, but yeah, I can't telescope into the future to see where this is going to lead. | ||
| I hope somebody knows what they're doing. | ||
| I guess that's all I have to say now. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| That was Franklin in California. | ||
| The headline or an update from the Associated Press: this came at just before 5 o'clock Eastern Time. | ||
| It says, Iran's military denies it fired missiles at Israel after ceasefire. | ||
| Iran's military denied that it has fired missiles at Israel hours after a ceasefire proposed by President Donald Trump began. | ||
| Iranian state television reported. | ||
| The report cited the general staff of Iran's armed forces, which includes its regular military and its paramilitary revolutionary guard. | ||
| It says that Israel reported missile fire some two and a half hours after the ceasefire began. | ||
| Israeli officials have ordered a strike on Iran in response, though there are no immediate reports of an attack there. | ||
| We are asking you your thoughts on President Trump announcing that Iran-Israel ceasefire and what we are continuing to see this morning. | ||
| Let's hear from Rose in Chicago, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Rose. | ||
|
unidentified
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First of all, I want to say thank you for C-SPAN, the most wonderful program that we have that is filtered with honesty and respect. | |
| And as far as respect is concerned, I'm going to go to a different avenue this morning. | ||
| And I hope people will listen. | ||
| Now, there's many people that are calling this morning that have a bitter taste in their mouth, okay? | ||
| And you had a program last year where we were talking about war and things. | ||
| And I said this back then, and I'm going to say it again. | ||
| The ceasefire we need is the ceasefire in our hearts between family to family, neighbor to neighbor, and everything else. | ||
| Until we get rid of the bombs in our heart, we will never have peace in this world. | ||
| And God bless Mr. Trump. | ||
| I don't know how anybody could have lived through the hell that he has lived through for the last four years, and I think he's doing a darn good job. | ||
| Pray for yourself, pray for your neighbor, pray for this world, and pray for those people in Iran that had to put up with that guy for 40 years. | ||
| I dated someone that was Iranian. | ||
| I know what those people are like, okay? | ||
| And, you know, but you're not supposed to say anything bad about anybody because you will never get to heaven. | ||
| But anyway, pray, pray, and ask God for help. | ||
| And I hope our Pope intercedes. | ||
| He's a wonderful new Pope. | ||
| And by the way, you're a beautiful young woman. | ||
| And I hope C-SPAN has continued success. | ||
| God bless you. | ||
| That was Rose in Chicago. | ||
| Darren in Colorado Springs, Colorado, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Darren. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning, Kimberly. | |
| I guess something must have happened between last night and this morning because last night, the last I heard was that Iran has no idea of a ceasefire that Trump announced, unless something happened in the wee hours of the night. | ||
| But I'm astonished that callers call in. | ||
| I voted for Trump three times and I thought this would be different. | ||
| What did you think would be different? | ||
| We have somebody that is unqualified to hold the office and it just blows my mind. | ||
| And people calling in about this has some relationship to some prophecy in the Bible. | ||
| When are we as a society going to stop relying on first century goatherder mythology to run our world? | ||
| It's just crazy. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| That was Darren in Colorado. | ||
| David in Maryland, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, David. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning to you, and thank you for C-SPAN. | |
| C-SPAN is the only instrument that I know that we have in America where we as Americans can call in and voice. | ||
| I want to thank people who are concerned and voice the interests of prayer. | ||
| Just keep in mind, Americans, we are only 250 years. | ||
| China has been around for thousands of years. | ||
| Iran has been around. | ||
| Israel has been around. | ||
| So we are in a new dynamic that God, if you believe in God, that's your belief. | ||
| But you can say history, but there is a dimension whereby countries go through changes. | ||
| We're at a pivotal time now. | ||
| I'm just Trump, the man who just got off. | ||
| We don't even know where the uranium is. | ||
| If it exists, Mr. Trump will change his mind. | ||
| But keep in mind, history and God or whatever can use anybody they want to. | ||
| They can do this with Trump to carry out on the aspects and the dictates and the changes needed in history. | ||
| We've seen that all throughout history. | ||
| So I would say, just like the ladies, hurt your heart, talk to people. | ||
| We've got to talk to each other. | ||
| We can't hate each other. | ||
| Whether you believe in Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, I don't care what you are, but you've got to talk. | ||
| You've got to talk. | ||
| If you don't talk with each other and hate each other, you've got to hate y'all. | ||
| Nothing's going to happen. | ||
| And I thank you for taking my call. | ||
| That was David in Maryland. | ||
| And a call caller just a moment ago had mentioned that Iran had not agreed to the ceasefire when it was happening. | ||
| This was posted on X by Iran's foreign minister last night about 8.45 p.m. | ||
| That is Eastern time. | ||
| Says, as Iran has repeatedly made it clear, Israel launched war on Iran, not the other way around. | ||
| As of now, there is no agreement on any ceasefire or cessation of military operations. | ||
| However, provided that the Israel regime stops its illegal aggression against the Iranian people no later than 4 a.m. Tehran time, we have no intention to continue our response afterward. | ||
| The final decision on the cessation of our military operations will be made later. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| Let's hear from Brandon in Lake Worth, Florida, Lion for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Brandon. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi, good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Doing well, Brandon. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi. | |
| I just wanted to bring up something that I've been dealing with. | ||
| I know you guys are dealing with a lot with Iran and all of these things that are getting started. | ||
| But I just realized that my identity has been stolen in three states and they've been able to bypass facial recognition software on my name. | ||
| Sorry, Brandon, we're going to leave it there because we want to stay with our topic this morning. | ||
| That is President Trump and his announcement that Iran and Israel made a ceasefire. | ||
| Still appears to be some fighting this morning. | ||
| President Trump spoke with reporters as he was getting ready to depart for The Hague this morning, where he will be attending the NATO conference that starts today. | ||
| Here are his remarks as he left. | ||
| I don't think so, but I'm not happy that Israel is going out now. | ||
| There was one rocket that I guess was fired overboard. | ||
| It was after the time limit, and it missed its target. | ||
| And now Israel's going out. | ||
| These guys got to calm down. | ||
| Ridiculous. | ||
| I didn't like plenty of things I saw yesterday. | ||
| I didn't like the fact that Israel unloaded right after we made the deal. | ||
| They didn't have to unload. | ||
| And I didn't like the fact that the retaliation was very strong. | ||
| But in all fairness, Israel unloaded a lot. | ||
| And now I hear Israel just went out because they felt it was violated by one rocket that didn't land anywhere. | ||
| That's not what we want, I'll tell you. | ||
| And I'm telling you, I'm not happy about that, Israel, either. | ||
|
unidentified
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Are you going to end up? | |
| I'm going to say that. | ||
| All I do is play both sides. | ||
| I'm going now, as you know, to NATO. | ||
| Some of you are going with me, and I think it's going to be successful. | ||
| We'll see. | ||
| I'll let you know. | ||
|
unidentified
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Are you going to be there? | |
| It's a new dawn in the Middle East thanks to the agreement. | ||
| You managed to achieve. | ||
| What are your future plans for the region for Saudi Arabia? | ||
| Israel, Gaza, the hostages. | ||
| Look, you're asking me about women in the Middle East. | ||
| It's getting a lot better. | ||
| Things are happening at a high level. | ||
| As you know, Saudi Arabia has done a really good job. | ||
| It's coming out far faster than I thought. | ||
| So we're very happy about what's happening with women in the Middle East. | ||
|
unidentified
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No, I'm talking about the new dawn in the Middle East that you managed to achieve last night. | |
| You know, the region is going to a new place. | ||
| You can see the agreement. | ||
| Can you tell us what's your future plan for Gaza for the hostages? | ||
| It's a new dawn. | ||
| I appreciate the question. | ||
| You're very nice. | ||
| Who are you? | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| I'm Naria Kraus from Israeli Shuttle Break News. | ||
| Well, we have to have Israel calm down because they went on a mission this morning. | ||
| I got to get Israel to calm down now. | ||
|
unidentified
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Do you get to speak with the Prime Minister? | |
| Did you talk to Prime Minister Netanyahu last night, or did you? | ||
| I speak to everybody. | ||
|
unidentified
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You urge both sides not to violate the ceasefire, but reports coming from the region suggest that the sides accuse each other for violating the ceasefire. | |
| I think they both violated it. | ||
| I don't think they, I'm not sure they did it intentionally. | ||
| They couldn't rein people back. | ||
| I don't like the fact that Israel went out this morning at all, and I'm going to see if I can stop it. | ||
| So as soon as I get away from you, I'm going to see if I can stop it, okay? | ||
|
unidentified
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Have you spoken to him before? | |
| How confident are you now? | ||
| I think it's been completely demolished. | ||
| I think the reason we're here is because those pilots, those B-2 pilots, did an unbelievable job. | ||
| And, you know, the fake news, like CNN in particular, they're trying to, you know, they're trying to say, well, I agree that it was destroyed, but maybe not that destroyed. | ||
| You know what they're doing? | ||
| They're really hurting great pilots that put their lives in the line. | ||
| CNN is scum, and so is MS, DNC. | ||
| They're all. | ||
| And frankly, the networks aren't much better. | ||
| It's all fake news, but they should not have done that. | ||
| Those pilots hit their targets. | ||
| Those targets were obliterated. | ||
| And the pilots should be given credit. | ||
| They're not after the pilots. | ||
| They're after me. | ||
| They want to try and demean it. | ||
| Iran will never rebuild its nuclear. | ||
| From there, absolutely not. | ||
| That place is under rock. | ||
| That place is demolished. | ||
| The B-2 pilots did their job. | ||
| They did it better than anybody could even imagine. | ||
| They hit late in the evening. | ||
| It was dark with no moon. | ||
| And they hit that target with every one of those things. | ||
| And that place is gone. | ||
| But when I see CNN all night long, they're trying to say, well, maybe it wasn't really as demolished as we thought it was demolished. | ||
| You take a look at the pinpricks, and you see that place is gone. | ||
| And I will say, I think CNN ought to apologize to the pilots of the B-2s. | ||
| I think that MSDNC ought to apologize. | ||
| I think these guys really, these networks and these cable networks are real losers. | ||
| You really are. | ||
| You're real losers. | ||
|
unidentified
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Israel's got to be violent. | |
| You're gutless losers. | ||
| I say that to CNN because I watch it. | ||
| I have no choice. | ||
| I've got to watch that garbage. | ||
| It's all garbage. | ||
| It's all fake news. | ||
| But I think CNN is a gutless group of people. | ||
| And the people that run it, nobody even knows it's been sold so many times. | ||
| But the people that run it ought to be ashamed. | ||
| MSDNC, a guy named Brian Roberts, he heads it. | ||
| He's a disgrace. | ||
| He's a weak, pathetic disgrace. | ||
|
unidentified
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The Pressure says that Iran vied in the ceasefire agreement. | |
| Do you believe that Iran is still committed to speech? | ||
| Yeah, I do. | ||
| They violated it, but Israel violated it too. | ||
| Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I've never seen before. | ||
| The biggest load that we've seen. | ||
| I'm not happy with Israel. | ||
| You know, when I say, okay, now you have 12 hours, you don't go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on them. | ||
| So I'm not happy with them. | ||
| I'm not happy with Iran either. | ||
| But I'm really unhappy if Israel's going out this morning because of one rocket that didn't land, that was shot, perhaps by mistake, that didn't land. | ||
| I'm not happy about that. | ||
| You know what? | ||
| We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing. | ||
| Do you understand that? | ||
| That was President Trump speaking to reporters earlier this morning following news that Israel and Iran were continuing to potentially trade Missiles after President Trump announced a ceasefire between the two countries yesterday. | ||
| That is our topic right now. | ||
| We'll go back to our calls and talk with Mike in Alaska, line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Mike. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Boy, that was one of your best reports ever. | ||
| Fantastic. | ||
| I think, well, I'm very happy with our president's urgent decision to quickly end this chaos. | ||
| And I think he's protecting the Iranian people, in my opinion. | ||
| There are a lot of Christians in Iran that have been persecuted by the Mulas and the Ayatollah, and I'm really sick of them. | ||
| I'm sick of their radical beliefs and their beheadings and blah, blah, blah, all that, all that. | ||
| That's terrible. | ||
| But I think if President Trump went to our Communist Congress or Senate, I think Mike Johnson probably would have gone on vacation, you know, and then come back in a couple of weeks and say, well, you know, let's have a vote on it. | ||
|
unidentified
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So this isn't going to war. | |
| This is a snap decision. | ||
| I think President Trump should never trust President Netanyahu. | ||
| Do not trust him and maybe install a red bat phone hotline to Alex Jones and Marjorie Taylor Greene because Alex Jones predicted all of this. | ||
| He's on top of it. | ||
| It's amazing how right Alex Jones has been in Infowars.com. | ||
| I suggest everybody in America go right now to Infowars.com and get into the loop and listen and then call in. | ||
| And thank God for C-SPAN and thank God for President Trump and Alex Jones at Infowars.com. | ||
| And thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Have a great 4th of July, too. | ||
| That was Mike in Alaska Art in Clearwater, Florida, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Art. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I just want to say it's going to be very interesting with Trump going to the NATO conference and what he's going to do about Putin. | ||
| Bill O'Reilly on news station last night said it's time for Trump to butt hedge with Putin. | ||
| Now, we don't know. | ||
| Iran's been supplying Russia with all kinds of drones for a long time. | ||
| And they want to go to Russia with a meeting and they're going to ask for nuclear weapons from Russia. | ||
| Now, the same thing happened back in the 60s with Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs, with Russia bringing nuclear weapons to Cuba. | ||
| Now, what's Trump going to do if Putin ships nuclear weapons to Iran? | ||
| This will be a true test of what a real commander is. | ||
| That's all I have. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Art in Florida. | ||
| Robin in Old Forge, Pennsylvania, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Robin. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I'm just calling today to say that I voted for Trump every time he's been up for election. | ||
| He's the most wonderful president we ever had. | ||
| I am shocked at the Democrats, how they are acting, saying the F-word to the news reporters. | ||
| It's a disgrace. | ||
| And I think after this ceasefire deal got messed up today, I think you watch and see this week. | ||
| It's all going to be taken care of. | ||
| You could trust President Trump. | ||
| I have all my faith in him. | ||
| God bless him and God bless America. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Robin in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Mark in Floral Park, New York, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Mark. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| What we witnessed this morning is what we've been seeing, what Israel has been going through for 77 years. | ||
| Donald Trump is trying to negotiate a deal, and he's totally frustrated. | ||
| The Iranians cannot be trusted, and too many people in the Middle East Israel. | ||
| And we just have to pray for Donald Trump to pull this off. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Mark in New York. | ||
| President Trump posted this on Truth Social yesterday evening, just a little after 10 p.m. Eastern Time, saying that Israel and Iran came to me almost simultaneously and said peace. | ||
| I knew the time was now. | ||
| The world and the Middle East are the real winners. | ||
| Both nations will see tremendous love, peace, and prosperity in their futures. | ||
| They have so much to gain and yet so much to lose if they stray from the road of righteousness and truth. | ||
| The future for Israel and Iran is unlimited and filled with great promise. | ||
| God bless you both. | ||
| That was yesterday after announcing that the two countries had reached a peace deal, which this morning there are reports that Iran has continued to fire missiles at Israel, Israel saying that they will respond. | ||
| Let's hear from Roland in Watson Town, Pennsylvania, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Roland. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I get a little frustrated with Donald Trump because he uses the words, I did this, I did that. | |
