CSPAN - Washington Journal 07/07/2025

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July 7, 2025 07:00-10:00 - CSPAN

02:59:57

Washington Journal 07/07/2025

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pedro echevarria

cspan 42:54

Appearances

brian lamb

cspan 01:33

donald j trump

admin 01:08

hakeem jeffries

rep/d 01:38

scott bessent

admin 01:02

tom homan

01:55

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dana bash

cnn 00:16

donna good higbee

00:06

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steve in arizona

callers 00:04

texas skeptic in texas

callers 00:23

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Speaker	Time	Text
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.
		Washington Journal starts now.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is the Washington Journal for July 7th.
		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.
		Thank you.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Fay Ver in Ohio, giving her thoughts.
		This is John in North Carolina, Republican line.
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		Ron, Illinois, go ahead.
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So that's the future.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of the current state of the economy?
unidentified		It might be okay.
		The guy was talking about the price of gas.
		When Trump came into office, I wrote down the price of gas.
		I was paying $2.99.
		It's now $3.35 or $39.
		It hasn't gone down.
		I don't see anything going down.
		Everything is, you go to the stores, it's ridiculous.
		So I don't see how the economy is going to get better.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		No matter what anybody says.
		Now, for the ultra-rich, the economy is great.
		For the working-class people, it's terrible.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Ron there in Illinois giving his assessment.
		We will hear an assessment from Dan as well.
		He's in Kentucky, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Taking my call.
		John stole my thunder a while ago.
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So, Dan, Dan, let me ask you back to the economy.
		When you say it's fine, what do you look at?
		What indicators do you look at when you say it's fine?
		What are you gauging that by?
unidentified		Well, gas prices, grocery prices, you know.
unidentified		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		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.
		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.
		That sounds nice.
		Anyway, that's my thoughts on the economy.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So from North Carolina, there are some of you posting on Facebook.
		Larry Odom from Facebook saying night and day as compared to the runaway inflation during former President Biden.
		Nina Blackwell adding her thoughts, the economy is teetering on the edge of destruction, recession by the end of the year, she predicts.
		And then Bob Glenn from Facebook saying everything seems to be falling into place.
		Groceries and gas prices are down.
		Stock market is back to record highs again.
		Hopefully utility prices will start falling soon.
		Tariffs are being negotiated in our favor.
		Seems the Liberal Democrats warning that if the president got re-elected, the country will crash and burn is very wrong.
		The only thing that crashed and burned was the Democratic Party.
		Again, that's just some of the assessments there from Facebook.
		You can make your thoughts there.
		You can also post on X. You can text us too, 202-748-8003 about your opinion of the economy.
		And as always, choose the line that best represents you.
		If you've called in the last 30 days, hold off from doing so.
		And then if you would, make sure your television is turned down.
		Let's go to Robert.
		Robert in North Carolina, Independent Line.
unidentified		Yes.
		Hi.
		I am an independent, but I voted for Donald Trump.
		And I want to give my opinion on the economy.
		But first, please allow me just a moment to give praise to my great president, Donald Trump, that I voted for.
		I feel that God is with him.
		I pray for him every single day.
		I put him up there with Martin Luther King.
		As a black American male, I put him up there with my heroes, like, you know, Michael Jordan and people.
		I think He should be put on that mountain that's got the older presidents.
		I'm sorry.
		You get nervous.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, your comments on the economy, please, and the president's your opinion of the economy under the president.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What are those?
unidentified		Okay.
		I feel that the economy is coming along pretty good.
		It's getting better.
		Give the man time.
		He works every day, works very hard.
		His administration.
		I have, under Joe Biden, I could barely pay my bills or do anything.
		Things were very horrible.
		I think things are getting much better.
		Gas prices are better.
		I'm not an economist, but as just an everyday working person, I'm able to pay my bills.
		Yes, it's tough.
		We're not in a communist country.
		We are not a commune.
		So everybody don't get things equally.
		People should try to work hard.
		And one thing I want to see is: if there's so much going to be cuts in these like Social Security, there's going to be cuts in Medicare.
		Why don't I have people calling in to CNN, giving their own personal example?
		Oh, they just cut my Social Security.
		Oh, I just lost my help with food stamps and I can't feed my children.
		No, it's a whole bunch of Democrat politicians that are putting out a lot of fear and scare tactics, which is evil.
		And they're going to continue to lose votes, especially black votes.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's Robert there, North Carolina.
		I'm one of the many calling C-SPAN to express those opinions on the lines there.
		Every morning we give you the opportunity to express your views on a variety of things.
		The economy is one of those things today, the president's impact on the economy there.
		He spoke about that after the signing of the One Big Beautiful Bill heading to Iowa to make comments there.
		This is what he had to say about the economy at that time.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		You got the hottest, smartest, sharpest country.
		And by the way, look at our stock market.
		We're taking in hundreds of billions of dollars on tariffs with no inflation.
		And today we just set another record, the highest stock market in history.
		No inflation.
		And one of the great economists from the Wharton School of Finance, where I happened to go, he apologized.
		He says, you know, I think Trump outsmarted us all.
		And yesterday was the poll.
		And out of 77 economists, I came in second.
		I want to find the guy that came in first.
		Somebody came in first.
		Can you believe it?
		But we said what was going to happen and it's happening.
		And I'll tell you what, we had the greatest economy in the history of my first term.
		This is going to blow it away.
		You watch.
		This is going to blow it away.
		For the first time in years, this 4th of July, the economy is roaring.
		Incomes are soaring.
		Wages are up.
		Prices are down.
		Gasoline.
		You see what's going on with gasoline?
		It's way down.
		See what's going on with eggs?
		Eggs are way down.
unidentified		Eggs.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's the president from over the weekend.
		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.
		Thanks.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Charles there in Virginia.
		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.
		So I'll be voting for Ned Pillerstorf.
		And I'd like to thank you for giving us the time.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Can I ask?
