CSPAN - Washington Journal 06/26/2025

All Episodes

Previous Next

June 26, 2025 07:00-10:00 - CSPAN

02:59:51

Washington Journal 06/26/2025

Participants

Main

adam smith

rep/d 20:46

pedro echevarria

cspan 36:09

pete hegseth

admin 05:54

Appearances

chuck schumer

sen/d 01:53

donald j trump

admin 01:59

mike johnson

rep/r 02:14

ro khanna

rep/d 02:13

tim kaine

sen/d 01:29

Clips

barack obama

d 00:02

bill clinton

d 00:02

dave walsh

00:07

dr rebecca grant

fox 00:04

george h w bush

r 00:02

george w bush

r 00:04

jimmy carter

d 00:03

margaret brennan

cbs 00:16

michael flynn

r 00:23

patty murray

sen/d 00:04

rachel maddow

msnow 00:07

ronald reagan

r 00:01

sherry peel jackson

00:22

Callers

maggie in oklahoma

callers 00:09

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Show episode speakers

Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Nixon-era law that limits the president's power to unilaterally wage war.
		And Utah Republican Congressman Blake Moore on U.S. military action against Iran and the president's big beautiful bill.
		Also, Washington State Congressman Adam Smith, a top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, discusses U.S. military action against Iran and Trump administration defense policies.
		Washington Journal starts now.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is the Washington Journal for June 26.
		As a result of President Trump's decision to order bomb strikes in Iran, several members of Congress are working to pass legislation to limit the president's military authority against future strikes there.
		This effort largely comes from Democrats, though one Republican has joined the cause.
		To start the show today, should Congress use its legislative authority to limit the president's use of military powers in some cases.
		Here's how you can let us know your thoughts on this this morning.
		202748-8001 for Republicans.
		202748-8000 for Democrats and Independence.
		202748-8002.
		If you want to text us your thoughts on Congress and in limiting the president's use of military authority, 202748-8003 is how you do that.
		You can always post on our social media sites.
		That's facebook.com slash C-SPAN.
		And you can also post on X at C-SPANWJ.
		Several efforts to do this, both in the Senate and the House side.
		The Senate this week, the House is working on that.
		The Intercept breaks down some of these efforts.
		They write this morning that there are three efforts to go as far as the war power resolutions in play in Washington.
		The Senate, a resolution from Tim Kaine, the Democrat from Virginia, appears to be on track for a vote on Friday in the House.
		However, Democrats remain sharply divided between two resolutions.
		Under the section, the Senate goes first, saying congressional Democrats are responding to the president's strikes by pursuing a vote under the War Powers Act, a Vietnam war-era law designed to limit the president's ability to launch military action abroad.
		Senator Kaine's initial resolution was introduced last week.
		It directs President Trump to halt hostilities against Iran while making clear that the president can still defend the U.S. from eminent attack.
		The resolution has drawn support from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
		It's expected to come up for a vote today, possibly tomorrow.
		And also this story adding that amid concerns from pro-Israel Democrats, Senator Kaine said Tuesday that he was co-sponsoring an amendment to his resolution with Senator Schiff of California, saying that the amendment would continue to allow the U.S. to participate in Israeli missile defense.
		That's from the Senate side.
		When it comes to the House side, there are two separate efforts.
		The Intercept reporting that advocates last week said they were frustrated that Democratic leaders were not moving forward with the resolution as the president publicly mulled attacking Iran.
		It was Representative Rokana, Democrat from California, teaming up with Representative Thomas Massey to introduce a resolution.
		And it was after the strikes that were launched, three House Democratic Committee ranking members introduced an alternative resolution that the authors claim would force the president to cease hostilities with Iran.
		The sponsors are Representative Jim Hines of Connecticut, Adam Smith of Washington, and Gregory Meeks of New York.
		By the way, Adam Smith, joining us later on in the program in our 9 o'clock hour to talk about that war resolution and efforts on Iran when it comes to these efforts of Congress to limit the president's ability for military action, whether it be specifically towards Iran, but the effort overall, 202748-8001 for Republicans.
		If you want to comment on this effort, 202-748-8000 for Democrats Independence, 2027-8002.
		Congressman Rocana was on Capitol Hill yesterday.
		Democrat from California, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, talking about his effort to introduce this resolution.
		Here's a portion outside the Capitol from yesterday.
ro khanna ▲ ● ▼		The war powers resolution that Massey and I introduced is still ripening.
		We expect that it will ripen by the middle of July, and then we hope that it will get a vote.
		We expect that it will get a vote.
		The Speaker should not deprivilege the war powers resolution.
		The reality is that if he deprivileges this war powers resolution, it's not just abdicating Congress's role on matters of Iran.
		It's actually abdicating Congress's role on any future war that a president could undertake, not just in the Trump term, but in terms after that.
		It would be an unprecedented abrogation of congressional power.
		So we expect that, like in past Congresses, the war powers resolution is considered privileged and it should get a vote in middle of July.
		Now, the last point, we have so many speakers that I'm going to limit myself to one minute and then hear from our chair, our chair Emeritus, and everyone else.
		But the fundamental point here is that we don't know what the strikes accomplished, but we do know a lot of the harm.
		Obviously, the public reports or the intelligence thinks that this just set back the nuclear ambitions by a few months.
		We need to understand what actually was even destroyed.
		And we know that some of the nuclear fuel was taken away from the Ford site.
		And it has hardened the resolve in Iran to now race towards a nuclear weapon and sent that message to countries across the world.
		So you have a strike that is actually leading to more popular support now for the Iranian regime, that is leading Iran to declare victory, that is leading Iran to say they're now not considering being in the NPT, that they're considering kicking out the IEAE inspectors.
		It's cost our country billions of dollars.
		It's put our troops at risk.
		It has put us more, made us more entrenched in the Middle East, and all of that, doing something that the American people did not want.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Some specifics from that resolution you can find online at the representative's website saying the Constitution does not permit the executive branch to unilaterally commit an act of war against a sovereign nation that hasn't attacked the United States.
		That was Representative Tom Massey, actually, the Republican who's joining in on this effort.
		He added that Congress has the sole power to declare war against Iran.
		The ongoing war between Israel and Iran is not our war.
		Even if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution.
		Again, that's just one effort amongst two on the House side.
		The Senate effort from Senator Tim Kaine expected to get a vote this week.
		We'll show you a little bit more of that.
		But to this idea of the president being limited in certain aspects of military use by Congress, what do you think about that?
		202-748-8001 for Republicans.
		202-748-8000 for Democrats and independents.
		202-748-8002.
		Carolyn is in Missouri on our line for Democrats.
		Hello, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I philosoph that we need something to control Mr. Trump.
		I do not feel as though that he is the President of the United States.
		He's the President of himself and those that are with him.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		But why necessarily Congress, in this case, specifically towards Iran or specifically towards military action overall?
unidentified		I don't think he had the right to.
		We have a Congress.
		We have the Senate that he needs to go through.
		He is not a law-abiding citizen.
		So, therefore, I do not think anything that he says is the truth.
		This man has been convicted.
		I do not see, I think he needs control.
		I think he needs people to be over him, watching him.
		He's the baby.
		He's always got criticisms about everybody else and every other president.
		We got this far without him.
		And now he's in there and he wants to be the big shot.
		Okay.
		Back to Trump.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Julian in Connecticut, Republican line.
		You're next.
		Hello.
unidentified		Good morning, Pedro.
unidentified		How are you today?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I'm well, thank you.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		I've been listening to C-SPAN for about a year now, right?
		I'm just curious as to one morning I'm going to get up and you're going to say something positive about this man that's doing so many great things for this country.
		Look what he did with NATO yesterday.
		Okay.
		And another thing I have to say: you let these Democrats say the same things over and over and over every day, and you never question anything.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, let me ask you, since you called in supposedly on the question at hand, do you want to comment on that?
unidentified		What do you want me to answer about Iran saying that they want death to America?
unidentified		What do you want me to say about that?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, what do you think about this congressional effort to limit the president's son?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think about that?
unidentified		Listen, listen.
		You can't trust these Democrats.
		I don't blame him for not advising anybody.
		You can't trust any of them.
		Okay?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And what do you mean by that when it comes to the larger aspect of the limiting of the president's authority?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you mean by that?
unidentified		Well, he should have some limited authority.
		I agree with that.
		But when it comes to this, to what happened with Iran, he had every right to do that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		All right.
		Julian there in Connecticut.
		Let's hear from Rob.
		Rob in Michigan, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		Thank you for my call.
		I look back in history and I see that Joe Biden bombed Iraq and Syria.
		Barack Obama bombed Libya, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
		Bill Clinton bombed Afghanistan and the Sudan.
		Could someone explain the difference between that, or do they just want to admit the hypocrisy of, well, we hate anything Trump does, so that's our real agenda.
		That's my only comment.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, Rob, you set up the segue, so I appreciate that.
		It was Mike Johnson earlier this week, the House Speaker.
		He was speaking about these efforts in Congress, on his case, the House side, to introduce war powers resolution.
		He talked a little bit about what history says about previous military actions by previous presidents.
		Here's Speaker Johnson from earlier in the week.
mike johnson ▲ ● ▼		Now we're hearing some talk about the war powers resolution.
		What is that exactly?
		Congress passed that legislation in 1973 under President Richard Nixon.
		It bars the use of armed forces in conflict beyond 60 days without congressional authorization or a formal declaration of war.
		A 30-day withdrawal period follows thereafter under the statute.
		It also requires that the president inform Congress within 48 hours of use of military force.
		Obviously, President Trump did that.
		Obviously, in the modern era with the 24-hour news cycle and social media, nothing goes by unnoticed.
		This might have made some sense in 1973, but I'm not even sure it was constitutional.
		And I'll tell you about that as well.
		Many respected constitutional experts argue that the War Powers Act is itself unconstitutional.
		I'm persuaded by that argument.
		They think it's a violation of the Article II powers of the Commander-in-Chief.
		I think that's right.
		If you look back at the founder's intent, you read the Federalist Papers, you read the records of the Constitutional Convention, I think that is right.
		And many more scholars believe the President is correct to use his executive authority in exactly the manner that he did over the weekend.
		I am a jealous guardian of Congress's Article I authority.
		We are the defenders of it here, and we take it seriously, and I always will be.
		But exercising the authority to declare war isn't something we've done since World War II.
		And everybody in this room knows since then we've had more than 125 military operations from Korea and Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan.
		They have occurred without a declaration of war by Congress.
		Presidents of both parties have exercised that authority frequently.
		A few recent examples.
		President Biden ordered strikes on Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.
		President Obama launched an eight-month-long bombing campaign in Libya to Al-Gaddafi.
		President Clinton initiated air patrols and airstrikes in Bosnia and a bombing campaign in Yugoslavia.
		Every one of those actions were taken unilaterally and without prior authorization from Congress.
		The bottom line is the commander-in-chief is the president.
		The military reports to the president.
		And the person empowered to act on the nation's behalf is the president.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mike Johnson from earlier this week, congressional limiting of the president in military uses, in some cases, 202-748-8001.
		If you want to comment on that, and you're a Republican, if you're a Democrat, 202-748-8000.
		And Independence, 202-748-8002.
		I might have said 8,000 for the Republican line.
		It's 202-748-8001.
		Let's go to Rob in Michigan, Independent line.
		Hi.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Thank you for helping me with that segue, and it was a very good article.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Tim.
		Tim in Alabama, Democrats line.
		Good morning.
		You're next up.
unidentified		Thank you for taking my call.
		Should Congress limit Trump's military authority?
		Well, the way I see Congress, Congress has not limited his authority to do anything yet.
		That goes with immigration or tariffs or anything.
		Congress has not done anything concerning President Trump.
		And the Supreme Court has given him immunity to act in any way he wants, and he can't be prosecuted for it.
		So there's no consequence for his actions since he's been president, and there's no consequences for anything that he will do down the road from here.
		He has been in office for a little over three months.
		So he has another three years, and he's going to continue along this line.
		And that's my comment.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Jeannie joins us from California on our line for Republicans.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		How are you?
		I'm fine, thank you.
		Well, he's been in there for more than three months.
		That car is out to lunch.
		He's been in there for more than six months now.
		So I've got a call, and I've got to tell you, limiting the commander-in-chief is not a good thing.
		That's just basically a power grab from the Democrats because they don't have power.
		They want to throw their weight around when the president is showing his authority.
		President Trump's successful mission over in Iran proves he doesn't need any congressional authority over his head.
		I think it's ridiculous.
		It just shows you just what the Democrats are all about.
		They just can't stand it that they don't have power.
		And they're sitting there just stewing in their beef with their socialism.
		I can't believe what's going on in New York City.
		But anyway, back to Trump.
		He's doing the best he can with these Democrats coming down on him every day.
		And C-SPAN, you need to give him some positive feedback on your show.
		There's more than negative articles about that president of ours.
		And you need to show them, show them off, and show them well.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Jeannie in California, thanks for calling.
		The Washington Post takes a historical look at efforts previous to limit the president when it comes to the use of war powers.
		It was in 2018 that a bipartisan group of senators tried to draft a new war resolution to replace the 2001 authorization for use of military force that approved war against the terrorists who attacked New York and Washington, a broadly worded document that presidents have cited time and again to launch attacks that had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden or al-Qaeda.
		That flamed out.
		And two years ago, with Democrats controlling the Senate and Republicans in charge of the House, many of the same lawmakers pushed legislation that would repeal the 1991 and 2002 war resolutions that governed the two Iraq wars.
		The Senate approved the effort in March of 2023 on a bipartisan vote of 63 to 30, saying that the entire world changed dramatically.
		It's time for the laws and the books to catch up with those changes.
		That was then the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
		And then the story saying that the proposal languished in the House.
		It was never considered.
		If you want to get more of a historical perspective on these efforts by Congress to limit war powers of the president, you can see that in the Washington Post.
		Let's hear from Frank.
		Frank on our independent line in Texas.
unidentified		Hello.
		Yes, sir.
		I was just going to say that all these people are calling in, just like a guy a while ago from Alabama.
		All they want to talk about is race and hate, the Democrats.
		It's all right long as Obama went on an eight-month drone strike.
		I mean, he sent out hundreds and hundreds of drone strikes.
		Now, that is okay.
		That's okay.
		As long as Obama was doing it and Biden was doing it.
		But now Trump, he sends out one strike.
		Oh, man.
		The hypocrisy of the Democrats is unbelievable.
		It's just unbelievable.
		I mean, he could cure, Trump could cure cancer or save 10 babies out of a burning house, and they're going to find something wrong with it.
		You know, he did an excellent thing.
		Look at what Trump has been doing.
		Just like he did over NATO the other day.
		Everybody was glad, except for Spain, to come over and pay 5%.
		Finally, he got him to do that.
		I mean, he garnered a peace treaty between Pakistan and India when they had a fire up.
		He probably, now he's got a ceasefire, and last I heard he was still holding between Israel and Iran.
		Look at all the great things he has already done.
		But Ceaseban, don't never bring that up.
		Oh, no.
		We don't never want to bring that up.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, these are congressional actions.
		Caller, thank you for your comment.
		These are congressional actions, and we cover Congress exclusively.
		So that's why we're bringing it to you as far as getting your input on it.
		Milton in Philadelphia, Democrats, line high.
unidentified		Good morning, and thank you for taking my call.
		I think if the president is going to send troops overseas, like large battalion troops, he should have to come to Congress and do it.
		Just to take a military action for immediately to save lives or something like that.
		The president should be authorized to do that.
		You know what?
		Have problems with Republicans not standing up for the institution of Congress.
		Now, you had when Trump launched his attack against Iran, he didn't go to the gang of eight to the Democrats.
		You know what I mean?
		He should have consulted them, and he didn't.
		He's a passionate little child.
		Now, you know, when the Democrats changed the filibuster and allowed judicial nomination to go through, McConnell took and said at the time, Democrats are going to rule the day that they change the filibuster rule.
		Now, when you get a Democrat in there and they take military action and they don't consult Republicans, I want to see what the Republicans call.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, to that point, some of the callers have brought it up.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Have you ever heard of an effort to limit the previous actions of previous presidents when they use military action?
unidentified		Well, yeah, I think it should be limited.
		If you want to send large scales of troops, it should be limited.
		He should have to go to Congress.
		But take a military action for emergency purposes.
		The president should have that authority.
		But it should be limited.
		I mean, we're putting our servicemen and women's lives at risk here.
		You know, I have family members that are in the service.
		I don't want them going over there dying unless Congress and American people are in on it.
		There should be some limits on the president's authority.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Milton there in Philadelphia.
		Jerry joins us from Virginia, Republican line.
		Hi there.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Look, we cannot handcuff the commander-in-chief.
		And if he goes to Congress and tells them what he's going to do, them left-wing lunatic Democrats are going to go straight to MSLDC and broadcast it to the whole world.
		And for more information to those Democrats, everyone knows Nancy Pelosi hates Donald Trump more than anyone in the world.
		But Nancy Pelosi said Donald Trump did the right thing, and he did not need congressional approval to do what he did.