| It's an I, it's a we. | ||
| I'd appreciate it if the man would start using defensive, his vocabulary correctly, meaning he's stating, I did this, I did that. | ||
| It isn't I. Without other people around him, he would not be able to do to perform the things that he's doing right now. | ||
| He's stating, I did this. | ||
| Roland, you still there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Go ahead. | ||
| I think we lost Roland. | ||
| We'll go to Ron in Michigan, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Ron. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Well, man, it ain't good. | ||
| Listen, what I see right now is we have an administration that has unilaterally decided to go to war and a Congress that is so more among partisan politics that they do nothing and a court system that can issue all sorts of court orders. | ||
| are conveniently ignored. | ||
| What the hell's going on here? | ||
| I don't know, man. | ||
| I got to tell you, I feel like I'm fixing the die here. | ||
| I wish to hell I could fix something around here. | ||
| You'll be good. | ||
| Have a nice day. | ||
| That was Ron in Michigan. | ||
| Another Ron in Michigan. | ||
| This one on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Ron. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes, I think they all are just, you know, Trump's doing what he can. | ||
| He's not going to bill do it all. | ||
| The United Nations, that's what we have the United Nations for. | ||
| They ought to get involved. | ||
| They ought to stop this whole thing. | ||
| All the other countries ought to get together. | ||
| They ought to put a stop to this whole thing because he's not going to be able to do it by himself. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I just hope they can find peace with each other, you know, and find it because we should not be involved in none of this stuff. | |
| We should let the United Nations put a stop to this whole thing. | ||
| They can do it. | ||
| That's what we have them for. | ||
| And they ought to get the job done. | ||
| That was Ron in Michigan. | ||
| And if you are just joining us, we are talking about President Trump announcing the Iran in Israel ceasefire that happened yesterday. | ||
| And there is new news this morning on that topic. | ||
| This headline from USA Today, did Iran break the ceasefire? | ||
| Israel says yes. | ||
| Vow's forceful response. | ||
| It says that one day after a stunning series of developments and turmoil royaling the Middle East, a ceasefire proclaimed by President Trump between Israel and Iran was on shaky ground Tuesday. | ||
| Israel accused Iran of already violating the deal and promised to respond with force. | ||
| Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel had detected Iranian missiles, launched, and had ordered, quote, high-intensity operations targeting Iran. | ||
| Iran insisted there were no missiles directed at Israel. | ||
| And says Trump, speaking with media as he left the White House bound for NATO meetings, said both sides violated the ceasefire, but he was not certain they did so intentionally. | ||
| He said he was quote not happy with Israel. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| John in California, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'd like to comment on what's happening. | ||
| And I believe that President Trump is doing a great job. | ||
| And I think of Iran as having nine nuclear bombs and what cities they would bomb. | ||
| So President Trump, by this raid, saved millions, millions of lives. | ||
| And the pilots that flew this raid, how can you fly halfway around the world with 100 planes and not be detected? | ||
| It was an unbelievably successful raid. | ||
| They hit the targets, they obliterated the targets, and now it brought everybody to the table. | ||
| The threat of nuclear Iran is off the table, and now you can negotiate a true peace. | ||
| The fact that they're breaking this ceasefire and this and that is going to be stopped. | ||
| Trump will go over there and stop that noise right now. | ||
| So all in all, things are doing pretty good. | ||
| And America is safer. | ||
| And we're getting rid of the people that hate us. | ||
| And I think that Trump deserves, he should say that he did it. | ||
| It was an I move. | ||
| Obama didn't do it. | ||
| Biden didn't do it. | ||
| Trump did it. | ||
| So when Trump says, I did it, he deserves the credit. | ||
| He gets a lot of flack, but he deserves credit when credit is due. | ||
| And so I'm really happy, not happy, but I think that that was the right decision to make. | ||
| It was a hard decision. | ||
| And the fact that he carried it off with such precision is a credit to America. | ||
| We live in the greatest times in the greatest country. | ||
| And I can't believe some of the callers that come in and hate America and they call in and they put America down. | ||
| But America is the greatest country we could ever live in. | ||
| And America, I wouldn't live anywhere else in the world. | ||
| America in the whole globe of the world is the gem. | ||
| We've got resources. | ||
| We've got two oceans. | ||
| We've got harbors. | ||
| We've got everything that every nation needs. | ||
| We are the Beverly Hills of the world. | ||
| And we need to really appreciate who we are as Americans and the fact that we have so much abundance and we have so much going on for us. | ||
| And Trump realizes this and Trump celebrates success. | ||
| Trump celebrates all this. | ||
| And the people that are calling in and cutting down on Trump and this and that, there's no fascism. | ||
| I don't see cops on the street. | ||
| I don't see military telling us what time to go to bed. | ||
| There's none of that. | ||
| And so I say America right now is a wonderful place to live. | ||
| And we ought to be celebrating and having a great Fourth of July. | ||
| But the naysayers and all the people that call. | ||
| Got your point, John. | ||
| We'll leave it there. | ||
| That was John in California. | ||
| Later this morning on Washington Journal, Republican Congresswoman Jen Kiggins of Virginia, a Navy veteran and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, will give us her take on the U.S. military action against Iran. | ||
| But first, Andrew Desiderio of Punch Bowl News gives us the latest on efforts to require congressional approval before further Iran strikes. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
| I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to SRES 259. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The clerk will report. | |
| Senate Resolution 259, recognizing June 2nd, 2025, as the 39th anniversary of C-SPAN chronicling democracy in the Senate. | ||
| By a unanimous vote, the United States Senate passed a resolution honoring C-SPAN's four decades covering the Senate. | ||
| The resolution thanked cable and satellite operators for providing C-SPAN as a public service to the country. | ||
| C-SPAN does not receive one penny of taxpayer dollars, is funded primarily from satellite and cable providers. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And called on all television providers, including streaming services, to deliver C-SPAN as well. | |
| We're at a different stage in our history, and a lot of people are seeing their news this way, so we need to expand it and make sure we're on all of those platforms, as well as the ones we already are on. | ||
| So thank you again to Senator Grassley for working with me to highlight C-SPAN's critical role. | ||
| And thanks to everyone who has had a hand in C-SPAN's success. | ||
|
unidentified
|
In a nation divided, a rare moment of unity, this fall, C-SPAN presents Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins in a town where partisan fighting prevails. | |
| One table, two leaders, one goal, to find common ground. | ||
| This fall, ceasefire on the network that doesn't take sides, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss Congress in the Iran conflict is Andrew De Sederio. | ||
| He is a senior congressional reporter for Punch Bowl News. | ||
| Andrew, welcome back to the program. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| We'll start with the military strikes on Iran. | ||
| It was something that Congress has had a reaction to. | ||
| Tell us what they've been saying. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Democrats are going to put forward a war powers resolution later this week in the Senate. | |
| It ripens officially, which basically is a fancy term for essentially you can actually start having a vote on it on Friday. | ||
| But Senate Majority Leader John Thune has an incentive to hold that vote earlier than Friday because he's trying to get the budget reconciliation bill through. | ||
| He doesn't want to sort of bog down what is anticipated to be floor time on the reconciliation bill with this war powers resolution. | ||
| We're going to see almost every Democrat support it. | ||
| The question is, how many Republicans are going to support it? | ||
| So far, only Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, he's the only Republican who has signaled some level of support for this effort, which basically says any further action against Iran, the president has to come to Congress to seek an authorization for the use of military force. | ||
| Today, later this afternoon, actually, the Senate is going to get a classified briefing from top administration officials on the intelligence information that led to the strikes over the weekend and sort of what the plan is going forward. | ||
| Obviously, we know about this proposed ceasefire. | ||
| The president was talking about that this morning as well. | ||
| But that this is really the only mechanism for Congress to get involved in this conflict somehow. | ||
| War powers, Congress's war powers have significantly eroded over the years, especially over the last 20 years or so, with presidents of both parties claiming that the 2001 and 2002 authorizations for the use of military force, the post-9-11 ones, claiming that those can justify all of their military actions in the Middle East. | ||
| Of course, Congress disagrees, yet there hasn't been a critical mass sort of, I would say, Republicans mostly to push back against presidents of both parties on that. | ||
| You said that most, if not all, Democrats are expected to vote for the bill. | ||
| Do they have a unified message when it comes to Iran? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, it's tough because some of them are criticizing the president. | |
| They're saying, you know, number one, he didn't seek authorization from Congress. | ||
| Number two, there doesn't appear to be a plan for going forward. | ||
| And number three, they say that the intelligence shows that there was no sort of imminent threat to the United States that required such a large-scale bombing in Iran like we saw over the weekend. | ||
| Now, we will certainly learn more from the senators today after that classified briefing. | ||
| They will learn a lot more than we will, of course. | ||
| But that is sort of what we're hearing from Democrats across the board. | ||
| I will say there are some diversions in that because some are offering some tacit praise for President Trump for having done this simply because the strikes degraded Iran's nuclear program so heavily. | ||
| There are several Iran hawks within the Democratic Party, including those who opposed the 2013 Iran nuclear deal, who have taken that sort of posture. | ||
| But I would say the overwhelming message from Democrats is the three things I described earlier. | ||
| The first and foremost being that the president did not come to Congress and properly brief Congress or consult with Congress on this. | ||
| On the Republican side, it sounds like the majority are behind him. | ||
| Is that the case even when he's signaled this openness to a possible regime change? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, look, I think first and foremost, Republicans are behind President Trump no matter what on pretty much every subject right now. | |
| That is sort of the baseline that we're dealing with here when it comes to Republicans and President Trump. | ||
| On this issue in particular, you're seeing a lot of the war powers hawks. | ||
| You could call them like Rand Paul, for example. | ||
| Aside from Rand Paul, most of them are pretty quiet right now because they think that the president was right to conduct these strikes. | ||
| They think that they were effective in degrading Iran's nuclear program. | ||
| That is a key, of course, objective of this entire thing here. | ||
| And you aren't seeing very many Republican senators, if any, really come out against sort of the wisdom of the strikes. | ||
| And of course, now they're cheering on this proposed ceasefire, which overnight there was obviously news about potential violations of that ceasefire. | ||
| The president was very angry at both Israel and Iran this morning, as we saw played earlier. | ||
| And then on his True Social account, he issued what would appear to be a direct plea to Israel to basically have your pilots come home, stop the bombing, essentially, right? | ||
| And then he followed up a few minutes later saying that that was actually the case, that they had not done so. | ||
| So, you know, it's very unusual the extent to which he's getting involved. | ||
| You know, it's not unusual for presidents to be involved like that, of course, but to take it so public like he has, that's what's sort of unusual about it. | ||
| And that's what we're dealing with in this sort of 24-7 news cycle related to it. | ||
| Andrew De Sederio is a senior congressional reporter with Punch Bowl News. | ||
| He is with us for our discussion on Congress and the Iran conflict. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in now. | ||
| The Lions, Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Andrew, you want to go back to something you mentioned earlier. | ||
| That's the War Power Act. | ||
| There seemed to have been some confusion about how leadership was notified about the strikes on Saturday. | ||
| What you learned. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So the big four congressional leaders, that being Senate Majority Leader John Thun, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, they were all given the standard sort of notification required under the law. | |
| The problem is that when it came to Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, I'm told that the notification he got was very perfunctory, lacked any detail. | ||
| He wasn't even told which country that the military operations were about to happen in. | ||
| And so that kind of gives you a sense of how Democrats versus Republicans were treated as it relates to this. | ||
| The White House had said Hakeem Jeffries wasn't immediately reachable, so he wasn't given the notification at the same time as the other congressional leaders were. | ||
| But there are other Democrats in Congress who are obligated to be notified about this. | ||
| For example, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, Democrat from Virginia, as well as Jim Himes, who is the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Democrat from Connecticut, of course. | ||
| And what they were saying was basically not only were they not notified in advance, but they weren't briefed or consulted the same way that they have been in the past. | ||
| They are part of this very select group of members of Congress called the Gang of Eight, which receives the highest level classified briefings in line with, almost in line with essentially what the president receives. | ||
| We have callers waiting to talk with you. | ||
| We'll start with Alan in Mississippi, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Alan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning. | |
| I cannot understand now that the deal is now that Trump has made the decision. | ||
| He made the right decision. | ||
| Everybody knows it was the right decision. | ||
| Reduce the threat of a nuclear war because Iran would definitely use the bomb if they had it. | ||
| And I can't understand why the Democratic Congress are wasting their time now, now the deed has been done. | ||
| It's absolutely well, it's unbelievable that how blindfolded the Democratic Congress are. | ||
| And I want to make a comment about I'd like to make a comment about the last attack that Trump's not pleased with no. | ||
| Hello. | ||
| Yes, go ahead, Alan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would like to make the comment that he's not pleased with no for the simple reason. | |
| The Israel Prime Minister will not be satisfied until he's got full control of the Gaza Strip. | ||
| And it's the gem of the Mediterranean. | ||
| It's a beautiful place. | ||
| Alan, we'll get a response from Andrew on the first part of your comment. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, look, I think that Democrats are in a posture right now where they feel like they have to go hard in opposing Donald Trump in pretty much everything he does. | |
| I think that's sort of across the board right now. | ||
| I will say that there are some Democrats who are privately saying that, hey, maybe we shouldn't be as critical as we've been, given that these strikes appear to have degraded Iran's nuclear capabilities significantly. | ||
| Now, senators will learn more about that later today in this classified briefing. | ||
| You know, they're certainly going to be pressing the president's top intelligence officials on all of that. | ||
| But you do have Democrats who are privately sort of grumbling about how their party has responded to this and how the response from the party's leadership has been overwhelmingly critical, of course. | ||
| And Punch Bowl is reporting that several members will be introducing war powers legislation in the coming days regarding further, any potential further action, military action in Iran. | ||
| What can you tell us about that? | ||
| What's the major differences in some of these bills? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, right now, the Senate is focusing on Senator Tim Kaine's war powers resolution, which was actually introduced before the strikes. | |
| And that is the one that is sort of the most timely right now. | ||
| The House probably won't be able to vote on a war powers resolution until after it considers a reconciliation bill. | ||
| So we're looking at a timeline of probably a couple weeks here. | ||
| The House one has been introduced by the top Democrats on the Foreign Affairs and Intelligence and Armed Services Committees. | ||
| So you really do see Democratic leadership sort of coalescing around this effort. | ||
| And like I said before in the Senate, we'll probably see a vote on Tim Kain's war powers resolution sometime this week. | ||
| I would say probably before Friday. | ||
