Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Participants
Main
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pedro echevarria
cspan43:11
Appearances
brian lamb
cspan01:33
donald j trump
admin01:06
hakeem jeffries
rep/d01:42
scott bessent
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tom homan
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tom suozzi
rep/d01:24
Clips
dana bash
cnn00:23
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Ron Illinois On Economic Growth00:15:24
unidentified
Med will talk with the Pew Research Center's Hannah Hardig about a new survey showing the political dynamics that led to President Trump's electoral victory in 2024.
And Brett Samuels, White House reporter for The Hill, brings us the White House news of the day and previews the week ahead.
Also, Roger Zackheim, director of the Ronald Reagan Institute, discusses his organization's public opinion poll on foreign policy and national security issues.
New polling by the Wall Street Journal and YouGov shows more Americans believe President Trump is more responsible for the current state of the economy, even more so than his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.
President himself making that case recently, considering his one big beautiful bill passing through Congress.
His critics saying factors such as high gas and food prices suggest the economy might not be that robust.
What do you think of the current economy under President Trump?
You can let us know on the phone lines what you think.
202748-8000 for Democrats, 202748-8001 for Republicans, and 202-748-8002 for Independents.
If you want to let us know what your opinion is of the economy under the president, you can text us at 202-748-8003.
And then always, you can post on our social media sites.
That's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN.
And you can also post on X at C-SPANWJ.
This is from the Wall Street Journal, a piece that came out recently taking a look at what people think about the economy under this president.
It says, voters now agree it's President Trump's economy.
Trump voters are now likelier to say that he is more responsible for the current state of the economy than to say that former President Joe Biden, by a margin of 46 to 34 percent, according to YouGov survey data.
Gathered for the Wall Street Journal, that was between June 17th and the 20th.
Also, it says that President Trump's supporters had been likelier to pick President Biden before last month.
People who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris have overwhelmingly said that President Trump was more responsible for the economy since YouGov put the question to Americans in March, this adding that there's no scientific answer for who owns the economy, but the question serves as a sort of Rorschach test, with voters answering based on a mix of political affiliations, media diets, personal finance, personal finances, and traditional economic indicators.
This story also adding when it comes to what people responded to, saying that more Americans say that it's the president's economy in part simply because of the passage of time.
But his raft of new policies, including a slew of tariffs whose magnitude and targets have changed often, have also prompted many voters to assign credit or blame to him.
Some 84% of the president's voters approved of his handling of jobs in the economy in a YouGov poll from late June.
Nearly 9 in 10 for those who voted for Vice President Harris disapproved.
And this adding that those who are the president's supporters saying the economy is heading in the right direction, but saying this about tariffs, saying in particular, I have weighed on consumers' outlooks amongst both parties.
That's from the Wall Street Journal this morning.
This comes in light of recent news about the job numbers.
You may have remember going into the holiday weekend, seeing information about that, saying that CBS and others saying that employers across the United States adding 147,000 jobs in June, with the labor market remaining resilient despite slowing economic growth this year.
That figure is in line with the average monthly gain of 146,000 over the last year, according to the Labor Department from CBS saying that job growth was stronger than expected in June.
Payrolls gain sale past $115,000, predicted by economists polled by the Financial Derm FechSec.
And this adding that the nation's unemployment rate fell down to 4.1%, that from 4.2% in May, the lowest since February.
And there's the details from the job map.
So if you want to take in those job numbers into consideration, if you want to take in other factors when it comes to the economy under the current president, President Trump, and you want to give us your thoughts on it, again, for Democrats, it's 202-748-8000.
For Republicans, it's 202-748-8001.
And you can also reach us on our Independent line, 2-202-748-8002.
What's your opinion of the current economy under President Trump?
Let's start with Faye.
Faye's in Ohio, Democrats line.
Faye, good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
We must not forget about the elderly, the poor, the imprisoned.
And this economy has forgotten them with these big, ugly bills.
And after the midterm elections, many people, 17 million it's estimated, will be without health care.
Food stamps will be gone for those 12 and under for in many, many circumstances.
And the numbers you just quoted, you know, you forget that under President Biden, we had the it was on the cover of the economics that we were the envy of the world in terms of our economy and job growth.
And by comparison with this administration, with this evil administration, you cite job gains that don't mirror what we had under a much more benevolent regime.
So those are my inputs.
That I don't want to normalize the evilness of this administration, and you can't separate that from where the economy is because we're all in this together.
Your thoughts on the economy under President Trump.
John, go ahead.
unidentified
Hey, yeah, good morning.
So I think the economy is doing well, but I think it's about to get even better.
I think the tax cuts are really going to stimulate the economy.
I think it's going to generate investment, and I think it's going to grow and expand.
And no disrespect to Faye.
I'm sure she's a lovely person.
But personally, I don't think it helps the political discourse to call people evil.
If you want to disagree with someone's economic policies or you want to disagree with someone's political policies, have an argument that you can fate that's based on facts, not based on feelings, not based on emotions, but an argument that you can say that's based on facts so that you can debate the points.
Simply labeling someone evil is unhelpful.
And I'd like to see us return to the days in America where you could disagree with someone without being disagreeable, and you didn't have to call them names in order to make your point.
So, John, one of the points she did make is that perhaps there was some carryover from the Biden administration leading up to the current state of the economy.
What do you think of that argument?
unidentified
So, when I'll tell you, in my personal opinion, when President Biden left office, gas prices were over $3 a gallon.
In North Carolina, they're $2.50 a gallon.
Now, you're an adult.
You've been around a long time.
You know as well as I do that oil prices and gas prices filter through the economy, and when they're high, it drives up inflation.
When they're low, it stimulates growth.
In addition to that, economically, it's great.
But politically, it's also advantageous in this sense.
When gas prices and oil prices, particularly oil prices, are below $50 a barrel, regimes that are problematic or create mischief for America, they don't have the economic resources in order to make that mischief.
And so if we want to see the economy in America continue to expand, keep oil prices below $50, $60 a barrel consistently, allow government to get off the back, deregulate the economy, and empower Americans to grow this economy.
And we will continue to be the envy of the world, as Fay said, because I believe economic growth in America is better than anyplace else in the world.
And if you look at all the investment deals that President Trump has racked up in the first six months of his administration, that's unprecedented.
If only half of those investment deals actually bear fruit, you're going to have a manufacturing boom in this country like we haven't seen probably since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
John there in North Carolina giving his thoughts, the Center for American Progress in an analysis in January of this year, taking a look at the economy under President Biden.
One of the things they highlighted was that economic growth surpassed expectations, saying the path of economic growth in 2024, again, defied that, those expectations of both 2023 and 24.
Real gross domestic product, the typical measure for the total value of the economy accounting for inflation, exceeded major public and private forecasts.
It has an analysis chart there.
If you're interested in reading some of those points and the points they make at the Center for American Progress, you can do that at their website at AmericanProgress.org.
What do you think of the economy?
What's your opinion of the economy under President Trump?
If you want to factor in things like gross domective product or as John talked about, gas prices or as Faye talked about, impacts on people.
Again, 202748-8,000 for Democrats, 202,748, 8,001 for Republicans and Independents, 202748, 8,000 too.
Let's go to Ron.
Ron in Illinois, Democrats line.
Ron, Illinois, go ahead.
unidentified
Okay, they're talking about the economy.
You've got to be worried about the deficit.
They claim that the deficit's going to go up 3.2 to 3.5%.
I don't know why they would raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion if it's only going to go up 3.2 or something.
But anyway, if you just take 4% of the $4 trillion, if it goes up, that's actually for every working person in the country, it's over $25,000.
And you could do the exact same, and the money don't just all of a sudden show up.
It has to be borrowed from different countries or wherever China.
But anyway, you could do the same thing.
Just get four credit cards, borrow $25,000 on them, take that money, give it to the richest person in your city or the richest person in your state, and then that leaves you with the pay the bill.
And that's what's going to go on.
That's only with $4,000.
The total bill deficit is going to end up being $40 trillion when it's all done.
That's ridiculous.
And somebody has to pay it back, either your kids or their kids.
The economy is going to go downhill from the bank.
I'll tell you, he's right on on everything he's talking about.
I think the economy's doing fine.
I think it's good that we finally got Trump in there to get things done.
You know, I mean, he could speak to the media, you know, one like Joe, you know, trying to stay away from the media, but I think he's doing a good job.
And he got a lot of things to accomplish so far.
I think he's just keep on keeping on.
And, you know, for the Democrats always saying gloom and doom, you know, if everybody just get together and work together like they should, and not just the White House and Congress and, you know, the whole, all three agencies work together, the country will do good.
And just trust in God, God will take care of everything, especially like the climate lower.
The Washington Post takes a look at the president, his economy.
This is the headline.
Trump's economy remains pretty strong, but some warning signs are flashing, according to the assessment from the Washington Post, which includes stock markets have rallied.
The inflation rate is steady.
Unemployment remains low, ticking down to 4.1% in June.
The president's one big beautiful bill promises to extend massive tax cuts and benefit corporations and wealthy Americans, provisions that could boost part of the economy, saying that still many analysts say that the future of the U.S. economy under the president remains uncertain.
Gross domestic product shrank in the first quarter of the year, in part because of surging imports, and consumers are feeling hesitant and spending less.
It's also too soon to know the full effect of the president's widespread tariffs, especially with the deadline approaching to get deals completed with many countries before levies rise once more.
And as immigrants leave the workforce either voluntarily or by deportation, a lack of workers could create labor shortages in certain key areas and fuel wage inflation.
That's from the Post.
One of the things to watch out for today, by the way, is expected by the White House extending letters to certain member countries on the issue of trade deals in an effort to speed up those deals with the possibility of new tariffs being put against them.
Look for that to play out today in Washington.
You can comment and if you want to roll in tariffs as part of your factor, at least your consideration of the current state of the economy, you're welcome to do so.
Joe's in Baltimore, Independent Line.
unidentified
Hi.
Wages Struggle Amid Tariffs00:15:41
unidentified
Good morning.
I think we have what's called an advanced economy.
And as far as I can tell, that basically means that what we have is going to be expensive no matter what in a certain sense.
Everything costs more to do here in America because there's kind of like an imbalance of investment going on in the world, an imbalance of wealth concentrations.
So money kind of just doesn't go as far here just as a natural state.
And so, you know, it's always going to be kind of a struggle for us to match up with other countries no matter what.
And that's what, you know, a lot of these tariffs are about, whether you agree or disagree with it and think that the implementation is a good way to go.
But America, it seems, you know, the only way for us to keep going on this, I think, is really successful implementation of automation.
It's the only way that we're going to be able to compete with places like China and Vietnam who have cheap labor.
We can't do it here.
If we want to be self-sufficient, we have to find these technological workarounds.
And then where does that put us economically in terms of who has the ability to make all of these things and to perform labor in the economy with a bunch of machines, especially increasingly the hope they would keep working more and more automatically?
What are we going to do to ensure that people have jobs that are worthwhile into the future?
How do we get people need to work right now?
What happens if you don't need people to work?
That's kind of point one.
Point two is the tax cuts and their factor on the economy.
With the Trump tax cuts, we've seen the last couple times that they've implemented it.
The first time they last for a couple years, while tax cuts for the wealthy were permanent.