		They better look up and see what Nancy said.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Jerry, there in Virginia, when it comes to briefings of legislators, the Associated Press reporting that senators set to meet with top national security officials today, as many question the president's decision to bomb three Iranian nuclear sites and whether those strikes were ultimately successful.
		The classified briefing was originally scheduled for Tuesday, was also delayed.
		It comes as the Senate is expected to vote this week on that resolution that would require congressional approval if the president decides to strike again.
		Democrats and some Republicans have said that the White House overstepped its authority when it failed to seek the advice of Congress and they want to know more about the intelligence on the president relied on when he authorized the attacks.
		Look for that to play out on the Senate side.
		You can follow along as senators react to that briefing.
		Always on our Senate channel, C-SPAN 2.
		The C-SPAN 1 covers the House.
		This is Rick in Arkansas, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hello there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hi there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
unidentified		Hey, Trump don't need anybody to watch over him.
		He's doing a fine job.
		He doesn't need anybody to babysit him.
		And there are so many leaks inside Congress and around in the government that he has to keep that, you know, to himself.
		And you got Congress, congressmen in the United States that are from some of these other countries that don't need to be in Congress.
		They don't need to be in our government because their loyalties don't lie with the USA.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, they were elected by their congressional districts and states to serve the Congress.
		But when it comes to the issue of why not more oversight by Congress on military actions, go on that.
		Why do you think Congress shouldn't be involved?
unidentified		Be involved in the bigger wars.
		If you're going to have ground troops going to these countries, yes, Congress should be involved.
		But just a tripe like this on Pakistan, where we're taking out their nuclear capabilities.
		I don't think he needs to go through Congress to do that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Rick there in Arkansas giving his thoughts.
		It was earlier this week on the Senate side, a vote pending this week.
		It was Senator Tim Kaine working on that War Powers Act.
		He was on the Sunday Show's CBS that he talked about the resolution that he filed in the Senate and why he did it.
		Here's more from Senator Kaine.
tim kaine ▲ ● ▼		Congress needs to authorize a war against Iran, this Trump war against Iran.
		We have not.
		Congress should be consulted with it.
		We were not.
		And Congress needs to be notified, not after the fact, but in advance.
		We were not.
		That's why I've filed a war powers resolution that will ripen and be brought to a vote on the floor of the Senate this week.
		Senator Schumer is working with Leader Thun to make that happen.
		The United States should not be in an offensive war against Iran without a vote of Congress.
		The Constitution is completely clear on it.
		And I am so disappointed that the president has acted so prematurely.
		The Foreign Minister of Israel said Friday night that its own bombing campaign had set the Iranian nuclear program back, quote, at least two or three years, close quote.
		There was no urgency that suggested while diplomatic talks were underway that the U.S. should take this unilateral action by President Trump's orders yesterday.
margaret brennan ▲ ● ▼		Well, the vice president was on another network earlier this morning and said, we are not at war with Iran.
		We are at war with Iran's nuclear program.
		There seems to be a lot of legal parsing on the definition of the word war here.
		What do you make of that description?
tim kaine ▲ ● ▼		I think it's BS, and I think anybody hearing it would conclude the same thing.
		When you're bombing another nation, ask them if they think it's war.
		They do.
		Would we think it was war if Iran bombed a U.S. nuclear facility?
		Of course we would.
		And the U.S., you know, we've invaded two neighbors of Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq, to topple their regimes since 2000.
		Those were wars.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		A little bit more about the briefings that Congress or members of Congress will get on Iran.
		It says it will be conducted by the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Radcliffe, and General Dan Kaine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Administration officials, said the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who testified in March that the U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon, will be notably absent.
		Speaking of the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseff, it's 8 o'clock this morning that a press conference is expected to take place.
		There's the shot that you'll see once it takes place.
		The Defense Secretary talking about many issues, possibly talking about this eye.
		Do you have war powers as well?
		8 o'clock is when it starts.
		You can see that on C-SPAN 2.
		You can also follow along on our app at C-SPANNOW and at c-span.org for that briefing by the Defense Secretary and the Joint Chiefs Chair.
		And that's where you can see that.
		We're taking your questions on military action or how if it should be limited by Congress when it comes to actions by the President.
		Let's hear from Rick in Arkansas.
		I'm sorry, let's hear from Josie.
		Josie in Pennsylvania, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		It's interesting listening to this discussion.
		There are some things that we need to bring into perspective.
		Historically, we went from advisors to 500,000 men in Vietnam in a very short period of time without a declaration of war on Vietnam.
		We lost over 52,000 military personnel.
		We took our monies and put them into a war that was not won.
		Then we moved on in the early part of this century into Iraq, into Afghanistan, and those cost millions and millions of dollars.
		No action from Congress.
		What we're forgetting is that in the Constitution, the purpose of the United States Senate is to be advised and consenting with the other branches of government, particularly the executive branch.
		There is a book that came out years ago by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called The Imperial Presidency.
		We have moved into an imperial presidency, not just with Donald Trump, but with other presidents who have acted unilaterally of Congress.
maggie in oklahoma ▲ ● ▼		And Congress has conceded their power to the executive branch, which is a real concern.
unidentified		After all, it is Congress.
		The House has to give the appropriations for any military actions.
		So should they not be consulted?
		Should they not have a briefing?
		And to say that the briefing is only for Republicans is further dividing the country.
		When if there is a war, we need to be as united as possible.
		So this going back and forth with Democrats, Republicans, let's go back and remember the Republicans who took us into wars.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		That was George W. Bush.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		George Josie in Pennsylvania.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is JJ in California, Republican line.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thanks for having my call.
		Peace through strength.
		means straight.
		We don't want to show, they only understand weakness.
		We have a Finally, we have a president that we're respected.
		We're a hot number one.
		Everybody wants part of America now, and we're respected around the world.
		I believe the ends justify the means.
		And you're going to send it to Congress?
		I'm born and bred American.
		If you were born and bred, but a lot of these people, they get elected and they're transplant.
		They don't know the values.
		Do they know the Pledge of Allegiance?
		Do they know the Constitution?
		They have a lot of rhetoric.
		Anytime you're going to go through Congress and send it to the government, they're going to just hold it up.
		And my final word is anytime a Democrat is upset, they suffer from Trump derangement, and anytime they're upset, we're doing something right.
		More power, support our president.
		If you burn the flag, you're going to see stars.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's JJ in California.
		Should Congress limit the president's military authority?
		In this case, it's about Iran, but you can talk specifically to that and overall the work of Congress or the role of Congress.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Independents 202-748-8002.
		Text us your thoughts at 202-748-8003.
		Some of you posting on Facebook this morning.
		This is Gerald Ernest saying they didn't with other presidents, saying that Presidents Clinton and Obama use example.
		So I say no.
		President Trump accomplished what other presidents said needed to be done.
		This is Diane Purvis, also from Facebook, saying, let's stop right.
		And big question there.
		Congress needs to act on all of this.
		Are they paralyzed?
		Kate Taylor adding the thought he has all the rights other presidents had and used, so no, is her conclusion.
		And then Albert Christie Jr. saying that two branches of government are always trying to pull power from the third.
		Pick any two, leave a working system alone.
		Again, you can match your thoughts on Facebook at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN on X at C-SPAN WJ from Ohio.
		Greg is next.
		Independent line.
unidentified		Hey, yeah, you guys leave Trump alone.
		I can't help it.
		You guys ain't used to having a daddy, but daddy's home.
		Daddy's going to take care of all this crap.
		All I know is you deranged Comic Crats that watch MSBS and the freaking CNN.
		They have brainwashed you and this channel here.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, hold on, caller.
		Hold on.
		Congress is the one acting on these things.
		That's why we're turning it to you to respond to that.
		So what do you think of the congressional actions?
unidentified		Oh, how about why didn't we have all these conversations when Obama was doing it?
		None of this crap.
		Why?
		Because he throws the race card out?
		Huh?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Let's go to Jason.
		Jason's in Oklahoma.
		Democrats line hi.
unidentified		Hello, and I think Democrats need to act on the police dominant policy he can't have.
		Because you do all this thing and we getting to war.
		What are we going to do then?
		Congress mayn't act on it.
		So Congress have a right to be beat on everything when it comes to the United States of America.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Did you feel the same with previous presidents who took military action, including Democratic presidents?
unidentified		Yeah, you need to be both ways.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		That's Jason there in Oklahoma.
		CBS put out a poll earlier this week.
		A lot of questions about Iran, but a couple applying to the discussion for today.
		When it comes to the question of if the president needed approval from Congress for military action against Iran, 63% overall saying that he needed that approval, 37% saying that he did not need that approval.
		It breaks it down a little more by party when it comes to that needs approval category.
		91% of Democrats saying that needed to be the case, 66% of independents and 30% of Republicans.
		9% of Democrats saying he did not need the approval.
		34% of independents saying that, and 70% of Republicans adding to that thought as well.
		Jack in Kentucky, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hey, good morning.
		How are you doing?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I'm fine.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		All right.
		So I personally think that Trump's military abilities should be limited, but I also think in California, Independent Line, hi.
		Thank you, Mr. Acto Harry.
		A shout out to Brian Ram for creating this forum.
		Boy, you really have your hands full today.
		We're a motley crew.
		Hey, this is from someone who has absolutely no respect for either political party and would never be associated with either political party.
		I think that the Constitution says that it is Congress who has the right to declare war.
		And if you're dropping, again, what is a war?
		Well, if someone dropped this on my house, per se, a bunker bomb on the White House or Mar-Lago, would I consider that a war?
		Would President Trump consider that a war?
		And I think President Trump would consider it a war if someone dropped a bunker bomb on Mar-Lago.
		So giving that point of reference, again, from someone who just doesn't want to ever have anything to do with either political party, I think that's a war.
		And I think the Constitution says that it is Congress who has that right.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So However, does that thought change because the actual strikes by the United States were on nuclear facilities?
		It wasn't on personal property.
		It was on concerns over Iran's nuclear program overall.
		Does that change as far as whether it's a war or whether that's military strikes, as some Republicans would say?
unidentified		It's geographically on Iran.
		So I guess if Iran had dropped a bunker bomb on one of our nuclear facilities somewhere in Kansas or something like that, that too would constitute an act of war.
		So again, from someone who doesn't want to be a part of either party and just as a strict person who wishes to follow the Constitution, I think the Constitution would clearly indicate that it is Congress who needs to be consulted prior to it.
		I don't understand why President Trump didn't consult Congress too first, because with Speaker Johnson, he would have easily gotten approval.
		So he would have gotten approval from Congress to do this.
		All right.
		If we're looking at our government right now in terms of three circles of a Venn diagram, the executive branch is way super large, and the two other branches, the courts and legislative, are so small that you can practically not see them.
		So I think we're out of balance right here.
		I think we, and let's get back to Obama.
		I mean, there's a man who didn't act.
		I mean, think about if Obama would have acted when Putin invaded the Crimea Peninsula.
		Think of if he would have gotten NATO involved and we would have had a full-on offensive right then.
		I mean, again, there are times when action is needed.
		That was the time when action was needed.
		And then there are times when I'm going to wait two weeks.
		Well, yeah, you should have waited two weeks.
		Okay, because again, thank you.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Mr. Barry up next in Kansas, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		I believe that the president was right doing what he did because I looked at Truman in years past, laid my day talk being in the military, that it ended the war real quickly, dropping those bombs on Hiroshima and Nakasaki.
		I don't believe a president should be handcuffed there because go ahead, Collier, you're still on.
		And I believe also that if you tell the Democrats before you're even going to 24 hours before you're going to do it, we're going to have more military losses because of CNN and MSNBC telling the enemy what they're going to do.
		So I'm just going to say Trump did the right thing by going in and getting him the congressional leaders the proper notification.
		Thank you, sir.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Barry in Kansas there about 20 minutes until the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth expected to make comments on Iran and related topics.
		We're going to show you that live, hopefully bring you a little bit here on our main network, C-SPAN, but also you can follow along and watch it in its entirety at our C-SPAN 2 channel.
		That's what you'll see when the Defense Secretary and the Joint Chiefs chair come to the podiums to answer questions.
		Again, 8 o'clock is when you can expect that.
		If you can't watch it on C-SPAN 2, follow along on our app at C-SPANNOW, C-SPAN.org as well.
		Doug up next.
		He's in Virginia Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi, how are you doing?
		Just trying to figure out why and how our country got to where we are.
		I mean, we dropped two nuclear bombs on innocent people during World War II, and nobody complained.
		They only dropped bunker bombs.
		No one declared war.
		And if you tell Congress, Congress is going to turn around and tell the news, and the enemy is going to know you're coming.
		Does that make any sense?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So what do you think about this current effort then, in relation to what you just said?
unidentified		I'm trying to figure out why.
		Every time a president does something, we've got to impeach him.
		We got to run him down.
		We need to get this country back to where it was when people here respect our flag and not walk around on campuses waving other countries' flags.
		I just don't see how we got here.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Doug, there in Virginia, theconversation.com has a bit of historical perspective on the president's use of military authority.
		They add to the conversation, while every president has bristled at congressional restraints on their actions, presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt have successfully circumvented them by citing vague concerns like, quote, national security, quote, regional security, or need to, quote, prevent a humanitarian disaster when launching military operations.
		While members of Congress always take issue with these actions, they never hold presidents accountable by passing legislation restraining them.
		President Trump's decision to bomb Iranian nuclear sites without consulting Congress falls in line with precedent from both Democratic and Republican leaders for decades.
		This story adding that the push and pull between Congress and the president over military operations dates back to the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, which led Congress to declare war on Japan.
		Before then, Congress had prevented the U.S. from joining World War II by enforcing an arms embargo and refusing to help the Allies prior to the attack on Hawaii.
		But afterward, Congress began allowing the president to take more control over the military during the Cold War.
		Rather than returning to a balanced debate between branches, Congress continued to relinquish those powers.
		More there at that site about how presidents of both parties have used military action to the degree that they consult Congress.
		Theconversation.com is the website where you can see more of that.
		Let's hear from Stacey in Virginia, Independent Line.
		Hi there.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi, Pedro.
		Good morning, America.
		Yeah, we better reign him in because if not, we're going to have a war fought over here in America.
		And I know all these war hawks, Republicans who are talking, if anything were to happen, all your Republican people, they're going on the ground.
		Trump is going in the air.
		We're going to have to deal with the fallout.
		They better rein him in because he has gotten rid of, with all those federal cuts Trump has made, he has made us less slave.
		We have less eyes on the prize.
		He is not following our intel.
		He's going by what people say, not what the facts are.
		That's very dangerous.
		And the fact that we've had the, what, a 22-year-old kid who used to cut grass and work at a grocery store, now he is in charge of terrorism in America.
		We are in a very scary place right now.
		And everything Donald J. Trump has done has made us safer, made us less safe.
		And he's teasing war strikes like it's sweets.
		And I don't know, because he comes from a long line of draft dodgers.
		I know his grandfather came over here to avoid the war.
		And he considers military people suckers.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		But let's go to Michelle in New York, Republican line.
		Hello there.
		Michelle in New York, hello.
unidentified		Yes, hello.
		Yes, I believe Donald Trump did exactly what he should have done.
		He does not need to consult the Democratic Party, who obviously anyone has a fraction of a brain cell can see they have a mental illness.
		They have a Trump derangement syndrome.
		Anything this person does is they're against it.
		They don't care if it's something they have done in the past.
		They don't care if it's something that Obama did or Biden did or any other Democrat has done.
		They will leak it to the press.
		They will leak it to our enemies.
		They are evil.
		Clearly, they don't love America.
		They love power.
		They love money.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		But specifically, if Congress is controlled by Republicans, why not go to Congress to get that approval if both sides are controlled by Republicans?
unidentified		Because if you're going to Congress, the Democrats are sitting in on that.
		You can't just say, oh, I'm going to tell just the Republicans.
		I have to sit here and defend it to Democrats who have called him Hitler.
		He has never killed one person.
		Hitler murdered six million Jews, and yet we have people in this country running around screaming death to the Jews, death to America, waving other countries' flags.
		And you want him to trust those people with sensitive, classified information?
		There's no way you can trust them.
		I don't trust any one of a Democrat.
		They just primarily, not even socialist, the man is a communist Jew hater in the U.S. out of New York.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Yes, saw that in the news yesterday.
		We'll keep it to the conversation.
		And Michael Frazier adding to the mix saying this morning, this comes up every time a president takes military action, Republican and Democrat.
		The fact of the matter is there are times the U.S. needs to take military action and doesn't have the time to wait for the bureaucracy.