| Our guest, Andrew Desiderio with Punch Bowl News. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in now the lines. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats 202-8-478-8000. | ||
| And Independents 202-478-8002. | ||
| We'll hear from Beverly, who's here in Washington, D.C., line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Beverly. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Thank you so much for taking my call. | ||
| I guess this question is likely hypothetical in nature, but it's still one that I find myself just asking so often. | ||
| So with this most recent move with striking Iran, and, you know, and this is the hypothetical part, you know, had this been any other president on the left, you know, the right would be up in arms. | ||
| There would be, you know, action taken in Congress. | ||
| And I also heard your guests say that Leader Jeffries was notified much later. | ||
| What repercussions, what options, what resources at this juncture, you know, we're almost seven months in and so much has happened. | ||
| You know, I guess what I'm asking is, is there going to be any consequence? | ||
| Let's say further down the road, this strike goes horribly wrong and we start to lose U.S. lives. | ||
| You know, what are the what ifs as to consequences, if any? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, the War Powers Resolution, I think, is the only really real consequence that or consequence affecting tool that Congress has in its toolkit, because the War Powers Resolution, what it would do is it would essentially say that any further military action regarding a certain nation or a certain part of the world, for any future action, the president would have to come to Congress first to seek authorization. | ||
| So that would be the recourse if we do get into some sort of longer-term entanglement with this particular conflict. | ||
| I think the caller was referring to a certain recourse. | ||
| I think that's really the only way that Congress can have a role in this. | ||
| But of course, it depends on Congress wanting to have a role, right? | ||
| Democrats obviously want to be able to have that role and to be able to exert that authority over President Trump. | ||
| Right now, we're seeing very few Republicans wanting to sort of stick their necks out and join them. | ||
| Also wanted to ask you about the latest on President Trump's one big beautiful bill. | ||
| It's something that is working its way through Congress. | ||
| It's supposed to have a deadline of July 4th. | ||
| Tell us what the latest is, how close they are to that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it's an artificial deadline. | |
| It's not like we're going to jump off of a fiscal cliff on July 4th. | ||
| But Senate Republican leadership wants to get a bill done before they leave for the July 4th recess. | ||
| That means working through this week, potentially into the weekend, if needed. | ||
| The status as of last night was very dicey. | ||
| As we wrote in our newsletter this morning, it's going to be very difficult to resolve a lot of these differences, not just within the Senate Republican Conference, but between Senate Republicans and House Republicans in particular. | ||
| There's so many issues that might seem minor, but are really make or break when it comes to this legislation. | ||
| The state and local tax deduction, for example, is a big issue that remains unresolved. | ||
| And Republican senators are beginning to believe that their leadership, Senator Thune in particular, the majority leader, is in the posture of sort of wanting to jam the House and say, essentially, you know what, we're going to pass what we can pass and we'll leave for July 4th recess and basically dare the House to oppose it, right? | ||
| Because there are these members, for example, House Republicans from blue states, which are pushing to maintain this deal on the state and local tax deduction cap that they ironed out in the House. | ||
| The question is, are they really going to tank President Trump's entire legislative agenda because they're being so intransigent about that one single issue, which again, that single issue is very important to them and to their constituents, right? | ||
| And it's important to them politically as well. | ||
| But what Senate Republican leaders are sort of banking on at this point is that the pressure that will be on the House to get something done, especially by July 4th, will be so enormous that the House will then just fold and pass whatever the Senate passes. | ||
| I will say that is, you know, that's a loaded assumption, but just because of where we are right now with so many unresolved differences between the two chambers and within the Senate Republican Conference itself. | ||
| Let's hear from Steve in Maryland, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Steve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The legislative branch is a disgrace. | |
| I believe the House is in session this year 130 days. | ||
| You know, they're on vacation more than they're anywhere else. | ||
| In fact, they're going on vacation again. | ||
| Let's speak about the budget. | ||
| That is their primary objective, and they have failed at that now for 35 years straight, hence their approval rating of 15 or 16 percent. | ||
| And after this bombing of the heavy lifting that Donald Trump did to make this decision, it was amazing this Sunday how both senators and House representatives came out of the woodwork like cockroaches for their time to be on national TV. | ||
| I wonder with our legislators anymore, should they be legislators or should they be actors? | ||
| Because they seem to love to come out and do a great acting role and put their two cents in when their two cents really is irrelevant. | ||
| The one branch we really should consider of getting rid of in our federal government is the legislative branch. | ||
| Thank you for your time. | ||
| Well, the caller was expressing a lot of frustrations about Congress. | ||
| I think the American people share those frustrations. | ||
| Congress's approval rating hovers around 10%, which is obviously abysmal. | ||
| Although I don't think many Americans would agree with doing away with the legislative branch entirely because it is the branch of government that is most accountable to the people. | ||
| And one last call for you. | ||
| It's JJ in California, line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, JJ. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| So I don't understand why the Democrats don't support our president. | ||
| They're all suffering from Trump derangement. | ||
| Anything the president does, they oppose it. | ||
| That he could find a cure for cancer, and they would oppose it. | ||
| Now, you know, the Khomeini, the guy's 86 years old. | ||
| They're having all this, they're behind the proxies, Hamads, and all that. | ||
| They're the head of the snake. | ||
| You have to cut off the snake whether we do it now or do it later. | ||
| It's best to do it now because we have air superiority. | ||
| And that Holmany, the reason he's, I feel, the reason that he doesn't care, he's old, he's 86, but he wants to leave a legacy. | ||
| And his legacy is death to America. | ||
| I don't know if we all recall, but remember a long time ago when they drug our pilot through the streets? | ||
| Remember that? | ||
| And the hostages? | ||
| Those people are still around because I'm still around and I remember it. | ||
| But I don't understand why we have so much animosity towards President. | ||
| He's doing a great job. | ||
| Anybody that says that they're a Democrat, now before the administration sends it. | ||
| JJ, we'll leave it there and get a response because we're running short of time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, look, I think the caller was referring to this idea of regime change, which President Trump, as you mentioned earlier, was talking about on Truth Social in his own sort of very unorthodox way of talking about things publicly that presidents usually keep private. | |
| Look, Republicans, Democrats alike don't want to see a regime change war, if you will, because everyone is very fearful of sort of the United States being in another foreign entanglement that resembles Iraq or Afghanistan, which members of both parties, I think, would acknowledge were pretty abject failures on, you know, when it comes to administrations of both parties, frankly, over the years. | ||
| So lawmakers are sort of worried always about that possibility. | ||
| And that haunts many of them, many of them who are still around today and voted to go to war in 2001 and 2002 in both Iraq and Afghanistan. | ||
| And I think the sentiment expressed is one just that many members of Congress are very wary of embracing at this point, just because of the potential consequences for not only a regional war, but also a long-term foreign entanglement for the United States, not just in money, but in blood as well. | ||
| Andrew De Sederio is a senior congressional reporter for Punch Bowl News. | ||
| You can find his work and sign up for their newsletters at punchbowl.news. | ||
| Andrew, thank you for being with us this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Still ahead this morning on Washington Journal a conversation with Kurt Volcker, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO. | ||
| We'll get a preview of this year's NATO summit that starts today in the Netherlands. | ||
| But first, more of your phone calls on President Trump announcing an Iran Israel ceasefire. | ||
| You can start calling in now. | ||
| Hear the lines. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
| Democracy is always an unfinished creation. | ||
| Democracy is worth dying for. | ||
| Democracy belongs to us all. | ||
| We are here in the sanctuary of democracy. | ||
| Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies. | ||
| American democracy is bigger than any one person. | ||
| Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We are still at our core, a democracy. | |
| This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Nonfiction book lovers, C-SPAN has a number of podcasts for you. | |
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| Welcome back. | ||
| We are returning to our earlier discussion, asking your thoughts on the Israel-Iran ceasefire. | ||
| But before we get to your calls, we're joined this morning from Capitol Hill by Congresswoman Jennifer Kiggins, Republican of Virginia, and a member of the Armed Services and Veterans Affairs Committees. | ||
| Congressman Kiggins, thank you for being with us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| We'll start by getting your reaction to both the news of the ceasefire and potential violations. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, I would say both sides are ready for peace. | |
| This was a decisive action from President Trump to the world that states we cannot have a nuclear-armed Iran. | ||
| And the decision he made to strike those three nuclear facilities in Iran was the right one. | ||
| We, of course, are concerned about our men and women in uniform who are in the region. | ||
| I represent a district in Virginia that has a large Navy population. | ||
| I'm a Navy veteran. | ||
| I'm a Navy spouse. | ||
| I'm also a Navy mom now. | ||
| So a lot of interest for me as a representative to make sure that those people are safe. | ||
| But what President Trump did, again, was the right call. | ||
| We cannot have a country that has been stating since 1979, death to America, death to Israel. | ||
| The world is a safer place because of the actions he took a couple days ago, and America's a safer place as well. | ||
| And for our audience, letting them know your service, you were on the Armed Services Committee. | ||
| You were a Navy pilot for 10 years flying H-46 and H-3 helicopters. | ||
| You also completed two deployments to the Persian Gulf. | ||
| Your concerns about the escalation and what you've seen from the two sides. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I know that we know that the goal is ultimately peace, but it's peace through strength. | |
| And President Trump is the person to do that. | ||
| We had four years of administration where we didn't see that strength on the world stage. | ||
| And we saw the world become a more dangerous place. | ||
| We saw Russia invading Ukraine. | ||
| We saw what happened in Israel. | ||
| We see China who's arming itself and being more aggressive every day. | ||
| So finally, we have a president who is here to exude that strength on the world stage. | ||
| And that deterrence, that's how we keep peace. | ||
| It's always a peace through strength goal. | ||
| So we are working on the peace part. | ||
| I too desire a ceasefire that is kept by both sides. | ||
| I know it's been changing overnight and we're still kind of waiting and watching today, but that is the ultimate goal. | ||
| This is not an extended conflict. | ||
| This is a very decisive three-facility strike to end Iran's nuclear program. | ||
| President Trump announcing that ceasefire yesterday and then this morning saying that both sides have violated it. | ||
| How should the U.S. respond if we continue to see ongoing aggressions? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Continue to push for peace. | |
| We have diplomacy that we're utilizing, but that is ultimately the goal. | ||
| So was the ceasefire violated? | ||
| They need to work that out. | ||
| But I think both sides are wanting that and we see that desire from both sides. | ||
| So we need to encourage to push them that way. | ||
| You know, this is not an extended conflict. | ||
| This was not any type of start of any type of war or extended, just aggression on our part. | ||
| This was, again, a very decisive. | ||
| We wanted to end Iran's nuclear program, which we did a great job. | ||
| And special shout out and kudos to, again, our military men and women. | ||
| We involved all three branches of service and the Marine Corps and just had all of the United States military might. | ||
| We're the greatest military in the world. | ||
| So I think people should take that piece away, that the United States is back. | ||
| We are a strong country with a strong military and we have decisive leadership. | ||
| And we're not going to tolerate this type of aggression from places like Iran, who operates terrorist proxies throughout the world and is a threat to so many countries, but especially our own. | ||
| House members, yourself included, will be receiving a classified briefing at about 3 p.m. today. | ||
| What do you want to know? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| I will be interested about the safety of our troops that are in that area, what steps we've taken to ensure that they are kept out of harm's way. | ||
| I represent a district with so many military families that I know are concerned for their safety. | ||
| I'm concerned for their safety. | ||
| Again, as a military mom, but just as a representative from a district that we send those people, we send our Navy from the East Coast and a lot of our Armed Forces branches who live in Hampton Roads, Virginia, who get sent into harm's way. | ||
| So they are there. | ||
| We know that our families are watching. | ||
| We are proud of them. | ||
| We know that they are brave and we applaud their efforts and their bravery. | ||
| But that's my biggest concern today going into this brief. | ||
| And Senator Tim Kaine, Senator from your state there in Virginia, has said he plans to force a vote on his resolution that would block President Trump from taking any further military action in Iran unless it's approved by the House and Senate first. | ||
| Your response, is congressional approval needed for further actions? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It is not needed. | |
| President Trump acted well within his constitutional rights, Article 2 of the Constitution, which states he can take immediate unilateral action. | ||
| We've seen this happen on both sides of the fence when President Obama acted in 2011 and Libya in 2014 with ISIS. | ||
| And then we saw as recently as last year in 2024 when President Biden ordered those Houthi strikes in Yemen. | ||
| So it doesn't matter what political party you're in. | ||
| This is not a partisan issue. | ||
| The president has that constitutional right and President Trump has acted within that right. | ||
| And along those same lines, one of your fellow House members, Representative Thomas Massey, a Republican of Kentucky who has opposed President Trump and his plan for Iran, has called President Trump's actions unconstitutional. | ||
| In response, a new super PAC that is aligned with President Trump is aiming to unseat Representative Massey. | ||
| Is an action like that appropriate? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, I would say there's different responses on both sides. | |
| We've even seen Democrats that have been supportive of the action. | ||
| So this shouldn't be a partisan issue. | ||
| Partisan politics isn't, that's not where we're focused here. | ||
| We're focused on de-arming Iran's nuclear power, which is what we've done. | ||
| And I couldn't be more proud of this administration, this president. | ||
| And another topic that has come up is the potential regime change there for Iran. | ||
| What is your reaction to that possibility? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, this was not the goal. | |
| A regime change was not the goal. | ||
| I mean, we'll see where this continues in the days and weeks ahead. | ||
| But the goal of this particular strike with American military involvement was to de-arm Iran's nuclear capability, which we did. | ||
| We did very decisively. | ||
| We did very quickly. | ||
| And I think, again, the takeaway needs to be a message to the world that America is a strong country with the best military ever. | ||
| And we need to maintain peace, but it's through strength and it's through American military might. | ||
| So I couldn't be more grateful for what's happening for our men and women who are there actually getting the mission done. | ||
| And one last question for you. | ||
| President Trump, as we speak, is on his way to the Netherlands for the start of the NATO summit. | ||
| What are you going to be watching for coming out of that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, you know, we're stronger together and our allied partners are out there. | |
| And it's a time when we need our allied partners. | ||
| And I know there's going to be a big push for an increase in defense spending with all of our allied nations. | ||
| And I think I heard a 5% goal. | ||
| That's a good goal to strive. | ||
| America's at its lowest defense spending since the end of World War II. | ||
| We're approximately 2.9%. | ||
| We need to get back up there because that's how we maintain peace throughout the world. | ||
| The needs of the military are great right now, especially on the Navy side. | ||
| We see a lot of focus on shipbuilding. | ||
| We don't have the number of ships we need. | ||
| We don't have the number of aircraft we need. | ||