And now they're coming back again and saying, hey, oh, no, watch out, panic.
These are going to go away if we don't extend the tax cuts.
They keep saying make them permanent this time.
Are the parts of the Trump tax cuts for the poorer folks actually permanent this time?
Because it seems like a ratchet where, oh, no, it's going to expire.
We have to get back what we had by promising even more to the rich where their tax cuts were permanent.
And very quickly, point three, sounds the Trump accounts for children.
You may share his view of the economy under his administration.
You may disagree with that.
Let's go to Charles.
Charles in Virginia, Republican line.
Go ahead.
You're on.
unidentified
Yes.
Well, thanks for the opportunity.
Certainly this morning a lot of emotional responses, nothing really.
So I appreciate you jumping in a few times to quote some facts there.
So from my perspective, as I look at consumer confidence in June being down about 5.5%, and the constant theme throughout the start of this administration has been uncertainty, both which impacts business investment and also consumer confidence.
Certainly, we're not on a good trajectory now how that shakes out in the end, but certainly consumer confidence rooted in student debt, the students having to pay that uncertainty in default, and things kind of just centered around how people will feel about spending their money in the future.
We're definitely not in a good place, and Trump is unfortunately adding to that uncertainty, which would have me say the economy is not in a good state.
When it comes to those gas prices, by the way, what you heard the president talk about, the Business Insider, was on their website saying it was over the weekend that the OPEC plus nations jolted markets by announcing it would flood the market with even more oil.
Eight producers, including heavyweight Saudi Arabia and Russia, plan to ramp up output by 548,000 barrels a day in August, handily beating the 411,000 barrel increase analysts were expecting.
It says that gasoline averaged $3.16 a gallon in the U.S. on June the 30th, down 11% from the same time last year.
According to the Energy Information Administration, about half the cost of a gallon of gas comes from crude oil.
Let's go to Denise.
Denise in Kentucky, Democrats line, your opinion of the economy under President Trump.
unidentified
Hello.
I think it's clear we can already see the changes.
Grocery prices just went up 5 to 6%.
Our home insurance has went up.
Our car insurances went up.
Everything we look at is going up.
Now, tariffs has got a big deal to do with that.
And I feel this, that we have to change who's running things.
And Hal Rogers is running for office here in Kentucky.
She references tariff, those trade deals facing a deadline.
This is from the Wall Street Journal's headline section this morning saying that the president faces that crucial week for reaching trade deals before new tariffs are scheduled to hit dozens of countries starting on Wednesday.
He says that the president will attempt to build his momentum by tackling a series of trade agreements that have already proved elusive ahead of his rapidly approaching deadline.
Among the sticking points, the president has refused to budge on his industry-specific tariffs, including those targeting foreign automobile manufacturers.
Let's hear from Cal.
Cal is in Maryland Independent Line.
Go ahead, Cal.
You're on.
unidentified
Good morning, Pedro.
I live here in downtown Silver Spring working here in Washington, D.C.
And one of the things that I'm truly concerned about, especially with this big, beautiful, big, beautiful bill, is that there will be undoubtedly increases to working families such as myself when it comes to rent, insurance, car payments, groceries.
And I think current politicians, especially the majority in the Republic, they're not thinking of the working professionals as they're making these bills.
Yes, there are things that they have claimed that we need to work on fraud.
I completely agree with them.
Let's work on those issues.
But to be able to just, with a big brush, cancel health insurance and all of these other things for many different people, it's going to be a recession, especially with all these deportations that they're doing without due process.
There will be shortages of staff in different industries, and that will result in higher wages and higher cost and lower wages.
And I think it's just going to be a nightmare over the next six months to a year and a half until midterms next year.
Politicians and politics is just going to get dirty and dirty.
And people are going to be more divided here in the U.S.
It's just very disheartening.
You know, this country is beautiful.
We just need to find that beauty within ourselves to be able to come together.
Kyle there in Maryland, giving us his thoughts on one of his points from the website Smart Cities Dive talked about the bill that was signed into law.
It says that the legislation would expand the low-income tax housing tax credit program, considered the primary funding mechanism for affordable housing construction in the United States.
It would also extend and make key reforms to opportunity zones, the federal tool that provides tax benefits to developers that invest in distressed, low-income areas of the country.
This says that it's the most significant investment in affordable housing construction that we've seen in a generation.
That was David Dworkin, the president and CEO of the National Housing Conference, who's upbeat about the bill's potential to make a material difference in the affordable housing shortage.
Quote, the bill will have a net positive impact on housing affordability.
That's his assessment.
When it comes to the economy, what's your assessment?
Republican line in Florida.
This is Paul.
Go ahead.
unidentified
Hey, Pedro.
The level of lying, an honest assessment, you just gave one that was pretty honest.
But the lack of actual honest assessment of this bill is staggering.
But let me give you an example of why no one should ever listen to the press or the Democrat Party.
President Trump's Economic Impact00:07:30
unidentified
We just went through four years of the press and the Democrat Party saying that the border is closed.
And what was happening?
At least a quarter million people were coming through the border every month and coming into this country and taking benefits that they never paid for.
And we're going to be paying for them for years and years.
Again, if you're just joining us, the Wall Street Journal earlier, and we showed you the headline, a new survey from them saying that when it comes to the current economy, most are attributing it directly to this president more than the previous president, Joe Biden, or even, and even amongst those who voted for Kamala Harris, saying that the president is now more responsible for the U.S. economy.
We're asking your thoughts about your opinion of the economy under this president, President Trump, 202, 748, 8,000 for Democrats, 202, 748, 8,000, 1 for Republicans, and Independents, 202748, 8,000.
Too many of you using several factors when it comes to making that assessment.
Feel free to do that, whether it be what you pay for gas or whether it be larger economics like gross domestic product, one person talking about consumer confidence.
You can weave all that in.
Just call the line that best represents you, and then make sure that when you're on, if you turn down your television, you can get on without interference.
In Connecticut, Republican line, this is Mark.
unidentified
Hello.
Oh, good morning, and thanks for taking my call.
I do think that President Trump deserves credit for the economy being better than it was.
You know, just to comment in the following way, the prices that are higher in the grocery store occurred during the inflation that occurred while President Biden was in office.
And I attributed that to when, if people remember when President Biden first became president, there was a lot of stimulus money put into the economy.
It was considered to be unnecessary by me as well as a lot of economists.
And it did exactly what happens when you flood the market with government money.
It created inflation.
I'm a proponent of Milton Friedman, who says that it's government that causes inflation, and that's exactly what happened.
What President Trump has been doing is reversing that and undoing some of that, allowing the economy to heal from some of those policies that were probably well-intended, but not really effective and, in fact, hurt the economy rather than helped it.
As far as the tariffs, I think that in general, they're a good thing.
The American economy is so much larger than it was when we were a young nation.
I think bringing business back on shore will ultimately be a very good thing for the economy.
I mean, unemployment is manageable.
Inflation has come down significantly.
So although prices haven't reduced, that's because the economy has stayed so strong and been so healthy.
So I think President Trump deserves a lot of the credit for a strong, healthy economy right now.
Timothy in Maryland, Richard in Las Vegas says this.
I'm not sure where that last caller, I'm not too sure exactly which caller he's referencing to, buys his gas, but he's saying, my gas prices have been steady at about $335 all year so far, the lowest price that Biden finally achieved when he was seeking reelection and watered down his green energy policies just prior to the election.
This is from Kristen in Maine saying that it's the president's petty and ridiculous fight with Canada is directly affecting Maine's economy.
Many small businesses rely on Canadian tourists to survive through the winter.
And that's just some of the opinions there.
Texting us, by the way, you can do that.
202748-8003 is how you want to do that.
If you want to text us your thoughts this morning, this is from Albert Alberts in Georgia, Republican line.
Hi, Albert.
Go ahead.
unidentified
Yeah, good morning, sir.
Thank you for your service, and thank you for this television program.
I work in IT, and one of the things that I'm just seeing, and I've been in this industry for 30 years, is that we are just getting slaughtered right now.
I think that the emergence of AI does represent a credible threat to the American livelihood because you have instances where you have these highly paid, highly compensated employees that cannot go and get work.
And I mean, I'm talking about software engineers.
I mean, these are the people that designed the code to make things go.
And now that you have AI going in and making a real presence in there, I just have a real fear that how do we convince our sons and daughters to go into these STEM career fields with the expectation is they could possibly be replaced so quickly.
And I think that's going to reverberate, especially with the sense of student loans.
I mean, to go and to be an experienced IT professional starts with a good quality education.
And when you're looking at degrees costing $80,000 to over $100,000 in the tech field just to get started as table stakes, how are you going to be able to pay that off if your career is over and done with in less than five years?
So I just have some real concerns how the president is going to be able to address the issue of AI when it really starts replacing people and the highly compensated workers that we're all counting on, not only for their tax money, but for their earning potential, suddenly go away.
That's Albert there in Georgia giving us his thoughts and relating that to technology interests and factors.
You can do the same.
The Economist takes a look at various principles when it comes to the economy and where things stand.
They look at gross domestic product, saying that it shrank at an annualized rate of 0.5% in the first quarter of 2025.
According to the latest estimate, the first decline in three years.
This apparently reflected a rush to import foreign goods before Mr. Trump's tariffs took effect.
But these imports also boosted consumption and inventories.
In principle, the effects balance each other out.
Measurement problems may explain why that didn't happen immediately.
Mike is next.
Mike in Alabama, Democrats line.
unidentified
Hi.
Good morning.
I think the volatility of the economy is going to really tell the tale of the tape, if you will, August 1st with this latest reciprocal tax deadline.
And I think that will fall into play when Powell comes out in September to announce the federal rates.
Either they're going to stay or they're going to go lower or perhaps even go higher.
You know, tariffs are the key here.
Manufacturing is taking a hit right now.
As you just mentioned, a lot of manufacturing companies are really producing on the inventory that they've went out and purchased to stock their warehouses.
But that's all going to come home to roost when their inventory runs out, and then they're going to be faced with reciprocal tariffs.
What countries are going to be involved?
It depends on where these companies get their imports from, whether it be China, India, Vietnam, which looks favorable, the EU.
But I think we're in a volatile time right now.
But I think Donald Trump, as a businessman, is taking a fair risk in business to see if these countries will play ball with his deadline of August 1st.
That's all I have to say, and thank you for taking my call.
Mike's point being highlighted by CNBC this morning saying the president threatening an extra 10% tariff on countries that align with anti-American, quote, BRICS policies, those BRICS being the developing countries meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, amongst other countries there, India, there.
And if you want to take a look at that, that's the story.
If you take a look at the Wall Street Journal on their headline this morning, if you look at the futures on the stock market, the Dow, the S ⁇ P, and the NASDAQ all pointing downward, perhaps in light of those announcements when it comes to what happens with the future of tariffs, you can factor into that your assessment there too.
This is from California, Independent Line.
This is Dan.
Hello.
unidentified
Yeah, hi.
Thanks for taking my call.
You know, I think that I think a lot of people are looking at the immediate, you know, there's a smoke and mirrors that I see going on.
Not like I visually, visually see, but the long term of this, you know what I mean?
This bill is going to bring up our debt by, what, $2.3 trillion?
You know, and I think at the end of the day, that's where it's really going to stand.