		That is why the president, as commander-in-chief, has limited discretion.
		Every former president has had to use this discretion at some point.
		Facebook.com slash C-SPAN, if you want to make comments there regarding Congress, if you think it should act or not when it comes to limiting the president's military authority, text us too at 202-748-8003 if you want to give your thoughts that way.
		About 15 minutes until we hear from the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at 8 o'clock.
		Again, see that on C-SPAN too.
		We'll take calls until then.
		And before our first guest, Dennis in Iowa, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		I have to laugh at these Republican callers, blame and Democrats.
		For what's going on in Washington, D.C. when they have complete control, the Republicans.
		They're just stupid.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So hold on.
		Before you leave, call them so you can comment on the question at hand.
		Oh, he's gone.
		Let's hear from Joel.
		Joel in New York, Republican line.
		Should Congress limit the president's ability for military action?
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		No, he doesn't need no approval.
		Like everybody says, all the other presidents did the exact same thing.
		But let's stop for a minute.
		Let's look at this.
		For about a week, week and a half ago, every new heavy network on TV were talking about tackle Trump because he always chickens out.
		They were upset because he wasn't going to throw these buster bombs, okay?
		So finally, finally, he does it, okay?
		And the mission was perfect.
		You guys should have a show just on the military that they had a perfect mission.
		You know, I wish you would do a show just on that.
		You know, be proud of what we did.
		And then, can you imagine?
		I mean, for four days, that's all we've been talking about.
		The word that he said obliterated.
		That's what's been, that's what the whole topic has been for four days.
		Can you imagine if one of those military officers would have died in that mission or a plane?
		What they would, what would you guys be?
		I can't just imagine the talk show.
		Okay, nobody died.
		Nobody died in Iran.
		Nobody died.
		You know, our military, our equipment got home safe.
		It was a fantastic mission.
		Why don't we praise it?
		Okay.
		I know you guys hate Trump, and every day is a Trump-hitting talk show.
		I get it.
		I get it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We follow every president who has sat in the Oval Office.
		We follow every member of Congress that sits in the House and the Senate.
		We're following the actions of all those things today.
		On the Senate side, it was yesterday on the Senate floor that the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer talked about the president accusing the Trump administration of stonewalling Congress when it comes to information on Iran.
chuck schumer ▲ ● ▼		Here's a portion from yesterday: Both parties, by and large, agree that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
		I do.
		But if the president is misrepresenting the impact of our military strikes, and these reports have some accuracy, we don't know if they do, and if the president is turning away from diplomacy with Iran, as his recent post suggested, then what the hell is going on?
		What is Donald Trump's plan?
		We really don't know the answers to any of these critical questions.
		The administration refuses to be transparent.
		All we get are talking points and tweets.
		We know that Donald Trump makes things up day to day and then has to retract and turn around.
		And tomorrow, all we're going to get are talking points from Rubio and Hegseth, because that's what we know they're trained to do.
		On top of that, today it was reported the administration may actually start limiting intelligence sharing with Congress.
		The administration should immediately undo this decision if it's true.
		Are they afraid of the truth?
		Do they want to hide the truth?
		The intelligence agencies are known to tell the truth.
		Is that why they're so afraid to get their information out, the information of the intelligence agencies out?
		As I said yesterday, the administration's stonewalling of Congress is outrageous, evasive, derelict.
		The administration has no right to stonewall Congress on matters of national security.
		Senators deserve information, and the administration has a legal obligation to inform Congress precisely about what is happening right now abroad.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		The senator mentioning the limitation of information, Axios was the first to report that yesterday on their website, saying that the administration plans to limit sharing of classified information with Congress after someone leaked an internal assessment suggesting that Saturday's bombings of the facilities weren't as successful as President Trump claimed,
		according to four sources, telling Axios under its Why It's Matter section, saying the leaking of the Preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency's battle damage assessment outraged Trump and top U.S. officials who said it was incomplete and that the release was aimed at undercutting the president's claims that Iran's nuclear sites had been obliterated.
		Saying that the administration sources say they're planning to limit posting on CapNet, a system the administration uses to share classified information with Congress.
		More there from the Axios website.
		Here's the president yesterday talking about the assessments of what happened in Iran and giving more information from what he saw as far as the end result.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		A letter just came in, and a statement came in from the Atomic Energy Commission of Israel.
		And I just wanted this is an official letter, and they're very serious people, as you know.
		The devastating U.S. strike on Forto destroyed the site's critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility totally inoperable.
		It was devastated.
		We assessed that the American strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities have set back Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons for many years to come.
		This achievement can continue indefinitely if Iran does not get access to nuclear material, which it won't.
		It's so sad that that whole thing had a go.
		But I just want to thank our pilots.
		You know, they were maligned and treated very bad, demeaned by fake news CNN, which is back there, believe it or not, wasting time, wasting it.
		Nobody's watching them.
		So they just wasted a lot of time.
		Wasting my time.
		And the New York Times, they put out a story that, well, maybe they were hit, but it wasn't bad.
		Well, it was so bad that they ended the war.
		It ended the war.
		Somebody said in a certain way, you know, that it was so devastating, actually.
		If you look at Hiroshima, if you look at Nagasaki, you know, that ended a war too.
		This ended a war in a different way, but it was so devastating.
		Also, they have out of Dubai just came that Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, this is Iran's foreign minister, says it's near its nuclear installations were very badly damaged by the American strikes.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That was from NATO, and you can see more on our app and the .org.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Here's Sue in Maryland, Independent Line.
unidentified		Yeah, hi.
		Thanks for taking that call.
		I absolutely think that Congress should reign in any president for committing any assets to any foreign countries or foreign wars.
		I think Obama should have had congressional approval before he sent billions of dollars to Iran.
		I think Biden absolutely should have had congressional approval before he committed assets to Ukraine.
		And Trump had no business doing this.
		This is the United States of America.
		It's not the United States of Israel.
		And Israel is bound and determined to have the Americans come in and wipe out all their enemies.
		And we're not, we should not be committing any assets to any foreign wars.
		And Trump, unless he's going to put his sons or his grandsons on the front lines, he needs to come to Congress.
		I am sick and tired of presidents deciding that they alone are responsible for committing our lives, our blood, our treasure, our assets.
		And I think Congress needs to reign all presidents in.
		Okay.
		And that's all.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Sue there in Maryland.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mark in Florida, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		I would caution President Trump for congratulating himself too much just yet.
		I mean, I think we all remember George W. Bush declared mission accomplished six weeks after the start of the Iraq war, and we all know how that went.
		And, you know, it sounds like, Yeah, they might have r really destroyed a lot of their sites, but the indications are that they probably ha moved the enriched uranium that they did have elsewhere that was not destroyed.
		And I think history teaches us that it's almost nearly impossible to eradicate a nuclear program by air power alone.
		Israel tried it in 1981 with Iraq, and all that did was speed up Saddam Hussein to accelerate his program.
		And if it wasn't for the Gulf War that started later, that program, he might have had a weapon by the mid-1990s.
		So, you know, unless they were going to go in and do a ground invasion, which no one is thinking about, I hope, the only viable option is to work on some kind of diplomacy.
		And, you know, Trump has been saying he wants to do some kind of diplomacy, but he doesn't get it done.
		You know, if he had left in Barack Obama's, you know, nuclear deal that he had, that would have prevented them from obtaining a weapon for at least 15 years.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Okay.
		Mark in Florida there.
		Let's hear from Tim in New York, Independent Line.
unidentified		How are you doing?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Fine, thank you.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		I'm surprised that many of the people are missing the backstory here.
		We went and bombed the bombing because Netanyahu and the Jewish PAC in the United States wanted it done.
		And most of the members in the House and Senate are just as complicit as the President.
		And while they're worrying about the bomb, they should worry about Gaza and how we participated in the genocide that's going over there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, when it comes to congressional authority to limit the president on future actions, what do you think of Congress's role?
unidentified		From what I understand, since Vietnam, the Congress has relinquished their right to commit war because they wanted to get away from the politics that was involved in it.
unidentified		So they put it in the hands of the presidents.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Dwight is next.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Dwight from Virginia, Democrats line.
unidentified		Good morning.
		So here's my thought.
		The president should have limited authority when it comes to things like this, like Iran, the bombing of Iran.
		You can't go around telling everybody because then it leaves you uncovered.
		But even the buffoon in office now should have that authority.
		Where Congress should get involved is when we're going to put boots on the ground.
		Congress needs to be informed.
		There should be an act of war declared.
		And that's it.
		The two should be separate.
		But the president should have authority to go in in emergency situations or where he sees Fed is commander-in-chief, and he should be able to go in without having Congress get so much involved.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Bryce from Maryland, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Bryce from Maryland.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		President Trump.
		Hello.
		Can you hear me?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Yep, you're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		I believe that the caller before me is correct.
		President Trump has the authority.
		This is just more anti-Trump talk.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Bryce, what do you mean by that?
unidentified		Well, it seems everything Trump does, nobody likes.
		So therefore we get no transparency.
		Well, gee, back in his first term when he hit Sulamani and he destroyed most of ISIS, did anybody complain there?
		No.
		When Biden, you know, I can't hear you speak, Pedro.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I'm not saying anything.
		Go ahead and finish your thought, please.
		Bryce, go ahead and finish your thought, please.
unidentified		I just support the president's authority.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Let's hear from Bruce.
		Bruce in New York, in Kingston, New York, our line for independence.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yeah, good morning, fellow Americans and Pedro.
		Very interesting talk.
		It's kind of a shame that people are calling in with party politics and talking points because this is a historic question as much as a political question.
		The Constitution gives the power of war to Congress specifically.
		The problem has always been undeclared wars and military actions taken, especially after World War II, when current events don't allow for the time that it takes to run this through a parliament of ideas and where the president has to act to protect the country.
		But as the War Powers Act came about because of Nixon and other people's use of non-declared, Vietnam was not a declared war, despite the fact that retrospectively we always call it a war.
		It was never actually declared a war.
		So the War Powers Act was a process in which we were trying to pull back the constitutional right of the Congress, but allow for the presidency to respond to emergencies.
		Now, the problem in our current situation is what Trump has done in an offensive mode by bombing a sovereign country, technically speaking, is an act of war.
		So it's not an undeclared war type of item.
		And Congress has muddled the information and the media has not clearly indicated where this is coming from either in terms of how Congress, and in fact, even the question being asked today whether Congress should be pulling back power from the president when actually the president here is attempting to pull back a constitutional right of Congress.
		It's attempting to usurp power from a Congress.
		So it's actually in reverse the actual question.
		So I just wanted to point that out.
		I don't have a question, but I just wanted to clarify that for Republican line, Florida, and this is Rachel.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Rachel, you're next.
unidentified		Yes, hello.
unidentified		Yes.
dr rebecca grant ▲ ● ▼		I don't think Trump should have had Congressional authority.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Rachel, I apologize.
		You're fading in and out.
		Can you get closer to your device or maybe move towards a place where you can get a better signal?
unidentified		Yes.
		Yeah, I don't think Trump should have had to get okay from Congress.
		But more importantly, back when Biden was president, I think the people should have voted on whether we let 20 up to 20 million people cross our border.
		Unvetted, uncertainty.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Rachel, Rachel in Florida, your last call.
		Thanks to all of you who participate.
		Again, the Defense Secretary expected to make comments.
		See that on C-SPAN 2 and monitor that conversation.
		As far as this program, we'll continue on.
		War powers and the role of Congress in recent days, especially when it comes to military use, part of the conversation up next.
		But first, later on in the program, we'll hear from Representative Blake Moore, Republican of Utah, talking about not only the situation in Iran, but also efforts here in the United States, particularly Congress, to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and then up next to talk about the War Powers Act and the later topics, Phil Wallach from American Enterprise Institute.
		And he'll take your questions when Washington Journal continues.
unidentified		This weekend, at 4 p.m. Eastern, Daniel Stone, author of American Poison, A Deadly Invention, and the Woman Who Battled for Environmental Justice, chronicles Harvard professor Alice Hamilton's attempts to expose the dangers of leaded gasoline in the early 20th century.
		Then, at 5 p.m. Eastern, historian and Vietnam War veteran Mark Leapson on his book, The Unlikely War Hero on the Life of Navy Seaman Doug Hegdalf and his experience as a prisoner of war inside the notorious Hanoi Hilton prison in North Vietnam in the late 1960s.
		And at 9:30 p.m. Eastern on The Presidency, filmmaker and screenwriter Rod Lurie on how the American president is depicted on film and TV and how it affects our understanding of the office.
		Exploring the American story.
		Watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/slash history.
		Looking to contact your members of Congress?
		Well, C-SPAN is making it easy for you with our 2025 Congressional Directory.
		Get essential contact information for government officials all in one place.
		This compact, spiral-bound guide contains bio and contact information for every House and Senate member of the 119th Congress.
		Contact information on congressional committees, the President's Cabinet, federal agencies, and state governors.
		The Congressional Directory costs $32.95 plus shipping and handling, and every purchase helps support C-SPAN's non-profit operations.
		Scan the code on the right or go to c-spanshop.org to order your copy today.
		Washington Journal continues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Before we go to our first guest, let's show you a little bit of that conference featuring the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
pete hegseth ▲ ● ▼		Saying, this never could have happened.
		Never would have happened.
		Seemed impossible five years ago, two years ago, eight years ago.
		But here we are because of your leadership.
		If you asked them the question, I bet they'd say the same thing.
		But searching for scandals, you miss historic moments like recruiting at the Pentagon, historic levels in the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy.
		Yeah, maybe there'll be a little mention here or there.
		But because it was under President Trump's leadership, because it was because Americans are responding to him as commander-in-chief, the press corps doesn't want to write about him.
		Or bring us to the topic of the moment, the highly successful strikes in Iran.
		Let me read the bottom line here.
		President Trump directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history.
		And it was a resounding success, resulting in a ceasefire agreement and the end of the 12-day war.
		There's been a lot of discussion about what happened and what didn't happen.
		Step back for a second.
		Because of decisive military action, President Trump created the conditions to end the war, decimating, choose your word, obliterating, destroying Iran's nuclear capabilities.
		I want to read some of the assessments that have been provided because whether it's fake news, CNN, MSNBC, or the New York Times, there's been fawning coverage of a preliminary assessment.
		I've had a chance to read it.
		Every outlet has breathlessly reported on a preliminary assessment from DIA.
		I'm looking at it right now.
		Again, it was preliminary, a day and a half after the actual strike, when it admits itself in writing that it requires weeks to accumulate the necessary data to make such an assessment.
		It's preliminary.
		It points out that it's not been coordinated with the intelligence community at all.
		There's low confidence in this particular report.
		It says in the report there are gaps in the information.
		It says in the report, multiple linchpin assumptions are what this assessment, a linchpin assumption, you know what that is?
		That means your entire premise is predicated on a linchpin.
		If you're wrong, everything else is wrong.
		And yet, still, this report acknowledges it's likely severe damage.
		Again, this is preliminary, but leaked because someone had an agenda to try to muddy the waters and make it look like this historic strike wasn't successful.
		I'm going to get to the chairman in a moment because he's going to lay out the particulars for you based on his professional military experience.
		But here's what other folks are saying.
		The DIA that put that report out says that this is a preliminary, low-confidence report and will continue to be refined as additional intelligence becomes available.
		How about the Israeli times?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You can keep on following that press conference on our channel, C-SPAN2.
		You can also see it on our app, C-SPANNOW, and monitor along at c-span.org.
		Joining us now, Philip Wallach from American Enterprise Institute.
		He is their senior fellow there, also the author of the book, Why Congress.
		Philip Wallach, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Great to be here with you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let me extend that why Congress and its oversight of actions like we saw in Iran.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What's the role Congress has?
unidentified		Well, I think, obviously, it's been more than 75 years since Congress declared a formal war.
		And Congress has been comfortable giving the president the lead in these kinds of limited actions.
		What the War Powers Act of 1973, which many of the callers have talked about, guarantees is that President has to notify Congress right away.
		If it is going to become a protracted engagement, he will have to get Congress's affirmative approval to continue it.
		So I think the truth is that Congress has allowed the President to take limited actions of short duration and just sort of give Congress the ability to hold him to account on those, not really to say yes or no before they happen.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to what we saw with the specific strikes in Iran, does it fall under a congressional approval?