		You talked about a certain increase in prices.
		You related that to tariffs.
		How do you compare those two?
		Why do you think those are equaled in your mind?
unidentified		Well, the thing about it is, right now, I talked to a grocery.
		A grocery says they're having to adjust their prices because they don't know really what's going to go on with tariffs.
		So some of them has already assumed that tariffs is going to take place.
		So they've risen them.
		You know, as you say, you can always rise it.
		You can come down.
		But this is the problem.
		We're paying a percentage higher right now.
		Probably, if it were to come down, you know, it may help.
		But I don't see it coming down because power companies already notified they're wanting to raise the power for 13%.
		So people, I don't see, I don't see, and the legal aid, they're going to cut the legal aid out and all.
		And especially NOAA, when if you get flooded and people don't understand, when you get flooded, it's pitiful.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Denise there.
		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.
		That's what I think.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, Cola, let me take you back to matters of the economy and what's your opinion of that under this administration.
unidentified		Well, that affects the economy, Pedro.
unidentified		Give me a break.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, relate that to the point then.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		The point is, the new border lie to the American people is what's going on with Medicaid.
		There is not a broad brush cut of people from Medicaid.
		That's the new lie that the press and the Democrat Party are giving along the same lines as what they told us about the border.
		It's lies.
		So let me just tell people who are listening on this that Donald Trump has it figured.
		He's got it set up.
		Relax and see what happens.
		Because the easiest thing to fool people on in this country is economics.
		It's hard to understand.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		But he's got it.
		Take it from me.
		He's got it figured out.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		Relax and see what happens.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Janet and Georgia, Democrats line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're next up.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		How are you doing?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Fine.
		Thank you.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good.
		I was calling to say, no, I do not agree with everything they're doing.
		They are.
		The groceries are just, it's through the roof.
		You cannot go in there and feed and buy just small groceries without coming out, paying over $200 for maybe 15 things you have in your bucket.
		Well, I disagree with the way that he's going about the immigrants and so on and so forth and the birthrights.
		And I think a lot of this will hurt the economy because they did put into our economy.
		I think he needs to reconsider a lot of things that he's doing when he's looking at that.
		Do I think the Republicans is for everybody?
		No, I do not.
		Do I think they're for the rich?
		Yes, I do.
		Because they are not looking at the housing.
		They are not looking at the education for the kids.
		They are stripping away Medicaid.
		After a while, you're trying to tap into Medicare, something that we earn.
		No, I do not agree with them.
		And that is my opinion.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Janet there in Georgia.
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mark there in Connecticut gives his opinion.
		We will hear from Maryland.
		That's where Timothy is.
		Democrats line, you're next up.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi, Don.
		Thank you for your show.
		I like watching your show, and I watch your every morning, every day.
		I'm confused.
		Now, this economy, what did Trump do to help this economy grow?
		This is still Joe Biden's economy.
		Everybody forgot about COVID.
		When COVID hit, the market every name was high still.
		Under Trump, man, this was under Trump.
		When COVID hit under Trump, everything was up.
		People lost y'all.
		The government was shut down.
		It took him two years to get the economy rolling again.
		And finally, the economy starts to run.
		What did Trump do to make this economy better?
		Can you explain to me or have one of your CEOs explain to me, what did Trump do to make this economy better?
		It was wrong before he got in office, just like in 2016 when Obama left office.
		He inherited the strong economy.
		So what did he do to get credit for the way the economy is now, but is getting ready to take a downfall because of what he's done to the economy?
		Now, it's going to mess with these tariffs and custom Medicaid and all this stuff here.
		So what did he do in general in six months' time that he was in office to deserve this credit?
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Timothy in Maryland.
		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 a viewer.
		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.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think is the most effective thing the president or Congress could do to uphold or at least shore up those jobs that you mentioned?
unidentified		I don't believe that they can, sir, because the technology is moving so quickly.
		Government is always a lagging indicator.
		The technology moves so much quicker before government can go and catch up.
		And I think that as more and more companies kind of look at it as the equivalent of what China did in the manufacturing process.
		They started, you know, there's a hierarchy in building, right?
		So you start at the low end, and then you master that up, and then you move up to the next next.
		Well, with AI, it's that same creep up, but it's moving at such an exponential pace that the companies are able to shed employees that much quicker.
		And I don't know if the government has a credible plan, but I would like the president to be honest with the American people to go and address this.
		Because, first of all, I don't believe the unemployment figures.
		I've been unemployed in the state of Georgia.
		And trust me, you know, the state to go and say that unemployment is 4% or whatever the current number is is frankly garbage.
		I don't believe it.
		And in the state of Georgia, you only get unemployment for 13 weeks and then you're done.
		And then you fall off the rolls.
		So I think that's just a misaccount in terms of what the true state of unemployment is, not only in Georgia, but nationally as well.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		Hello.
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What are a lot of people, quote, day-to-day prices of living?
		What's it looking there in California?
		And how does that compare to other areas of the country, do you think?
unidentified		Oh, I mean, I don't, I believe it's higher out here than it is in most places.
		I mean, that's to be expected.
		It's, you know, I lived in California.
		I've lived in New York.
		I've lived in Las Vegas.
		You know, in major cities and major states like that, it's going to be expensive because that's just what we have decided to live in.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you pay for gas currently?
unidentified		Yeah.
unidentified		$4.46 was my last one.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And is that normal?
		Is that high?
		How would you gauge that?
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Dan, there in California, giving his take there from Riverside.
		This is Greg in Cleveland writing us saying, my stocks took a hit when the president announced tariffs and not recovered.
		Prices and inflation did not decrease in 24 hours, as he promised.