| We don't know the quality of life measures we need to do some base infrastructure improvements. | ||
| They don't take care of the people and their families. | ||
| So we need that plus up in the defense budget right now. | ||
| So I hope that we also need our allied partners to ship in because America needs to do it with friends and with our alliances. | ||
| So I hope that there's a lot of discussion about that today in the meeting that President Trump is attending. | ||
| That our allied partners are here too to be on that team and to do that mission with us. | ||
| Congresswoman Jennifer Kiggins is a Republican of Virginia. | ||
| Congresswoman, thank you so much for your time this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having me. | |
| We are back to our earlier discussion asking your thoughts on the ceasefire President Trump has announced between Israel and Iran, as well as what President Trump calls violations just hours after the agreement was put into place. | ||
| If you have a comment you'd like to make, the lines there on your screens, Republicans 202-748-8001, Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| We will start with Katrina in Georgia, line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Katrina. | ||
| Oh, Katrina, it looks like we lost you. | ||
| We'll go to John in District Heights, Maryland, line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Can you hear me? | ||
| Yes, go ahead, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Listen, I'm so sick of the lies, the lies, the lies, the lies. | |
| Benjamin Netanyahu, who for the last 30 years was talking about they're on the verge of getting a nuclear. | ||
| If they wanted a nuclear weapon, by now they would have had one. | ||
| Back in 192016, when he came into office, there was a coalition put together for them to Iran and came into the coalition to deal with the problem of their nuclear weapons. | ||
| And they joined. | ||
| Sean Trump came in and destroyed it. | ||
| He came in and dismantled and destroyed the American, taking America out of that. | ||
| Now here he's lying, talking about intimate danger. | ||
| This guy you see right here on TV, that guy is a demonic individual. | ||
| I mean, anytime you can just blow babies to pieces and have no remorse about it, I mean, no remorse, babies starving to death, no remorse about it, killing 40 members of one family, no remorse about it, because he wants to have a Jewish state. | ||
| I mean, I can understand that, but you're going to kill your way into something like that? | ||
| We got 40,000 troops in the Middle East for what? | ||
| What do we need them in the Middle East for, other than control that area over there? | ||
| And they keep talking about Hamas and who she's what they're doing. | ||
| I don't think what bothers me, ma'am, is you never hear what America's doing to other nations. | ||
| We had, and in Vietnam, we had war crimes. | ||
| In Iraq, we had war crimes. | ||
| In Afghanistan, we had war crimes. | ||
| You know everything about those. | ||
| I don't watch sports. | ||
| I pay attention to what's going on with the news. | ||
| But it's amazing to me how these people in this, especially these Republicans, all of them are bought and paid for by lobbyists. | ||
| That's why they're Donald Trump. | ||
| What he did just now is because since he's been in the office, he's been getting away with all kinds of breaking the Constitution. | ||
| The courts are following him. | ||
| That so-called Supreme Court. | ||
| It's a sham to call themselves liberals and conservatives. | ||
| They're supposed to be the Supreme Court. | ||
| This whole thing is just making me sick. | ||
| I'm 81 years old. | ||
| I'm a veteran. | ||
| And it just makes me sick to see everything start with lies. | ||
| And these people calling him talking about he did a good job. | ||
| You can't trust the man is convicted, felon, and an accused rapist. | ||
| How are you going to trust anything he says? | ||
| This fraud, waste, and abuse. | ||
| We haven't seen nobody brought up on fraud yet. | ||
| Where are the fraudsters he was talking about? | ||
| Where are they? | ||
| Now, all of a sudden, most Americans don't understand this. | ||
| Do you know those who went into the Social Security and the Supreme Court gave them blockage? | ||
| You cannot go to the Freedom of Information Act and find out anything that they're doing in Social Security because of this diversion that he's— Got your point, John. | ||
| We'll go on to Bruce in Kentucky, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Bruce. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| One thing I haven't heard on here, at least I've missed it, is what a fantastic job our armed forces did in the strike. | ||
| Nobody's commending them. | ||
| They did one fantastic job. | ||
| And I think somebody ought to point that out. | ||
| The World Powers Act is unconstitutional, according to John Yu. | ||
| That's YO. | ||
| You ought to have him on here and talk about the constitutionality of the War Powers Act. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Bruce in Kentucky. | ||
| This from the Associated Press says: a tentative truce faltered Tuesday when Israel accused Iran of launching missiles into its airspace after the ceasefire was supposed to take effect and vowed to retaliate. | ||
| Iran's military denied firing on Israel, state media reported. | ||
| But explosions boomed and sirens sounded across northern Israel mid-morning as an Israeli military official said two Iranian missiles were intercepted. | ||
| U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House before departing for the NATO summit at The Hague that, in his view, both sides had violated the nascent agreement he had announced earlier. | ||
| From this morning, here is President Trump responding to questions from reporters on those violations. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is the ceasefire breaking the new class? | |
| I don't think so, but I'm not happy that Israel is going out now. | ||
| There was one rocket that I guess was fired overboard. | ||
| It was after the time limit, and it missed its target. | ||
| And now Israel's going out. | ||
| These guys got to calm down. | ||
| Ridiculous. | ||
| I didn't like plenty of things I saw yesterday. | ||
| I didn't like the fact that Israel unloaded right after we made the deal. | ||
| They didn't have to unload. | ||
| And I didn't like the fact that the retaliation was very strong. | ||
| But in all fairness, Israel unloaded a lot. | ||
| And now I hear Israel just went out because they felt it was violated by one rocket that didn't land anywhere. | ||
| That's not what we want, I'll tell you. | ||
| And I'm telling you, I'm not happy about that, Israel, either. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm not sure how God's going to be able to do it. | |
| All I do is play both sides. | ||
| I'm going now, as you know, to NATO. | ||
| Some of you are going with me, and I think it's going to be successful. | ||
| We'll see. | ||
| I'll let you know. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Are you going to be there? | |
| If the new dawn in the Middle East sensitive agreement, you managed to achieve one of the first future plans for the region for Saudi Arabia, Israel, God will be hostages. | ||
| Look, you're asking me about women in the Middle East. | ||
| It's getting a lot better. | ||
| Things are happening at a high level. | ||
| As you know, Saudi Arabia has done a really good job. | ||
| It's coming out far faster than I thought. | ||
| So we're very happy about what's happening with women in the Middle East. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I'm talking about the new dawn in the Middle East that you managed to achieve last night. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| You know, the region is going to a new place. | ||
| You can see the agreement. | ||
| Can you tell us what's your future plan for God's off with the hostages? | ||
| It's a new dawn. | ||
| I appreciate the question. | ||
| You're very nice. | ||
| Who are you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| I'm Naria Kraus from Israeli Funnel Birth News. | ||
| Well, we have to have Israel calm down because they went on a mission this morning. | ||
| I gotta get Israel to calm down now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you have to speak for the violin? | |
| Any thoughts on Frontier Canyon? | ||
| I'll have to go. | ||
| I'm not sure. | ||
| You urge both sides not to violate the ceasefire. | ||
| But reports coming from the region suggest that the sides accuse each other for violating the ceasefire. | ||
| I think they both violated it. | ||
| I don't think they, I'm not sure they did it intentionally. | ||
| They couldn't rein people back. | ||
| I don't like the fact that Israel went out this morning at all, and I'm going to see if I can stop it. | ||
| So as soon as I get away from you, I'm going to see if I can stop it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay? | |
| Have you spoken to him before? | ||
| How confident are you now? | ||
| I think it's been completely demolished. | ||
| I think the reason we're here is because those pilots, those B-2 pilots, did an unbelievable job. | ||
| And, you know, the fake news, like CNN in particular, they're trying to, you know, they're trying to say, well, I agree that it was destroyed, but maybe not that destroyed. | ||
| You know what they're doing? | ||
| They're really hurting great pilots that put their lives in the line. | ||
| CNN is scum, and so is MSDNC. | ||
| They're all. | ||
| And frankly, the networks aren't much better. | ||
| It's all fake news, but they should not have done that. | ||
| Those pilots hit their targets. | ||
| Those targets were obliterated. | ||
| And the pilots should be given credit. | ||
| They're not after the pilots. | ||
| They're after me. | ||
| They want to try and demean. | ||
| Iran will never rebuild its nuclear program. | ||
| From there, absolutely not. | ||
| That place is under rock. | ||
| That place is demolished. | ||
| The B-2 pilots did their job. | ||
| They did it better than anybody could even imagine. | ||
| They hit late in the evening. | ||
| It was dark with no moon. | ||
| And they hit that target with every one of those things. | ||
| And that place is gone. | ||
| But when I see CNN all night long, they're trying to say, well, maybe it wasn't really as demolished as we thought it was demolished. | ||
| You take a look at the pinpricks, and you see that place is gone. | ||
| And I will say, I think CNN ought to apologize to the pilots with the B-2s. | ||
| I think that MSDNC ought to apologize. | ||
| I think these guys really, these networks and these cable networks are real losers. | ||
| You really are. | ||
| You're real losers. | ||
| You're gutless losers. | ||
| I say that to CNN because I watch it. | ||
| I have no choice. | ||
| I've got to watch that garbage. | ||
| It's all garbage. | ||
| It's all fake news. | ||
| But I think CNN is a gutless group of people. | ||
| And the people that run it, nobody even knows it's been sold so many times, but the people that run it ought to be ashamed. | ||
| MSDNC, a guy named Brian Roberts, he heads it. | ||
| He's a disgrace. | ||
| He's a weak, pathetic disgrace. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Iran violated the peace agreement and the ceasefire agreement. | |
| Do you believe that Iran is still committed, Steve? | ||
| Yeah, I do. | ||
| They violated it, but Israel violated it too. | ||
| Are you questioning if Israel was committed to? | ||
| Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I've never seen before. | ||
| The biggest load that we've seen. | ||
| I'm not happy with Israel. | ||
| You know, when I say, okay, now you have 12 hours, you don't go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on them. | ||
| So I'm not happy with them. | ||
| I'm not happy with Iran either. | ||
| But I'm really unhappy if Israel's going out this morning because of one rocket that didn't land, that was shot, perhaps by mistake, that didn't land. | ||
| I'm not happy about that. | ||
| We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing. | ||
| Do you understand that? | ||
| That was President Trump talking with reporters as he was getting ready to depart for the NATO summit in The Hague. | ||
| This from the Associated Press. | ||
| It says that President Trump has spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from Air Force One as he's made his way to the NATO summit in The Hague. | ||
| It says Trump did not mince words. | ||
| According to a White House official familiar with the matter, the official who was not authorized to comment publicly about the private leader's call said Trump was, quote, exceptionally firm and direct with Prime Minister Netanyahu about what needed to happen to sustain the ceasefire. | ||
| It says the official added that Netanyahu understood the severity of the situation and acknowledged Trump's concerns. | ||
| President Trump posting on Truth Social just about an hour ago says Israeli is not going to attack Iran. | ||
| All planes will turn around and head home while doing a friendly plane wave to Iran. | ||
| Nobody will be hurt. | ||
| The ceasefire is in effect. | ||
| Thank you for your attention to this matter. | ||
| Signed, Donald J. Trump, President of the United States. | ||
| Back to your calls talking about that ceasefire. | ||
| Let's hear from Gary, Kingston, North Carolina, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Gary. | ||
| Gary, are you there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, hello. | |
| Yes, I'm Gary. | ||
| Hey, thank you. | ||
| Hi, Gary. | ||
| Go ahead, Jeron. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you hear me all right? | |
| Yes, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Yes, mom Gary. | ||
| Yes, I just wanted to make one input. | ||
| I am proud of our president and the military did an excellent job. | ||
| I got family, and my father was an Air Force before I was born. | ||
| And I had an uncle that went to the National Guard, and I have uncles from my mom's side that fought in World War II. | ||
| And I got a friend of mine that fought that in the Vietnam War. | ||
| And he is approximately my age. | ||
| We got a predicament with Isis. | ||
| That is God's land. | ||
| That is God's people. | ||
| They might not know it right now, but some of them do. | ||
| The Arabs hate them because of the birthright way back in the difficult days. | ||
| That's why they have a problem with Israel. | ||
| And they think that's their land when it's God's land. | ||
| And America, thank God, we got President Trump that wants to stand by Israel, even if nobody else wants to. | ||
| But it looks like we might have some followers. | ||
| But I'm so proud. | ||
| I voted for him, and I'm so proud of the job that he did. | ||
| That was Gary in North Carolina, Katrina, in Georgia, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Katrina. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| This president is, he has no truth in him, and it's just that people don't understand that we can critique our president and still love our country, just like you would critique your child, but you'll still love your child. | ||
| But with this nuclear bombing that he did, I think it was just a waste of time and money. | ||
| And he was baited into this whole entire situation with Israel. | ||
| And it's pretty much telling in this so-called ceasefire. | ||
| This administration has no diplomacy. | ||
| They do not know how to just let things, if you get an agreement, you let the agreement stick first before you come out and toot your horn. | ||
| We're looking very embarrassing in this whole situation. | ||
| You send these B-2 bombers over there, and at the end of the day, you tell me there's no casualties at these facilities. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And normally those type of facilities would be armed and guarded. | |
| But that lets you know that this was a complete waste of money, American people's money, citizens' money going to do this because we had no dog in this fight. | ||
| Whatever was going on over there, they had clear heads up and had those things, even if it was something there, removed. | ||
| Because if there's no radiation or any kind of evidence of anything being at those locations, we have wasted our time, our money, and energy on something that wasn't even, that was being monitored. | ||
| And that's all that needs to be done, monitored. | ||
| Because everyone, every United States, the Soviet Union has those type of weapons. | ||
| And if you don't want them to have a weapon, we need to get rid of our weapons. | ||
| We cannot be the police of the world. | ||
| We can only work with the countries that want to work with us and have other countries who want to work with other countries work with them to keep peace in this world. | ||
| We cannot be bullies. | ||
| And that's exactly what the United States has always been, bullied. | ||
| And it never ends well. | ||
| So that's what I want to say today. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Katrina in Georgia, Anne in Bar Harbor, Maine, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Anne. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, thank you so very much for this opportunity. | |
| So I would like to set aside what was done, how it was done, what was actually achieved, and at what cost, and focus on the service people who actually carried out the mission and the technicalities and the skill of them. | ||
| And I would like to spotlight that these are people who were trained under the DEI policies. | ||
| These were people who trained and served with gay women, black, trans service people who are all now being discriminated against by Pete Hedsett and Donald Trump. | ||
| And recently, C-SPAN, relatively recently, C-SPAN, I think it was a U.S. War College, it was a symposium where interns had studied the overperformance of the Ukrainian people. | ||
| And one of the things they highlighted was the inclusion and the diversity and how everybody was serving together. | ||
| And that's really what we saw in terms of the achievement of carrying out the mission. | ||
| Like I said, these are people who were trained, who served with, who got their skills under the DEI programs and serving with a diverse group of people. | ||
| That was Anne in Maine. | ||
| And Mike, our last call in this portion of the program. | ||
| Calling from Orlando Park in Illinois, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Mike. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm glad you took my call this morning. | ||
| I am a Trump supporter, but I just have one comment that has to do with Iran and Israel. | ||
| And he stuck his neck out to help and stop the people from killing each other over there. | ||
| Now, if they're both going to turn around and break the treaty, maybe the United States should just pull out and let them do it on their own. | ||