		Does it fall under the president's powers that he already has?
		Where do you see it?
unidentified		Well, the president himself claims the authority just sort of from Article II of the Constitution to conduct the nation's diplomacy to make sure our interests are respected.
		I think this unique relationship or hostile relationship between Iran and the United States has to be taken into account.
		This isn't just some country.
		This is a country that over the decades has cost Americans many lives and calls us the great Satan.
		And if they had a nuclear weapon, that would really be a game changer.
		So I think taking all that into account, the president says that just his abilities as the commander-in-chief give him this authority.
		And that's more or less in line with what a lot of presidents have claimed in somewhat similar situations.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You talk a little bit about the history of it.
		This week, we're seeing two separate tracks when it comes to efforts in Congress to limit efforts in Iran, the Senate making its effort this week, the House.
		What do you think specifically about these decisions by Congress or these efforts by congressmen to limit the president's power?
unidentified		I think they're sort of position-taking as much as anything else, right?
		The members of Congress want to say this was the president's choice.
		He has the responsibility.
		If things go wrong in the future, it's on him, right?
		I don't really think many of our legislators who are pushing these efforts think it's going to change something very important, but they want to be clear.
		This was the president's choice.
		It was not run through them, right?
		The president did not consult legislators in any real significant way before he made this decision.
		In an era of better legislative-executive relations, you might have expected a sort of substantive consultation before the decision was made.
		Seems that that did not really happen.
		So they're showing the American people this wasn't us.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		On the Senate side, do you think this is an effort, as some would think, to maybe just get the legislators on record as far as what they think?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I think about it more than the effort to curtail the show itself.
unidentified		Exactly.
unidentified		So Democrats, again, want to make sure people understand this wasn't their party making this decision, and maybe they want to put some of the Republicans who are always warning of forever wars sort of in a little bit of a tough situation to say whether they support this action.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Phil Wallach is our guest.
		And if you want to ask him questions about these efforts in Congress to limit the president's power when it comes to military action, especially in light of recent days with Iran, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, and Independence, 202-748-8002.
		You can text us your thoughts or comments and do that at 202-748-8003.
		The two terms that congressmen have been using in relation is it act of war and then precision military strikes.
		How do you parse those, particularly to the larger idea of limiting the president's power in these efforts?
unidentified		Yeah, I think it has to do with sort of how we envision things going forward.
		I think President Trump has been pretty clear that he hopes that this is it.
		He hopes that we've struck our blow against the nuclear program, that it's disabled, and that that's where it can end.
		And Iran had a little bit of its retaliation sort of because it felt it had to, but now we've come to a ceasefire.
		So I think he saw it as a one-time thing, accomplish our mission and be done.
		I do think that the possibility of it becoming a more protracted conflict is always there, but I don't think that's how he'd like to frame it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to members of Congress themselves, a bit of history first and foremost, how have other presidents circumvented the use of this power and the efforts to curtail that power?
unidentified		Sure.
		So, you know, we had the War Prowers Resolution back in 1973 over President Nixon's veto in the first place because Congress was so upset about the ways that he prolonged the Vietnam War and expanded the bombing into Cambodia without really bringing Congress into that decision.
		So ever since then, we've had presidents, though, who've found their moments for military action.
		Most recently, we think of President Obama's actions in Libya, some actions in Syria.
		And these things have not come through Congress first.
		We see the notice after the fact, pursuant with the war powers resolution, but we really haven't seen, going back to President Clinton, we had the whole Bosnia intervention.
		So we've seen a pretty fairly steady pattern where presidents of both parties are willing to take these kinds of actions.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		During the, it was after September 11th, we saw something pass in Congress called the authorization for use of military force.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What did that do, and how does that fit into the larger picture of Congress's role?
unidentified		So, yeah, Congress doesn't want to completely withdraw from the picture, and when it thinks that there's a possibility of protracted conflict, it wants to set the terms.
		So, after September 11th, it created an authorization that was meant to guide presidents in allowing them to take on the terrorists responsible for that action wherever they might go.
		You know, when it came to the Iraq war, they put another separate authorization of use of military force in place to give President Bush the power to wage that conflict.
		So, they haven't done formal declarations of war any longer, but they have tried to structure the executive branch's decision-making by putting these laws into place.
		Now, unfortunately, they're very open-ended, right?
		So, this one from right after September 11th has turned out to give presidents huge scope to do an awful lot of things where they say, oh, well, this all gets back to somebody who was helping al-Qaeda in some way or other, so that gives us the power to act.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Why not an end date on those kind of things?
unidentified		Why not indeed, yes.
		I think our Congress has a generalized problem with putting emergency powers in place that sort of never go away.
		That's not limited to the military context at all, but it does seem like it would be healthy for them once every few years or at least every decade or so to revisit whether they want to give their support to these kinds of efforts.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And just to clarify, is the AUMF still enacted?
unidentified		It sure is, yes.
unidentified		We've had talks about repealing various AUMFs, and mostly we just haven't done it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Phil Wallach is with us.
		He's with American Enterprise Institute, the author of the book Why Congress.
		And if you want to ask him questions, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		Janice is in North Carolina, live for independence for Phil Wallach.
		Janice, good morning.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Good morning.
		Mr. Wallach, I have a comment and a question.
		A lot of people have been talking about the rights of the president to conduct war, and they've been talking about the rights of Congress to declare war.
		And what I want to do is get your opinion on, I've already heard you say authority, and that is the correct word to be used in this situation.
		And I appreciate that.
		And I was wondering if you could make further comments about that, because there is a large difference between rights and authority.
		Thank you.
		Thanks for the question, Janice.
		I think we do an awful lot of rights talk in American politics and thinking about everyone's rights and whether they're being violated or not.
		Generally, that language is confusing when we start to apply it to the powers of the different branches of governments.
		The different branches have powers set out in the Constitution and they have various responsibilities and duties set out in the constitutional framework.
		They don't really have rights, and it's mostly rather confusing to talk about their rights.
		So the president, by virtue of being the commander-in-chief, clearly has the power to direct the military and to protect American security as a part of that.
		So that is a vast power, given the responsibilities as a global leader that America has.
		Presidents have found within that power a warrant to do an awful lot of different kinds of things taking military actions around the globe.
		So I'll leave it at that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When you see Congress then trying to make these efforts like we're seeing this week, how does that push back or how does that fit within the separation of powers idea between the Congress and the President?
unidentified		Well, again, Congress is not irrelevant to this situation.
		Congress is the one responsible for funding the military, for deciding what the shape and size of it ought to be through its yearly appropriations and through its yearly national defense authorizations.
		So Congress is a serious, important player in these matters.
		But in terms of actually making the decisions, our military should do X on this date, they're not the frontline leaders.
		They're having to react to what happens from the executive branch.
		And that's always been the case back to the beginning of American history to some extent, but certainly in the modern age, even more so.
		So I think Congress keeps itself in the picture in various ways.
		These war powers debates allow it to hold the president to account.
		But I don't think we should fool ourselves into thinking that Congress is really an equal frontline decision maker on military matters.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		A couple of scenarios.
		Let's say that one of these war powers resolutions passes the House.
		Does it automatically, does the Senate have to pass a similar type of legislation or how does that work?
unidentified		Well, not just that, but the President has to go along with it.
		So, you know, the way the War Powers Act is set up, it gives the President this window of 60 days to operate without needing any congressional approval.
		So from what we know today, there's really no indication that the President's actions are going to cause him to need to go outside of that window.
		He doesn't really need anything from Congress.
		This action is already completed.
		And even if it needed to have an immediate sequel in the coming weeks, it wouldn't need explicit congressional approval.
		So I don't mean to be too dismissive because I think it matters how Congress weighs in on this issue.
		And if Congress were to sharply rebuke the president, I think politically that would matter a great deal.
		But to some extent, this is commentary after the fact.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Sharply rebuke, how does that work?
unidentified		If we were to see 51 senators vote to say, you know, we believe the president has no further action to take to act in Iran without congressional approval.
		I think that would be taken as a rebuke of the action that already happened and a sort of sense that the Congress doesn't trust the administration on this issue.
		So I think the White House is fighting against that outcome.
		They don't want to see that happen.
		And it's an important debate to shape actions going forward.
		Again, though, it doesn't really change what's already happened.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		A viewer from Illinois asked via text this morning, does Mr. Wallach, you, feel the War Powers Act could be modified to allow for more immediate action by Congress?
unidentified		Ever since the war power passed, there's been some skepticism of it, going back all the way into the 1980s, a question of whether the way it's structured is constitutionally appropriate, whether it's effective.
		So there's been many decades worth of reform ideas about the War Powers Act.
		They haven't come to anything.
		The Republicans in 1995 tried to repeal it.
		Fell just short on that front.
		So I think that this is sort of part of the furniture of American government at this point.
		We're kind of used to it, and we've kind of found ways to live with it and have it structure congressional executive branch relations.
		I think if you wanted to give Congress a much more central frontline role in these decisions, you would need to change something.
		I'm not sure that Congress actually wants that responsibility.
		For all they may second guess the president to actually say we as a collective body need to be the ones trying to make these decisions in real time.
		I think our congressional leaders are skeptical that they really can live up to that for good reason.
		We really need a single decision maker able to respond in real time quickly to rapidly changing situations.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Another situation happening this week, and members of Congress in the House and the Senate expect to get a briefing from the White House.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		How much disclosure does the White House have to give Congress when it comes to the actions that they took on Iran?
unidentified		I think if you talk to former members of Congress, they say that briefings from the executive branch tend to be very disappointing, right?
		They're classified briefings.
		You have the sense that you as members of Congress ought to be given all this real classified information that gives you insights that the regular person doesn't have.
		And yet a lot of the time you feel like you're just being told what's already in the newspapers.
		So I think there's not a formal requirement here that Congress gets certain amounts of information.
		It's really about maintaining good relations between the branches, right?
		And so when you see Senator Schumer talking about how he's angry that such a briefing hasn't happened already, I think in large part that's just saying we don't want you to slight us.
		We don't want you to act like we don't matter.
		We want you to keep us in the loop.
		And to the extent that we are seeing extraordinarily bad relations between the two parties right now, to say the least, I think we're all pretty tense around this.
		And congressional Democrats who are in the minority want to make sure that they're not completely being left out in the cold.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		American Enterprise Institute's Philip Wallach for this conversation when it comes to Congress's role in military action.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Ed in New Jersey, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hello.
		Yes, Ed O'Donnell, the United Nations Charter, Article 24, says it is the responsibility of the UN Security Council to establish world peace.
		And the United States needs a firebrand order like Daniel Webster as UN Ambassador who is promoting absolute pacifism.
		That's the only solution, is absolute pacifism.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		I disagree.
		You know, if sort of just a rhetorical commitment to pacifism were all it took to keep the world safe and at peace, I think we'd be in a much better situation.
		Unfortunately, I don't think that's what the lessons of history teach.
		And I think there's a lot of skepticism in this current administration, but going back well before of the United Nations' ability to guarantee peace, I think sort of energetic muscular foreign policy has been a much more certain guarantor of relative peace.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Republican line from Florida.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Nelson, hello.
unidentified		Good morning.
		How's everyone?
		Mr. Wallach, I believe that part of the problem with Congress is, first of all, it's too big.
		There's 535 members between the two houses.
		Plus, God knows how many assistants that they have hired in order to try to carry out the contradictory efforts that they make.
		Second of all, if Congress had known what was going on when the United States struck Iran a few days ago, there would have been a thousand leaks, which would have put the armed forces involved in great danger.
		I'm afraid that Congress, the future of Congress, is difficult to assess.
		They're constantly bickering with one another.
		And as important as the representation is to the American people, I do not see the Congress of the United States becoming relevant in regards to the general daily application of government to this country.
		Your thoughts on that, and thank you, sir.
		Thanks for the comment, Nelson.
		I think a lot of people share your feelings that Congress is too big and has too much bickering within itself to really be counted on to steer government.
		I think you shouldn't underestimate it, though.
		As much as I've just told you earlier in the segment that Congress is not the frontline decision maker on these kinds of national security matters, Congress is shaping the governance that regular people feel every day, all the time.
		And, you know, even in this age when its productivity is sort of challenged and we're having a lot of difficulty forging bipartisan compromises, I think still we need Congress to act.
		Things will go very badly if we just assume Congress only can bicker, right?
		We have to pass spending laws every year.
		We have to authorize our military.
		We have to raise the debt limit or else we will default on our national debt.
		You know, Congress is doing some interesting things.
		It's trying to figure out a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and stablecoins, trying to figure out how our nation should deal with artificial intelligence.
		So I don't think you want to assume that just because Congress is a big body that is prone to bickering in many ways, that it's irrelevant, we have to find ways to work through those differences that we really do have, to figure out how we can accommodate each other, what we can do together that we can all live with.
		And that's the role of Congress.
		I don't think the president can do all that.
		The presidency has advantages, especially in this national security sphere of secrecy and dispatch, as Alexander Hamilton put it.
		But it's not able to really take into account the whole diversity of this complicated country and work through those differences.
		So I think Congress and the president each have their place.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You can see our guest work at the website AEI.org.
		Philip Wallach is a senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute, the author of the book, Why Congress.
		Philip Wallach, thanks for your time.
unidentified		Thanks for having me.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Two legislators will join us in the next hour to talk about issues of the day.
		Later on in the program, we'll hear from Congressman Adam Smith of Washington.
		He joins us to talk about his role as the top Democrat in the House Armed Services Committee and U.S. strikes in Iran.
		But after the break, Republican Congressman Blake Moore of Utah, the vice chair of the House Republican Conference, will get his take on the Iran strikes and the future of the president's big beautiful bill.
		That when Washington Journal continues.
unidentified		Book TV, every Sunday on C-SPAN 2, features leading authors discussing their latest non-fiction books.
		Here's a look at what's coming out this weekend.
		At 5 p.m. Eastern, author Martin Reeves, with his book, Like, the Button That Changed the World, explores the origins of the like button and how the thumbs up symbol changed the internet.
		Then at 8 p.m. Eastern, retired United States Army General Stanley McChrystal on his book, On Character, Choices That Define a Life, talks about personal character and the hallmarks of American citizenship.
		And at 9 p.m. Eastern, authors Jaclyn Schneider and Julia McDonnell share their book, The Hand Behind Unmanned, discussing America's unmanned arsenal, including torpedoes, drones, and other automated technologies.
		Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
		Get C-SPAN wherever you are with C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app that puts you at the center of democracy, live and on demand.
		Keep up with the day's biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings and hearings from the U.S. Congress, White House events, the courts, campaigns, and more from the world of politics, all at your fingertips.
		Catch the latest episodes of Washington Journal.
		Find scheduling information for C-SPAN's TV and radio networks, plus a variety of compelling podcasts.
		The C-SPAN Now app is available at the Apple Store and Google Play.
		Download it for free today.
		C-SPAN, democracy unfiltered.
		C-SPAN shop.org is C-SPAN's online store.
		Browse through our latest collection of C-SPAN products, apparel, books, home decor, and accessories.
		There's something for every C-SPAN fan, and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations.
		Shop now or anytime at C-SPANShop.org.
		Washington Journal continues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Joining us from Capitol Hill is Representative Blake Moore, Republican of Utah.
		He is the Republican Conference Vice Chair.
		He also serves on the Ways and Means and Budget Committees.
		Representative Moore, thanks for your time this morning.
unidentified		Thanks for having me on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Representative Moore, when it comes to the aftermath of the strikes on Iran, there are efforts in the House to limit the president's powers on that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of that effort?
unidentified		There's always been a minority member of bipartisan group of folks that put up the authorized use of military force and trying to limit that power.