It's going to be a lot of lies and a lot of money spent that we don't have, just like it has been for the last, since 1776.
And I know that's probably compared to what other people play, but there in California, how does that track?
unidentified
I would gauge that to be relatively normal to a slight decrease.
But, you know, I also remember, and I'm sure you do as well, when gas was under the $2 mark in California when I was younger.
And I think the real, when we talk about tariffs, when we talk about price increases, and when we look at this from a broad scope and a broad view, especially looking at like how we as individuals have gone through this and noticed all these price increases and they stay that way, is because we're willing to pay it.
That's what capitalist countries do.
It's like, oh, you're still willing to pay this.
So us bringing it down three years from now or whatever this bill is going to do, it's not going to go down.
That's Lloyd there in West Virginia calling on a Republican line.
It was during his eight-hour marathon speech in the House that the House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, one of the things he did bring up, was the state of the economy under this president.
President Trump and House Republicans promised to lower costs on day one.
Mr. Speaker, but costs aren't going down.
They are going up.
The policies unleashed by the Trump administration have been so chaotic, so all over the place, so much uncertainty has been created that the economy is being run off track and nothing has been done to lower the high cost of living.
In fact, not a single thing in Donald Trump's one big, ugly bill will meaningfully make life more affordable for everyday Americans.
And that's just one of several reasons why House Democrats are a hell no on this legislation.
That eight hours plus still available to you at our various platforms.
If you want to see it, it's the platform of USA's Today opinion page that Nicole Russell writes this, saying the middle class has shifted towards the Republican Party because conservative economic principles, smaller government, lower taxes, deregulation help everyday Americans earn and keep more money.
Small businesses, the backbone of the American economy, will especially benefit from the tax cuts and the president's One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Americans have learned the hard way not to trust congressional Democrats with the economy.
They're now turning to Republican lawmakers to foster growth and prosperity.
They're right to do so.
Let's go to Mark.
Mark in Westwood, New Jersey Democrats line.
Go ahead.
unidentified
Yeah, good morning.
Thank you for C-SPAN.
Interesting that you quote Nicole Russell from USA Today.
I just recently sent her an email because she is a total cheerleader for Trump.
And it's like the Republicans could do nothing wrong, which is totally ridiculous.
We're in this horrible economy because of both the Republicans and the Democrats.
And Trump's bill is just going to give us more debt.
It's just the same kind of garbage that we've always gotten.
I wish that I could be happy about it, but my stocks have gone down.
Prices have gone up.
I don't see where he's going to do anything that's going to help the regular person.
What he's doing is helping the CEOs of Google and Amazon and all that kind of thing.
And taxes, I don't ever see, I never see better taxes, no matter what Republican or Democrat is in office.
Gene's View from Wisconsin00:06:21
unidentified
So if we really want to change this country, we need to start electing people like Bernie Sanders.
The Democratic strategist Brad Bannon, in his assessment of the economy, adds this to the mix, saying, the economy shrank in the first quarter of 2025.
This was the first quarterly contraction in three years.
The president's Achilles heel is his failure to bring prices down on day one of his second term, as he promised during the 2024 campaign.
To take the president and MAGA down, Democrats must take the less sexy route and focus like a laser beam on his failure to keep prices from going up.
That means talking about the price of eggs instead of the rule of law.
The cost of living is a concrete overcoat for hardworking and cash-strapped families.
The rule of law is an abstract concept you can't use to feed your kids.
Let's go to Jennifer.
Jennifer joins us from Texas, Independent Line.
unidentified
Hi.
Hi.
Yeah, I'm originally from Washington, D.C.
And I married into a political party, Ed Tates, who was Eisenhower's advisor.
And all I can tell you is that it doesn't matter what side you're on, Republican, Democrat, it doesn't matter.
It comes down to one thing and one thing only.
Are you a good person or a bad one?
You need to decide in this country what you want to do for the country.
And we have to fight to take back our country because the politicians, all of them, doesn't matter side, doesn't matter if you're a Democrat, doesn't matter if you're a Republican.
When it finally does happen, the hammer is going to fall, and everyone's going to see that those prices that they're saying they're down, they're good, they're going to start changing.
And they'll start changing their opinion in a hurry because prices are going to skyrocket.
That's how I see it happening.
The economy, it's been historic that Democratic presidents have to bail out Republican economic messes.
Two guests joining us throughout the course of the program.
Later on in the program, we're going to hear from Ronald Reagan Institute Director Roger Zachheim.
He's going to discuss his organization's recent survey, taking a look, an opinion poll taking a look at foreign policy and national security issues.
He'll join us later for that.
But up next, Pew Research Center's Hannah Hartig on data on why the former president, why former President Trump, won another term in November of 2024.
And she'll show you some of the factors that led to that.
She'll join us next when Washington Journal continues.
unidentified
From the beginning, C-SPAN was there for every word of debate, every vote.
C-SPAN was there, giving you around-the-clock coverage through all-nighters into the early morning hours with record-breaking back-to-back votes in the Senate.
What led the center to go and take a look at this?
Voter Turnout Shifts00:15:27
unidentified
Yeah, so beginning in 2016, we did a very rigorous analysis of how people voted and why.
And what we did with that analysis was that we matched it to a commercial voter file.
So that confirmed that that respondent actually turned out in the election, which is really important in survey research.
So we first started that plan in 2016.
We've been doing these analysis every year since.
So in the 2020-18 midterms, the 2020 presidential, 2022 midterms, and now 2024.
And it's a really, really rigorous, in-depth report that looks at turnout, it looks at voting patterns among subgroups over time, as well as the composition of each of the coalitions, the Trump Coalition and the Harris Coalition.
One of the big numbers is just generally how people broke down when it comes to those 2020 voters compared to 2024.
In 2024, the share for Vice President Harris was 48.3%.
For President Trump, 49.8%.
Compared that to 2020 for then President Biden, or candidate Biden, 51.3%.
And then President Trump, 46.9%.
Those two comparisons.
What's important to know about those two comparisons?
unidentified
Yeah.
So one of the really unique aspects of the study, right, is you look at a result in 2020 and it's four percentage points in the national popular vote for Biden.
So you say, how do we go from a four-point advantage for Biden to 1.5 percentage points in the national popular vote for Trump?
And so what we can do with this panel data is look at the different types of people who are turning out at different rates, who's sitting home, who would cast a ballot in a previous election.
And we can also look at who switched.
And what we found was that Trump held on to far more of his 2020 voters than Harris did of Biden's.
So about 85% of Trump's 2020 voters turned out again in 2024 and cast a ballot for him.
You know, a far smaller share decided not to vote.
And 79% of Biden's 2020 voters turned out again and cast a ballot for Harris.
So you can already see that there's a turnout advantage for Trump.
A lot of graphs here when it comes to those eligible.
And we'll just show them at home.
And some of those, you have three categories in 2024, 2020 to 2024.
But for those for Mr. Biden, those for Mr. Trump, and those who did not vote, that did not vote category.
They kind of cast themselves widely in two other categories, that for the vice president and Mr. Trump.
Talk about that aspect.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah.
So these voters tend to be younger.
They tend to be more likely to be black, Hispanic, Asian.
They are less likely to have college degrees.
These are people who might have lower family incomes.
And they're just not turning out in every single presidential election.
And so that's why, you know, pre-election polls go to great effort to try to figure out who's going to turn out and why and what are the sort of underlying factors.
But Trump absolutely succeeded in mobilizing a number of people who maybe hadn't even voted before, but certainly not in 2020, which is pretty important.
What is the, in a general sense, were there big groups of people who just voted for the other candidate, or was it more subtle than that?
unidentified
So switching honestly accounts for a fairly small share of change between the two elections because most people are pretty locked into their teens.
If you're a Democrat, you're a Democrat, you're a Republican, you're a Republican, you're not switching teams.
But there were some groups where we saw a significant number of what we call defections, which is just someone changing their vote between an election.
And we saw that among rural voters, so adults who live in rural areas, between 2020 and 2024, they switched their votes from Biden to Trump if they voted in both.
And we also saw that among adults born in the 1980s.
So these voters are roughly 39 to 49, somewhere around there.
Data looking at the last election and the factors that led to President Trump winning another term in office.
And if you want to ask our guests questions, you can do so on the lines.
202748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and 202-748-8002 for Independents.
And if you want to text us your questions or comments, taking a look at this elector, the past election, 202-748-8003.
You talked a little bit about this, but for those who previously voted for President Biden compared to those in 2024, a sliver of those going to Mr. Trump, but a lot of that going to the did not vote category.
unidentified
That's exactly right.
So yeah, a large share of Biden 2020 voters declined to vote again in 2024.
You also had about 5% who switched their votes.
So 5% of the Biden 2020 voters switched to Trump in 2024.
And that's even higher than the share of the reversals, meaning far fewer voters actually switched from Trump to Harris between that time as well.
I know numbers are numbers, but can you get a sense of why these trends happen?
unidentified
There's a number of reasons that these trends can happen.
I think in 2024 in particular, there's a lot of focus on the economy.
These groups that I mentioned that are younger, more likely to be black, Hispanic, Asian, these also might be groups that would be particularly susceptible to economic shocks.
So of course, after the pandemic, a period of high inflation around the world, not just in the United States, cost of living goes up, there's these quality of life factors.
And so of course, one of the theories is that they were hurting economically.
And so maybe they wanted to change things up, get rid of the incumbent, incumbent president, and try their hand at someone new.
Just to show you a little bit of what happened between 2024 and, in this case, 2016, for those white voters, the trend stays largely the same with some drop off in 2024.
And yet, when it comes to black voters, 2% of that coalition voting for the president in 2020, that grows to 3% amongst black voters in 2024.
That number largely consistently stays the same between the president and Vice President Harris.
Those are the numbers.
Talk about the larger impacts there.
unidentified
Yeah, absolutely.
And so when we're talking about coalitions here, we have to look under the hood.
So which voters are shifting?
And Trump performed better among Hispanic voters.
He battled to near parity with Harris among Hispanic voters after losing them by double digits to Biden in 2020.
He also made inroads among Asian voters.
His voting share improved by 10 percentage points between 2020 and 2024.
And among black voters, 15% who turned out in 2024 voted for Trump.
And so you take all of that together, and Trump's coalition of voters is a lot less, is a lot less white than it was in 2016 when he first ran.
When you look at the why it happened, then is it the same kind of things before the economy, or are there other things, especially amongst the coalitions you just talked about?
unidentified
Yeah, absolutely.
So, economy is definitely one of them.
Immigration was an issue for a lot of Trump voters that we saw in our pre-election polling.
And that's related to things that might be happening at the border, this perception that there's millions and millions of people crossing the border, concerns about fairness and concerns about rising costs there, too.
So, absolutely, I think all of those are factors for why we're seeing these kinds of switches.
Again, our conversation on the 20, the previous election, and the factors that led to the president's victory 202748-8000 for Democrats, Republicans, 202748, 8001, Independents, 202748, 8002.
Hannah Hartig, I don't know if you answered this question with the data, but let me just throw it to you.
See, this is a viewer saying, please explain how there were 15 million more voters than the 2016 election, excuse me, and the 2020 election, and then 15 million less again in 2024.
So, turnout overall.
unidentified
Yeah, turnout overall.
So, 2020 actually set a record for the highest turnout in a presidential election.