| We put a lot of time and money into them trying to restore peace and good life. | ||
| That was Mike in Illinois. | ||
| Our last call for this portion of today's Washington Journal. | ||
| We will return to this topic later in the program. | ||
| But next, a conversation with Kurt Volcker, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO. | ||
| We'll get a preview of this year's NATO summit starting today in the Netherlands against the backdrop of Iran hostilities. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
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C-SPAN has such a distinguished and honorable and important mandate and mission in this country. | |
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| Thank C-SPAN for all you do. | ||
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss this week's NATO summit and the latest on the Israel-Iran and Russia and Ukraine conflicts is Kurt Volcker. | ||
| He is a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO. | ||
| Mr. Volcker, welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you very much. | |
| Great to be with you. | ||
| We'll start with the meeting that will be happening a little bit later today. | ||
| President Trump has departed. | ||
| How is what we are seeing happening in Iran and the ceasefire agreement? | ||
| How much is that going to impact the summit this year? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, in terms of the discussions among the leaders, I think it'll be the number one topic. | |
| I think that that's what people are going to be focused on in the immediate moment. | ||
| They start with a dinner this evening. | ||
| It is billed as a social dinner. | ||
| It's hosted by the King and Queen of the Netherlands. | ||
| But I think discussion topics there, it's going to be all about what's going on in the Middle East. | ||
| Tomorrow they have the formal meeting of the North Atlantic Council. | ||
| It should be about three hours. | ||
| There they will cover some of the usual NATO topics, but any spontaneous moments, I think, will again be talking about the Middle East. | ||
| And we are showing our audience a live look at the summit. | ||
| Some leaders have already arrived there. | ||
| We've seen Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky, Vladimir Zelensky there on the stage. | ||
| How have European leaders responded to the U.S.'s military actions there in Iran? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, so far, they've been rather quiet and I would say also rather supportive. | |
| Of course, they were not briefed in advance. | ||
| They didn't have an opportunity to take part or to contribute in any way. | ||
| But nobody wanted to have a nuclear weapon in Iran. | ||
| Nobody wanted Iran to develop that capability. | ||
| They didn't necessarily want Israel to launch attacks on Iran. | ||
| But once that happened and the risk of Iran then rushing to actually develop a nuclear weapon increased, I think they were probably happy that the U.S. took out the facilities that could do that. | ||
| And now probably also happy that President Trump is pushing very hard for an end to the fighting, so this stops. | ||
| Something else that has been mentioned is the potential for a regime change. | ||
| Your reaction to that and possible support from European leaders. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the Iranian people have wanted a regime change for a very long time, but they have a very repressive regime and it's very difficult for them to do. | |
| The United States under President Trump has been very clear he is not going to go into Iran. | ||
| He's not going to use ground troops. | ||
| The U.S. is not going to take part in trying to change the regime. | ||
| At least that is what President Trump has indicated so far. | ||
| But if the Iranian people were to do it, they would have better lives and it would also be better for the region and the United States. | ||
| So I think there's a positive attitude toward that, but no effort to try to bring it about. | ||
| Our guest for the next 35 minutes or so is Kirk Volcker, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO. | ||
| Our topic is this week's NATO summit, as well as the latest on the Israel and Iran and Russia and Ukraine conflicts. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for Mr. Volcker, you can start calling in now the lines: Republicans 202-748-8001, Democrats 202-748-8000, and Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| And Kirk wanted to ask you: President Trump will be arriving there. | ||
| Do you believe that he will have an ask for European leaders when it comes to Iran? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Regarding Iran, I think it is just going to be to support a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, get the fighting over, and then to support the idea that Iran should not have any nuclear program, any nuclear weapons program at all, no domestic capacity for enrichment or storage of enriched uranium, and then to be able to go into Iran and inspect that through the IAEA. | |
| And that will rely on a lot of European countries to provide inspectors and support within that organization. | ||
| So I think it's going to be in tying down a settlement, if indeed we get to that point, that we end up with an Iran that does not possess the capability to produce a nuclear weapon. | ||
| I think that's where the next step will be and what the ask could be. | ||
| And beyond Iran, what else is going to be on NATO's agenda this year? | ||
| What are they going to be talking about? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the number one topic for this NATO summit is increasing European defense spending as a percentage of GDP. | |
| Back in 2014, during the Obama administration, NATO agreed to a target of 2% of GDP to be spent on defense. | ||
| Very few countries met that for many years. | ||
| Indeed, when President Trump took office in 2017, only three NATO countries were spending 2% or more. | ||
| When he took office again in 2025, we were already up to 28 countries meeting that target, thanks largely to the pressure of Russia's war against Ukraine and President Trump in the offing pushing and pushing to get countries to do more. | ||
| Of course, the Biden administration pushing them as well. | ||
| Now, with this war still going on and the prospect that Russia is preparing for an even larger war in Europe, NATO is being asked to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP. | ||
| And that 5% would be in two categories: 3.5% in defense budgets of what is traditionally seen as defense spending, equipment, personnel, ammunition, logistics, so forth. | ||
| And then 1.5% on supportive measures that can support the ability to field and deploy forces, such as infrastructure, bridges, roads, and also things like cyber defense. | ||
| So that full package of 5% is supposed to be agreed at the NATO summit this week. | ||
| And last week, President Trump was asked about that 5%. | ||
| He suggested that maybe the U.S. doesn't need to meet that minimum. | ||
| Your response. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, first off, I think all NATO countries should act together, and I think we should all adopt the same rules and the same standards. | |
| He's right when he says that the U.S. has been doing that, and a lot of our NATO allies have not. | ||
| They have not spent 2% of GDP despite their agreements. | ||
| So he is reflecting that sense that it has been unfair for a long time. | ||
| Now, that being said, he was probably not deeply briefed about this 3.5% and 1.5% hard defense spending and supportive spending, because that is actually what the U.S. is already doing. | ||
| So we are already there. | ||
| And this will also be the first NATO summit for Secretary General Mark Rudy. | ||
|
unidentified
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What is his approach? | |
| Well, I think the most important thing for Secretary General Ruta is to show unity among the allies. | ||
| The strength of NATO is that it deters attacks against NATO members because any potential adversary realizes that NATO has the capability and the will to defeat any attacker. | ||
| So showing that we have the resolve, the unity of purpose, and the capabilities to back that up, that's the job of the Secretary General, and that's what he's really striving for. | ||
| As a result, he has tried to minimize areas where there might be disagreement among NATO allies or work still to do or differences in nuance and show through this summit that those are secondary compared to the basics of the alliance, which is collective defense, having the military means to carry out collective defense, and having the will and the unity to do so so that we deter any attackers. | ||
| And that's what this is all about and what this should convey. | ||
| Mr. Volcker, we have callers waiting to talk with you. | ||
| We'll start with Andrew in New Jersey, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you, Seisman, for taking my call. | ||
| First of all, these countries in the Middle East were around longer before we were. | ||
| Now, Iran, where did they get the money to buy this nuclear stuff? | ||
| And why do we have to constantly use our military and put them in harm's way? | ||
| And what do the NATO countries, how much do they participate? | ||
| Because from what I understand, when Obama was president, he gave $400 billion to Iran not to develop nuclear programs. | ||
| So this is a forever war. | ||
| And what is the solution? | ||
| I would like to know. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Okay, thank you so much, Andrew. | ||
| And there are several things that were part of your question there. | ||
| I'll try to remember and address them all. | ||
| But first off, as you say, Iran is a historic civilization. | ||
| Ancient Persia fighting the ancient Greeks back thousands of years before Christ. | ||
| So This civilization has been there. | ||
| As far as its wealth, Iran is a major producer of oil and gas, and they have been selling that on global markets, and that's the principal source of revenue. | ||
| You are right that during the Obama administration, there was an agreement on limiting Iran's, temporarily limiting Iran's nuclear program, and as part of that, Iran's central bank reserves that had been held by the United States frozen were returned. | ||
| That was hundreds of billions of dollars. | ||
| You're absolutely right about that. | ||
| And that is something that Iran did indeed use to develop its nuclear program. | ||
| Now, as for this being a forever war, Iran was a very friendly country with the United States under the Shah. | ||
| There was a revolution in 1979 in Iran, and they put in place a theocratic regime that, on a daily basis, shouts death to America, death to Israel, very radicalized. | ||
| And they have, over the past 35 years, they have pursued a policy of seeking to eliminate Israel and supporting terrorist groups throughout the Middle East. | ||
| What's happened here recently with the launch of these attacks, why the U.S. | ||
| The U.S. is the only country in the world that had the ability to drop these bombs that can penetrate these underground bunkers to actually destroy the nuclear program of Iran. | ||
| Israel launched this war two weeks ago in order to weaken Iran, destroy its military capabilities. | ||
| This is not something that the U.S. wanted or was supporting. | ||
| But once that happened, Iran then had the ability and the motive to go from having enriched uranium and missiles to putting them together into nuclear weapons that could actually be used in the Middle East or even against the United States. | ||
| So I think that's why President Trump wanted to act to eliminate the nuclear program quickly. | ||
| But now, as we've seen, he is pushing very hard for a ceasefire to get this to stop so it does not become or remain a forever war. | ||
| Kurt Cowell in Spokane, Washington has this question for you. | ||
| Mr. Volcker, is the world safer today than last Friday? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I definitely believe it is because Iran had the ability to produce a nuclear weapon within a couple of days. | |
| They had the enriched uranium, they knew how to weaponize it, they have the missile technology. | ||
| It was just a matter of a decision, and then applying that decision over a couple days, they could have had a nuclear weapon. | ||
| And we would have seen the first nuclear use in wartime since World War II, which would be a game changer for global security. | ||
| That did not happen. | ||
| And now we are far away from Iran being able to do that sort of thing. | ||
| But this doesn't mean that things are great. | ||
| It just means that that nuclear risk is now further into the future. | ||
| We have to do a lot of work now to actually end this fighting, stabilize it, prevent the future development of nuclear weapons and threats by Iran so that we can actually build on the security that we have right now. | ||
| We need to take it further and make it more stable and more permanent. | ||
| Let's hear from Janet in South Carolina, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Janet. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I just want to add. | ||
| Good morning, Janet. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| I'd like to know why would the President think that anyone, any leader, would listen to him after they're seeing what is going on here in the United States with his citizens, with the citizens here? | ||
| How can anyone respect anyone like that? | ||
| That's what I want to know. | ||
| And I'll take the answer off the phone. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Well, Jana, thanks for the question. | ||
| I was just in South Carolina this weekend. | ||
| It's a beautiful, beautiful city, Charleston. | ||
| As for President Trump, countries around the world look out for their national interests. | ||
| And the United States is a big and powerful country. | ||
| We have a huge economy. | ||
| We have a huge military. | ||
| And the President is able to deploy the military, is able to use that, is able to make economic policy that affects everybody in the world. | ||
| So whether or not they like President Trump, and some do and some don't, whether or not they agree with his policies domestically in the United States, some do, some don't, they are looking out for how it impacts them. | ||
| And President Trump certainly has the ability to impact them, and so they take it very seriously. | ||
| And another question coming in on text message. | ||
| This is Ken in Hernando, Florida. | ||
| He says, Secretary Volcker, Ukraine should be the main topic at the NATO summit. | ||
| Why not immediately invite Ukraine to join NATO? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, my personal view is that Ukraine should become a member of NATO. | |
| It's got the largest, most experienced, capable military in Europe right now. | ||
| And Vladimir Putin is not going to stop attacking countries in Europe unless he is stopped. | ||
| And it's better for Ukraine to stop Putin than for Ukraine to be defeated and Putin to move on to other countries and invoke our treaty obligations to help defend them. | ||
| That could lead to a much wider war. | ||
| So I think bringing Ukraine into NATO at the right time is the way to prevent the next war in Europe. | ||
| But that being said, it's going to take a while to get there because right now there's an active war going on and we don't want to join that war. | ||
| So it's got to be a matter of helping Ukraine, ending the fighting, and then stabilizing that and then bringing them into NATO to deter future attacks. | ||
| Now, as for why that is not the principal topic at NATO right now, there are differences in nuance now among the NATO allies. | ||
| European allies look at Ukraine and Russia's war against Ukraine and see this as existential for their security. | ||
| That if Putin is successful in Ukraine, they know that they are next, that there will be a wider war in Europe, and they want to make sure that does not happen. | ||
| So Ukraine is top of the agenda for our European allies, and they understand that Ukraine's security is essential to their own security. | ||
| The U.S., this side of the Atlantic Ocean, far away, and under President Trump, is looking at this with much more distance and saying that, look, we just want the fighting to stop. | ||
| We don't take Ukraine's side or Russia's side right now. | ||
| Under President Trump, I believe we should be supporting Ukraine much more because they are the victim of aggression here. | ||
| But under President Trump, we're taking more of a distance on this. | ||
| And to have that conversation at NATO, almost an argument among the NATO allies about the relative priority of Ukraine for NATO security and European security, would not show the unity that NATO needs to demonstrate for its own credibility, for the credibility of Article 5, collective defense of existing NATO members. | ||
| It's very important to show that we are together, unified, capable. | ||
| And so putting Ukraine into the middle of that and having an argument among NATO allies about its relative importance and the policies we should be doing would send the opposite message right now. | ||
| So Secretary General Ruta has deliberately decided to play down Ukraine and play up the number one issue for NATO, which is collective defense of the Allies themselves. | ||
| Mr. Volcker, Ukraine is something that you have some knowledge about. | ||
| You are also former U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine negotiations under President Trump during his first administration. | ||
| You were just talking about it being not a huge topic at the NATO summit this time around. | ||
| Do you expect anything on Ukraine to come out of it? | ||
| And is President Trump expected to meet with President Zelensky? | ||
|
unidentified
|
First off, President Trump and President Zelensky are not yet scheduled, but I know that the two governments, two delegations, are in communication. | |
| And President Zelensky, of course, would like to meet with President Trump. | ||
| I just don't know whether that will happen. | ||
| There are 30-plus leaders in The Hague. | ||
| President Trump is obviously focused on Israel and Iran right now. | ||
| So I don't know with the time that he has whether he will meet Zelensky or not, and we'll just see how that goes. | ||
| As far as President Zelensky, he is already there in The Hague. | ||
| He's going to have meetings with the Secretary General, Mark Rutte, with a number of European allies, with other leaders in Europe, such as Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, and Antonio Costa, who is the president of the European Council for the European Union. | ||
| So he'll have a lot of meetings there. | ||
| There will be attention. | ||
| There's also going to be some consultations with European allies about continued military support for Ukraine, the so-called Ramstein process. | ||