		There's a majority of us that think that the president, regardless of party, has some limited capacity with a certain timeline to be able to authorize military force.
		It's an ongoing debate.
		It's not just new right now.
		It's been pretty much every year or every Congress that I've been back here.
		So this is the same old types of debate.
		And I think the part to remember and I think that's important, and I made a point about this in my statement, is look at the individuals that are making the argument.
		If they have argued against President Obama for the raid on Abbottabad or President Biden for the attacks to take out the replacement for Al-Qaeda Sawahiri, if a Democrat has been critical of those actions by the president and they're critical of President Trump's actions with Sulamani and this most recent, then there's some credibility.
		But if they're only targeting the opposite party, there's no credibility in their arguments.
		But I think there's a small group of bipartisan members that don't want the president to have any ability to do anything.
		And then the majority of us say that there's some limited capacity.
		It's a simple, it's a very difficult aspect to get through, but it's a simple argument on whether you want the president to have any or some or absolutely none.
		And I've been supportive of all of those things that I've mentioned.
		If we would have briefed Congress on the raid in Abbottabad, I highly suspect Osama bin Laden would have gotten word of this, that would have been leaked, and he could have escaped.
		And that's the reality.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		One Republican joining in that effort, Thomas Massey of Kentucky, to what degree does that surprise you?
unidentified		Not at all.
		Thomas Massey is a very straightforward individual that disagrees when a Republican or a Democrat takes any type of authorized use without this type of congressional approval.
		That's the type of people I'm trying to say.
		That I respect.
		I respect their opinion.
		I disagree with their assessment, but I respect their opinion and their willingness to call out both sides and make it a principled argument and not just a partisan argument, which I think you see a lot of way too much.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Going forward, if strikes were to continue, would you want to hear from the president before, or would you be comfortable with an action first and then information from the White House on what happened?
unidentified		If the president is doing what's legally allowed for him to do under the current policy, I can support that.
		I don't know what those look like.
		I don't know what the intelligence is on that.
		So we're speaking to some point in a hypothetical.
		If I ultimately disagree with the president's assessment to make that effort, then maybe that's it.
		But his ability to do it, I agree.
		I'm also a supporter of modernizing our language on this.
		Warfare changes over 25 years.
		There's some language to be cleaned up.
		So it's one of those things that I think we should be debating and getting that constantly reformed so we're in a good spot.
		But I do believe that the president, regardless of party, has some use of military force that the commander-in-chief can authorize.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to those changes and the cleaning up process, what would you like to see?
unidentified		So I haven't seen any specifics of what the House Arms Foreign Affairs Committee has put forward on what they're doing, so I don't want to get out ahead of it.
		But this is from 2001, and we're in a different stage here.
		While we're having a strike this last weekend was Middle East related, we've got Indo-PACOM that's going to be a vastly different type of potential conflict.
		Hopefully we can avoid and deter.
		I think this last weekend helps us deter that.
		But there's a changing environment and we need to just make sure that we're providing that timelines when they have to notify Congress.
		Those kind of things need to constantly be discussed.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Representative Blake Moore is with us until 9 o'clock.
		And if you want to ask him questions, 202748-8001 for Republicans, 202748-8000 for Democrats, and Independents, 202748-8002.
		You can text at 202748-8003.
		Representative Moore, the House is expected to get a briefing this week.
		What are you hoping to learn from it?
		And what do you make of the information, at least from that leak of the Defense Intelligence Agency report, about what exactly happened in Iraq in Iran?
unidentified		Yeah, we were planning a brief on Tuesday as soon as we got back into session, but we had planned that before the strikes had even happened.
		So now that the strikes have happened and we're going to come in with a brief later in the week, it's constantly changing.
		I do think there will be lots of questions about, okay, now post-strike, the assessment, please provide us the information that we can make a judgment on the level of severity that we've damaged.
		I don't think there's any question that we have damaged Iran's nuclear capacity and their ability to move forward in the imminent phase that it was to be able to enrich to the point where they needed to, to make a weapon.
		I think there'll be a lot of questions.
		I would love to get a better understanding of how close we do think.
		Once they can enrich, how close are they to building a delivery mechanism, right?
		That's always, we always, as I understood it, that was always a longer process.
		That wasn't necessarily months or days away.
		But we want to be able to judge all those types of things and the aftermath.
		And there'll be more intelligence that comes out about everything.
		I mean, a massive strike like that.
		I'm so proud of our military.
		I represent an Air Force base.
		This is something that, you know, still pulls at our heartstrings about the individuals that we get to interact with that are serving our country and the successful operation that they did.
		We will identify as time moves past that the level of severity, but there's no question that it was a significantly successful attack and I'm still thrilled that we were able to do it without a boot on the ground and without any harm or detection for our armed services.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		The president gauges it as a total obliteration.
		The leak from the report maybe suggests it's less than that.
		Where do you fall as far as what do you trust as far as the damage done?
unidentified		Well, I will trust when I get a full assessment and an intelligence readout of not just what's being reported.
		So I look forward to a chance to hear from folks tomorrow.
		I can also request another intelligence briefing in the days to come as well.
		And we'll have to take a look at the assessment.
		I do assess based on what I've seen from Israeli intelligence as well, significantly thwarted their ability to develop a nuclear weapon.
		And every single president for the last 25 years has promised to the American people and to the world that we will not let Iran become a nuclear weapon, a nuclear state that has the capacity to wreak havoc across the Middle East.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		It was Axios that reported yesterday that over concerns of that leak that occurred that the White House may produce limited information or at least pull back a little bit on information that it shares with Congress.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of that report and how much do you agree with that idea?
unidentified		I think we'll learn a lot more tomorrow in our briefing and the days and weeks to come.
unidentified		I'm not concerned about an ounce of what Mr. John Radcliffe, I think he's an incredibly talented individual that's been in this space a long time and I look forward to potentially hearing from him soon.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		To another front, you serve on the Ways and Means Committee, the budget committees.
		There's the debate on what the final result once the Senate's done with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
		To what degree are you concerned about these potential changes from the Senate?
unidentified		We've been working very closely and kind of in communication with the Senate as they go through their process for kind of taking a step back and letting them go through All of the work that we got to do over a course of a year, they've had a few weeks, maybe even a month and a half or so.
		I've been very impressed at their ability to move through it quickly, identify areas that they have to land on.
		They're a different body than we are.
		We have different considerations.
		We both have, you know, they even have a larger majority if you think about percentage-wise than we do.
		So things are tight in the House, and we got that thing right to a sweet spot.
		And the Senate has done, you know, done more on what we didn't know they were going to do, and they've left a lot of other things alone, exactly as we planned it.
		So we'll see what the final piece looks like.
		Really excited, though.
		I think we're having good momentum right now, and I'm bullish that we can get this thing done in a relatively short time frame, hopefully in time for the end of next week for the president to sign on July 4th.
		That's the deadline we would love to meet.
		It's a self-imposed deadline.
		It doesn't have to happen by then, but it would be great if we could finalize it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		But when you have Chip Roy making comments to the extent that he's going to vote against it, if he doesn't see certain things, some others, you talked about the tightness, what you have in the House.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Are you concerned that the Senate's changes could ultimately derail the effort to pass it?
unidentified		So those type of comments from individual members are what's helpful to figure out where we need to get to make this a successful legislative effort.
		And it is no different than what we've seen since the start of this Congress.
		And we have gotten through a government shutdown.
		We've thwarted that without a day of government shutdown.
		We have put together two budget bills nobody thought we could pass.
		Several other things that we've constantly been told were not going to get done.
		And by because one person said this or one person said, like, that's all part of the plan and all part of the process, and we're working through it all.
		It's not always a perfect system, but we, to date, as a Republican trifecta, White House, House, and Senate, we've been able to get all the necessary things done and relatively good timeline.
		I was talking to somebody yesterday that's kind of, he says, hey, I'm watching now here from the cheap seats.
		I have a good sense of what you all are doing.
		He says, I'm so impressed that you've been able to get all of these things done in the timeline.
		Nobody thought we could get the House version done by Memorial Day, and we got that out the door.
		The Senate has been working very hard, and I still think that we can have an opportunity to get it done by next week.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Here is Lewis in Alabama, Democrats line for our guest, Representative Blake Moore, the Republican from Utah, the vice chair of the Republican Conference.
		Lewis, good morning.
		Lewis from Alabama, you're on.
unidentified		Yes, I would like to know: does this young Blake represent agrees with releasing the vowel dangerous people of January 6th back into the public?
		That's all I have to say.
		Thank you, sir.
		And I don't know if you're a roll-tide or a war eagle, but we'll throw both of them out there to you.
		So this dates back to the presidential pardon process.
		I think you just have to take a look.
		I kind of agree with what I remember hearing from one of the newly appointed members of the cabinet.
		I don't support any violence or any type of action against a police officer.
		And there are some that were given a very stiff penalty for, at a minimum, maybe some trespassing.
		But those that laid a finger on a police officer, I don't support giving, I support having them serve out their sentences.
		There was a mixture of both individuals at this event.
		There were even some agitators that were from the left that they also got, they were part of the entirety of the sentencing that took place.
		They all got pardons.
		And so, you know, I don't agree with such a broad pardon approach, especially if you've ever laid a finger on a police officer.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Sir, there's a viewer off of X asking you when it comes to changes and ultimately what happens to Medicaid under the president's bill.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		They want to know what you think about those potential cuts to Medicaid.
unidentified		So let's talk about eligibility instead of cuts.
		So I'm very supportive of enforcing a work requirement to receive Medicaid benefits.
		And that's not a wild viewpoint.
		I think that's broadly supported by a majority of Americans.
		And folks can look back, you know, although it's farther and farther away, back to the President Clinton and when Congress was Republican controlled, President Clinton was in office, they made a very reasonable approach and compromise to some of the welfare programs that require work requirement.
		Those are simple policy implementations.
		Implementation of it can get difficult.
		And that's the part that we're really focused on.
		There are plenty of exemptions where if somebody can't work for any reason, they have full exemption.
		We're not talking about single mothers.
		We're not talking about individuals with dependence or a mental inability to handle this.
		There are a lot of exemptions.
		I urge you, if you're concerned about this, to take a look at that list to make sure that we're like, we're talking about able-bodied individuals that can work, should work approximately, you know, no more.
		I mean, the requirement is only like 18 hours a week in a part-time job or even a volunteer effort.
		So the policy is good.
		We want to make sure that we can implement it.
		We would have plenty of runway, over 18 months until this would go into effect to get it so people are understanding of the expectations and we can see a positive increase in the work production of our country too.
		This is a good thing and it's something that needs to take place in a program like Medicaid.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to that, the Congressional Budget Office estimating about 11 million possibly could lose insurance under Medicaid because of these changes.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of that assessment?
unidentified		And if you're one of these 11 million, you have 18 months to determine, hey, can I get type of part-time work for a short amount of time?
		It's not a big, huge requirement.
		This is a way to just create some type of responsibility in these programs that are vital.
		We know there's a lot of people who think about the individuals that are just being released from prison.
		In order to decrease recidivism, they're going to need some level of health care.
		And we want to make sure that they're stable to be able to get back into the workforce.
		Those considerations are all being discussed and worked through.
		And I can't support enough the concept of, hey, do your part, do what you can, and we can help provide a safety net.
		That's the way that these programs were originally designed.
		What you don't hear enough of is that the traditional population of Medicaid, children in poverty, single mothers, disabled folks, elderly that are very low income, those were the populations that Medicaid was originally designed to serve.
		And Republicans want to preserve that as much as we possibly can because we believe in that type of safety net for those very affected and potentially difficult situations that those individuals are in.
		And we want to preserve that for them.
		As it expands out and continues to expand, we want to make sure that the population that can work is working or volunteering, things like that.
		So there's a lot of stuff going on.
		It's been used by Democrats right now as a political sort of attack ad, if you will.
		See through it all, see through the politics of it, and just identify: hey, this is probably good policy, and let's see if we can make it work.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Here in our independent line from Florida, Joe is next.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hey, good morning.
		Good morning, Congressman.
		I just had a really quick question for you.
		I know it's maybe fairly complicated, but since the president inherited the war back when he was inaugurated, why hasn't there been any, at least as far as the average American knows, any efforts to kind of get together with Congress and come up with contingencies?
		For example, if this happens, we may do that or we may do that.
		If this happens, we may do that or may do that to make the American people feel a lot more comfortable that decisions aren't just being made by one man sitting in one room with his own.
		And it really appears that he's disregarding a lot of the intelligence, or maybe that's just the conception I have, or many people have, that he's poo-pooing off some of this intelligence and saying, I'm going with my gut instinct and this is what I'm doing.
		And just to have Congress more involved.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, thanks, Joe.
unidentified		Great.
		You said that he inherited the war.
		Are you talking about the Ukraine-Russia, the Russian invasion on Ukraine?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I apologize, Congress.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		He's gone, Congressman, he's gone.
unidentified		I didn't make that assumption because that was an ongoing conflict.
		And I think you've seen the administration, particularly Secretary Rubio, very invested in trying to come to a resolution there.
		And then, of course, from October 7th in the Middle East, all of the turmoil that came from Hamas's invasion, Iran supported proxy groups.
		That hasn't just been this presidency, but that's been continually.
		President Trump has a lot of foreign conflict that he did come into in this election.
		There is a ton of interaction.
		And I think you might, you know, as you hear from my former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, now he's the top Democrat, what's called the ranking member, Adam Smith.
		I believe he's on here today.
		There's a lot of work constantly with Congress, either in the intelligence committee, armed services, House appropriations on defense.
		There is a lot of collaborative work.
		We have a specific role to play.
		We're not in making commander-chief level decisions, but we are providing the resources where we need to.
		And I think we've sufficiently done that in a bipartisan approach for the last several years as some of these conflicts have come up.
		We know Rehran's going to fire back rockets if something bubbles up over there, whether it's a small, simple, relatively confined thing or something much larger like what we're seeing right now.
		Iran is going to fire missiles and we need to be there for our allies and help protect them.
		And again, just the stronger approach we take against Iran and making sure that they can't destabilize the region, it's not just Israel that benefits.
		It's the entire Arab world.
		That's why you see Abraham Accords being such a uniquely positive force in that region.
		Saudi Arabia is a bellwether and we want to see them come on board with the rest of the Arab world and engaging in creating trade and diplomatic relationships with an Israel partner and things like that were happening a lot before October 7th, but we want that to continue and the whole region does not want Iran to continually be able to destabilize it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From Dottie in Georgia, Republican line.
unidentified		Yes, hello.
sherry peel jackson ▲ ● ▼		I've been hearing news organizations talking about saying that Iran had moved all of the nuclear material out of those places before it was bombed.
sherry peel jackson ▲ ● ▼		But I believe if they did that, that our spy satellites would have been able to see exactly what they were doing before we bombed them, that they would know that and they'd know exactly what they moved and where it is and have plans for it.
unidentified		What do you think about that?
		I think the simplest way to think about this is there will be some level of survivability for some of the material.
		You're not going to be able to completely take out every piece of enriched uranium with these types of strikes.
		But this was a massive blow to Iran's nuclear program.
		Their ability to move things away.
		I haven't seen intelligence reports on that, and I obviously wouldn't be talking about it even if I had.
		But I think you're going to hear a lot of things right now.
		And intelligence takes some time.
		These strikes happened less than a week ago.
		Let things settle in.
		Let there be an assessment made and we will move forward appropriately.
		But I don't think there's a lot of credibility to Iran's capability to move everything.
		I mean, these are massive sites deep underground.
		That's just, that doesn't fly in anything that I've been hearing so far.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Representative Moore, the President's expected to meet with congressional leaders at the White House later today to talk about the Republican tax bill and efforts to pass it.
		Are you part of that?
		And what are you hearing as far as what this meeting's about?
unidentified		Yeah, I've been a part of this process the whole time.
		I'm on the Ways and Means of Budget Committee.
		And in a reconciliation year, aka when you have the White House, House, and Senate under one party control, Democrats had it in 21, we had it in 27 and for 2017 and this year and these two years as well.
		So yes, been very involved with it.