Remarkable year given the pandemic, but no, there's no question that turnout was highest in 2020.
2024 actually looked pretty similar.
It was a couple ticks down, somewhere around 64% of eligible adults turned out.
But those are really similar, and 2024 is tied with, I think, 1960, if I got that data right.
If more people turned out, it would have been different for the vice president.
unidentified
Yes.
So that is actually one of the most important things I think that comes out of our report.
So the conventional wisdom is that when turnout is high, Democrats benefit.
And that's because of the reasons I explained before.
Younger people turn out at lower rates.
Voters of color, black, Hispanic, Asian adults don't turn out as consistently as white adults.
And so because these groups might also be shifting towards the Republican Party, the relationship between high turnout and Democratic advantage is weakening.
So in this survey, we asked non-voters, we said, who would you have supported if you turned out to vote?
44% said they'd support Trump.
40% said they'd support Harris.
So then when you simulate sort of 100% turnout, if everyone had voted, you see that the Trump's vote margin in the popular vote would have been roughly similar to the actual result, if not a little bit wider.
Again, we can't rerun the election.
We don't know how that actually maps out in the Electoral College, but it's a really important finding because it sort of upends a lot of what we understand about electoral politics, about campaigning, about how Democrats should campaign.
So yeah, that was another something new in our analysis that we hadn't found in prior years.
From Carol, Carol is in New York for our guest Democrats line.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
My question is: shortly after the election, the New York Times published a map of the United States by county showing that virtually every county in the United States voted more Republican than in the prior election.
My question is: how does your information about the change in voter behavior essentially more folks switching to Republicans?
How does that compare with the New York Times data, which is kind of just gross data over counties?
How do you, when you look at the two sets of data, which show similar things, how do you compare them?
What's similar, what's different, what information can we gain in terms of future elections?
Thank you.
Yeah, sure.
I did see that map too.
It was quite striking.
I would say that our data looks at a whole bunch of different demographic groups as well as voters overall.
And essentially, almost all demographic groups moved towards Trump in 2024.
I mean, just by nature of the outcome of the election, the 2024 electorate was much more friendly to Trump.
He performed a lot better in that election.
And you do see that, Carol, across groups.
It's just the magnitude of the shift varies quite a bit.
But you see it among women, men, college graduates, non-college graduates.
Pew Research Center's Hannah Hartig with us for this conversation.
Let's hear from Dave.
Dave is in Arizona, Independent Lying.
Go ahead, Dave.
You're on.
unidentified
Yeah, hi.
I would like to make the point that a landslide election is something similar to when Nixon and Reagan won 49 states and won the popular vote by very huge margins.
I don't consider it a landslide or a mandate when a candidate wins the popular vote by 1.5 percentage points.
And also, if you look at the swing state Senate races, the Democrats won four of those five races despite Trump winning in each of those states.
And all those races were close.
And interestingly enough, a lot of those Democrats that won those swing state Senate races were from one or two more, one or more minority groups.
You know, some of them were women, Hispanic, gay, Jewish, and yet they were able to win in swing states.
So I think what we had was that Biden and or Harris was unpopular, and Trump was more popular than the Republican Party.
But I don't think it was any kind of a mandate for the Republicans.
Yeah, thanks, Dave.
I think those are really important points and important questions.
And the first thing that I will say is, you know, this is a national study.
And so there are, for sure, regional things happening that might, you know, make voting patterns slightly different in some areas.
Certainly the battlegrounds, there were different dynamics going on there compared with the national story.
But, you know, we also, when we look at this data, 1.5 percentage point victory, of course, you know, that's a win.
And he won the popular vote for the first time, which is an important, you know, that's an important point.
But I think that you're right.
One, we don't want to be too declarative about the trends that we're seeing.
We're not saying these shifts will continue on forever.
The finding about non-voters and how they would have supported Trump, we also don't want to be too declarative about that.
We don't know how durable that is.
And one example of that that we see in our data, right, is that we track Trump approval regularly as part of the Pew Research Center.
And early on in the year, he enjoyed, I think it was a 47% approval rating, and that had declined seven points by April.
But that drop-off was even steeper among those who are only weak supporters of Trump or hadn't voted in the election.
So, you know, people are reacting to what's happening.
They're reacting to news.
A lot of news has already happened in the past several months.
Things will surely happen again.
And so we're, you know, not in any way suggesting that these are going to be the cleavages that persist forever or they're going to grow by any means.
One of our viewers already going out two years of the midterm elections asking how things like the One Big Beautiful bill passage might affect that, impact that.
unidentified
Yeah, I think that's a really important question and it's really key.
I've seen some evidence to suggest that might impact other groups, types of Americans more so than others.
Some suggestions of lower income families being impacted more or differently than high income tax families.
So yeah, I think we just have to wait and see how this plays out.
My question is, do you believe or think people understood what Project 2025 was all about?
And also, the Democratic presidents that came after Republicans seem to have straightened out the economies because of the mess of trickle-down economics versus from the bottom up.
And also, do you think that people voted because the way they did, they didn't want to see a black woman in the presidency seat?
Great questions.
Difficult ones.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
I think it is an open question how much the message of Project 2025 got through to voters.
Certainly in our data, we ask people about democracy, Big D democracy, you know, concerns over democracy.
And what we find is that Republicans and Democrats both say that they're worried about the state of democracy, but for very different reasons, right?
You know, Republicans mention issues about voter fraud and concerns about voting systems.
And Democrats are talking about things related to Project 2025 and other types of policies.
But in survey research, we do see both groups saying that democracy is important, just for very different reasons.
And your second question about voting for a black woman is an interesting one as well.
And so part of what we do as analysts is we don't just look at the change from 2020 to 2024, but we go back and look at 2016 as well.
And the one thing that I would say is I've gotten a couple questions that ask about like what were women or black women thinking about Harris at this time.
But as a social scientist, I'm also concerned with what black men, white men, are thinking about the candidate's race or a candidate's gender as well.
So I think a lot of interesting questions here, a lot more to dig into, but nothing obvious in our data that would have done a flashing red light about her as being a black woman in the race.
My question is if your guest would discuss income and the election.
In other words, the level of income of Democrat and Republican voters.
Thank you.
Sure.
Yeah.
So we see a kind of interesting thing where Democrats typically do better among those with we call them middle income, although it's a tricky thing to calculate income nationally because we know that cost of living varies so much from region to region, state to state.
But typically we do see that middle income voters tend to support Democratic candidates.
And then sometimes you get a little bit of a weird shape where upper income adults are more supportive of Republicans and lower income adults tend to be a little bit more divided because that intersects with a whole lot of things like education and wealth.
We talk so much repeatedly about voter influence and voter power and how it affects all our direction.
And we listen all morning long on, like this show and many others, our problems in this country and everything that's damaging us.
Our problem is our system of government.
You can't just take an unknown, elect an unknown candidate propped up by parties and hope for the best.
It's like throwing dice and hoping for a seven.
You can't just pick somebody and put them in there.
You have to dictate a contract of laws and rules that must be followed by any and all managers who happen to be in control of this government.
Representatives should not have, in Congress, should not have decision-making authority.
They should simply convey the interests of the constituents.
They're gophers.
That's what they should be.
People have to vote.
They have to be part of daily issues.
They have to maybe using computers and AI for something positive get involved in everything that's going on, whether it's foreign policy, whether it's economics.
Economics have to be controlled as they were under FDR, who learned that from the Italian government at the time and borrowed all those ideas.
What's the question for our guests specifically, if I may?
unidentified
The question is, do voters' behavior really determine the direction of this country?
Does it have any power at all?
Or is this just a farce, a game, like the gentleman said before?
It's a political game, like a sports game, and everybody is silenced under one side or the other, cheering, but no views, individual views are really made.
Yeah, so we believe that voting behavior does change outcomes.
That's why we do these studies.
And yeah, I mean, being able to quantify these types of changes, who's switching their vote, who's turning out, who's deciding not to vote after voting before, all of these are pieces of information for how people are viewing their government, how people are viewing their leaders.
It's something that we're acutely interested in at the Pew Research Center.
You know, we study elections, but elections are a point in time.
We're very interested in what happens between elections too.
And so, absolutely, I think, you know, understanding voting behavior, why they've turned out, why they didn't, and what issues are driving it, are worthy of study.
And we'll continue to study this, as well as a number of other issues that happen between elections.
We are later on going to talk about a poll looking at foreign policy and the impact there.
Roger Zachheim of the Ronald Reagan Institute will join us for that discussion.
But first, open forum.
And if you want to participate, 202748-8000 for Democrats, 202748-8001 for Republicans, and 202748-8002 for Independents, we'll take those calls and open forum when Washington Journal continues.
unidentified
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Instead of trying to prevent floods, they've cut the budget of all the scientific work to keep track of why floods are happening and when they're going to happen and so on and so forth.
This is Trump just tearing this country to bits.
And why these Republican people think that they've got some idea that the Democrats are at fault for all this is beyond my comprehension.
The Republicans have had this country headed the wrong direction since Reagan took over.
Okay, Dave, there in Ohio, the NBC affiliate out of Dallas, Fort Worth publishing a story this morning on their website, taking a look at the National Weather Service, a timeline of what they provided information-wise leading up to the flood.
And so it published there.
You can read those results that came in from the National Weather Service.
They also add this, under the subhead of the local National Weather Service office had extra staffers saying that NWS meteorologist Jason Runyon said that the service office in New Brunfels delivered forecasts for Austin, San Antonio, and the surrounding areas, had extra staff on duty during the storms, where the office would typically have two forecasters on duty clear during clear weather.
They had up to five on staff.
Quote, there were extra people here that night.
That's typical in every weather service office.
You staff up for an event and bring people in on overtime and hold people over.
The NBC affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth also saying that officials in Texas are facing growing scrutiny over the lack of a reliable warning system in the area.
It was during a news conference on Friday that the Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said he didn't know why the camps hadn't been evacuated, but that the county did not have an early warning system or outdoor sirens to alert people to flooding conditions.
A lot more there.
That's from the affiliate KXAN, or sorry, the NBC affiliate there in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, following up on the results of that flash flood there.
People wonder why the Republican senators bend in need of Donald Trump.
Don't they realize when Donald Trump took all the unclassified documents to Mar-a-Largo and went through them, don't they know the CIA and the FBI got dirt on all those senators up there?
That's why they refuse to do anything for the people.
One of the things to watch out for today later on when it comes to the president's tariff policy, an expected push to get tariff deals done.
Reuters reporting that the United States is close to finalizing several trade pacts in coming days and will notify other countries of higher tariff rates by the 9th of July, according to the president saying on Sunday with the higher rates set to take effect on August the 1st.
That was one of the points of discussion on the Sunday shows with the Treasury Secretary Scott Besson who made these comments on CNN.
I'm not going to give away the playbook because we're going to be very busy over the next 72 hours.
We are going to, President Trump's going to be sending letters to some of our trading partners saying that if you don't move things along, then on August 1st, you will boomerang back to your April 2nd tariff level.
So I think we're going to see a lot of deals very quickly.
And Dana, we're going to send out probably 100 letters to small countries where we don't have very much trade.
And most of those are already at the baseline 10%.
Yes, my question is: why does Tomp's travel to Florida or any other woman in the U.S. come out of the FEMA budget and not the Secret Service Homeland Defense budget?