		As a matter of fact, it's gotten worse.
		Don't believe me, he says.
		Go to the grocery store.
		Gas prices have decreased, but housing groceries and prices have not.
		These are facts, not rhetoric.
		That's from Greg in Cleveland, Ohio, texting us this morning.
		If you text us, by the way, if you would include your name, your city, and your state, we appreciate it.
		Donald in Michigan, Democrats line.
		Hello, you're next up.
unidentified		Good morning, America.
		Good morning, C-SPAN.
		Good morning, Pedro.
		My point on the economy, I think it has not changed any better since Biden's left office.
		And Trump's tariffs and his flip-flopping that he does.
		Once these tariffs get decided, I think this country is going to be in big trouble.
		We got our neighbor next door, Canada, just threatened to increase their charges on electricity and energy, and Trump just flip-flopped on them.
		So, you know, there's no understanding of what's going on with Trump.
		So nobody knows what's going to happen.
		So Trump just getting on TV and saying everything's great, everything's better is not making anything better.
		I don't know what these Republicans are getting their groceries from, their gas from, but I sure like to know.
		Have a good one.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Lloyd up next in West Virginia, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning.
		About the economy.
		They talk about Joe Biden's economy was great.
		Well, that's the reason he let all the immigrants come in here, the illegals, that was his economy.
		I mean, they kept the economy going.
		And a lot of American people got rich off of them, still getting rich off of them.
		And Donald Trump, he can't work miracles.
		This country's in a hell of a shape.
		But he's trying a different way.
		And I give him credit for that.
		And the way Joe Biden was doing things, Joe Biden wasn't a dumb man, but he done everything he could to please his party.
		The Democrats have lost their mind.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Lloyd there in West Virginia calling on a Republican line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
hakeem jeffries ▲ ● ▼		America is too expensive.
		Housing costs are too high.
		Grocery costs are too high.
		Child care costs are too high.
		Energy costs are too high.
		Insurance costs are too high.
		America is too expensive.
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
hakeem jeffries ▲ ● ▼		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.
		So if we really want to change this country, we need to start electing people like Bernie Sanders.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Mark there in Westwood, New Jersey.
		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.
		You know, I've been on both sides.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, then tell me how that relates to the topic of economics under this president.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What you think of the current economy?
unidentified		Economics under this president?
		Okay, no, nothing has gone down.
		Maybe the eggs have gone down a little bit, but nothing has gone down.
		You know, the price of gas in Texas is just as high as the price of gas in Maryland.
		And I have homes in both places.
		So I can tell you this wholeheartedly as a person that takes a three-hour flight back and forth.
		It is no different from Texas as it is in Maryland.
		Actually, some of the groceries are more expensive in Maryland than in Maryland, in Texas than in Maryland.
		The little market is way cheaper in Maryland, you know, and so is the Aldies.
		But I'm telling you that something needs to be done.
		Something needs to be done.
		We, the people, we are the ones that decide whether or not we get to change our country.
		Nobody else decides but us.
		And, you know, these people are voting in.
		I'm married to a hardcore MAGA, but I was a Democrat.
		Now I'm an independent.
		I've changed my political affirmation because the Democrats are going too far left.
		I mean, Bill Matt.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Gotcha.
		Gotcha, Jennifer.
		Just go to Joe in Missouri, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		I think it's a state-by-state difference in the economy.
		Gas has been $275 here, $269.
		In northern Mississippi, gas was $265.
		That's good.
		Okay.
		I'm glad.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're still there, Joe.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Okay.
		And I'm glad the tax, the big bill, I'm glad because now I'm going to keep my $12,400 standard deduction.
		I'm glad it didn't go back to $7,400.
		So my first $12,400 is like tax exempt at April 15th.
		I do buy a lot of auto parts.
		They're kind of up in my grocery store.
		Some stuff has come down.
		I think it's a state-to-state thing.
		I'm doing fabulous.
		I have no money problems at all.
		That guy who said the stocks are down, then you don't know how to work the stock market because all my stuff is up.
		So I'm pretty happy.
		I don't know if it's the president or just the way things go anyway, but I'm glad that bill passed because I want my $12,400 standard deduction.
		And I'm pretty happy.
		Like I said, gas is $275.
		That's very reasonable.
		So thanks for taking my call.
		Bye.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to Gene.
		Gene joins us from Wisconsin, Democrats line.
		Hi.
		Gene from Wisconsin.
		Hello.
unidentified		Hasn't fallen yet on the tariff situation.
		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.
		Just look at the graphs.
		It's there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Gene, we saw changes in tariffs.
		We saw changes in the economy amongst a couple of things.
		Things seem to have recovered from that.
		What makes you think that these new round of tariffs are going to be the bad in your opinion?
		Let me put it that way.
unidentified		Well, they're even more deeper tariff than what little has been done.
		But you're going to see that those prices are going to eventually seep into our economy, the price rise, because somebody has to pay for it.
		And all economists say that somebody has paper, and who has to pay for it?
		Us, the consumers.
		We have to pay for that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Gene in Wisconsin, Gene in Wisconsin, finishing off the round of phones on the current state of the economy under this president.
		Thank you for those of you who participated.
		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.
		We're going to press on until victory is won.
		I yield back.
		And House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries giving the longest House speech ever.
		Only on C-SPAN could you witness the full story unfold, unfiltered in real time.
		The Yeezer 218, the NASER 214.
		The motion is adopted.
		And we're sort of celebrating like the biggest bill of its kind ever signed.
		And it's going to make this country into a rocket ship.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		It's going to be really great.
unidentified		If you ever miss any of C-SPAN's coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org.
		Videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights.
		These points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos.
		This timeline tool makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in Washington.
		Scroll through and spend a few minutes on C-SPAN's points of interest.
		In a nation divided, a rare moment of unity.
		This fall, C-SPAN presents Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins in a town where partisan fighting prevails.
		One table, two leaders, one goal, to find common ground.
		This fall, Ceasefire, on the network that doesn't take sides, only on C-SPAN.