		As far as meetings today, I anticipate this will be Speaker Johnson, maybe Lear Thune.
		I don't know who's all involved in these particular meetings today, but we're getting very close.
		It's exciting.
		And look, of all the things you hear about the One Big Beautiful Bill or all the, we talked about some of the aspects of it on this call.
		Just think about this.
		In 2017, we created significant tax reform in our country.
		And what happened?
		What was the fundamental purpose for doing that?
		It was to make tax rates competitive with our global partners.
		Because if we overtax and set too high of a rate, then companies, individuals, they find other tax, lower tax opportunities that come up.
		And there's nothing illegal about it.
		But if we make ours competitive, I guarantee you any company would want to be here instead of anywhere else.
		And so if we can get in the competitive range, then we will create more opportunities for companies to reinvest in America, repatriate any money that they put overseas or anything, and put it back here.
		Our revenues continue to grow.
		So we reduce taxes to a competitive rate, and our revenues continue to grow.
		We have a big gap still with our deficits because our spending has increased from 17% of GDP to 26% of GDP over 25 years.
		Our spending, our revenues, what we collect, what we're able to raise as far as revenue, has maintained consistency.
		Even with tax cuts, we still maintain 17, approximately 17% of GDP.
		So we have still deficit problem, but that has existed because of more people in retirement.
		2008.
		You saw it go up significantly.
		More people taking their benefits from Social Security and Medicare.
		Medicaid has grown significantly larger than it than it was over over a couple decades.
		Other types of of programs, welfare programs those those, those grow uh, significantly.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Uh, when you?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So when CBO says that the three trillion will be added to the debt over 10 years, what do you think of that math?
unidentified		It's very simple.
		CBO is taking a lower percentage of of growth rate.
		We are assuming a 2.6 percent growth rate and they're assuming in the range of maybe 1.8.
		So it's not about the deficit in this case.
		We're saying we think that with deregulation, stronger energy policy and competitive taxes, we think our economy can achieve at a minimum of 2.6.
		I think it will do better.
		Over the course of the last 10 years, it's averaged real gdp growth at 2.5 percent.
		President Trump's first term.
		We ex we, we ex we we, we exceeded 2.6 percent and we said we could probably make an assumption higher, but we want to keep it conservative.
		So 2.6 percent growth rate will equal x number two, two and a half trillion dollars over 10 years of of revenue growth.
		Also added on to that, our spending cuts that we're doing in this bill are significant and it's more mandatory spending reform than we've ever had.
		We are offsetting it.
		So I have a firm claim that this bill is, at a minimum, deficit neutral and maybe 100 or 180 billion dollars based on the numbers that we have to date.
		We'll see what the Senate's final numbers are.
		But we are deficit neutral because we're assuming 2.6.
		The CBO is assuming a very, very low, 1.8 percent growth rate that I think will exceed by far.
		We saw we exceed more by 2.6.
		Then we'll be.
		Then we'll be even chipping away more at the deficit.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We saw a slight contraction in the first quarter of the year.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that was a blip or a trend?
unidentified		So what did we see in the first quarter?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		A slight contraction of the gross domestic product in the first quarter of this year.
unidentified		Yeah, I think we're going to see.
unidentified		I think over the last 10 years we've averaged about 2.5 percent real gdp growth and I think we can outperform that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Phil is next.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		He's in New York Independent LINE.
unidentified		Hi, good morning, Uh.
		You know you touched a couple of uh subjects that really touched me.
		You know i'm from Long Island here and one of the first things they say at every school budget meeting, the first budget meeting is, uh, they got to get the salt increased, which means if they raise that salt okay, people like me, working class, one income with one house they're going to raise our school taxes.
		Okay, and Long Island is already unaffordable okay.
		So when Lawless and And Gillen all right, I blame both parties talk about, one wants an unlimited and they want 40 000, the working poor that are struggling to get by, our school taxes are going to go up here because they're going to get the green light to do that.
		And as far as Medicaid goes, what most people don't know outside of New York is New York's Medicaid covers uh, sex change operations, dental implants right, and in vitro fertilization.
		That's not what Medicaid was meant for.
		Medicaid was meant for to give people basic health care coverage and make sure they live, and a lot of things.
		That's not being talked about On both sides of the aisle is when the Affordable Care Act came in.
		Do you remember Ezekiel Emanuel talking about rations, health care, and death panels, and controlling it?
		And the last thing is...
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		No, caller, thank you, caller.
		And as part of your answer, Representative, I wanted to let you know that it's just coming across that on the Senate side, Axios is reporting that the Senate parliamentarian there has ruled out the Medicaid provider tax provision in the One Big Beautiful bill, according to Senate Democrats there.
		If that's the case, how does that change the efforts going forward?
unidentified		That would be interesting.
		I would love to see the details on why that would be the case.
		This is primarily, I mean, I would look at this, if you're talking of provider tax, that's primarily revenue-based, and that should pass the bird rule in the Senate.
		So the parliamentarian should be.
		So I hope there isn't any type of politics being played here.
		It's a world that I'm not in much.
		We don't have that consideration in the House.
		The provider tax is a tough issue, and we got our point to a really good sweet spot.
		The Senate was pushing to explore more.
		I think there's a broad consensus to support rural hospitals as much as possible.
		So that would be interesting.
		If that doesn't survive the parliamentary procedure over there, it becomes a non-issue.
		It's taken off the table, but we'll have to see, and I'll have to take a look at the details on that since the news is being reported to me now as it should be.
		But with regards to the gentleman's question from New York, I work very closely with the New York reps.
		He touches on such an important part.
		I'm going to take it out of salt and relate it to something like the EV tax credit.
		Once you provide a $7,500 EV tax credit, it gives the industry an opportunity to tick up their prices a little bit.
		I don't think everybody does it.
		I don't even think if they necessarily do it on purpose, but it provides a flexibility in the room to be able to do it.
		If taxing entities back in New York and New Jersey look at this and say, hey, you're getting a significant increase on your salt cap, so you're going to be able to write this off.
		We can probably raise the portion that we're going to tax a little bit more.
		I'm not in those decisions either, but it is a negative externality when you provide more of a tax credit, an offset type of thing.
		The New Yorkers are working very hard to get this to the right spot for their communities, and it's going to be increased from 10,000, which it is now.
		I don't know where they ultimately land, but this is a very heavy debate.
		Democrats want to give an unlimited version of it, and that benefits the wealthy only.
		That only benefits the wealthy.
		What Republicans are trying to do is make sure the middle-class, lower-income Americans are shored up with this tax policy.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Gotcha.
		And that's Representative Blakemore, the Republican Conference Vice Chair, Republican from Utah.
		Thanks for your time this morning.
unidentified		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Coming up, we'll talk about the same discussions that we talked with, the legislator with Representative Adam Smith, Democrat from Washington.
		He serves on the Armed Services Committee.
		that conversation coming up next.
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.
jimmy carter ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is always an unfinished creation.
ronald reagan ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is worth dying for.
george h w bush ▲ ● ▼		Democracy belongs to us all.
bill clinton ▲ ● ▼		We are here in the sanctuary of democracy.
george w bush ▲ ● ▼		Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies.
barack obama ▲ ● ▼		American democracy is bigger than any one person.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected.
unidentified		We are still at our core a democracy.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.
unidentified		Nonfiction book lovers, C-SPAN has a number of podcasts for you.
		Listen to best-selling non-fiction authors and influential interviewers on the Afterwords podcast and on QA.
		Hear wide-ranging conversations with the non-fiction authors and others who are making things happen.
		And BookNotes Plus episodes are weekly hour-long conversations that regularly feature fascinating authors of nonfiction books on a wide variety of topics.
		Find all of our podcasts by downloading the free C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts and on our website, c-span.org slash podcasts.
		C-SPAN shop.org is C-SPAN's online store.
		Browse through our latest collection of C-SPAN products, apparel, books, home decor, and accessories.
		There's something for every C-SPAN fan, and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations.
		shop now or anytime at cspanshop.org.
		Washington Journal continues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Joining us now, Representative Adam Smith, Democrat from Washington.
		He is the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee.
		Thanks for joining us.
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for having me.
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		I appreciate it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Being the ranking member and seeing what we saw in Iran, what does it mean militarily going forward?
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think what it really means is we still have to negotiate some sort of settlement with Iran.
		I mean, we're in this epic debate about how much damage was done to their nuclear program.
		But I think the thing that's pretty clear from any sort of legitimate expert is we have not eliminated Iran's nuclear program.
		How many centrifuges do they have left?
		How much, you know, 60% enriched uranium do they have left?
		It's debatable, but they have some, and they also have the know-how and the ability to make the weapon.
		You know, it's a question of whether or not they have the will.
		We still need a negotiated settlement.
		Their nuclear program has not been eliminated.
		There's still a problem.
		We still need to go in and have that conversation.
		And, you know, I know President Trump yesterday had said, ah, we're all good, don't need it.
		And then later in the day, he said, well, you know, maybe we'll keep talking to him.
		We have to keep talking to him because their nuclear program is still a problem.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And then if the talks have to go forward, what are the topics of discussion as part of those talks?
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think there's roughly four.
		I mean, one, obviously, the nuke program.
		We want a verifiable ability to make sure that they don't develop the nuclear weapons program.
		Get all technical about enriched uranium.
		But basically, if you're doing it for nuclear power, you only need to enrich the ranium to around 3 to 5% at most.
		Anything over that, really, the only legitimate purpose would be a nuclear weapon.
		So how do we make sure they don't go over that amount?
		Obviously, the safest way is to not let them enrich at all.
		Or in some cases, deals have been made for countries that want to develop nuclear power with a it's enriched at a different country and then brought in.
		That's number one.
		Number two, Iran's support for terrorist proxies in the region.
		They have been a major destabilizing influence in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, with Hamas in Yemen.
		How can we reduce that influence?
		Third, their missile program, the ballistic missiles that they've developed threaten their neighbors.
		And then fourth, from Iran's perspective, sanctions, economic relief.
		Now, all of those things are not easily resolved, but those are the four things that are part of this negotiation.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		As far as the show of power that the United States has shown, was that a motivating force, do you think, to get us to talks with Iran?
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		That's 50-50.
		I don't think the strike was a good idea.
		I don't think committing an act of war against a sovereign nation without legal justification is a good idea in general.
		But if you're going to do it, there better be a huge benefit.
		And of course, that's why Trump and HegSeth are running around blathering about how their nuclear program has been completely obliterated, even though anyone will tell you that is not the case.
		So I don't think we got a lot for it.
		Now, the debate on how it affects the negotiation, I'm kind of 50-50 on.
		On the one hand, you could say, yes, Iran is now knocked back on their heels.
		They're fearful they're going to be more likely to come to the table because of that.
		Frankly, that was caused a heck of a lot more by what Israel has done, which I support.
		Israel was directly threatened by Iran.
		It was clearly an imminent threat to Israel.
		So Israel attacking their missile sites and everything.
		They had been already attacked by Iran.
		Israel also degraded Hezbollah and Hamas.
		So that, I think, has had more to do with our bombing campaign.
		But does our action force Iran to think, God, we better make a deal because they could hit us again?
		Or does it make them think, what's the point in negotiating?
		They're just going to bomb us.
		I'm 50-50 on that.
		It's really hard to say.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		202-748-8001 for Republicans.
		202-748-8000 for Democrats.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		We can take your text at 202-748-8003.
		Apologies for interrupting you.
		I want to show you a little bit from the Defense Secretary just a little while ago what he said about that.
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		Do I have to?
unidentified		I want you to respond to what I watched at once.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, then we'll show you exactly what you started.
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		That's fine.
unidentified		ahead I mean what changed in the past three days and make you so you know sir I think I said I mean, I think I explained what changed.
pete hegseth ▲ ● ▼		There was a great deal of irresponsible reporting based on leaks, preliminary information in low confidence.
		Again, when someone leaks something, they do it with an agenda.
		And when you leak a portion of an intelligence assessment, but just a little portion, just the little portion that makes it seem like maybe the strike wasn't effective, then you start a news cycle, whether it's the Washington Post or Fox News or CNN or MSNBC, you start a news cycle that starts to call into question the efficacy.
		That's why.
		So you bring the chairman here who's not involved in politics.
		He doesn't do politics.
		That's my lane to understand and translate and talk about those types of things.
		So I can use the word obliterated.
		He could use defeat, destroy it, assess, all of those things.
		But ultimately, we're here to clarify what these weapons are capable of, which anyone with two eyes, some ears and a brain can recognize that kind of firepower with that specificity at that location and others is going to have a devastating effect.
		So we all recognize there will be days and weeks ahead.
		That's why yesterday I said, if you want to know what's going on at Ford, you better go there and get a big shovel because no one's under there right now.
		No one's under there able to assess and everyone's using reflections of what they see.
		And that's why the Israelis, the Iranians, the IAEA, the UN to a man and to a woman who recognized the capability of this weapon system are acknowledging how destructive it's been.
		So that's what's changed.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That was the Defense Secretary's assessment.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What's your assessment?
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, I think it comes back to what I said earlier.
		We don't know.
		You don't just need a shovel.
		Are other ways to gather intelligence on what is being seen in that place?
		But we don't really know how much the Iranian program has been degraded.
		And the Secretary is not wrong.
		DIA report was preliminary based on some measurements of exactly how far these bombs could go, how far below the surface we knew that the centrifuges were.
		But again, it's not the only site that Iran had.
		It's not their only ability to build centrifuges.
		And crucially, the highly enriched uranium, uranium-rich at 60%, wasn't at Fordo.
		And they had considerable advance notice of the attack.
		Ishfahan, I think, is the name of the place where the material was, so it could have been moved.
		So the point is, whatever sort of semantic debate we want to get into over how much the Iranian nuclear program has been degraded, it has not been eliminated.
		And it's highly irresponsible of both the President and the Secretary of Defense to come out and say it's been obliterated.
		All gone, all done, we're done here.
		That is wrong, okay?
		Or at an absolute minimum, not known.
		We still have a problem with an Iranian nuclear program.
		It is a weakened Iranian nuclear program.
		And it's really a technical debate.
		How weakened?
		How long is it going to take them?
		How many centrifuges do they have left?
		How much 60% uranium do they have left?
		How long would it take them to get back up?
		Not that long is the bottom line.
		So we still have a problem with the Iranian nuclear program that we're going to have to deal with going forward.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We'll take some calls.
		Let's start with Joseph.
		He's in Florida, Republican line.
		Joseph, go ahead.
		Your honor with our guest, Representative Adam Smith.
unidentified		Yeah, how are you?
unidentified		I grew up in New York City, so I was surrounded by liberals like your guest who think they're the smartest guys in the room.
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		You don't even know me, sir.
		Why do we have to start there?
		I'm trying to have a conversation, and you come in and just insult me in the first sentence.
		You got a question?
		You want to have a conversation?
		I'm happy to have it.
		But that type of conversation is what is destroying our democracy.
		You didn't grow up with me.
		You don't know me.
		You've never met me.
		You have no idea who I am.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Representative.
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		I've got a question.
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		Let's have a conversation.
unidentified		I said I know people because I've seen you on TV.
		I've seen you on TV.
		You just said that President, every one of your Democrat friends walk around like Trump is a dummy.
		The guy's a multi-millionaire.
		He should get the Nobel Peace Prize.
		I don't remember you complaining about Obama dropping bombs via drone on sovereign countries.
		President Trump never said this is done, it's over.
		He wants to make a peace deal.
		He said that their nuclear apostiles are eliminated for now.
		The stockpiles are eliminated for now.
		It's going to put them back about 10 years, hopefully, 20 years.
		You guys, all you do is complain about what President Trump does.
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		Not all I do.
unidentified		Nobody else is just going to listen to you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Joseph.
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		Let me say, in the middle of that, there's some pretty decent points and a fair conversation.
		I'm telling you, I'm just sick to death.
		And this is right and left.
		Every call has to start out with an insult.
		Every call has to start out with some bold, bland statement about, can we just have a conversation?
		In the middle of that call, it's a legitimate complaint.
		In the last 25 years, you know, Obama, Biden, Trump, Bush have dropped a lot of bombs on a lot of people.
		And I actually will agree with the caller.
		I think in many instances, I was too slow to be critical of that, to really understand the implications of it.
		And I think that is a very, very legitimate point.
		And in this instance, we're talking about, really just think how serious it is to drop bombs on a sovereign country.
		I think the campaign in Libya was a mistake.
		And I didn't say that at the time.
		And that's certainly a mistake that I made as a member of Congress.
		I think it's a legitimate question about why are we doing this?
		What is it accomplishing?
		And the second question is, if President Trump is going to go back and try to negotiate a deal on this, I think that's good.
		I still think the decision to bomb Iran was incredibly risky and of very little benefit.
		I don't think our decision to bomb Iran put us that much closer to a negotiation.