I'm a conservative Republican, and I would just like to say, I wish that the Democrats, there hasn't been a single cut even started yet, and they're already blaming Donald Trump for everything, even the national disaster in Texas.
It's his fault because of the cuts to the meteorologist.
And they're not even started yet.
So how can they say that?
And just everyone else on the Democratic side, it's like they're reading from the same page.
People's going to die.
Hospitals are going to close.
Everybody's going to be taken off Medicaid.
The only people that are taken off Medicaid are the people that just like to sit around, have more kids, and get a bigger chunk of Medicaid, and they don't want to work.
And these people should go to work like every other American out there that has a job and be thankful that they have it.
But no, they're too busy digging into the welfare time.
And it's just a crying shame that the Democrats just sit on their hands and say, well, the more we give them, the more that they'll want and the more votes we can get.
Bob, in West Virginia, one of the people or the groups that benefited from the effort on the One Big Beautiful bill was political ads.
This is from the website insideradio.com saying that it's the president's big bill fight, boosting political ad spending to $755 million, saying that the tracking firm Ad Impact says more than $75.3 million in ad spending from 29 different advertisers was spent since April the 1st advocating on behalf of the passage or calling for it to be rejected.
The latest numbers available show that more was spent to support its approval than against it by a $40 million to $35 million gap.
Ad Impact says nearly one in every four ad dollars targeting the legislation has come from a group called Securing American Greatness.
The Republican group spent more than $17 million on ads across 22 different congressional districts designed to put pressure on Republican lawmakers and battleground districts to go along with the president's proposal.
It did that by praising those Republicans who were on board and criticizing Democrats against the bill.
No politician had more ad money targeted him than Senator Tom Tillis, the Republican from North Carolina.
The report shows that $3.8 million was spent to try to convince Tillis to support the bill, an effort that ultimately failed.
Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, ranked third with $1.9 million in ad spending targeting her.
And like Tillis, Collins also wound up voting against the bill.
So that's more there from the ad spending side.
If you're interested in finding out those dollars spent during the time of the One Big Beautiful bill, Danny in Kentucky, Democrats line hi.
unidentified
So this is Danny in Kentucky.
And it just so happens, Donald J. Trump is the president.
He can tax the billionaires and give them a break and forget everybody else.
Let the economy go down.
He's the worst president I've ever seen in my life.
I'm 76 years old.
And thank God, you know, we're all still alive.
Prices have increased over 100%.
And I have nothing good to say about this man.
And I hope everybody enjoys a great president that's really doing a big, beautiful, damn job.
And I'm sick of it.
Benjamin Netanyahu Discussions Delayed00:15:14
unidentified
So let him go.
A convicted felon, a rapist.
Every law you can name has been broken by this guy.
You have a story just published, minutes ago, really, when it comes to this delayed deadline that we're hearing about tariffs.
Tell our people about that.
unidentified
Yeah, so we've heard President Trump in recent days, he's talking that he's going to send out these letters to countries informing them of this new tariff rate, essentially.
This is the fallout of those Liberation Day tariffs that he imposed in early April, then delayed for 90 days while they worked on negotiations.
It appears the window for negotiations is over.
President Trump is sending out these letters starting today.
He says to about 12 to 15 countries, informing them of their new tariff rate.
But from what we've heard from White House economic officials, those tariffs aren't actually going to go into effect until August 1st.
So it seems like countries are going to get the notice this week of sort of what their new tariff rate might be, but then they'll go into effect on August 1st.
So once again, kind of giving a window where countries could negotiate.
The Trump administration could decide to punt this further.
But just sort of the latest, I guess, shifting target from what we've seen when it comes to these tariffs from the Trump administration.
To what extent has the White House talked about concerns over the delay of finalizing deals with some countries or overall concerns that what they promised as far as the rate of those finished deals aren't coming forward?
unidentified
Yeah, you know, we heard early on in this process when this delay, this 90-day delay was first announced, this talk of 90 deals in 90 days or that they would somehow be able to broker numerous trade agreements with these countries because of the threat of tariffs that would bring countries to the table.
The White House has announced deals with the United Kingdom.
They announced a framework of a deal with China, a framework of a deal with Vietnam.
But otherwise, to your point, these sort of final trade deals have been slow going, sort of slow to materialize because these things take often months or years to actually negotiate in full.
So it's quite a condensed timeline to try and get those across the finish line here.
So I do think the hope is that maybe by giving this new timeline, this new deadline, maybe there can be more progress.
Maybe there can be some kind of additional agreements with a few other countries that the White House can tout.
But in the meantime, I think we're going to see President Trump and the White House say that this is sort of how he's doing business.
They'll call it art of the deal and say that this is how he's operating.
But certainly President Trump has shown no hesitation to just use tariffs and signal that he's very comfortable using tariffs instead of settling for trade deals.
Brett Samuels, the Israeli Prime Minister, expected to visit the White House today.
What has been said about the nature of the discussions that will take place between him and the president?
unidentified
Yeah, so this will be the first face-to-face in-person meeting between President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since the United States carried out those strikes on Iran in coordination with Israel a few weeks ago.
So that will certainly, I think, be a topic of discussion, kind of where things stand with Iran.
Obviously, President Trump has at various times signaled sort of an openness to having negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, over some kind of agreement.
President Trump has indicated he's open to that, so I'm sure Benjamin Netanyahu will have something to say about that.
But arguably sort of the top issue will be this push for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
President Trump had said that Israel had agreed to its sort of side of the deal, that this would be sort of a 60-day pause in fighting to hopefully allow for the release of additional hostages from both sides and potentially broker a longer ceasefire.
We're still waiting to see if Hamas will agree to this deal.
This kind of ceasefire has really been elusive as we've seen fighting continue to go on in Gaza with civilians continuing to get injured and killed there.
And there's sort of differences of opinion here.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he doesn't want to stop fighting until Hamas is completely eradicated.
Hamas has pushed for Israel to sort of withdraw from certain parts of Gaza.
So it'll be interesting to see if President Trump can kind of make any headway or use any of his leverage to get a ceasefire here.
Will the discussions with the Israeli prime minister just be between the two men, or will say the Defense Secretary or the Secretary of State be involved, do you know?
unidentified
Yeah, we'll see certainly Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also sort of the interim national security advisor.
You know, he's been very involved in a lot of these discussions.
Would not be a surprise to see him involved here.
Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, was actually on the plane with Benjamin Netanyahu flying to the U.S.
So it's possible he will be in these meetings as well.
We should note that as of now on the public schedule, these meetings are closed to the press.
It's the prime minister's arrival to the White House, and then he's set to have a dinner with the president this evening around 6.30, but that's currently closed to the press.
So we're still waiting to see.
It's possible that may open up as these things do, that we'll see those discussions on camera.
But as of right now, we're still waiting to see whether those will open up or whether that will all take place behind closed doors tonight.
Brett Samuels, the president indicated yesterday that he may pay a visit to Texas later on this week.
Can you elaborate on if he'll go and what he hopes to accomplish if he does?
unidentified
Yeah, President Trump's saying on Sunday evening as he was coming back to the White House that he's looking at Friday potentially to visit Texas.
You know, typically presidents, and President Trump alluded to this, presidents may sometimes wait to visit sort of disaster zones or areas where tragedies have taken place so that first responders can continue to work without the heavy security precedents and sort of the heavy logistical hurdles that require that are required of presidential visits.
So we may see the president go down to Texas on Friday to tour sort of the aftermath of some of this catastrophic flooding that we've seen.
Obviously dozens of people killed, dozens of people missing in these floods.
Camp Mystic has been sort of at the center of all this.
So I think we can expect to see President Trump, if and when he does visit Texas, meet with state and local officials and sort of try to offer his support.
But obviously a very sad situation unfolding there in Texas.
There were questions yesterday about staffing at the National Weather Service, the future of FEMA.
How is the White House prepping for these larger discussions stemming from what occurred in Texas?
unidentified
Yeah, so, you know, there's so far there hasn't been sort of a concrete indication that those cuts to the National Weather Service have played a role here in what happened in Texas.
But inevitably, this is going to put a big spotlight on how the Trump administration has approached these things, how they've made cuts, the National Weather Service and other agencies.
The fact, as you mentioned, that President Trump has basically since the start of his term said he wants to get rid of FEMA, essentially phase it out.
The White House has sort of pushed back.
on those.
President Trump, we heard from him on Sunday evening, you know, say as far as the National Weather Service sort of downplayed the idea that those cuts had any impact.
And in addition, when it comes to FEMA, sort of brushed aside those questions, said it was not the time to be talking about that.
But of course, when something like this happens, it is going to put a spotlight on these cuts, these phase-outs, these things that the Trump administration are trying to do with these agencies.
And Democrats, of course, have already suggested that maybe there should be investigations or maybe reviews of what, if any, impacts those cuts had with what happened in Texas.
You highlighted already several things from the White House.
What else might we expect from them this week?
unidentified
Yeah, I think the trade deals will be top of mind.
We'll see if there are other calls with foreign leaders, potential fallout.
You know, we saw President Trump at the end of last week.
He spoke to both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Vladimir Dzelensky, whether we see any fallout from that.
But certainly I think those trade deals are going to be sort of front and center this week.
And I think we'll be keeping an eye on whether the president announces any travel around the country to sort of tout that one big beautiful bill that he signed into law on Friday, sort of the key signature piece of legislation for President Trump and Republicans.
Obviously, Democrats will be going on the attack over that, but we'll see if the White House announces any travel this week for the president to kind of hit the road and try to sell a bill that polling has shown the public is already kind of skeptical of.
If you're interested in going back and seeing the many segments we did on the One Big Beautiful Act legislation leading up to its passage last week, we invite you to go to our website at cspan.org.
All those conversations over the last many, many weeks available there to see what's in it, what's not in it, including information from guests we've had on this program and what you've offered as far as your opinion of it.
When it comes to the flooding in Texas, Politico reporting that two Republican members of Congress said family members were rescued from the flooding that's hammered central Texas.
Texas Representative August Fluger wrote on X that his daughters were saved from Camp Mystic, the famous girls-only Christian camp that sits next to the Guadalupe, near the Guadalupe River, and Texas's Kirk County, been reunited with family.
Quote, the last day has brought unimaginable grief to many families, and we mourn with them as holding out hope for survivors.
We want to thank the first responders who have come far and wide.
It says that while not identifying the camp by name, Georgia Representative Barty Carter announced Sunday that his granddaughters had also been saved from the flooding, but their cousin was killed.
Quote, as you may have heard, my granddaughters were at the summer camp in Texas that flooded.
They are safe, and I thank you for their well wishes and prayers at that time.
Unfortunately, not everyone was as lucky.
My granddaughters lost their cousin Janie, and many other families are grieving loved ones.
Let's hear from Sam.
Sam in Georgia, Republican line.
Go ahead.
unidentified
Yes, you know, I've been a Republican since I was 18 years old, and things are so terrible now in the party.
You know, we got a president, honest to God, he's nothing but a class clown and a bully and a juvenile delinquent.
That type of guy, every time something happens, he falls on the ground crying.
So he's all screwed up.
And 85% of the people who call in, they know nothing about politics.
They know nothing about the government.
I learned a lot about the government.
I was in the military for 24 years and I retired.