| I think there'll be consultations about that on the margins because Ukraine continues to need some military support to defend itself against Russian attacks. | ||
| So that will be a substantial topic. | ||
| As for NATO itself, both the Biden administration and now the Trump administration have been very careful about how NATO involves itself or doesn't involve itself in supporting Ukraine against Russia's attacks. | ||
| The rhetoric has been strong. | ||
| The training, equipping, that has gone on largely on a national basis. | ||
| And NATO has avoided any direct involvement in the conflict to avoid escalating that conflict into a NATO-Russia war. | ||
| I think that that is going to be the pattern again at this summit. | ||
| There'll be talk on the margins, talk outside, individual countries, meetings with President Zelensky. | ||
| But NATO as NATO, as a military alliance, is going to be very cautious about how far it goes in any direct support for Ukraine. | ||
| Let's hear from Edward in Keyport, New Jersey, line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Edward. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, hello. | |
| So I'm wondering what's going on because I keep hearing all about Iran screaming death to America and all their rhetoric. | ||
| But the Likud Party who runs Israel has several members that are running that country that are brought up, you know, and the UK brought charges against them for their radical, like, you know, extremist ideology. | ||
| They're talking about death to everybody, and they want to, you know, colonize the whole region. | ||
| And I think it's ridiculous. | ||
| And there can never be peace. | ||
| Why would Iran trust a regime like that? | ||
| And I also think that Iran probably, honestly, like, I question whether they even want to nuke anybody. | ||
| Honestly, like, Israel is an aggressor in that region, and they should have the right to protect themselves. | ||
| And I know they have a lot of proxy conflicts, but we have proxy conflicts as well. | ||
| And as far as to the military, I find it interesting that you guys are all going to go and fight and come home and your family members can drop dead for no medical care and have medical bankruptcies. | ||
| So, I mean, we need to start addressing the things in this country. | ||
| And have a good day. | ||
| Yeah, thanks, Ruthka. | ||
| I'm not sure I have much of a question to respond to or a comment there. | ||
| I just would highlight, though, that Israel is a democracy, and they elect the people that are in the government there. | ||
| And in a region where countries have repeatedly threatened Israel's existence, they've become very militant, very, very determined to fight to defend themselves and to push out against any threats. | ||
| And that's unfortunate. | ||
| And I do think, I actually agree with President Trump on one of his major initiatives from his first term and that he's trying to continue in his second, is to really build a peace between the Arab states and Israel. | ||
| Ultimately, the Arab states, talking Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, already there is an agreement with Jordan and with Egypt. | ||
| To build peace between Israel and those countries will actually ease the sense of tension and threat that Israel has faced for a long time. | ||
| And that will, I would think, turn the tide against some of the more radical members of these or political parties in Israel that you identify. | ||
| Phyllis and Durango, Colorado, line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Phyllis. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning, Kurt. | ||
| Kurt, my question is: I heard yesterday that there was no leakage of the uranium. | ||
| And how do we know that what they bombed was the place? | ||
| Maybe they have it somewhere else. | ||
| It's a big country. | ||
| And why do we go, the former caller, why do we think they cannot have a nuclear weapon to defend themselves? | ||
| Is the guy, is the ruler there like insane or something? | ||
| Yeah, thanks for the question. | ||
| To the first part, you're absolutely right. | ||
| We don't know exactly what has been destroyed and what has not. | ||
| We don't know the status of the enriched uranium that they already had. | ||
| It could have been dispersed. | ||
| It could have been moved before these attacks. | ||
| There's a lot of battle damage assessment that has yet to be done. | ||
| And some of that can only be done through intelligence operatives on the ground that Israel is probably doing right now. | ||
| But we don't know the details yet as to what has been destroyed, what has not been destroyed, and what's the status of the enriched uranium. | ||
| Now, as far as confidence about Iran's ability or not to produce a nuclear weapon, there are three main things to take into account. | ||
| There is having the highly enriched uranium, which Iran had enriched up to 60%. | ||
| It doesn't take much to take it all the way to weapons grade. | ||
| Second is the ability to detonate that, to turn it into a weapon. | ||
| They have the knowledge of doing that. | ||
| They had not actually done it yet, but they were quite capable of doing so in very short order. | ||
| And third is the means of delivery of a nuclear bomb. | ||
| And here they already have and have used the missile technology that shows that they're capable of putting a nuclear weapon on a missile and firing it. | ||
| So they're capable of that. | ||
| As far as their intent, this came up in an earlier question as well. | ||
| Why have a nuclear weapon on a missile unless you have the intent to be able to use it and to use it at a time of your choosing? | ||
| Now, whether you view that offensively or defensively is, you know, it's an open question. | ||
| Iran does have a theocratic leadership. | ||
| You asked if they're crazy, a crazy leader. | ||
| Well, you know, I don't want to call people who have a basis for their beliefs and faith as crazy, but it is extraordinarily radical in Iran. | ||
| They are completely intolerant of any other faith. | ||
| They are a repressive regime. | ||
| They are restrictive about women's clothing. | ||
| They arrest any dissenters, any dissidents from that. | ||
| They torture, they have public executions. | ||
| It is a highly radicalized regime, and it is one that has sworn to eliminate the state of Israel. | ||
| So, all of those things together make it very, very worrying if Iran actually has a nuclear weapon, because they very well could say, now we're going to use a nuclear weapon to eliminate the state of Israel. | ||
| So, we don't want them to have that capability. | ||
| Then, from a broader point of view, after World War II, it became a global policy to avoid the spread of nuclear weapons globally, something called nuclear non-proliferation. | ||
| We didn't want to see nuclear weapons and the threat of their use become the norm because it would be too devastating for humanity on this planet, for too great a risk that any kind of conflict could actually spill over into a nuclear conflict and eliminate life on Earth. | ||
| So, we have worked very hard to avoid the spread of nuclear weapons over decades and decades and decades. | ||
| It hasn't always worked. | ||
| North Korea has acquired a nuclear weapon, India and Pakistan have. | ||
| China has expanded its nuclear arsenal in recent decades substantially. | ||
| The U.S. and the Soviet Union, now the U.S. and Russia, have imposed limits on their nuclear capabilities, but still have them. | ||
| But the more countries that have nuclear weapons, the greater the risk globally that they get used. | ||
| And that is what everyone wants to avoid. | ||
| And Iran is really right on the forefront of that concern about countries getting nuclear weapons because of the nature of their regime. | ||
| Kurt, you just were talking about what we don't know about the U.S. attacks on those sites in Iran. | ||
| Along those same lines, Dave in Cleveland has this question: Is there any air monitoring for radioactivity going on in Iran? | ||
|
unidentified
|
If so, by whom? | |
| Yes, there is. | ||
| I'm sure that both the U.S. and Israel are doing that. | ||
| But most importantly, the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Administration based in Vienna, are collecting the data, including from national governments, and analyzing what the radiation footprint is. | ||
| What they have said is there have been modest levels of radiation detected and locally, not in a widespread way, which would be consistent with the material that was destroyed being underground. | ||
| You would not see such a huge impact in the atmosphere or on the surface. | ||
| You would just see some. | ||
| But even then, as the earlier caller indicated, we don't know that we actually hit all of that enriched uranium either. | ||
| And one important thing to note is that destruction of the enriched uranium that was there or an explosion there, that would spread radioactive material, or could spread radioactive material, but not to the degree that would be the case if there were a nuclear reaction and an explosion caused by a nuclear reaction. | ||
| That would spread radiation much more broadly. | ||
| And this was just a conventional explosion where radioactive materials are located. | ||
| Let's talk with Joanne in New Jersey, Line 4 Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Joan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| My issue is that we are not paying attention to history. | ||
| First of all, war solves nothing. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| There'll just be another war and another war. | ||
| So as a society, we need to learn that. | ||
| Dropping a bomb is just going to create more hate against Israel, more hate against the U.S., and create more enemies. | ||
| So we should have waited and tried to move towards diplomacy. | ||
| The second thing is the history of Iran and how Iran became what Iran is today. | ||
| The U.S. had a lot of stake in that, and there needs to be accountability. | ||
| And that's the other issue I have. | ||
| No accountability. | ||
| People want to forget the history and move on, and then they want to hold other people accountable. | ||
| The third point is: where's the accountability for what Israel just did to Gaza? | ||
| I don't hear anybody talking about that anymore. | ||
| I don't hear them talking about the children and women and people starving. | ||
| And then Israel says, oh, it's an issue that Iran dropped a bob on a hospital. | ||
| Well, they're the one who changed the game when they started bombing anything that moved in Gaza. | ||
| I don't agree with Iran's policies and politics, and I don't believe in Hamas or any of that. | ||
| I just believe in fairness, what is fair. | ||
| And if Israel is the aggressor in the region and they're dictating who can do what, well, why aren't these people allowed to defend themselves? | ||
| And why is NATO and the rest of the world not holding them accountable? | ||
| Because as I said, war is not the answer. | ||
| It's just we'll get a response from Kurt. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, thanks for the call. | |
| On your first point there, I think we all have to remember that we would not be an independent country if we didn't have a war to establish the United States. | ||
| The revolutionaries were colonies of King of England, and we took up arms in order to break away from that and become an independent state. | ||
| So what I would say is that it is all about judgment. | ||
| It's not war or not war. | ||
| It's about judgment. | ||
| And concerning diplomacy, diplomacy without being backed up by force or capability is just words. | ||
| No one pays any attention. | ||
| You have to have capability for people to listen and then use that judiciously so that you can set the conditions and then talk through it so that you don't have a war, that you find a way of living peacefully. | ||
| And that is all about judgment rather than any absence of force at all. | ||
| As for accountability, I think it's very important to remember the history, as you say. | ||
| And concerning Israel, the history here is that they were established as an independent state by an act under the United Nations and then have been attacked many, many times. | ||
| And many people, whether it's Hamas or whether it's Hezbollah or whether it's Iran, Iranian government themselves, want to eliminate Israel and they've had to fight for their position, for their safety, for their position in the Middle East. | ||
| And that has radicalized Israeli policy to some degree because they've been under attack so much. | ||
| And then those October 7th attacks in a year and a half ago, almost two years ago now, really traumatic for the people of Israel to be butchered in such a savage way, all those hostages taken. | ||
| And so they have indeed lashed out, trying to eliminate Hamas, but in the process, inflicting horrendous damage on all the Palestinian people in Gaza. | ||
| And Hamas is, I would argue, Hamas is really to blame for bringing this on, but that Israel has reacted in an incredibly harsh way, which has left a lot of people suffering. | ||
| The key is to end all this, as you say, war is not going to solve this, but to end it in a way that builds peace and that builds security so that the kind of attacks such as took place on October 7th don't happen again. | ||
| Let's hear from Ted in Las Vegas, line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Ted. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Go ahead, Ted. | ||
| You're on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I have a couple questions for Mr. Volcker. | |
| During the Biden administration, I want to know who, and I kind of know who it is, but it seems like the current administration, GOP and Trump, were the ones that were blocking all Biden ceasefires between Ukraine, Israel, and various other entities involved. | ||
| I want to know, set the record straight to all the listeners, who was blocking all the ceasefires during the Biden administration. | ||
| And I also would like to add another thing, gloating about the bombing, using Marvel Comic movies, spectacular, all kinds of words the Trump administration has made to describe their successful bombing is kind of, to me, not appropriate words to use. | ||
| This is a very terrible beginning or possible end. | ||
| Just gloating about the situation I disagree with. | ||
| I think those kind of words should not be used by any administration. | ||
| That's all I have to add. | ||
| On your first point, what is important for people to remember is that concerning Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to eliminate Ukraine. | ||
| He has said this many times, including just this past week, that all Ukrainians, he believes, are actually Russians and that Russia, all of the territory of Ukraine should actually be Russian. | ||
| And there's no limits to Russia's desire to take over the entire country and reprogram it so that people no longer see themselves as an independent Ukrainian people, but he labels them all as Russians. | ||
| So that is why he is doing this. | ||
| And he pursued this. | ||
| The Russians have done this for centuries. | ||
| Remember Stalin in the 1930s trying to starve out the Ukrainians through the holodomir. | ||
| But in more recent times, Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014, took Crimea, took parts of eastern Ukraine, continued to build up forces, invaded again in 2022 after having articulated his rationale in an essay in July of 2021. | ||
| So when you talk about blocking ceasefires, there was no ceasefire. | ||
| This was Putin pursuing aggression against Ukraine. | ||
| I think what the Biden administration did was provide enough support for Ukraine to be able to defend itself and avoid being defeated, but never enough aid for Ukraine to actually stop the invasion to push the Russians out of their country and the Russian forces out of their country. | ||
| So Ukraine has been suffering slow, long, painful attacks for over three years now. | ||
| I think that's the real problem: we weren't decisive in the way that we provided support to Ukraine to help so that they can defend themselves. | ||
| And remember, no American forces are fighting in Ukraine at all, other than volunteers. | ||
| This is purely Ukraine defending itself. | ||
| So, this is the best way, in fact, to stop Putin, is to just give Ukraine the tools and let them do it rather than getting America directly involved. | ||
| And, Kurt, on the topic of Russia, they hosted Iran's foreign minister yesterday and pledged their assistance in what we're seeing happen over there. | ||
| What do you make of that meeting? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think those are empty words. | |
| Putin would like to help Iran. | ||
| He would like to be a major global power right now that can just throw weapons here and throw weapons there and exercise influence. | ||
| But the reality is that Russia is in a much weaker position than that. | ||
| They thought that invading Ukraine would be a piece of cake, that it would last three days, they would take over the country, it would be over before we knew it. | ||
| That turned out to be a gross misjudgment on Putin's part. | ||
| This has dragged on for three years. | ||
| They've lost, or they've suffered easily a million casualties in the course of fighting against Ukraine. | ||
| They are completely tied up pursuing this war, and so they don't have the means to really help out Iran very much right now. | ||
| Indeed, Russia is dependent on artillery shells from North Korea, drone technology from Iran, missiles from North Korea as well as their own. | ||
| They're in a much weaker position. | ||
| So, while they wanted to show the opposite of the United States, so if the United States was hitting Iranian nuclear facilities to eliminate them, Russia wanted to show the opposite. | ||
| They're friends with Iran. | ||
| But their ability to actually help Iran, I think, is very, very limited. | ||
| And so, that's why I see these as largely empty words. | ||
| We have one last call for you. | ||
| It's Ron in Johnston, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Ron. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Trump didn't even listen to his own intelligence when they said that they didn't have the nuclear bomb in Iran. | ||
| Also, Trump, in its first term, got rid of the JCPOA, which was also involved in the Iranian nuclear development. | ||
| And also, all this started October 7th when those people were attacked by ALAS. | ||
| And, you know, Metanye, who was supposed to provide security for those people, and he didn't. | ||
| And this guy is really a war criminal as far as I'm concerned. | ||
| And we should really worry more about Israel. | ||
| All those countries that are between Iran and Israel, like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, whatever, they don't seem to be concerned about the nuclear bombs, the nuclear weapons that Iran has. | ||