		And the risk of retaliation not only was there, but still is there.
		Okay, Iran launched the missiles that they did at Al-Adid and Qatar.
		They're not necessarily done.
		They have proxies all over the place.
		Our forces are already on higher alert and more concerned about being attacked either by Iran or their proxies because of this bombing campaign.
		Was that risk worth the benefit of what's going to come out of a negotiation?
		I think it's a question worth having.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We're seeing efforts in Congress to limit the president's powers.
		I think you're part of one of those efforts.
		Did you make similar efforts in previous presidents when they took military actions?
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		I did not.
		Well, I would say on Syria, when back in 2013 or 2014, I forget when it was, when President Obama was threatening to bomb Syria because of their use of chemical weapons.
		I did raise concerns about that.
		I did not think we should have done that attack.
		I think that was outside of the constitutional requirements.
		You need to have an imminent threat to the U.S. and U.S. interests.
		I didn't think we had it in Syria.
		I don't think we had it in Iran.
		Libya, we certainly didn't have it.
		We did have international support for the strikes in Libya.
		The U.N., it was part of a larger coalition.
		It wasn't just the U.S. acting unilaterally.
		So those are some of the differences.
		But this is a debate and a discussion that we need to have to get to the right answer.
		And I don't think Trump's a dummy.
		Okay.
		I don't think he's wrong about everything.
		But nor am I going to yield in my responsibility to critically look at the decisions that he has made and also to offer my opinion about where we should go from here.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Democrats line from Sylvia in Pennsylvania.
unidentified		Hello.
		Yes.
		Good morning.
		I wonder, do you trust Nathan Nahu and Trump should get a guarantee from him not to bomb them no more?
		Yeah.
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		Sorry, go ahead.
unidentified		Yeah, he's a warmuggle, and they need a one-minute guarantee no more bombing on them.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Sylvia.
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, a couple things.
		No, I joke often.
		I don't trust anybody.
		I believe in the sort of Ronald Reagan trust-but verify thing.
		People have different motivations.
		You always got to be aware of what those are, and blind trust is not wise.
		But look, and I don't agree with a lot of what Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing.
		I think we need a path for the Palestinian people to have some sort of future and self-governance.
		He has blocked that path in a thousand different ways that I think have exacerbated the problems there.
		Gosh, before October 7th, he was actually supporting money going to Hamas while opposing the Palestinian authority because he felt Hamas was something he could deal with.
		So he didn't do as much as he should have and still isn't on building some sort of future for the Palestinians.
		On the other hand, Israel is threatened, undeniably.
		Certainly you saw what happened on October 7th, but they've been threatened for decades by Hezbollah, by Hamas, by Iran.
		And it is an existential threat.
		All of those groups and the Houthis have in their charters that Israel shouldn't exist.
		Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli people have to defend themselves against that threat.
		And it's hard from this distance to nitpick how they're doing that given the threat that they have.
		So, you know, right now I don't trust them.
		They will, undoubtedly, I think, attack further.
		So what we need to get to is a broader peace deal.
		And I hope that's what the Trump administration is working towards, between Israel and Iran, but also between Israel and the Palestinian people.
		Israel is also still conducting strikes in Syria.
		Concerned about elements there as the al-Shara government tries to get set up in Syria to replace what Assad had done to that country.
		Lebanon is trying to get into a post-Hezbollah world.
		If we can get all of those places stabilized so that Israel no longer faces that threat, that's a huge step forward, and that's what the administration, I feel, should be working on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to U.S. involvement, do you think what we saw in Iran is a one and done, or do you have a sense that more to come?
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		I think it's a one and done.
		And look, this has been talked about for at least 15 years.
		Ever since we discovered Furdo back in 2009, I've been part of those discussions, having been on the Armed Services Committee in a fairly senior level at that point.
		What is the military option for stopping Iran from doing this?
		And those discussions sort of inform me that there was no simple military option.
		You could set it back.
		You couldn't eliminate it.
		That's part of what informs my opinion.
		It's not necessarily the assessments of what have happened.
		It is too soon.
		What are we, like five, six days now?
		But all of the assessments of what could truly be accomplished, given how deep the centrifuges were and given the multiple sites that they had centrifuges and enriched uranium at, our ability to destroy their program of the military strike, it has long been the opinion of all experts that we just can't do that.
		We set it back, but we can't eliminate it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Chuck.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Chuck joins us from Alabama, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning.
		Good morning.
		I've got a couple of questions.
dave walsh ▲ ● ▼		I never have understood the open border policy that you Democrats promoted.
unidentified		Can you explain to me the reasoning behind that?
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I don't support.
		I'm sorry, sir.
		Did you want me to answer that or did you have another question?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What's your second question, sir?
unidentified		What do you think happened to all the money that was?
		And I realize it was Iran's money.
		But what do you think happened to all that money that was given to IRA?
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
unidentified		And we did have an open border.
unidentified		You can't deny that.
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I can't if you let me speak.
		Thanks.
		So, first of all, on the Iranian thing, and the caller didn't make it clear, I believe is what he is referring to, is during, I think it was the Biden administration, when Iran had, we made some agreement.
		There was some of their money that was frozen.
		That money never actually went to Iran.
		There was a complaint about it, and it was frozen.
		So, you know, and Iran has been struggling economically for quite some time.
		The maximum pressure sanction campaign on them, that doesn't mean they're not getting any money.
		China still buys a whole bunch of oil from them.
		They get help from elsewhere.
		As far as I do not support open borders, I will say that I think under the Biden administration, enough was not done to secure the border.
		There is no doubt about that.
		I think the asylum process was too wide open, allowed too many people in, and created a migration challenge in the United States of America.
		So, you know, I can't explain the open border policy because I don't support it.
		I suppose there are some people out there who think that asylum should be granted to whoever wants it and that the U.S. should take in more people.
		That is not and has never been my position.
		I think we need legal immigration.
		I think we need to allow people in in that regard, but we do need to have a secure border.
		The one point that I will make that your caller will almost certainly disagree with, I do feel that we need to have a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented population in this country.
		If you have been living in this country for an extended period of time, you don't have a criminal record, you got a job, you're paying taxes, you're part of the community.
		I do not think it is in the best interest of the United States of America to pick those people up and deport them.
		And that's what we're seeing the Trump administration do in many, many instances.
		They want to get rid of every single undocumented immigrant in the United States of America and deport them.
		I disagree with that policy.
		I think it's wrong.
		I think it's unfair, certainly to those people I just described.
		It's also horrific for the U.S. economy and for our communities.
		So I support a pathway to citizenship.
		I don't support an open border.
		And I will readily acknowledge that the Biden administration did not do enough to secure our border.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From New York, Paul, Republican line, hi.
unidentified		Yes, good morning, gentlemen.
		Thank you so much for the opportunity to express a few ideas.
		Mr. Smith, a very impressive man.
		I've enjoyed listening to you so far.
		I think one of the issues that we have in the public here, especially in New York, when we see that letter D in front of a gentleman's name, we automatically have kind of a visceral response to what the Democrat Party is all about.
		Your party just elected a communist here in New York City to run the greatest city in the world.
		And I think that when you have that earlier caller who you claim made some personal attacks, I didn't see it that way.
		But I think you have to understand that you're in a party that the general public just simply does not agree with.
		In terms of their overall policy, the squad, AOC, certain, what's her name?
		I forget her name now, but some of these representatives, they just seem to be off the wall.
		So I appreciate someone like you, and I appreciate you trying to give a reasonable sort of explanation of some of the ideas of the Democrat Party.
		When you get to immigration, when you get to the border, I'm glad to hear you say it was not handled well.
		We had the vice president of Kamala Harris whenever he went there.
		And again, they're all Democrats.
		So that's one of the reasons you get the kind of response you get from the general public.
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		I understand.
		And look, I represent the Seattle Bellevue area.
		I am deeply frustrated by the governance that was done in the Seattle-King County area by a far-left approach to governing.
		We've had a major problem with crime, homelessness, drug abuse.
		We haven't built enough housing because we're drowning in process and inclusion instead of a focus on getting things done.
		I think Ezra Klein's book, Abundance, describes that quite well.
		We have not been efficient and effective, and I will not disagree for a second.
		The Democratic Party is in a hole for a lot of the reasons that you state, and we have got to get out of that hole by better addressing those issues.
		And I, believe me, I've had a lot of criticism from the left for the fact that I have been critical of those policies and offered a better way.
		I didn't follow the mayor's race that closely in New York.
		There is one aspect of what Momdani is talking about that I think there is some support for, and that's the notion that life is too expensive for average people.
		Housing is too expensive, childcare is too expensive, transportation, education, and too much wealth concentration has happened in this country.
		Corporations and the wealthy have way more power and control versus the average working person.
		And if we want to try to correct that, I'm all for it.
		But I don't disagree with you that the Democratic Party on immigration, on crime, on a variety of different issues, even on economic policy.
		You know, one criticism I do have of what I've heard from Mamdani is you can't just promise free stuff to everybody.
		It's got to be a balance.
		Yeah, we need to have, I believe, a robust social welfare state to help people.
		But we also, the goal is to help people be self-sufficient, to help them get a job, help them pay them a decent wage for their job.
		And that's one thing I really do feel strongly about, more sort of on the left side of it, is workers need to be paid more.
		I grew up in a blue-collar family.
		My father was a baggage handler for United Airlines at SeaTac Airport.
		The wages he made 40, 50 years ago, whatever it was now, was enough to raise our family.
		But we've seen workers' wages and benefits go down while corporate profits and shareholder return has gone up to the point where people can't afford to live in cities like yours or cities like mine.
		So if we want to aggressively go after that corporate power and go after that concentration of wealth so that we have more broad-based opportunity for working people, I'm all for that.
		And I happen to think that Democrats do do a better job of going after those issues than Republicans do.
		So, you know, I have no problem with trying to work to make our party better and have it addressed some of those issues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		As a member of our armed services, I wanted to get your perspective on the president's influence at NATO, they're increasing their defense spending.
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		I think it's good.
		But again, one of the aspects of Secretary Hagseth's press conference that you didn't highlight is like, I mean, this ridiculous effort to attack the press, attack the media, and also the claim that everything Trump does is the most brilliant thing ever done to the world.
		Secretary Hagseth literally said that this operation was the most secretive, successful military operation in the history of the United States of America.
		So not D-Day, you know, not the bombing of Tokyo in 1942, not the killing of Osama bin Laden.
		Come on.
		I mean, first of all, this operation was talked about for weeks prior to it being conducted.
		Let me say, the people who conducted it, brilliant.
		I mean, they were in a B-2 bomber for 37 hours.
		And I've worked with B-2 pilots before.
		Incredibly admirable.
		The capability of our military and people who serve is worth saluting 100%.
		But come on.
		The most secretive, successful military campaign in U.S. history.
		And then he talks about the history of getting NATO to commit to 5%.
		We got NATO to commit to 2%, what, 20 years ago now?
		They're still not there.
		So the commitment's good.
		It's a step forward.
		It's a positive.
		But this notion that somehow it's this brilliant accomplishment that nobody in the history of the world ever could have accomplished, and then to pile on and say, and the media is not talking about it.
		They're not saying, I've seen the media talking about it.
		C-SPAN's talked about it.
		CNN's talked about it.
		The New York Times talked about it.
		So they always have to portray themselves as these victims of the evil media conspiracy that's not telling you what's going on.
		It's like even on the assessment of the strikes, oh, everyone's talking about the DIA report, but nobody's talking about the experts who say it was successful.
		Yes, they are.
		I've read it in the New York Times.
		I've seen it on CNN.
		So this notion to attack the media and try to make things so much larger than they are.
		Secretary of Defense Hagseth, I wish you'd focus on the job and less on the propaganda.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're getting a briefing later this week.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Did you receive any intel before that?
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		No, and that's another problem here.
		The House Armed Services Committee has yet to be briefed at all about that.
		This was a DOD operation.
		In every other administration that I've served under inside of four or five presidents at this point, they have, even if they don't tell us in advance, they keep us informed about what's going on.
		They haven't done it yet.
		Supposedly, they're going to the full House tomorrow morning, the Senate today, I guess.
		But they have not briefed the Committee of Jurisdiction, which is unprecedented.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What are you hoping to learn from it?
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		Oh, some of the secret details that we can't talk about here.
		What do we actually know about the effectiveness of the strikes?
		And also force protection issues that I alluded to earlier.
		What are we seeing out there in terms of the intel we can gather about threats to our bases, threats either from Iran directly or from their proxies?
		How are we preparing for those threats?
		What force protection measures are in place?
		Are we enhancing those force protection measures in Al-Adid and al-Sad and all the different military bases that we have in the region?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Paul in New York, Independent Line, we're running a little short on time.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Your last call, go ahead.
unidentified		Yes.
		To your point about secretives, there was a photo of a bunch of trucks lined up at Fordo before the bombing.
		What's the possibility that they've moved some of the uranium out?
		And what's the possibility that there could be, you know, 30 bombs coming?
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		It's distinctly possible.
		Well, 30 is a little high.
		Prior to the attack, just to set it, or prior to Israel's attacks on Iran, it was estimated that Iran had somewhere around 19,000 centrifuges.
		It's like 13,000 of them were the better centrifuges.
		I don't know what the technical term is.
		They're the ones that can spin it more quickly.
		And that they had enough 60% weapon and enriched uranium for, well, first of all, you need 90%, but 60 pretty much gets you there.
		In a day or two, you can go from 60 to 90.
		And they had enough 60 that in a day or two, they could have had enough for 10 bombs.
		How much of that uranium was destroyed?
		We do not know.
		And you're right.
		There were trucks there.
		There were trucks at the Ishfahan facility as well.
		They very easily, easily is a bit of an overstatement, but they could have moved that material.
		And they had weeks to do it.
		They knew this threat was coming.
		They knew these attacks.
		I think it is quite likely that they moved some of it.
		So how many centrifuges do they have now?
		How much 60% enriched uranium do they have now?
		I'm highly confident that the answer is not zero.
		How much it is is far more debatable, which brings me back to where we started.
		Iran still has a nuclear program that we have to deal with.
		And I want President Trump to go negotiate a deal and deal with that challenge and actually end Iran's nuclear program.
		That's what has to happen now going forward.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		One more question.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to the region, what's the level of alert of military bases in light of what happened?
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		High.
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What's being done to protect them?
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		We have over the, gosh, last couple of years, because Iran has been a threat for a while, we have been significantly upgrading our force protection measures in the region.
		I was just there two months ago in Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, and Iraq, and visited a lot of these bases and discussed as a whole bunch of different systems.
		Because you got the missiles you got to worry about, but then drones.
		And is the drone coming fast?
		Is it coming slow, high, low?
		There are different defense mechanisms that are going to be effective against those different threats.
		And we're trying to get them out to those bases as much as possible.
		Patriot is incredibly effective against incoming missiles, not terribly effective against incoming drones.
		And then you need the radars and the sensors so that you can see them.
		That's the key is seeing it in the first place, so then you can fire and take that out.
		So we are upgrading that and have been upgrading it for the last several years.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Representative Adams Smith, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, Democrat who serves the state of Washington.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for your time.
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for the chance.
adam smith ▲ ● ▼		I appreciate it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We'll finish out the program with Open Forum.
		And if you want to comment on things of politics, 202748-8001 for Republicans.
		Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		We'll take those calls when Washington Journal continues.
unidentified		There are many ways to listen to C-SPAN radio anytime, anywhere.
		In the Washington, D.C. area, listen on 90.1 FM.
		Use our free C-SPAN Now app, or go online to C-SPAN.org slash radio.
		On SiriusXM Radio on channel 455, the Tune-In app, and on your smart speaker by simply saying play C-SPAN radio.
		Hear our live call-in program, Washington Journal, daily at 7 a.m. Eastern.
		Listen to House and Senate proceedings, committee hearings, news conferences, and other public affairs events live throughout the day.
		And for the best way to hear what's happening in Washington with fast-paced reports, live interviews, and analysis of the day.
		Catch Washington today, weekdays at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern.
		Listen to C-SPAN programs on C-SPAN radio anytime, anywhere.
		c-span democracy unfiltered mike said before i happened to listen to him he was on c-span one That's a big upgrade, right?
		But I've read about it in the history books.
		I've seen the C-SPAN footage.
		If it's a really good idea, present it in public view on C-SPAN.