But some of this stuff that you get people going is terrible.
Deborah in Hewson, it was Representative Tom Swazi of New York on the Sunday shows yesterday talking about the results of the New York City Democratic mayorial primary, saying that Zorhan Mamdani, quote, tapped into the same thing that Donald Trump tapped into, attributing the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City's rise to his focus on affordability.
Here's more of his comments from the Sunday shows yesterday.
I have to make that very clear that, you know, I'm a Democratic capitalist.
I'm not a Democratic socialist.
And but you have to recognize that he tapped into something.
He tapped into the same thing that Donald Trump tapped into, which is that people are concerned that the economy is not working for them.
Affordability and the economy is the number one issue in the country.
And too often, Democrats are not perceived as being focused on affordability and the economy and the middle class and people aspiring to the middle class and their economic concerns.
They see Democrats as being primarily focused on reproductive rights and on LGBT protections, which are important issues, but they're not the issues that people think about every night when they're lying in bed thinking about paying their bills or when they're talking about how they're going to send their kids to school.
So Democrats have got to do a better job learning from both Trump and Mamdani, not with their solutions, which I think are wrong, but with the diagnosis of the problem that we're frustrated, we're concerned.
Everybody in America, whether you're a right-wing conservative or a left-wing progressive, should believe that in return for working hard, you make enough money so you can live a good life.
You can buy a home, you can educate your children, you can pay for your health insurance, you can retire one day without being scared.
People don't feel that currently, and we have to do a better job of communicating that.
I just want to say that, you know, I just see a big difference in the coverage of the fires in California and the tragedy that's happening in Texas.
When we have these huge fires in California, it's all about the inept governor, Gavin Newsom, and the lousy mayor, and they don't know how to govern and all this kind of stuff.
And then when it happens in Texas, it's all about, oh, let's be kind and generous and pray.
It's like the coverage is totally different.
And I wish people would talk about, and they're not even talking about like climate change.
These floods are climate change.
The fires are climate change.
I just want to bring all that up.
I mean, the coverage is totally different.
One is like, oh, the government in California is bad.
No one says anything about how, you know, what the government, how inept and how the weather forecasters didn't do that.
The New York Times this morning takes a look at a policy effort by the Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy saying less than three months after he declared war on synthetic food dyes, the Secretary has already secured the cooperation of the makers of some of America's most colorful culinary products.
If they fulfill their promises, Jell-O snacks, Kool-Aid beverages, and Lucky Trump cereals, among a host of other foods, will be rid of synthetic dyes by the end of 2027.
But the candy industry and its most colorful chocolate treat MMs are a big obstacle standing between Mr. Kennedy and the ability to claim total victory.
Other than Fruit Loop Cereal, perhaps no food carries as much symbolism as MMs for Mr. Kennedy and the movement he calls Make America Healthy Again.
Upon taking the reins at the Department of Health and Human Services, he made synthetic dyes the first target in his plan to rid the nation of ultra-processed foods.
When Mr. Kennedy announced in April that he had an understanding, and that's in quotes, with food makers to remove petroleum-based dyes by the end of 2026, citing research showing they were linked to behavioral problems in children, critics scoffed at his voluntary approach.
Yet his peer pressure campaign appears to have produced some results.
Last month, Nestle and ConAgra joined Kraft Heinz, General Mills, and PepsiCo in signing into the Secretary's plan.
More there if you're interested, particularly how MMs fit into the mix of this at the New York Times this morning.
Axios did report on this, saying that it's the President's Justice Department and FBI, concluding they have no evidence that convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein blackmailed powerful figures, kept a quote, client list, or was murdered according to a memo detailing the findings in Axios.
The administration is releasing a video in both raw and enhanced versions saying it indicates no one entered the area of the Manhattan prison where Epstein was held the night he died in 2019.
And this adding that the video supports a medical examiner's finding that Epstein died by suicide, according to the two-page memo.
One more call.
This will be from Terry in North Carolina, Republican line.
Okay, Terry there in North Carolina, finishing off this open forum.
To those of you who participated, thanks for doing so.
Another survey to show you taking a look at foreign policy and reaction by America to foreign policy events.
This is from the Ronald Reagan Institute, their director Rogers Ackheim, joining us next to go through the findings and to talk to you about it.
We'll take up that conversation when Washington Journal continues.
unidentified
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c-span democracy unfiltered this year 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the fall of saigon Netflix is offering a five-part documentary series titled Turning Point, the Vietnam War, directed by Brian Knappenberger.
The series includes never-before-seen footage of the war from the CBS archives.
Also included in the documentary are interviews with participants in the war, both from the North and the South.
One of the most frequent voices heard during the series is Columbia University professor Lean Hong Nguyen, born in Vietnam in 1974.
She is the youngest of nine children and was brought to the United States by her parents in 1975.
unidentified
Author Leon Hong Nguyen with her book, Hanoi's War, an international history of the war for peace in Vietnam.
On this episode of Book Notes Plus, with our host Brian Lamb, BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
It seems obvious, but the Ronald Reagan Institute, what is it and what's the purpose?
unidentified
Well, the Institute is set up to advance Ronald Reagan's ideas, principles, and belief inside Washington, D.C.
We are the D.C. office of the Reagan Presidential Library out in Simi Valley, California there.
It's a great place to learn about President Reagan, what he did while he was in office, his life.
Here, we're into taking those ideas and policies that he championed and seeing, all right, can we advance them today and tailoring them to make them relevant to America today?
And foreign policy is the purpose of the actual poll, but what was the idea?
Why take a look at this specifically?
unidentified
Well, I'm a creature of Capitol Hill.
That's where I grew up professionally, and there's no shortage of elected officials saying the American people believe X, Y, or Z.
And when it comes to national security, foreign policy, and defense issues, actually knowing where the American people stand is something that there isn't a tremendous amount of polling like you see on domestic policy issues.
So one of the things we sought to do was to actually see exactly where the American people are on many of these vital questions to our nation.
We've been doing that since 2018, and we do it twice a year now on these sorts of questions.
Cross-section across the board, over a thousand phone calls, half roughly, other half online.
And so we make it in such a way, actually, the pollsters that we hire to do this do it in such a fashion to make sure we can confidently say this is representative of the entire country, whether it's Republican and Democrats, independents, regionally diverse, is also diverse across age as well.
The third thing out the gate that you talk with is this idea of international engagement and to the extent that the United States should be involved.
We'll just show you 64% saying that those polled more engaged than the U.S. should take a lead.
23% saying less engaged and reacting to that.
Fill in those blanks.
What does that tell you?
unidentified
Well, in the national story, certainly inside the Beltway, there's been a lot of discussion even prior to Donald Trump, President Trump's strike on Iran's nuclear weapons program, that there is a sort of schism in the Republican Party in particular, and that more broadly, the American people have become more isolationist in their outlook.
And we've been looking at this year over year through our survey.
And this year, we've seen a high watermark in terms of where American people believe that America should be more engaged in the world.
In other words, we are less isolationist in orientation today than we were a year ago or even before that when we started this poll.
So as you mentioned, 64% of the survey believe that the United States should lead in the world.
A year ago, the number was 54%.
And one of the most interesting elements of this, colleague Mark Thiessen, who writes for the Washington Post of the American Enterprise Institute, has sort of pulled the thread on where MAGA voters are.
Those are the Republican voters who self-identify as MAGA voters.
They are even more into internationalist orientation than other non-MAGA Republicans.
And the number there is 73% of 22 points since the last survey.
So both in terms of the overall American population being more internationalist in orientation, wanting America to lead in the world, and specifically MAGA voters are very supportive of the U.S. leading the world.
I don't know if they told you this, but in your mind, what does more engaged mean?
unidentified
Well, we do get into this a little bit in terms of subsequent questions, the nature of that engagement, whether it's to advance U.S. trade and economic interests, whether it's to advance sort of the U.S. security interests in terms of peace through strength, or advance American values.
And on here, it's actually somewhat also surprising that, again, for U.S. leading in terms of U.S. military being essential to our prosperity, 93% of Republicans, 85% overall are supportive of that.
That's why the U.S. should lead in the world.
Human rights and democracy, something you don't hear a lot emphasize from President Trump and his administration.
83% overall says that to drive our engagement in the world, including 81% of Republicans.
So you see here that American values as well as American interests really are what drive U.S. support for engagement in the world.
When it comes to that engagement, is it a sense That if we drop bombs on the country, say Iran, as an example, that's fine.
But if we go to boots on the ground, would that change at least your opinion, or at least perhaps those you surveyed?
unidentified
So we didn't survey for that specific point, but I think it's intuitive here that Americans are seeking U.S. leadership in the world and demonstrating strength in the world in order to have a more peaceful and prosperous America.
And that would generally not include elongated sort of forever war, as many politicians refer to it, that would cost lives and certainly treasure.
So the real debate in town, as we've seen it in Washington, in the Congress, in the White House, across the agencies, is to what extent can we exercise strength, demonstrate that we're going to be engaged in the world where that advances U.S. prosperity and U.S. security, but it doesn't lead to sort of these wars that we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The isolationist orientation says, well, no, you lead with too much strength, you risk that.
What we've seen from President Trump in terms of his strike on the Iranian nuclear weapons program and from this survey is that Americans believe that actually strength delivers the peace they're seeking.
And if you want to ask him questions about the survey or things related to that, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and 202-748-8002 for Independents.
If you want to text us, questions, or comments, you can do that at 202-748-8003.
You would know it best.
What was Ronald Reagan's philosophy when it came to either interventionist or isolationist philosophy?
unidentified
He was clearly not an isolationist.
And that is something that is deep-seated in President Reagan from his record actually prior to him assuming the presidency.
And throughout his time in office, he was somebody who advanced freedom of the world.
He believed deeply that America had a unique role in the world to advance freedom, not in terms of intervention and elongated conflicts, but felt that if America was on the side of freedom and was supporting freedom seekers around the world, that accrued to our national interest.
That increased our peace and prosperity.
He also certainly advanced peace through strength.
That was sort of the formula for realizing American interests in the world.
And peace through strength, of course, is something that President Trump has emphasized.
He's actually the first president since President Reagan to run on a plank of peace through strength and certainly talked about it while he's been in office.
Well, what you did ask about Iran, and you asked the question about preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
61% of those respondents said that that mattered a great deal to them, 23% saying it mattered somewhat.
unidentified
Yeah, I'm pulling up the numbers here.
It's pretty remarkable.
We asked the respondents just that.
What are you most concerned about?
What matters most to you?
And again, we did this survey prior to Israel's strike in the Iranian nuclear weapon program, and preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon registered higher than any other concerns, outperforming concerns regarding China and Taiwan, outperforming concerns regarding Russia and Ukraine, or even concerns about illegal immigration.
On all those fronts, Americans are very concerned about those issues, but Iran registered the highest with 85% of those surveyed saying it would matter the most to them to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Getting Americans to agree, 85% Americans degree on anything, is quite remarkable.
And it demonstrated that when President Trump made this decision, he had a wellspring of support, a strong foundation of support for American people, Republicans, and Democrats alike.
When he took the action, do you think it demonstrated a major shift in policy approach when it came to being an interventionist?
unidentified
Well, I think the approach here is one that it's a limited intervention, right?
So we have to sort of define the term or parse the term.