		Washington Journal continues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Our first guest of the morning is Hannah Hartig with the Pew Research Center.
		She is their senior researcher and one of the driving forces behind a new study on campaign 2024, voters and how they voted.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What led the center to go and take a look at this?
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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What's the sample size, so to speak?
		Who did you talk to?
		The numbers and how do they represent politically?
unidentified		Yeah, sure.
		So it was an analysis of about 8,000 adults.
		7,000 people were found to have been validated voters, meaning they told us they voted, and we found a record of them voting in the voter file.
		And we also had about 2,000 non-voters in 2024.
		So very rigorous samples.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You highlight three categories, switchers, drop-offs, and new and returning voters.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Before we dive into more numbers, talk about those categories, how they fit into the big picture.
unidentified		Yeah, absolutely.
		So another cool thing that we can do is quantify just how many people changed their behavior between the two elections.
		And we found that about a quarter changed something about their behavior.
		There's the switchers that you point to.
		So those people voted in both but changed who they supported, the party of the candidate they supported.
		There were the drop-offs, so people who had voted and then declined to vote again.
		And there were more of those Biden voters than Trump voters, as I discussed.
		And there's new and returning voters, so people who are more intermittent voters.
		They're not always turning out in every single election, but they're very important to the result of the outcome.
		And we found that Trump had an advantage among those adults who didn't vote in 2020 but decided to turn out in 2024.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
		And they also defected at very high rates.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, you talked about coalitions.
		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.
		Almost 90% of his voters were white in 2016.
		That's now 88%.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
		High turnout.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from John.
		John joins us from Illinois.
		Democrats line you're on with our guest, Hannah Hartig of Pew Research Center.
unidentified		Hello.
		Hi, good morning.
		Yeah, I just had a couple of my own theories as to why the Democrats bungled this election so badly.
		The first one would be the genocide going on in Gaza.
		Joe Biden allowed it to happen.
		He sent them all the bombs and ammunitions they need to carry out the genocide.
		And the DNC wouldn't even allow a Palestinian speaker at the convention.
		Also, I think there was a huge amount of voter purging in various like in Pennsylvania.
		I saw a report that a huge number of voter registrations or names have been purged from the list or something.
		I don't know.
		It sounds a little conspiratorial to me, but I wouldn't pass the Republicans.
		But just your thoughts on the genocide in Gaza and possible voter purging.
		Thanks.
		Sure.
		Yeah.
		Thanks for the question.
		Yeah.
		So I think on this question of Gaza and Israel, right, I think that was a huge story in 2024.
		What I can say after analyzing the data is that youth turnout was down in 2024.
		So far more people, young adults that could have voted did not.
		They sat that election out, even lower than it was in 2020.
		A lot of theories have been swirling about young people and what's going on with them in politics today.
		You know, there are some analyses that suggest they're drifting towards the Republican Party, for example.
		Other high-quality data suggests they're a bit more stable.
		What we found in our survey was that they still supported Harris by a significant margin, but it was a little bit lower than it was in 2020.
		And it's very, you know, their turnout was also down.
		So those two things are related.
		We are very careful as social scientists not to assign causality to these kinds of things, but I think it could have been a factor, for sure.
		I think a lot of things could have been a factor, too.
		Like I mentioned, these groups are particularly economically marginalized.
		They are prone to feeling the impacts of economic shocks like inflation and housing prices, the cost of goods.
		It really hits young people hard.
		But sure, yeah, that could be a factor as well.
		In terms of vote purging, I do hear reports of these types of things happening from presidential election to election.
		We're really focused on the national story here.
		And so I'm not saying there was weirdness or wasn't, but that's not something that we look at in our data.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Here's a hypothetical.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When you collect this data, what kind of questions do you ask in order to collect just the data without putting a lot of interpretation to it?
unidentified		Yeah, so that is like a key part of our job, right?
		Writing neutral questions that really get at the heart of what people are thinking about when they're casting their ballots.
		On this particular survey, this post-election survey, we ask people, did you turn out to vote?
		Who did you vote for?
		Because voter files, of course, can't tell us that.
		We ask about issues that are important to them.
		We ask about how they cast their ballots.
		We really just want to get a sense of their full electoral experience.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		There's the survey if you want to find it on the website of Pew Research Hannah Hartek here to talk about it.
		Let's hear from Bill.
		Bill joins us from Texas, Republican line for our guests.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, she was talking about the number of blacks and whites that voted differently.
		And in Texas, when we vote, we don't have to tell whether we're black or white.
		How does she know that?
		Yeah, good question.
		So this survey on our American Trends panel, we're asking Americans all sorts of questions.
		We're asking them about issues.
		We're also capturing data about their age, their race, their ethnicity, and we're marrying that to voter file data.
		So these are people who have signed up themselves, given us permission saying they want to take surveys regularly, monthly, weekly, what have you.
		And so that's how we're able to glean that information.
		It's someone telling us that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		George is on our independent line.
		George is from Maryland.
		Hello, George.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		So my question was: is there a better way to describe the Democrat and Republican Party as teams?
		I know semantics, but I feel as if when you describe it as teams, it's like a football game or anything like that.
		People are less likely to deviate from their team, even if they don't agree with the policies.
		If you describe it like that, if people have that notion.
		So I don't know if there's a better term to use other than teams.
		Yeah.
		Your take on that.
		Yeah, no, no.
		I think that's a very fair point.
		You know, we think about we don't want to gamify politics too much, right?
		Politics is real.
		It's how people are governed.
		Sometimes, I'll just be honest with you, George, sometimes we use it just to vary the language we're using, right?
		I mean, they're partisan brands, they're parties, they're political parties, they represent people.
		But yes, avoiding language like teams or trying to say that this is some kind of a game and who's winning and losing.