| And Saudi Arabia is supposed to be such a friend of ours. | ||
| Why aren't they involved in this, you know, fighting the Iranians? | ||
| I don't understand that. | ||
| So maybe you can enlighten me and let me know why we are not getting any help from the countries between Israel and Iran, okay? | ||
| I'll hang up and listen. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Well, a couple things in there. | ||
| First, on the regional dynamics, you have two types of, or two branches of Islam in the region. | ||
| You have Shia and Sunni. | ||
| The Iranians lead the Shia Muslim branch, and They are very divided, very skeptical, very hostile to the Sunni, and vice versa. | ||
| So when we talk about these groups that are fighting in the Middle East, you have Hezbollah, you have Houthis, you have militias in Iraq, Shia militias in Iraq. | ||
| These are all on the Iran side of the equation. | ||
| Then you have the Sunnis, which has sometimes presented itself in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood. | ||
| Saudi Arabia, with Mecca and Medina, is the leader of the Sunni religious branch of Islam, birthplace of Muhammad, and so forth, very respected, very revered in Muslim faith. | ||
| So they do not like each other. | ||
| They do see each other as adversaries. | ||
| The Saudis, the UAE, and others, they do not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. | ||
| They're quietly satisfied, I would say, to see that effort of Iran getting a nuclear weapon being pushed back. | ||
| However, both of them, as Muslims, do not like Israel, and they believe that Jerusalem should be Muslim. | ||
| And so they are deeply concerned about things such as Israel's attacks on Gaza or Israel's control of the West Bank. | ||
| So that keeps them at a distance from Israel and kind of unites them a little bit on the issue of Israel, even though they have deep divisions with each other. | ||
| That is basically the regional dynamic. | ||
| So they don't want to get involved in a war. | ||
| Nobody wants to get involved in a war. | ||
| If the war is occasioned because Israel is fighting to defend itself, well, that makes it harder for the Saudis or the UAE or others to get involved because of the Israel dynamic. | ||
| And so they're actually satisfied to see the U.S. engage, get rid of the Iranian nuclear program, if that's indeed what we were successful at doing, and end this war. | ||
| And then ultimately, as we talked about earlier, what they would like to do, the Sunnis in particular, they would like to establish a better relationship with Israel, mutual recognition, peace in the region, and that would provide a more united front in facing Iran in the future. | ||
| But it's very hard to do that when you have these kind of conflicts going on and Muslim Palestinians suffering in the Middle East as they are doing. | ||
| So that's the dynamic there. | ||
| One quick word about the JCPOA, which I think is important. | ||
| It was an agreement done during the Obama administration to limit Iran's nuclear program temporarily. | ||
| They were allowed to have enrichment of uranium, allowed to have storage of enriched uranium, and there was a sunset clause on the length of this agreement so that after 10 years there would be no limits again and Iran would have a nuclear program. | ||
| This is what President Trump objected to in his first term, saying we can't abide the idea of Iran having a nuclear weapons program at all. | ||
| And so that's why he tore up the JCPOA. | ||
| Not good enough for President Trump just to push it down the road. | ||
| He said, we know we have to stop it altogether. | ||
| And then without any agreement in place, Iran did not feel limited. | ||
| And so it pursued its nuclear weapons program, which it probably would have done anyway. | ||
| But then it continued to pursue that. | ||
| And that's what took us to the situation we have over the past few weeks. | ||
| Kurt Volcker is former U.S. Ambassador to NATO under both President George W. Bush and President Obama, as well as former U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine negotiations under President Trump. | ||
| Kurt, thank you so much for your time this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's been a pleasure. | |
| Thank you for having me. | ||
| Up next, we will return to our earlier discussion of the of President Trump announcing an Iran-Israel ceasefire and the latest actions from those countries. | ||
| Plus, it's primary day in New York City in the New York City mayor's race. | ||
| We'll get a preview with New York One political reporter Ayanna Harry. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| We are returning to our earlier discussion on President Trump announcing a ceasefire between Iran and Israel. | ||
| The lines there on your screen, Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Latest reporting from the Associated Press says that Netanyahu's office says Israel struck an Israeli, an Iranian radar in response to the Iranian missile attack early Tuesday, but it says the Israeli leader held off tougher actions after an appeal from President Donald Trump. | ||
| It says that following President Trump's conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israel refrained from additional attacks. | ||
| We'll go to your calls and hear your thoughts. | ||
| Let's start with David in Detroit on the line for independence. | ||
| Hi, David. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for having me on. | ||
| In regards to Mr. Trump's attacking Iran and then claiming to broker a ceasefire, the whole action was very misguided, in my opinion. | ||
| We have no evidence that the majority of Iranian uranium has been taken out. | ||
| And if Iran was not planning on building a bomb before, as Tulsi Gabbard and other national security experts had just testified to recently, they should want to build a bomb now. | ||
| And the other thing that's really interesting, and I wish I could have questioned the previous guest upon this, but how is it that people are saying that Iran can't build a weapon and Iran has actually submitted to international inspectors when it's an open secret that Israel has nuclear weapons and has never opened themselves up to international inspectors. | ||
| So how come it's not good for Iran, but it's good for Israel? | ||
| And I think that's a question we need to ask ourselves. | ||
| And that's actually a sign of how much influence the military-industrial complex and lobbyists have on our politicians and our public discourse. | ||
| That was David in Michigan. | ||
| Ron in Palm Harbor, Florida, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Ron. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| You know, over the weekend, I sat there and watched this all develop, and I stood up and I applauded Donald J. Trump. | ||
| It is one of the most brilliant examples of organizational leadership and focused effort, I think, so far in the 21st century. | ||
| You know, the earlier, previous gentleman asked, why should we not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon when Israel allegedly has one? | ||
| The answer is simple: Israel never said kill Iran. | ||
| And that's all that Iran has ever done: say kill Israel and or death to Israel and death to America. | ||
| So it was a brilliant effort. | ||
| And one of the interesting things that I don't think people are thinking about is that the message of this that goes to Europe is just very plain. | ||
| Europe played no part in it. | ||
| The United States did it all by itself. | ||
| And the timing is interesting because now Donald Trump gets to get off the plane in Europe for the NATO conference. | ||
| And if those folks are smart, when he walks down those steps, they'll genuflect because he deserves it. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| That was Ron in Florida. | ||
| Carolyn in Vincent, Ohio, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Carolyn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I tried to call a couple different times. | ||
| I really wanted to talk to the gentleman that you had on. | ||
| Anyway, I just was curious if President Trump talks to any of these war veterans. | ||
| You all had one on yesterday where he was talking to the CEO of the Independent Veterans. | ||
| And he happened to be 96 years old and happened to be in World War II and the Korean War, just like my deceased father. | ||
| And I really appreciated hearing from him because he had a lot of wisdom. | ||
| And it just so happens that today is his birthday. | ||
| And I don't remember his name, but I would love to wish him a happy birthday because he deserves it, reaching the ripe old age of 96 years young. | ||
| And I also wanted to thank C-SPAN because I live on the border of West Virginia and Ohio. | ||
| And I listened to two different West Virginia stations, and I heard nothing, absolutely nothing, about the going-ons in Martins Ferry, West Virginia. | ||
| And I had no idea that they had a training center for the Border Patrol. | ||
| And that just made me so aware of so much that I didn't know. | ||
| And I really appreciate it because I guess they just got $32 million. | ||
| And Riley Moore is going after land, more land for this training center. | ||
| So had I not heard from you all, C-SPAN, because the meeting was going on. | ||
| Oh, Noam was there. | ||
| I forget. | ||
| Secretary Noam was there and Shelly Moore Capito. | ||
| And I just really was appreciative that I found this out from C-SPAN because I would have never known. | ||
| I didn't even know they had a training center. | ||
| But I just thank you. | ||
| And if there's any way to find out from the gentleman that you just had on if, you know, President Trump does talk to the 96-year-old veterans, I think he would get so much out of it. | ||
| I certainly did. | ||
| And I'm a senior citizen. | ||
| And like I said, my dad was a veteran of the Korean in the World War II, too, but he's deceased. | ||
| So happy birthday to that gentleman and thank you to C-SPAN. | ||
| And if you would like to watch the event our caller was just talking about, you can find it on our website, c-span.org. | ||
| We are getting your thoughts and reaction to President Trump announcing a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. | ||
| We will return to that topic in just a few minutes, but it is primary day in New York State. | ||
| And joining us now is Spectrum News One political reporter, Ayanna Harry, to give us a preview of the mayoral primary in New York City. | ||
| Ayanna, thank you so much for being with us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Tammy, it's great to be with you. | |
| Our local Democratic primary and the race for mayor here in New York City has now grabbed national attention as Democrats all around the country think about the future of the party. | ||
| According to all of the recent polls that we've seen, this race is really shaping up as a contest between two candidates, former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo and State Senator Zorhan Mamdani. | ||
| Andrew Cuomo is a seasoned moderate Democrat. | ||
| He was the governor of New York State for 10 years. | ||
| Zorhan Mamdani, he's only 33 years old. | ||
| He's only been in the state legislature a few years, but he is offering some bold progressive ideas that a lot of New York City voters seem to have been interested in. | ||
| I spoke with one pollster who told me a few months ago Zorhan Mamdani was polling consistently at 1%. | ||
| Just yesterday, a poll from Emerson College showed that in the final round of ranked choice voting, Zorhan Mamdani would actually win this Democratic primary. | ||
| But there are still several factors that we are waiting to see how they all shape out, including the extreme heat that is forecasted throughout the city today, Tammy. | ||
| Ayana, you talked about the difference in polling over the course of the primary race. | ||
| Is Mandani's surge a surprise? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mamdani's surge is a surprise to many political insiders. | |
| He was relatively unknown, but here's how he did it. | ||
| His campaign says they have knocked on 1 million doors all throughout the five boroughs. | ||
| It was pretty warm yesterday in New York City and traveling around. | ||
| I saw Zorhan Mamdani canvassers out speaking to people, trying to connect with the voters. | ||
| So he's had a two-pronged strategy, that ground game, getting out there, speaking to people, knocking on doors, going into subway stations, and he's also been using social media, not just on his own account, but also doing interviews with influencers. | ||
| And that seems to have really pushed his message forward. | ||
| Andrew Cuomo has pretty much universal name recognition here in New York. | ||
| He has a lot of people really backing and supporting him, particularly thanks to his leadership during the pandemic. | ||
| But many other people also remember these scandals that pushed him out of office, including scandals when he was accused of sexual harassment. | ||
| And another candidate with name recognition is current New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who's now running as an independent. | ||
| What impact is that having on the race? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Eric Adams is running as an independent, but that has certainly not stopped him from weighing into this Democratic primary. | |
| The mayor holds a weekly QA session with reporters every single Tuesday. | ||
| And the last few Tuesdays, Mayor Adams has consistently gone after Andrew Cuomo. | ||
| And the mayor could be looking ahead to November and trying to weaken Cuomo and his stance and his view amongst the voters before they go head to head in November. | ||
| And I will mention there's a little bit of a unique scenario happening here where regardless of who wins the Democratic primary today, Andrew Cuomo or Zora Mamdani, we could still see both of them on the ballot in November because they both have options to run in November on other lines outside the Democratic Party. | ||
| You mentioned door knocking, going out and they are talking to voters. | ||
| What have been the main campaign issues this primary season? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Affordability. | |
| New York City is incredibly expensive. | ||
| I think, you know, New Yorkers, we're a city of 8 million opinions, but most folks, I think, do agree on that. | ||
| Housing costs have continued to rise both for property owners as well as for renters. | ||
| Food, groceries, these are other real issues. | ||
| And so both candidates are talking about affordability in terms of Andrew Cuomo and Zora Mamdani, but they're taking very different approaches to it. | ||
| Zora Mamdani, he is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and he's talking about proposals, including free buses and city-owned grocery stores. | ||
| Whereas Andrew Cuomo, he's focused more on the city backing and supporting the building of affordable housing, saying he believes that that will bring real meaning and lasting difference for families across the city. | ||
| There's no GOP primary tonight. | ||
| It's just Democrats. | ||
| Tell us why and also what happens when whoever wins on the Democratic ticket, what does that mean for the November election? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, right now, Curtis Sleewa, he was the only Republican that was able to gather enough support to potentially be on a Republican primary ticket. | |
| So with no other candidates, there is no primary. | ||
| So Curtis Liwa, he will run for mayor once again as a Republican. | ||
| He was also the Republican candidate four years ago. | ||
| And so we suspect that we will see at least four or five candidates that New York City voters will be able to choose from, including the loser of today's Democratic primary, potentially running on an independent line. | ||
| And so, you know, a fellow political reporter described where we are right now in this overall race for mayor as if if you were going on a hike right now, we've stopped and you're looking out and it might feel like you're done, but you got to take a look because there's still one more steep hill to climb, and that's the general election in November. | ||
| And early voting ended on Sunday, but people will be going to the polls today. | ||
| What are the predictions for turnout? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, it's really difficult to predict turnout today because temperatures are expected to feel well above 100 degrees. | |
| So I was at a rally with Andrew Cuomo yesterday, and his message to voters was to go out early or to go out very late when the temperatures were a little bit cooler. | ||
| But it's really difficult for us to have any kind of prediction as to whether or not people will be able to turn out, whether or not they'll feel it's actually physically safe for them to go to the polls. | ||
| But I also want to mention we did see a record level of early voting in New York City. | ||
| So perhaps once we get all of the numbers in, there will be a trend in the city shifting, people shifting away from waiting till primary day to more opting to vote early instead. | ||
| I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier, and that is ranked choice voting that is being used today. | ||
| For those who may not be familiar, can you explain how that works? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so when a voter goes into the booth today, they will have the opportunity to rank five candidates, one through five, based on their preferences. | |
| And as the ballots are tallied, the candidate that has the least support at the end of a round, their supporters, their votes are essentially eliminated. | ||
| They're taken out of the mix, and those votes are then redistributed to whoever the voter might have selected as the number two candidate. | ||
| And so it's been interesting to watch New York City voters strategize and think about the ways in which they will build their ballots. | ||
| And we've also seen some cross-endorsements this election season. | ||
| One of the most notable ones is Zorhan Mamdani. | ||
| He cross-endorsed with New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, and the two of them have been even out on the campaign trail together. | ||
| They're each saying, rank me number one and rank that guy number two. | ||
| And one last question for you, and that is, when will we have a winner? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, New York City voters, I know it's been a long time. | |
| Folks are going to be staying up watching New York One and watching C-SPAN for the results, but we will not know tonight the results of this race unless one candidate does reach 50%. | ||
| But the way ranked choice voting works is if one candidate does not reach 50%, that's when the ranked choice voting simulation begins. | ||
| So we expect the Board of Elections to fully run through all of the rounds of ranked choice voting and make the results known in early July. | ||