And I think that was a departure from many loud voices within the Republican Party.
There is no question that resides in an isolationist camp within the Republican Party.
But what this survey bears out is that it's really a minority, a very small slice of Republicans.
For the most part, Republicans, including MAGA voters, say, hey, the United States should lead in the world through strength.
I think the hesitation prior to is that voting bloc want to make sure they trusted and believed that the leadership in the White House could deliver it.
And I think what we've seen so far is President Trump has delivered it as it relates to Iran's nuclear weapons program.
85% were very concerned about it.
It mattered most of them.
I'm sure if we surveyed today, they would say, well, that matters a little less to me because they feel the problem has been addressed, where they've delayed the program years or decades.
I think one of the reasons why illegal immigration didn't register as high as the Iranian nuclear weapons program is because at the time we took this survey, illegal immigration had gone down considerably since President Trump took office.
Republicans, Democrats of the survey, are highly respondent to what has been happening and they're answering questions in terms of current events on their mind.
I'd like to ask your guest if, because you spoke of the benefit of military exercise to the United States, but I would just like to ask if he's left out perhaps that the benefit is not universally distributed.
In fact, American people often pay the costs of wars which they didn't really have any individual interest in.
And I'd like to cite the 2014 Princeton study, which observed that American voters, unless they're in the top 5%, don't actually have a control over the government, even though we call ourselves a democracy.
Well, one of the reasons why we do this survey is to demonstrate where the American people are, not a limited slice of the American people, whether it is a caller talking about 5% or some sort of other class of persons, those that are policymakers inside Washington or in elected office.
Here, we actually have the views, statistically speaking, of the entire American population.
And as a result, I can confidently state that what is on or is not on the minds of the American people, what we see here is that the American people feel strongly that America should lead in the world.
And they believe the goals there are to advance U.S. security and also U.S. values, like we saw, human rights and freedom.
Illegal immigration, you had mentioned that, 49% saying it mattered a great deal to them.
25% is saying it matters somewhat.
You go down to the security of Israel with the Israeli prime minister visiting today at the White House, 37% of those say it matters a great deal when it comes to importance for U.S. security, 34% saying it matters somewhat.
What do those numbers tell you?
unidentified
Well, I think you see that, one, Americans, the respondents here, overwhelmingly support and care about the security of Israel.
Perhaps it doesn't register as high as the Iranian nuclear weapons program or concerns about China and Taiwan.
But we're still talking about, if you combine, somewhat matters and matters a great deal, which is the fashion in which we normally speak about it.
You're talking about over 71%.
I think what we see overwhelmingly when we do this in other surveys is that Americans generally look at Israel as one of its closest allies on par with what we see with Australia and the United Kingdom and Taiwan.
With Bibi Netanyahu, Prime Minister Netanyahu coming in today, there's going to be discussion around the future of the war in Gaza, as well as whether or not diplomacy will advance in the region to extend to places like Saudi Arabia.
And these sort of developments, I think, will have a material impact on how Americans view Israel and what they think can be accomplished in the region.
It's a great opportunity now for President Trump to sort of capitalize on the strike against Iran's nuclear weapons program to see if more peacemaking can come out of it.
As far as the border, it's going to continue the border barriers, border walls.
Border walls work.
Every place to build a wall, illegal immigration has decreased, illegal drug flows decrease.
And not just border wall, it's going to buy more river buoys.
River buoys are very effective.
And it's also going to give the technology we need on the southern border in the existing wall and the new wall.
When President Biden came in office, not only did he stop building the wall, he stopped putting the technology in the existing wall that does a lot of good things.
It gave border patrol agents the ability to talk to one another because a lot of dead zones on the border doesn't offer a safety issue.
I don't want to get into specifics, a law enforcement sensitive, but the technology on that wall helps us to realize when someone's approaching the wall, someone climbs the wall.
So we need that technology there.
It's a border wall system.
We're going to continue the wall building.
We're going to continue the technology within that wall.
And the technology also supports port of entries.
You know, we want fair, we want legal traffic, legal trade to come through the ports as quickly as possible, but we want to, of course, see as much contraband as we can.
So more technology will make that happen.
As far as ICE, it's a huge plus-up.
10,000 more officers.
Look, I've been doing this since 1984.
Border Patrol's been plussed up many times, and I appreciate that, and I'm supportive of that.
But when Border Patrol arrests somebody, they go in detention.
Then they go into immigration hearing.
Then if they get order removed, they get removed.
That's all ISIS shot.
So Border Patrol got plussed up over the decades.
ICE didn't.
So now ICE finally is getting the resources they need.
And, you know, it's going to put more boots on the ground, which we need right now.
I just did an interview.
There's over 600,000 illegal aliens in this nation with criminal histories walking the streets.
We need to find them quickly.
And for those that say 3,000 a day is too much, I want to remind them, do the math.
We'd have to arrest 7,000 every single day for the remainder of this administration, just to catch once Biden released the nation, right?
Can you relate the two to what things he's saying as far as the administration's approach to what you're finding, what people that you surveyed want to see?
unidentified
Well, we just mentioned this a moment ago that when we asked what was important to the respondents, so what's important to American people, what matters most to them, illegal immigration across the southern border ranks really high.
It's sort of top five.
It's 74% say this is matters a great deal or matters somewhat.
And so that number goes up when you look at sort of Republican respondents, certainly those who identify as MAGA voters, but overwhelmingly, Americans care deeply about it.
And I was kind of sort of parsing how that is different than the 85% who wanted to make sure that we prevented Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
But it's clearly something that's on the top of mind of American voters.
And there's a variety of reasons for that.
One that comes out in the poll that perhaps is less intuitive, but we saw is that when we asked respondents about China and the threat posed to China, we had a battery of questions dealing with sort of the Chinese impact and concerns about security in the United States, purchasing farmland near U.S. military bases, spying on U.S. with satellites and air reconnaissance, as well as Chinese military-aged men illegally entering U.S. via the southern border.
That was one of the options.
And we saw that 74% were concerned about it.
Peace Through Strength00:11:05
unidentified
And you just heard Tom Holman saying, relating not specifically to China, but people, countries exploiting the southern border to pose a security risk to the United States, whether it's sleeper cells or other sorts of nefarious activities.
That is top of mind for Republicans, Democrats, Americans across the board.
Hey, I just wanted to highlight the idea of peace through strength.
You know, something President Reagan championed so effectively.
You know, he wasn't an isolationist like Trump per se, but Reagan understood that American leadership on the world stage brings stability, and that stability benefits everyone, including us.
And then, through strength abroad and security at home, we can enjoy the real fruits of an American-first approach and one rooted in global trust, strong economic ties, and respect for our sovereignty.
That really includes enforcing immigration laws and securing our borders, not out of fear, but out of a commitment of law and order and the protection of American opportunity.
And I guess the last thing I'll say is: when the world sees a strong and steady America, everyone benefits, and we do most of all.
I think Adam has a great articulation of what the Reagan Institute seeks to do in Washington.
And, you know, come visit us.
We're at 850 16th Street Northwest.
I know I heard you're in Maryland, but it was very well articulated, and it plays out in our poll.
And it's certainly not something that is Reaganite-only perspective or a Republican perspective.
This is something I think Americans believe overwhelmingly, regardless of their partisan affiliation.
I referenced this a moment ago.
But when we asked the question about the nature of U.S. leadership in the world, strong U.S. military essentials, peace and prosperity, which is the sort of the essence of a peace-through strength set of policies, peace-through-strength mindset, it's 85% of Americans get behind that.
And not just 93% of Republicans, but 80% of Democrats.
He sees sort of the bipartisan spirit behind it.
Of course, a challenge for any elected official, for any president, is to come up with a formula to realize that peace through strength.
Sometimes it requires, you know, using military force, perhaps as we saw President Trump use it in Iran recently.
And sometimes it requires other sorts of policies.
One element of that we've seen in many of our surveys, we didn't ask it in the most recent one, but we do it in December annually, is support for U.S. military presence overseas.
It's a great example of peace through strength.
They're overseas to get at what Adam was talking about, your Carla was talking about, right?
Ensure that trade routes remain stable and open, as well as to deter adversaries from any sort of form of aggression before it comes home.
And we've seen in our survey year after year after year, going back to 2018, that a supermajority of Americans support U.S. military presence overseas.
The director of the Ronald Reagan Institute, Roger Zackheim, joining us for this conversation.
Steve joins us next.
Steve from New Jersey, Independent Line.
unidentified
Hi.
Hi, good morning.
You know, we're talking about what Americans are concerned about.
I mean, I'm concerned about the same thing.
Karen Diamond, Yaron Lushinsky, Sarah Milgren, Benjamin Harouni, and Paul Kessler were concerned about.
These were Jews that literally were assassinated for being Jewish.
I'm concerned about New York City right now, the number one city outside of Israel with the most Jews.
We have a Nazi hipster running for mayor and probably will win.
I'm concerned about this concept of globalizing into father.
It's really happening, and no one seems to be concerned about.
If you speak to a Jew, many of them are afraid of being Jewish.
They're taking their mezuzzas off the doors.
They're closing their businesses.
They have armed guards at synagogues, at daycare centers.
And it seems like no one in the media is even reporting on this.
One person was killed in 2020, George Floyd, and the whole country was in an uproar, which it should have been.
But yet we have Jews being terrorized and killed throughout this country, Jewish businesses, Jewish censors, Jewish synagogues, Jewish people being killed.
Well, this survey doesn't get at domestic policy questions and the issue, as Steve, you raised with respect to anti-Semitism and hate crimes against Jews in the United States, which, of course, I'm an observant Jew and it disturbs me greatly.
And you reference a couple of incidents.
There's really in the nation's capital, we had a terrible killing recently as well.
But I think what comes out of the survey is that Americans care deeply about values too.
They care about freedom.
Not only do they want freedom in our country here in the United States, but they care deeply about freedom being advanced in the world.
Those values, I think, ultimately are the values that protect any minority class, including the Jewish community in America.
That has been the case, and I think the United States is one of the only countries in the world outside of Israel where Jews have lived, that there hasn't been anti-Semitism coming out of government entities.
In other words, state-sponsored anti-Semitism, and that is important.
We're seeing governments, both federal and local, address this issue, perhaps not adequately.
I would say one other thing, because there's so much of a connection between our policy that is U.S. policy with Israel and, of course, anti-Semitism that we've seen since October 7th in the United States.
Americans overwhelmingly support the state of Israel.
This comes out very clearly, and I think that is something that should assure Jews in the United States, too.
I must be one of the 15% because I don't support Israel at all.
Former soldier enlisted, not drafted, and you talk about peace through strength.
That's one issue.
Most people don't even join the military.
I don't know what your military background is, but I've never had much use for people who talk tough and never have actually walked the walk.
So in terms of Israel, they're an aggressor state like the Americans have been since we were founded.
I did my time in the military.
I support the United States.
I'm of Mexican descent.
We treat Mexico like they're dogs.
I have family there.
But you bring up anything about what Israel's doing.
I guess the Palestinians are getting in the way of their bombs.
I'm not sure about that.
But we're supporting that.
And I won't.
I don't stand for any of that, of any kind of aggression.
And so my words to you would be have somebody on there who disagrees with Israel's policy and not call it anti-Semitism.
I don't know any Jewish people.