		Your point is well taken.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		One of the things you take a look at are those who voted for the President Trump in 2020 compared to 2024, a large majority staying with him.
		Yet Sliver of those is going to the vice president and a larger amount saying they're not going to vote.
		Can you elaborate on that?
unidentified		Yeah, sure.
		So about 11% of Trump's 2020 voters stayed home, and there are a variety of reasons for that.
		They could have soured on Trump.
		They could sour on the Republican Party.
		Maybe it was raining that day.
		Maybe their childcare lapsed and they just couldn't make it to the polls.
		There are all sorts of reasons for that.
		But it was smaller than the share of Bidens who stayed home.
		When we think about this idea of turning out or switching your vote, I like to think of it as almost a continuum.
		It's, you know, maybe I supported Biden in 2020 and I'm maybe souring on the party or I'm not as happy with the way things are going.
		Not ready to quite make the leap to the Republican Party yet, or it doesn't necessarily stand for all the same things that I stand for yet.
		So maybe I opt to stay home that election.
		You know, that's just one example of the dynamic that can happen that way, too.
		And it's true on the other side as well.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From Carol, Carol is in New York for our guest Democrats line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
		So we see something similar.
		We just tell it in a slightly different way.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		One of the things you track was early in person voting in 2024.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What did that trend show?
unidentified		Yeah, so it showed mail voting, obviously, down, voting by mail.
		There's not a pandemic going on in 2024, thank goodness.
		And so mail voting is down, but early in person voting is up.
		And it's up both among people who supported Trump and people who supported Harris.
		So that is a big change in the method of voting that we saw in 2020.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I would think about the popularity of mail voting at the time.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		It would have stuck as a trend into this election.
unidentified		So in some states, they do have all mail voting, but in some states, as a result of the COVID pandemic, some states sort of restricted access.
		They decided that might be going too far the other way.
		And so, you know, laws were changed to make it a little bit harder to vote by mail.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Augusta Georgia, Richard is there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning, Pedro.
		Good morning, guests.
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What does the level of education factor into those who voted this year?
unidentified		Last year, I should say.
		Yeah, so people with higher levels of formal education are much more consistent voters.
		They're overrepresented as a group compared with those who don't have college degrees.
		Yeah.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to Elizabeth.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Elizabeth in Ohio, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		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.
		So, yeah.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You break also the family income, lower income, middle income, upper income, comparing it to 2020 and 2024.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We'll show people the graph, but what's the data saying?
unidentified		Yeah, so people with upper or higher family incomes are also much more likely to vote.
unidentified		So again, lower income adults vote far less frequently and they're underrepresented as a share of the vote.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		One more call, and this will be from Pat.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Pat's in New York, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi, how are you doing?
		Good morning, and thank you.
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Pat, thank you.
unidentified		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You didn't get a chance to talk about all the data, but what impressed you the most out of everything you collected?
unidentified		Oh, gosh, just having such a rich portrait and high-quality data.
		And, you know, there are a couple other organizations that put out these type of studies, but I think ours is very unique in its contribution.
		It uses panel data, it matches to voter file, voter files, and so I think it's extremely high-quality and really in-depth.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		More data is available at the website of PewResearch, PewResearch.org.
		Hannah Hartig joining us for this discussion.
		First time on this program.
		Hope you come back.
unidentified		Thanks.
unidentified		I'd be happy to join.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
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brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		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.
		Book Notes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
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		Washington Journal continues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Open forum is a chance for you to talk about politics, things you've heard over the last couple of days, whether it be Washington or otherwise.
		202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents, 202-748-8002.
		We will take calls for the next 45 minutes until our next guest joins us at 9:15 Eastern Time.
		You can choose that route, post your comments on text or one of our social media sites too.
		On Dover, Pennsylvania, up first, Republican line.
		This is from Scott.
		Hello.
unidentified		Hello there.
		I am a Republican, and I'm watching your show right now, and I got an opinion as to a lot of the stuff that goes on.
		I quit voting for part of that reason.
		Some of the BS that goes on in the government is a lot of BS.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And so that stopped you from voting altogether?
unidentified		Yes.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Was it a specific reason or was it several years ago?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Tell us a little bit about that.
unidentified		It was several years ago.
unidentified		Some of these, just like Biden that was in office, he did absolutely nothing for the government.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		Shouldn't have even been voted into office.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Scott in Pennsylvania there.
		Let's hear from Ron.
		Ron is in New Hampshire.
		Democrats line.
unidentified		Hello.
		Good morning.
		Hey, and happy 40th to C-SPAN and Washington Journal.
		You are absolutely one of the best shows on TV today, maybe across from South Park.
		So listen, I love it when callers call up and they don't give any examples other than Democrats are the worst and Republicans are the worst.
		You're going to have a guest on here shortly about foreign affairs.
		And I would like you, if you could, since I won't be able to ask him myself, I would like for you to ask him this question.
		What does America stand for now?
		You know, I mean, it used to be, you know, we were a welcoming country.
		Now we want to build a wall because nothing sells welcome more than a big wall.
		When it comes to foreign policy, we used to prop up fledgling democracies.
		We used to support them.
		And now we're just going to let large dictators, China, maybe take Taiwan or Russia take Ukraine.
		I mean, what do we stand for now?
		What does America stand for?
		I'm just kind of lost with that question at this point.
		Okay.