rachel maddow ▲ ● ▼		Every single time I tuned in on TikTok or C-SPAN or YouTube or anything, there were tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people watching.
unidentified		I went home after the speech and I turned on C-SPAN.
unidentified		I was on C-SPAN just this week.
patty murray ▲ ● ▼		To the American people, now is the time to tune in to C-SPAN.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		They had something $2.50 a gallon.
unidentified		I saw on television a little while ago in between my watching my great friends on C-SPAN.
		C-SPAN is televising this right now live.
		So we are not just speaking to Los Angeles.
		We are speaking to the country.
		Washington Journal continues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		On this open forum, Richard starts us off.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Cleveland, Ohio, Independent Line.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Yeah, I just wanted to say, they said that these bombs that they use, it had never been used before.
		So they were speculating whether it would be successful or not.
		But Trump now wants to detour that and say that we should be ashamed of the pilots that flew in to do it.
		It has nothing to do with the pilots.
		They did their job, but we just didn't know how far the bombs would go into the mountain.
		But he wants us to say that we should be ashamed of ourselves and making the pilots feel bad.
		It has nothing to do with that at all.
		That's just how they work to try to get it off of them.
		It has nothing to do with us coming against the pilots.
		They didn't even know how far the bombs would go into the mountain.
		So that's all I wanted to say.
		It's just, that's how they do when they don't want to, you know, hit them direct on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Gotcha.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Richard in Ohio, this is Inez in Texas, Democrats line.
unidentified		Yes, my concern that the president can get on there and use cuss words and you have kids listening to it.
		That is not nice.
		He needs to stop that cussing on TV when he is talking.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		All right.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to Wade in Ohio, Republican line.
unidentified		Hello.
unidentified		Hi, how are you, Pedro?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I'm fine.
unidentified		Good.
		I've got one comment.
		We went four years underneath Joe Biden and we all saw how that turned out.
		And now that we've got a president there is trying to better this country, it seems like everything the Democrats do is against making this country better or putting it further ahead where it's ever been before.
		So that's my only comment.
		And I thank you for taking my call.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Way there in Ohio, again, open forum until 10 o'clock when the House is expected to come in.
		202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats.
		And Independents 202-748-8002.
		Curtis up next in Missouri, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hello.
		Hello, you're on.
		Yes, I just wanted to comment about the president, all the things he's doing, beginning with Russia and Ukraine.
		That was the problem.
		Got that going, then it died down.
		He's going after prosecutors, then the judges.
		And all this seems like all he's doing is keeping your mind on something different all the time, like a diversion.
		And in the back of my mind, I can't help but wonder what him and Putin are doing actually behind our backs.
		That's a question that's just hanging in my mind because he keeps creating diversions.
		Always something different.
		Thank you very much.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From Perry.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry, this is Ronald, Ronald in Minnesota, Independent Line.
unidentified		I just have one observation.
		I don't know if anybody else has asked this, but I noticed one for President Trump was at Fort Bragg, all the soldiers behind him had white faces.
		And I know the military had more blacks.
		Why was that?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Ronald there in Minnesota.
		One of the things to expect other than the news that we've been talking about this morning is decisions from the Supreme Court of Decision Day, to which the court still has to yet decide on rule on several cases.
		Among them, according to USA Today, the topic of birthright citizenship, saying that it's the president's executive order limiting birthright citizenship has been put on hold by judges across the country.
		It was during the May 15th oral arguments.
		None of the Supreme Court justices voiced support for the Trump administration's theory on the matter.
		The administration says the president's order is consistent with the 14th Amendment on the topic of preventing students from reading LBTGQ plus books and minors when it comes to pornography, saying it's the court's conservative majority, sounded sympathetic in April to Maryland parents who raised religious objections to having their elementary school children read books with LGBTQ plus characters.
		And then the future of Planned Parenthood and Preventive Care, saying unlike last year when the court considered two cases about abortion access, that hot button issue is not directly before the court, but the justices are deciding whether to back South Carolina's effort to deprive Planned Parenthood of public funding for other health services because it also provides abortions.
		So that's amongst the many things that the Supreme Court still has to decide.
		Those major cases that are heard, by the way, still archived at our website at c-span.org, a special court page dedicated to that, where you can not only hear the various arguments that are made, but also responses from the justices.
		You can find that at C-SPAN.
		Let's go to Perry in Alabama, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning.
		Good morning to the audience, C-SPAN.
		I was just wondering about the, you know, we hit these people with all these bombs and these 30,000-pound bombs.
		And yet it's still there's no report that anybody got killed in Obama.
		We hit all those places with all those missiles and all those things like that.
		So can somebody ask these people who died in these things?
		Did they get these folks' heads up to get out the way?
		And they moved everything out the way while we're talking about where that uranium went.
		Because somebody should have been dead with all these bombs that hit.
		Sankofa.
		Iran are not upset.
		So somebody didn't die.
		So somebody got heads up about this was coming and they moved everything out before it hit.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Sankofa in Georgia, Independent Line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hi there.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		First, I am not one that believes my country right or wrong.
		I love my mother than I love this country, and I'll respectfully and politely correct her when she is wrong.
		President Trump was wrong for attacking Iran with disinformation from Netanyahu, who wants us to fight this war with Iran because they are too weak to do it themselves.
		This is so much reminds me of Iraq War of 2003.
		I remember the shocking eye that was displayed in the Jubilants.
		I remember the dropping of bunker-busting bombs that incinerated a family that went in for shelter away from the bombing.
		I remember also the loss of Jubilance when our soldiers were being killed with IEDs.
		And I remember that our soldiers being sent here without appropriate dress, so much so that the families of the soldiers had to purchase Kevlar vests to protect them.
		Americans have such short memories and are so easily propagandized and fooled over and over again with the same style of lies.
		We as people suffer from a lack of self-awareness, hubris, arrogance, narcissism, self-righteous, and believe that our government can do whatever it wants, whether right or wrong, because it is the most powerful country in the world.
		Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
		Pride goeth before destruction and a halty spirit before fall.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Let's hear from David.
		David in Pennsylvania, Republican line.
unidentified		Good morning.
		What a great day to be an American.
		I want to say congratulations to Donald Trump.
		Congratulations to our U.S. military, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Space Force for doing a great job to protect the United States.
		People forget that President Obama bombed seven countries when he was in office.
		Joe Biden bombed five countries when he was in office, including one wedding party that was innocent after the Baghdam Air Force-based debacle.
		You know, our U.S. military steps up to save the United States and steps up to save the world.
		You know, and we haven't sent one dollar to Ukraine since January 20th, and they're still holding their own because of negotiations that Donald Trump is trying to get peace through there between Putin and Zelensky.
		You know, and the ceasefire is holding.
		There was a hiccup when one missile was fired.
		Israel was ready to send 12 planes in.
		President Trump got on the phone, convinced them not to send the full barrage.
		They took out one radar site as a retaliatory strike for the tit to tat, but it's been calm over there.
		World markets are doing great.
		The United States is doing great.
		And we just have to support the Republican Party and their conservative views.
		You know, that's what America was built on.
		Okay.
		And this bad mouthing of all the presidents has got to stop.
		All right.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Helen up next in Ohio, Independent Line.
		Hi.
		Helen in Ohio.
unidentified		Hello.
unidentified		Yes.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Okay.
		I'm 85 years old, and I listen to speech C-SPAN quite frequently.
		And I noticed the age group and so forth and et cetera.
		But my beef is going to be on Congress, period.
		There is a bunch of elderly millionaires who are like Stepford wives.
		Why can't these people grow a spine and speak up for the American people?
		We voted them in.
		Okay, my biggest beef is J6, and that is the most Deplorable undemocracy thing I've ever seen in my life, no matter what they say or what they think about it.
		And also, when is the world, the world is looking at us like we're a big joke?
		Come on, let's grow up, let's fight.
		I'm worried about my kids and grandkids.
		There is no need for them to be able to clean up the mess that so-called intelligent, grown men, and there are a few that will speak up, and I appreciate that they are men and women, just a very few who have any kind of guts.
		This is getting ridiculous.
		And as far as HETSEF and all these jokers and these puppets and robots that the man in the old office have is a bunch of bull.
		Like I said, I'm 85 years old.
		I've seen it all and I can definitely see through bull.
pete hegseth ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's Helen in Ohio.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Helen in Ohio, thank you very much.
		It was the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseff just a little while ago in the 8 o'clock hour, a press conference talking about events at Iran.
		One of the topics that were discussed at length, that U.S. intelligence that was leaked claiming that strikes in Iran had limited impact.
		Here is the Defense Secretary's response.
pete hegseth ▲ ● ▼		Let me read the bottom line here.
		President Trump directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history.
		And it was a resounding success, resulting in a ceasefire agreement and the end of the 12-day war.
		There's been a lot of discussion about what happened and what didn't happen.
		Step back for a second.
		Because of decisive military action, President Trump created the conditions to end the war, decimating, choose your word, obliterating, destroying Iran's nuclear capabilities.
		I want to read some of the assessments that have been provided because whether it's fake news, CNN, MSNBC, or the New York Times, there's been fawning coverage of a preliminary assessment.
		I've had a chance to read it.
		Every outlet has breathlessly reported on a preliminary assessment from DIA.
		I'm looking at it right now.
		Again, it was preliminary, a day and a half after the actual strike, when it admits itself in writing that it requires weeks to accumulate the necessary data to make such an assessment.
		It's preliminary.
		It points out that it's not been coordinated with the intelligence community at all.
		There's low confidence in this particular report.
		It says in the report there are gaps in the information.
		It says in the report, multiple linchpin assumptions are what this assessment, a linchpin assumption, you know what that is?
		That means your entire premise is predicated on a linchpin.
		If you're wrong, everything else is wrong.
		And yet, still, this report acknowledges it's likely severe damage.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We'll be showing you that press conference throughout the day.
		You can always watch it on our app at C-SPANNOW, and you can also view it at c-span.org in Maryland.
		We'll hear from Marco in Republican Lion.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Tell you how you guys are doing.
		I just want to say, as a Republican, I'm outraged that there's no outrage.
		I'm not a fan of Donald Trump.
		I'm not a fan of the tariffs.
		I'm not a fan of the bombing without including the intelligence committee or the Senate for that matter.
		I'm not a fan of the tweeting like you're a 17-year-old high school kid.
		It's just, where's the outrage?
		I feel like if it was any other president acting like this, it would be outrage amongst the people everywhere.
		These people are so stuck on being Trump fans that they're missing the big picture.
		We have no proof of anything this guy is saying, and it's just irresponsible rhetoric, and it's embarrassing.
		It's completely embarrassing on the world stage.
		That's all.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Dave in Nevada, Independent Line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hi there.
unidentified		First of all, Donald Trump is out of his mind.
michael flynn ▲ ● ▼		There's a book out called the Dangerous Case Against Donald Trump, where it's 37 psychiatrists of the mental division, and the head mental guy, Dr. Vandy Lee, says he's got dementia, and there's something wrong with this guy, and nobody picks up on it.
unidentified		I don't know what we're going to do.
		He's mentally ill.
		We're in a bad way.
		We're in a police state now.
		He's rounding up people, throwing them to the ground without any reason at all.
		We are in a, we've lost our democracy.
		If we stand, if he stays in charge of this country, this country will fall because he doesn't.
		He's breaking every law in the book, and nobody seems to care, the media or nobody.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Leticia is next in Florida Democrats line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hi there.
unidentified		Hi.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Okay, I was calling because I get a little bit sick and tired of Donald Trump and I'm attacking the media.
		I'm 74 years old.
		I lived through Vietnam.
		My husband, one of my brothers, was in Vietnam.
		My father was in World War II.
		And they come on TV and talk about how they have done something that nobody else in the world has done.
		That's a lie.
		And I get sick and tired of it.
		I get sick and tired of them going around getting immigrants who working for us and who contributed towards our taxes and exporting them, beating them up with mass men like we live in Hitler's Germany or something.
		This is crazy.
		And tell them to leave the media alone.
		If it wasn't for the media, we would all be back in slavery.
		So please, that's the way I feel.
		And that's what I think.
		This is America.
		We're a democracy.
		And we're entitled to know what our president do.
		Right or wrong.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Here are a couple events that you can see on our networks today.
		10 o'clock this morning, just a few minutes from now.
		They tell us that 40,000 Americans die every year in motor vehicle crashes.
		Today, lawmakers will look at the state of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, taking a look at vehicle safety, topics such as self-driving cars and industry innovation.
		That's in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, 10 o'clock on C-SPAN 3, the app C-SPANNOW, the .org as well.
		At 2 o'clock this afternoon, the Faith and Freedom Coalition hosts its annual conference focused on increasing the Republican majority in Congress.
		Some of the speakers that you will hear include South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
		That also on C-SPAN3, the .org and the app.
		That's at 2 o'clock today.
		And then, as we told you earlier, it's at 4 o'clock today that Republican leaders will go to the White House to meet with President Trump over the efforts to pass the Republican tax and spending bill.
		Those can be monitored on C-SPAN 3 as well as the app and the website.
		Vincent is next.
		Independent line in New York State.
		Hello.
unidentified		Yeah, how's it going?
		You know, everyone keeps complaining about why everything's so high.
		You just got to look at the fact that our government is the problem.
		You know, they keep raising your water bill twice a year.
		They raise your sewer bill twice a year.
		Property taxes twice a year.
		School taxes twice a year.
		You know, that is your problem.
		I don't know why people are going to understand that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What did you think of the results of the Democratic primary mayorial primary in New York?
unidentified		Yeah, I don't live in the city, so I don't really care.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, let's go to Tony in Florida, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hey, morning, Pedro.
		You know, I'm an independent because I try to look at things logically.
		And seeing everybody cheerleading, hoping and praying, and Schumer, as usual, at the mic, rooting for the bombing mission to be a failure.
		I want to appeal to everybody's just common sense.
		If the mission had not been unsuccessful, does anybody think that Israel has a vastly better on-the-ground intel network than we do, or anybody for that matter in Iran, would sign on to a ceasefire that quickly?
		That's all it takes.
		Just put the aid, put the partisanship aside, put the trying to score points aside, and just use your freaking brains.
		Pennies, Pedro.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From Ingrid, who joins us from Florida, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi, yeah.
		I just wanted to mention that, okay, Hegzy said that it takes several weeks to get a complete picture of everything.
		So, how can you say that they know for sure that they totally obliterated things?
		Okay, maybe they devastated them, but I can't see how they can say for sure that they obliterated things.
		He contradicted himself.
		And it seems like both sides, Republicans and Democrats, are both acting like way far to the left, way far to the right.
		It's like, when is somebody going to come somewhere in the middle?
		Like, it's like they're both out of control.
		I mean, they're just too far to either side.
		You need to come back to the middle somewhere because everybody's acting like two-year-olds, you know, threatening people, calling people names.
		That's not the example people should be putting out there.
		And that's our leader of our country.
		This is what people are going to imitate.
		And that's thinking that it's okay.
		This is not the behavior people should be imitating.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From Charles.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Charles is in Buffalo, New York, Republican line.
unidentified		Yeah.
		Hi, Pedro.
		Good morning.
		You know, I find it's really very sad that we can't get together.
		What?
		It seemed like within the first couple hours, we complained about the bombing, but really the end of a 46-year problem with Iran that killed almost a thousand Americans and caused problems all over the map.
		And we couldn't even get together for a couple of minutes and say thank you to these military guys who put their lives to 37 hours back and forth to do their duty, to get their mission done, and have to listen to it.
		I'm a Vietnam veteran myself, but long time American Democrat, now changed over to Republican.
		But it doesn't matter if we can't celebrate even for a couple of minutes.
		Can you imagine doing this after D-Day?
		I mean, how many men did we lose on D-Day?
		A lot of people say that, oh my gosh, we lost so many men, but the mission was accomplished.
		It was important, and we got it done.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Sam.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Sam's in Georgia, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning, Pedro.
		I'd just like to say this is a made-for-TV presidency.
		Netanyahu is playing Trump like a fiddle, like all the other dictators do.
		And I just feel so sorry for our country and what we're going through and going to have to go through.
		Thank you, Pedro.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From Grant.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Grant is in Wisconsin, Republican line.
unidentified		Yes, I think Trump is doing a real good job.
unidentified		He's saved us from a few future probably future wars from what he did in Iran.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		All right.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Have you finished your statement?
unidentified		Yes.
unidentified		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Grant there in Wisconsin.
		Again, here's what to watch out for today on the Senate side.
		Again, we told you a little bit about this effort by Senator Kaine on the Senate side to pass a war powers resolution.
		So watch out and continue to watch that as the week progresses.

▲