I don't know any Palestinian people.
But I know what genocide looks like.
I know what murder looks like.
And so one suggestion, Pedro, would be if you perhaps thought about having Dr. Michael Scheuer on your show and see what he thinks about Israel as an ally of ours.
Well, the views that I've been expressing here are for the most part reflecting the views of the survey, which are not my personal views.
That's the views of the American people, given the sample size we have here.
My own personal view is that Israel is not carrying out genocide.
This was a war that began on October 7th, over 1,200.
Israelis were murdered in the most tragic and brutal form of death.
And we have seen since then this war expand, not just from Gaza, but of course when Lebanon and Iran participated in that armed conflict too.
Prime Minister Netanyahu was in town meeting with President Trump.
There's a lot of speculation that the Gaza war will be discussed, perhaps come to an end.
It might be a deal on hostages, which of course there are over about 50 hostages remaining in Gaza, and whether or not peace in the Middle East can expand.
The Abraham Accords, which of course was President Trump's signature diplomatic act in the Middle East in the Persian Gulf, might extend to Saudi Arabia.
I just want to let you know that, first of all, something that you just said was so disturbing to me.
When you call the war that's happening started on October 7th, the oppression of Palestinian people and occupation has been happening for years, if not centuries.
And so it's not exactly true that it started on that day.
And also, when you talk about the, it was horrible what happened on October 7th.
It's horrible when anybody is killed in a violent way.
But it is also extremely violent what is happening in Gaza.
When people are trying to being starved out, and it is a genocide, no matter how you want to talk about it.
And when people are worried about Jewish people, do you know the number one people that are protesting out everywhere in this country that has been major is the Jewish religion itself for peace in Palestine.
They are the number one.
They're on every single campus.
They're mostly the children that have been protesting.
And most of the people that have been killed in synagogue have been white supremacy in this country, not related to Palestinians and other deaths like that.
And there is as many people that have killed Middle Eastern people claiming to be that have been white supremacist going after them as well.
Well, the notion that there's been occupation for centuries is just historically inaccurate.
Israel only became a state in 1948.
They occupied the territories in the West Bank and Gaza beginning in 1967.
The rights of Arabs in Israel are known.
They have political and economic rights.
There are rights for Palestinians in the West Bank, including some political rights and economic rights as well.
Security is what's shared between the Israeli Defense Forces and the Palestinian Authority.
And Israel in 2006, around that timeline, pulled out of Gaza entirely, leaving it to the Palestinians to govern themselves.
The result was a Hamas terrorist state, which fired on Israel shortly after Hamas assumed political control.
And we've had a tragic situation since for Israelis and for Gazans.
Hopefully, out of this conflict will emerge some sort of framework where Gazans won't have to be subject to the neo-fascist rule of a terrorist organization named Hamas.
One of the intersections of your poll and current events deals with trade.
We're going to see the president up the Andes, so to speak, when he gets trade deals done.
Your poll takes a look at this idea of promoting trade and boosting economy, an almost equal amount of people supportive of that.
But talk about the results there.
unidentified
Well, the questions on trade, of course, this week, the deadlines President Trump has put in place for July 9th, the 90-day deadline is coming to an end, and we'll see whether or not reciprocal tariffs will go into effect.
We asked Americans kind of what they felt about trade policy, and the one that kind of took my eye was whether or not they supported a free market approach or a protectionist approach.
And specifically, that's getting at, do you look at tariffs?
Do you support tariffs because it's sort of a means towards realizing some sort of free trade because it's a sort of a temporary measure?
Or are you kind of a tariff purist?
And is that something that you would support protectionism?
And on that, we see 66% of those surveyed say, hey, we view this as sort of a temporary measure so we can get a better deal for the United States, reduce those trade barriers.
20% favor a protectionist approach.
And interesting, as we've been kind of pulling the thread on MAGA voters, those who identify a MAGA, it's 61% who take the view that short-term tariffs are okay as a means of realizing free markets and sort of reducing trade barriers.
So what that tells me is that the deals that President Trump and the Secretary of Treasury Besson was talking about over the weekend are sort of what the majority, almost the supermajority of MAGA voters and certainly a supermajority of Americans want to see.
They want to see these tariffs yield kind of reduce trade barriers and increase free trade opportunities for Americans.
What do you think about the administration's execution of trade policy to date?
unidentified
Well, it's been up in the air, highly volatile.
We see that in terms of the market reactions.
But it's the sort of thing we got to see how it all shakes out in the end, right?
I mean, is this going to result where trade barriers are reduced?
The reciprocal trade tariffs are sort of net net result in Americans seeing cheaper goods and reduced barriers for the goods they export.
You know, that would be a fantastic outcome.
But those are facts not yet in evidence, and we're going to really learn a lot in the next 48 hours.
Again, the Secretary of Treasury promised that we're going to see a number of deals, and President Trump is pushing, particularly BRICS states, members of the BRICS, to say, hey, you got to reduce those barriers.
While we're talking about foreign policy, how do those respondents in your survey feel about the NATO alliance?
unidentified
It's kind of mixed.
It's quite interesting here.
Overall, respondents, Republican and Democratic, overwhelmingly support NATO.
And when you ask them, would you support a NATO country who was attacked, the so-called Article 5 obligation of being a NATO member, there's real good support there, Democrats and Republicans alike.
But then when you ask about would you support pulling out of NATO, and this is one that sort of surprised me, you see there's support for pulling out of NATO, particularly amongst Republicans.
So it's sort of a mixed bag.
And I think in that respect, it reflects the point of view that President Trump has advanced overall.
Now, President Trump came back recently from a NATO summit.
It was a great outcome for his set of policies.
He had long advocated that NATO allies should take on more of the burden, the so-called burden sharing.
They signed up for 5% GDP to committing to their national defense.
That's the sort of thing that had made President Trump a big fan of NATO leaving that summit.
And I would expect the survey to sort of reflect that if we did it again.
Well, there's a very different style between President Reagan and President Trump.
And I think you're right in recalling that President Reagan did not in any way sort of attack members of his cabinet or his intelligence community.
But I do know that in this respect, as it relates to Iran's nuclear weapons program, this is where President Trump sort of, in my view, outperformed President Reagan.
Famously, Israel carried out a unilateral strike against the Iraqi nuclear weapons program in Osirik, and the Reagan administration sanctioned Israel for taking that action.
And here we know, based on reporting, that President Trump supported, backed Bibi Netanyahu, Prime Minister Netanyahu's decision for Israel to attack Iran's nuclear weapons program.
We know that matters a lot to the American people based on our survey, and I think it's advantage U.S. national security as a result of that strike.
How long the United States sort of can rest at ease that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons program, the debate within the U.S. intelligence community and the broader debate across the world, whether that's measured in months, years, or decades.
I think we're still doing the battle damage assessment.
Consensus seems to be at least a couple of years.
IAEA being kicked out is a huge problem.
But what I expect to happen here, particularly with what President Trump has says and his administrations, are seeking sort of diplomatic engagement to get the Iranians to the negotiating table, which if they do, almost certainly would result in the IAEA returning to their inspections within Iran.
Let's hear from Ken on our independent line, and Ken joins us from Washington, D.C. Good morning, gentlemen.
unidentified
Happy Monday to you.
I just have a question, a few, if I can get a quick.
Do you know, are you aware of what apartheid is?
Hello?
Oh, yeah, I'm aware of it, yes.
Okay, so, and as you just recently stated just a few moments ago, was that they have some rights, sort of like African Americans after enslavement in Jim Crow, you sort of have rights, which means you don't have full citizenship.
You don't have full rights.
Based on what you just said, that is the definition of apartheid.
Nevertheless, I have a question.
So Iran in 1958, I believe it was, it was a coup d'état that was started by Theodore Roosevelt's grandson, who was a CIA agent.
I believe his name was Kermit Roosevelt, which led to essentially the overthrow of the legally elected Iranian government.
And I believe British Petroleum or the United States, well, British Petroleum was funded, essentially, but came about because of that overthrow, of that overthrow, excuse me.
So, but I ask you this: in 1967, you may have been alive, I'm not sure, but history says itself.
A nation attacked us in the USS Liberty, and many sailors were killed.
And I think we're aware, I would prefer you to answer it.
So what the caller seems to be suggesting is that there's apartheid within Israel.
I just think it's important for voter callers to understand and viewers that within the sovereign territory of the state of Israel, there are political rights for Arab Israelis.
They vote, they have political rights, economic rights within the occupied territories of the West Bank.
That is a military occupation.
They have their political rights there.
That is the Palestinians voting for the Palestinian Authority.
They have their president, Mahmoud Abbas.
And on security, it's a shared responsibility between the Israeli Defense Forces and the Palestinian Authority as they figure out a peace framework and whether or not that results in a Palestinian state or some other form of governors for Palestinians.
And I've already addressed Gaza's history in terms of Israel pulling out of Gaza and them being ruled under the terrorist regime of Hamas.
We all see what that yielded.
So I just think that the analogy to apartheid is factually inaccurate, and I've already addressed how this is not genocide.
This is armed conflict and what's been playing out.
And hopefully we'll get to a diplomatic agreement and end this war.
Nebraska Congressman, Don Bacon, said to retire from Congress.
He did an interview with NBC, and he said part they were asked about future ambitions.
And he said this.
He said that he acknowledged it'd be difficult to run for the White House as a current or former House member.
But he said this.
Bacon said he's not sure his brand of Republicanism, Reaganism, and a muscular view of foreign policy can ever make a full comeback in the party, though he said he would continue the case of it.
What do you think about that sentiment?
unidentified
I'm a big fan of Don Bacon.
I count him as a friend, Congressman Bacon, and I'd love to send him our survey.
Reagan's Moral Foreign Policy Challenge00:01:54
unidentified
I think after that question, I need to call him up and come over and brief him.
I think he'll be emboldened and empowered by it.
And, you know, there's precedent for this, actually.
In 1976, Gerald Ford was running for election.
He was the incumbent serving as president of the United States.
And Ronald Reagan challenged him in the Republican primary.
And that's just relevant here because when Ronald Reagan challenged President Ford, he did so on a morality and foreign policy plank.
In other words, it was a set of views that we've been discussing around what Reaganism means that President Ford had the Reagan challenge.
Of course, Ford won that nominee in contest, lost to Carter in the general election, and Reagan was ultimately elected in 1980 with this Reaganite platform.
Do you think, as far as a comeback is going to be, do you think it's suffered, it's gone and proceeded into the background, so to speak, if he says it can't make in the forefront as a muscular view of foreign policy?
unidentified
Well, I'd love to discuss that with him.
Certainly what we've seen of late from President Trump in terms of his explanation of what MAGA means certainly lines up with the peace restraint set of policies that President Reagan advanced.
So I think in that respect, in terms of muscular foreign policy, we're at a moment here where I think there's alignment between President Trump, what he's doing in his administration, and what President Reagan advanced.
Now, before we let you go, what was the most surprising thing amongst the things we talked about or other, or aside from it, what was the most exciting or surprising thing you found?
unidentified
I have to go back to sort of where we started, that 85% of Americans, those surveyed, felt that their Iranian nuclear weapons program mattered most to them.
In other words, they wanted to prevent Iran from taking that nuclear weapon.
I wouldn't have said that kind of prior to going to the field.