		And so thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for the question suggestion.
		Let's go to Dave.
		Dave's in Ohio, Independent Line.
unidentified		Good morning.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Morning, you're on.
unidentified		Thank you.
		I've just made a good point.
		What does America stand for?
		And I would like to add to that.
		It seems to me like America is standing for things moving in the wrong direction totally with the full support of the people.
		And I don't understand it.
		For instance, these floods in Texas, instead of providing a scientific background to prevent floods.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Colour, you're still on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Okay.
		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.
		And that's my opinion.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
		This is from Barney in Florida Democrats line.
unidentified		Hello.
unidentified		Hello.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yes.
		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.
		They all bow down to Donald Trump.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What makes you believe that?
unidentified		Common sense is tell you that, man, please.
		This man is a crook.
		What do crooks do?
		They blackmail people.
		They actually blackmail people.
		So, I mean, you ain't got to be a rocket science to figure that out.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Irving in Wisconsin, Republican line.
		Hi there.
		You're next up.
unidentified		Hi.
		I just have a comment.
		First of all, I'm a black Republican from Wisconsin.
		And I just want to make a couple of comments here real quick.
		First of all, the Big Beautiful Bill is wonderful.
		I don't know if most people know about it, but there's a $6,000 tax cut for Social Security that's going to happen in that bill.
		And then also, as far as Democrats are concerned, I've been against killing black babies for years, the abortion thing.
		And again, I think this big, beautiful bill is awesome.
		And people, you should be aware of that.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That is Irving in Wisconsin, Republican line.
		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.
dana bash ▲ ● ▼		President Trump gave countries a 90-day pause on the sleeping tariffs he put in place back in April.
unidentified		That pause ends in three days.
		What happens on Wednesday?
		We'll see.
scott bessent ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		And most of those are already at the baseline 10%.
unidentified		But you said August 1st.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Do you mean what's going to happen in August?
scott bessent ▲ ● ▼		So countries will get a letter saying that if we have not reached an agreement, then you will go back to the April 2nd level.
unidentified		Starting when?
		On August 1st?
		On August 1st.
dana bash ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so there's basically a new deadline.
unidentified		It's not a new deadline.
scott bessent ▲ ● ▼		We are saying this is when it's happening.
scott bessent ▲ ● ▼		If you want to speed things up, have at it.
unidentified		If you want to go back to the old rate, that's your choice.
dana bash ▲ ● ▼		When you say that there's going to be a lot happening over the next few days and you don't want to give me the playbook, is there a playbook?
unidentified		Sure.
unidentified		The playbook is to apply maximum pressure.
scott bessent ▲ ● ▼		We saw that the EU was very slow in coming to the table.
		Three weeks ago on a Friday morning, President Trump threatened 50% tariffs.
		And within a few hours, five of the European national leaders had called in.
unidentified		And Ursula Vanderlund, the head of the EU, was on the phone.
scott bessent ▲ ● ▼		And the EU is making very good progress.
unidentified		They were off to a slow start.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Christine in Pennsylvania, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi, Er.
		I want to make real clear that both sides don't do this.
		This big, ugly bill will add $3.3 trillion to the national debt, according to CBL.
		I heard another estimation of $4.8 trillion to our national debt.
		That's almost $5 trillion added for a tax cut.
		And that'll take food assistance away from 285 billion people.
		Medicare and ACA, healthcare, Obamacare, cut 170 billion people off.
		And before in 2010, 15.5% of Americans were uninsured.
		In 2023, that was down to 7.9.
		That's still far too many.
		We deserve single-payer health care.
		But cutting 170 billion people off is just plain cruel.
		Medicaid, $930 billion is cut out of that program.
		I'm on Medicare.
		That will be by sequestration.
		4% will get a 4% cut in January.
		That's what they've done to us.
		Under President Biden, we had 48 consecutive months of gains.
		The jobs report this last month for June was minus 33,000 people.
		They had expected a positive increase of jobs of 110,000.
		They were under by 33,000.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think the jobs report that just came out dropped the inflation rate to 4.1%, just so you know.
		That's the one that came out last Friday.
		Well, you may be talking about the gross domestic product report that came out for the first quarter.
unidentified		Perhaps, perhaps.
		What I've written down is jobs report.
		So I'm going by my notes, and I'm not the world's best note taker.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		It's okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I just wanted to make that clarification.
unidentified		Yeah, that's good.
		That's good.
		I'm glad you knew this.
		But, you know, basically, our economy's gone down the tubes.
		Our Americans are getting hurt.
		And, you know, Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, it's been cut in half.
		So that means when we've got a problem with big business, they won't be there for us.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Christine in Pennsylvania.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Jay in Florida, Independent Line.
unidentified		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?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Jay in Florida, Bob in West Virginia, your next Republican line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Bob in West Virginia, hello.
unidentified		Hello.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, please.
unidentified		Yes, sir.
		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.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
		So let him go.
		A convicted felon, a rapist.
		Every law you can name has been broken by this guy.
		And good luck.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Danny there in Kentucky.
		If you are calling us and want to join us when it comes to our open forum, it's 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		If you're on the phone, stay with us for a few minutes.
		If you're calling, keep calling in.
		To give us a sense of what to expect from the White House this week, joining us from the White House, Brett Samuels of The Hill.
		He's their White House reporter.
		Mr. Samuels, good morning.
		Thanks for giving us your time.
unidentified		Yeah, good morning.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You have a story just published, minutes ago, really, when it comes to this delayed deadline that we're hearing about tariffs.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Brett Samuels, the Israeli Prime Minister, expected to visit the White House today.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Brett Samuels, the president indicated yesterday that he may pay a visit to Texas later on this week.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		There were questions yesterday about staffing at the National Weather Service, the future of FEMA.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You highlighted already several things from the White House.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You can see our guest work at thehill.com, Brett Samuels, who reports from the White House for The Hill.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for your time.