| So stay tuned, Tammy. | ||
| Ayana Harry is Spectrum News 1 political reporter. | ||
| Ayana, thank you so much for being with us today. | ||
| And as Ayana mentioned, C-SPAN will have live coverage of tonight's results from Spectrum News New York One starting at 7 p.m. tonight. | ||
| You'll be able to watch that on C-SPAN 2, C-SPAN Now, that's our free mobile app, and find it online at c-span.org. | ||
| We are returning to our previous discussion on President Trump announcing the Iran-Israel ceasefire. | ||
| Let's hear from Warren in Bellevue, Washington, lying for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Warren. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I'm sorry I missed Mr. Volcker earlier today because with President Trump, and I find a lot of Western leaders, they try and overlay Western culture and values on Middle Eastern, Western, excuse me, Middle Eastern culture and values, as well as Russian culture and values, China culture, and values, and it just doesn't work in the Middle East. | ||
|
unidentified
|
President Trump can be very upset about things. | |
| I don't know if he's taken it too personally, but it's an eye-for-and-eye culture there. | ||
| It's tribal in Russia. | ||
| You have czars for hundreds of years in China. | ||
| Again, ancient culture. | ||
| And to expect the Marcus of Queensbury rules to go into effect when you're dealing with other cultures, it's really not realistic. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I think taking a step back and looking at how different parts of the world behave, take action, react, you really get a better eye on how you should address it. | |
| For example, Iran, there was a, yesterday in Beersheba, there was nine people killed in a missile attack. | ||
| And Iran said that, well, we launched it before the ceasefire went into effect. | ||
| It landed after the ceasefire was in effect. | ||
| It's kind of like the old cowboy movies where they're shooting their guns in the air saying Happy New Year, not thinking about that the bullets are going to land somewhere. | ||
| So again, with Mr. Volka, I was going to ask him his thoughts on just how he sees the Western culture kind of misreading a lot of the other cultures in the world. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So maybe that's more of a comment because he's not there, but just some thoughts because I think President Trump really seems to be taking things personally and blaming without really understanding. | |
| I think it's better to step back and take a look at who you're working with and who you're dealing with. | ||
|
unidentified
|
A proposal is a proposal. | |
| It's not an acceptance to say the ceasefire proposal was accepted. | ||
| Those are words until it actually takes action. | ||
| So thank you for taking my call. | ||
| That was Warren in Washington State. | ||
| We are taking your calls and asking your reaction to President Trump announcing a ceasefire deal between Iran and Israel. | ||
| If you'd like to give us a call, the lines, Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| An update from the Associated Press this morning. | ||
| It says that President Donald Trump has said in a Truth Social post that Israeli fighter jets will turn around and won't attack Iran as he pressed both sides to abide by a ceasefire. | ||
| The comments came shortly after he expressed deep frustration with both Israel and Iran as the truce appeared to falter. | ||
| Israel is not going to attack Iran. | ||
| All planes will turn around and head home while doing a friendly plane wave to Iran. | ||
| Nobody will be hurt. | ||
| The ceasefire is in effect, Trump said in his post. | ||
| President Trump stopped to talk with reporters on the White House south lawn as he got ready to depart for the NATO summit, which starts today. | ||
| Here is that interview. | ||
|
unidentified
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Is the ceasefire breaking in class? | |
| I don't think so, but I'm not happy that Israel is going out now. | ||
| There was one rocket that I guess was fired overboard. | ||
| It was after the time limit, and it missed its target. | ||
| And now Israel's going out. | ||
| These guys got to calm down. | ||
| Ridiculous. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hallelujah. | |
| What if they are made to cease fire and fire? | ||
| I didn't like plenty of things I saw yesterday. | ||
| I didn't like the fact that Israel unloaded right after we made the deal. | ||
| They didn't have to unload. | ||
| And I didn't like the fact that the retaliation was very strong. | ||
| But in all fairness, Israel unloaded a lot. | ||
| And now I hear Israel just went out because they felt it was violated by one rocket that didn't land anywhere. | ||
| That's not what we want, I'll tell you. | ||
| And I'm telling you, I'm not happy about that, Israel, either. | ||
| All I do is play both sides. | ||
| I'm going now, as you know, to NATO. | ||
| Some of you are going with me, and I think it's going to be successful. | ||
| We'll see. | ||
| I'll let you know. | ||
|
unidentified
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Are you going to think that women, it's a new dawn in the Middle East, thanks to the agreement you managed to achieve? | |
| What are your first future plans for the region for Saudi Arabia? | ||
| Israel got to be hostages. | ||
| Look, you're asking me about women in the Middle East. | ||
| It's getting a lot better. | ||
| Things are happening at a high level. | ||
| As you know, Saudi Arabia has done a really good job. | ||
| It's coming out far faster than I thought. | ||
| So we're very happy about what's happening with women in the Middle East. | ||
|
unidentified
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No, I'm talking about the new dawn in the Middle East that you managed to achieve last night. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| You know, the region is going to a new place with the future agreement. | ||
| Can you tell us what's your future plan for Gaza, for the hostages? | ||
| It's a new dawn. | ||
| I appreciate the question. | ||
| You're very nice. | ||
| Who are you? | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| I'm Naria Kraus from Israeli Tunnel 13 News. | ||
| Well, we have to have Israel calm down because they went on a mission this morning. | ||
| I got to get Israel to calm down now. | ||
|
unidentified
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Do you meant to speak for the violators? | |
| Are you talking about it? | ||
| You are all the people on both sides not to violate the ceasefire. | ||
| But reports coming from the region suggest that the sides accuse each other for violating the ceasefire. | ||
| I think they both violated it. | ||
| I don't think they, I'm not sure they did it intentionally. | ||
| They couldn't rein people back. | ||
| I don't like the fact that Israel went out this morning at all, and I'm going to see if I can stop it. | ||
| So as soon as I get away from you, I'm going to see if I can stop it, okay? | ||
| The Presser has been completely demolished. | ||
| I think the reason we're here is because those pilots, those B-2 pilots, did an unbelievable job. | ||
| And, you know, the fake news, like CNN in particular, they're trying to, you know, they're trying to say, well, I agree that it was destroyed, but maybe not that destroyed. | ||
| You know what they're doing? | ||
| They're really hurting great pilots that put their lives in the line. | ||
| CNN is scum, and so is MSDNC. | ||
| They're all, and frankly, the networks aren't much better. | ||
| It's all fake news, but they should not have done that. | ||
| Those pilots hit their targets. | ||
| Those targets were obliterated, and the pilots should be given credit. | ||
| They're not after the pilots. | ||
| They're after me. | ||
| They want to try and demean. | ||
|
unidentified
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Is that the movie that Iran's going to rebuild its nuclear program? | |
| Iran will never rebuild its nuclear. | ||
| From there, absolutely not. | ||
| That place is under rock. | ||
| That place is demolished. | ||
| The B-2 pilots did their job. | ||
| They did it better than anybody could even imagine. | ||
| They hit late in the evening. | ||
| It was dark with no moon. | ||
| And they hit that target with every one of those things. | ||
| And that place is gone. | ||
| But when I see CNN all night long, they're trying to say, well, maybe it wasn't really as demolished as we thought. | ||
| It was demolished. | ||
| You take a look at the pinpricks, and you see that place is gone. | ||
| And I will say, I think CNN ought to apologize to the pilots of the B-2s. | ||
| I think that MSDNC ought to apologize. | ||
| I think these guys really, these networks and these cable networks are real losers. | ||
| You really are. | ||
| You're real losers. | ||
| You're gutless losers. | ||
| I say that to CNN because I watch it. | ||
| I have no choice. | ||
| I've got to watch that garbage. | ||
| It's all garbage. | ||
| It's all fake news. | ||
| But I think CNN is a gutless group of people. | ||
| And the people that run it, nobody even knows it's been sold so many times. | ||
| But the people that run it ought to be ashamed. | ||
| MSDNC, a guy named Brian Roberts, he heads it. | ||
| He's a disgrace. | ||
| He's a weak, pathetic disgrace. | ||
|
unidentified
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Iran violated the peace agreement and the ceasefire agreement. | |
| Do you believe that Iran is still committed to peace? | ||
| Yeah, I do. | ||
| They violated it, but Israel violated it too. | ||
| Are you questioning if Israel is committed to? | ||
| Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I've never seen before. | ||
| The biggest load that we've seen. | ||
| I'm not happy with Israel. | ||
| You know, when I say, okay, now you have 12 hours, you don't go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on them. | ||
| So I'm not happy with them. | ||
| I'm not happy with Iran either. | ||
| But I'm really unhappy if Israel's going out this morning because of one rocket that didn't land, that was shot, perhaps by mistake, that didn't land. | ||
| I'm not happy about that. | ||
| We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing. | ||
| You understand that? | ||
| That was President Trump speaking with reporters before departing for the NATO summit in The Hague in the Netherlands. | ||
| He has been continuing to post updates on the situation on Truth Social. | ||
| This from just about half an hour ago, it says, heading to NATO, where at worst, it will be a much calmer period than what I just went through with Israel and Iran. | ||
| I look forward to seeing all of my very good European friends and others. | ||
| Hopefully, much will be accomplished. | ||
| We'll go back to your calls, getting your reaction to President Trump announcing that Israel and Iran cease fire. | ||
| Let's go to Eddie in New Jersey, line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Eddie. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Doing well, Eddie. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, I wanted to say that I'm in full agreement with them hitting those nuclear sites because that was the threat. | |
| And as far as the ceasefire, yeah, if he could do that, then they did a great thing. | ||
| They spared a lot of loss of life. | ||
| They addressed the situation. | ||
| The rest, Iran, got to figure out. | ||
| We're not there to find out who's going to be governing that country and the direction they're going to go. | ||
| We're just there to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons that they've been threatening Israel and the U.S. with for all these years. | ||
| So I'm in full agreement with that. | ||
| That was Eddie in New Jersey. | ||
| Dennis in Stone Mountain, Georgia, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Dennis. | ||
|
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My take on this is that the U.S. regime, and I would call it regime, is the biggest terrorist that we have out there. | |
| Now, why would a country simply sit there and allow their violation to take place without an answer? | ||
| Israel has nuclear weapons and not even a party to the nuclear signatory. | ||
| So, but yet still they're able to bomb another country and we join in. | ||
| The U.S. regime has a thousand military bases around the world surrounded. | ||
| So it means that the United States citizen is paying for all of that and they simply cannot feed their own people. | ||
| So it is my understanding that it is the right of any country who have been bombed to respond back. | ||
| So why does the United States have the more authority to tell anyone what they can have and what they cannot have? | ||
| So I would say the biggest terrorist in the world is the United States regime. | ||
| That was Dennis in Georgia, Bob in Henderson, Nevada, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Bob. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning, and thank you for having me on this morning. | |
| Looking back at the history of our president and the things he's done well over several decades ago, there's two books that really define this president and his actions, The Art of the Deal and Good to Great. | ||
| And you can see he practices what is in these books. | ||
| And I think really these books define every time he sees a situation, he wants to change it, make it better. | ||
| But then if there's a situation where there's conflict, he wants to get in there and settle the conflict as best as possible through negotiations and through possible ceasefires. | ||
| You saw that in Ukraine. | ||
| You saw that in Africa. | ||
| You see that here in the Middle East. | ||
| Nobody in a thousand years would have ever thought Israel and Iran would come to an agreement table to a ceasefire. | ||
| Even though there's been some breaks on it, there's going to be some bumps in the road. | ||
| But again, it's good to see a president who is following, number one, the book that he penned, and again, another book, which is Good to Great. | ||
| The first sentence in the book is, Good is the enemy of great. | ||
| And I believe that's what he sees, and he wants to make the country much better. | ||
| So kudos to President Trump and for those that are supporting him in Congress. | ||
| Keep doing a good job, and we're looking forward to that Social Security tax break. | ||
| God bless. | ||
| That was Bob in Nevada, and Bob mentioned Congress. | ||
| The House will be gaveling in in just about six minutes. | ||
| We'll take you there once they do. | ||
| I want to give you a couple other programming notes for today. | ||
| This morning, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will be on Capitol Hill to testify on the central bank's monetary policies and economic outlook. | ||
| You can watch his testimony before the House Financial Services Committee. | ||
| That's live at 10 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| You can find it on C-SPAN 2, as well as C-SPAN Now. | ||
| That's our free mobile app and online at c-span.org. | ||
| Also this morning at 10 a.m., it is Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be on the Hill as well to discuss his agency's 2026 budget request. | ||
| He'll be before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health. | ||
| You can find that again. | ||
| That's at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3, as well as our mobile app and c-span.org. | ||
| And one more note: that is testimony on regulating and reforming the cryptocurrency industry. | ||
| The Senate Banking Subcommittee on Digital Assets will host that. | ||
| We'll host that hearing. | ||
| You can watch it live at 3 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| Rita in Fayetteville, North Carolina, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Rita. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning, and thank you for having me to call in. | |
| I just want to express to everyone that thinks Trump is such a great president and whatnot, but he really is what we call a warmonger. | ||
| And the reason that he likes to get into the situations where war is going on is to make himself look great. | ||
| But he's not great because he's not doing a great job with our economy. | ||
| And that's the war that's going on here. | ||
| If he can settle that, then he will be considered a great president. | ||
| But Metland and other people's affairs do not make him a great president. | ||
| Also, if he had followed the playbook that President Obama had left instead of tearing it up and throwing it in the trash, we would have never had any type of bombing situation going on. | ||
| But as we can see, he likes to make himself look more important and the greatest of all the king. | ||
| But there's only one king, and that is King Jesus. | ||
| He's not done very well with our stocks and the way the stock market is going up and down and all around. | ||
| It's terrible. | ||
| It's just terrible. | ||
| He's not doing a great thing with immigration. | ||
| So therefore, he throws up and jumps into something to keep us from knowing or keep our minds off of what he's really falling short at, and that's here in America. | ||
| So, you know, all those that think he's done such a great job in, you know, a ceasefire, which they really haven't given that to a cease, nor have they confirmed that the targets that were hit are really destroyed. | ||
| So, you know, he's doing a lot of propaganda, which I don't appreciate. | ||
| As a veteran, I know better. | ||
| So thank you again for taking my call. | ||
| That was Rita in North Carolina. | ||
| Margaret in California, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Margaret. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| What I was calling about is that it's funny that when Putin does the same thing and there's a ceasefire in Ukraine and Putin breaks that ceasefire and bombs Ukraine, | ||
| President Trump doesn't have a temperature in front of the cameras about that. | ||
| Instead, he wants Putin to broker the ceasefire or have something to do with the peace agreement between Israel and Iran. | ||
| So I don't know what he's thinking. | ||
| It just, I think maybe he's not really thinking this whole thing through. | ||
| Anyway, that's what I was going to point out. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Margaret in California. | ||
| And the House is getting ready to gavel in for today's business. | ||
| They are expected to consider a resolution condemning the recent attacks on Minnesota state lawmakers and calling for unity and the rejection of political violence in Minnesota and across the United States. | ||
| And we will take you to the floor in just a moment. | ||
| It looks like they are getting ready to walk through the doors. | ||
| Right now, let's take one last call while we wait. | ||
| That's Shirley in New York City. | ||
| Line for Democrats. |