unidentified		You bet.
unidentified		Thanks for having me.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And thanks to you for holding on the line.
		Sandy in Ohio, Republican line.
		Thanks for waiting.
		Go ahead.
		You're on open forum.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Okay, hi.
		Yeah, I'm wondering why is everybody saying Trump is so terrible when he's only been in office for five months.
		Yet, Biden, Trump is open about what he does.
		He talks a lot.
		And Biden was quiet because he couldn't talk.
		And he had an awful lot of anger in him.
		Biden did.
		So whoever was running when Biden was in was not Biden.
		It was Obama's people.
		Okay, so quit slamming Trump.
		He's doing his best.
		He almost lost his life twice.
		And all you guys have is hatred.
		Now, let me talk a little here, okay, since everybody else is.
		When the country was founded, every school had a Bible.
		Now, they got rid of the Bibles in schools, but I do believe you're allowed to have a Quaron because it's political as well as religious.
		There's lawlessness, there's hatred, there's crime.
		Nobody, I mean, hates everybody, hates everybody.
		Democrats hate Republicans for whatever because they're watching the wrong channels.
		When we took in a lot of people, the country was young.
		They went to Ellis Island.
		They were checked for diseases and everything else.
		And they had to have a sponsor.
		And nothing was free back then.
		You didn't get anything free.
		Now everybody wants free stuff.
		And then the woman who said no.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Sandy, I'm going to stop you there.
		Thank you for the call.
		Mary in Nevada, Democrats line.
		Hi.
unidentified		No, what a load from that lady.
		I got to tell you.
		Donald Trump said he wanted to get rid of FEMA.
		Now we first started with airplanes crashing.
		Now you cut all these government institutions.
		What do you think's going to happen?
		As far as Mary, you're still on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yeah, so anyway, I'm sorry, the delay.
		Anyway, this is the most regressive legislation.
		This bill is not beautiful.
		It's going to hurt people.
		And they were real sneaky about it because you're going to get to see some of the good stuff early on.
		But after the midterms, it's all going to hit.
		And you're going to see one, they project one in four nursing homes shutting down.
		It's going to hurt red states, not just blue states.
		It's going to hurt Trump voters.
		They are going to be thrown off of health insurance.
donna good higbee ▲ ● ▼		When they make those cuts to the Affordable Care Act, there goes preexisting again.
unidentified		That's more money.
		I mean, more people being thrown off health insurance.
		Something like 17 million people.
		I wish you would put Steve Rantner's graphs on to show people how regressive this bill is.
		It's going to add something like $25 trillion to the debt in the next 10 years.
		It's like 3.2.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's Mary there in Nevada.
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Deborah, next in Houston, Texas, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		Just calling just to put my way in on the well the callers who's calling.
		It seems like the Republicans want to say that the Democrats are hate Republicans and all that.
		It's just a bunch of nonsense.
		The president that's in the White House is saying mean-spirited things about people.
		So how's that helping?
		And also this bill that he passed, it doesn't go into effect until 2026, which a lot of people don't say.
		They just say it's passed into law and that's it.
		But it doesn't go effect until 2026.
		And that's when things are going to start happening.
		Right now, he's riding on Biden's policies that were very well, that was very good.
		And about gas, gas, I don't know what country they're living in, but there's no gas that's 200, that's $2 and so-and-so.
		I'm in Texas.
		There's not any.
		So let's just be realistic.
		Nothing that Trump has passed has that he took his word that he was going to do, he's done as far as groceries and everything else.
		So let's be realistic.
		And if he's not doing what he said he was going to do, be honest about that.
		That's all I have to say.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Here's more of his comments from the Sunday shows yesterday.
unidentified		Well, you know, I disagree with Mr. Mamdani.
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is from Joe in Oregon, Democrats Line.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		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.
		You know, they weren't there.
		They don't even have them.
		So I just want to say all that sort of stuff.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Republican line from Richard in Fort Myers, Florida.
unidentified		Hello.
		Good morning.
		I think this mayoral race in New York City is going to cause a constitutional question.
		The states are responsible for voting rules and regulations.
		I got a hunch that New York City is going to try to let residency as opposed to citizenship determine who can vote in that race.
		And I'm not sure that New York State will vote to do away with citizenship or residency as the requirement for voting.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
		Let's go to Matt.
		Matt in Massachusetts, Independent Line.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		How are you doing?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hi, thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		I'm just wondering where all these people are from the right asking what the right news channel is.
		I've been asking them for a long time, and I'm not getting any answers.
		And two, this, you know, this Epstein flowers thing just obsoletely just disappears all of a sudden with some Bondi's office.
		Where is it and what's going on here?
		And it deserves a complete investigation.
		And that's all I have to say.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From Tommy, Tommy in Kentucky, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Well, I was calling to see why they keep dropping things like Elon Musk said about Trump being on Epstein's call list.
		I wonder why that's dropped, and nobody ever talks about it.
		And you can cut me off.
		That's why I'm asking.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Why do you think it's important?
unidentified		Well, I think they ought to keep hammering it.
		Nobody ought to be pulling up the little kids.
		Epstein, look at old Matt Getz.
		Look what he did.
		They got a ring of child molesters, and I think that's where they don't get why they vote for Trump.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Tommy there in Kentucky.
		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.
unidentified		Good morning, C-SPAN.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, please.
unidentified		I want to say something.
		My heart goes out for the people in Texas.
		I know exactly where they're coming from.
		I'm calling from one of the most devastated places in the country after Helene hit.
		Are you still there?
		Yeah, go ahead.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're still on.
unidentified		Okay.
		We still have a major interstate here that's been closed for almost a year.
		That, I mean, people are having to go hundreds of miles out of the way.
		I just want to react to a few callers.
		To the lady that says gas isn't below $3 a gallon, it's $2.64 cash here, $274 credit.
		A lot of the reactions that we're getting from these people are coming from more or less the news media who's wanting to gaslight this country.
		We need to get along.
		And there's when to the one guy that says Trump wants to go out and call people names, he's reacting to what's been told him.
		I've been called a deplorable, a Nazi, a white supremacist that the color of my skin, that I'm not allowed to even be in this country no more.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
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brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		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.
		Washington Journal continues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Joining us now is Roger Zakheim of the Ronald Reagan Institute.
		He serves as their director here to talk about a new survey of theirs taking a look at American views on foreign policy.
		Thank you for giving us your time.
unidentified		Wonderful beer.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And foreign policy is the purpose of the actual poll, but what was the idea?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		For this poll, what was the sample?
		What was the size?
		Who did you talk to?
		What was their political affiliations?
		Give us those details.
unidentified		Cross-section across the board, over a thousand phone calls, half roughly, other half online.
unidentified		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Before we get too far, this poll, when was it taken in relation to the attacks that we saw in Iran by the United States?
unidentified		Important question.
		It started at the end of May, and we're out of the field June 2nd.
		So prior to Israel's strike in the Iranian nuclear weapons program on June 13th and certainly in advance of the American strike.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Our guest is with us until 10 o'clock.
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, what you did ask about Iran, and you asked the question about preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Roger Zachheim here for this conversation.
		Let's go to Frank.
		Frank joins us from San Francisco.
		Democrats line you're on with our guest.
		Good morning, Frank.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you.
		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.
		Sorry to lay that on you, guest.
		Have a good morning.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, let him respond.
unidentified		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Roger Zachim, you mentioned immigration.
		The president's top guy on immigration, Tom Holman, is speaking to reporters.
		I want to take a little listen in on that.
unidentified		What do you use it for?
tom homan ▲ ● ▼		We're going to use a lot of things.
		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?
		We talked about 12 million illegal.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Tom Holman.
		Border security, immigration.
		You talk about it in your survey.
		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.
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Adam in Maryland.
		Republican line.
		Thanks for holding, Adam.
		Go ahead, please.
unidentified		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.
texas skeptic in texas ▲ ● ▼		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.
texas skeptic in texas ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		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.
unidentified		Thanks.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Adam, from there.
unidentified		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
		And no one seems to be concerned about it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Steve, we'll let our guest answer.
unidentified		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Independent line from Illinois Valdez, hello.
unidentified		Good morning.
		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.
		Thank you for your time.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Aldous in Illinois.
unidentified		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Republican Lyon from Sacramento.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Kim, hello.
unidentified		Hi, yes.
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's Kim there.
unidentified		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
		You're working against us here.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We've seen a lot of those NATO countries and alliances still give strong support to Ukraine and their efforts against Russia.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Does your survey tackle that topic?
unidentified		We do ask questions about Ukraine.
		And what we've seen overall, it's been kind of roughly half-half, right?
		It's a 50-50 split in terms of continuing to give support, that is security assistance to Ukraine.
		What we saw also in the survey, and we asked, you know, who do you want to win the war between Russia and Ukraine?
		58% said, hey, we want Ukraine to win.
		That was roughly the same a year ago when we asked this question in May of 2024.
		So you have a particular sort of division over the nature of U.S. support.
		How much security assistance, if any, should the United States give Ukraine?
		On that front, Donald Trump ran say we're not going to give American treasure to Ukraine.
		But who do we want to win on it, which is a separate question and an important question.
		It's quite clear.
		Americans want Ukraine to win.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Roger Zachheim of the Ronald Reagan Institute joining us.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Steve in Ohio Democrats line.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Good morning.
		I have a comment and a question concerning the recent attack or hit on Ford in Iran and their centrifuges.
steve in arizona ▲ ● ▼		We had an agreement in 2015, the JCPOA.
unidentified		President Trump removed us from that agreement in 2018.
		My concern is that we, well, we knew and believed that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon.
		There's 12,241 nuclear weapons in the world.
		90% of them are controlled by the United States and Russia.
		Anyways, we can't have them to have one.
		Their centrifuges and their enrichment, it wasn't supposed to go above maybe 4% or 5%.
		My concern is now the IAEA is going to be kicked out of there.
		We won't have any eyes on it, and maybe we set them back a year.
		And also, my second concern is the president is not believing his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.
		She gave an assessment 90 days ago that Iran wasn't trying to build a nuclear weapon.
		So I just want, I never heard Reagan ever disparage his national security agency in front of the general public.
		So could you address that, please?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Steve, thanks.
unidentified		Thanks, Steve.
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, Color, for sake of time, what's the question?
unidentified		Well, the question was the apartheid, and the question is, is genocide okay?
unidentified		Do you think that there's a time when there's been enough killing?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, we'll have to leave it there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We'll have to leave it there.
unidentified		Thank you.
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		There's more to the survey, and if people were interested in finding out more, where can they find it?
unidentified		ReaganFoundation.org or just throw in the browser, Reagan Institute Summer Survey.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		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.

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