| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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Coming up on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live. | |
| Then a look at the potential impact the One Big Beautiful bill could have on local health facilities. | ||
| With Joe Dunn, Chief Policy Officer at the National Association of Community Health Centers. | ||
| And Ryan Evans, founder and CEO of War on the Rocks, joins us to discuss the current state of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the role and involvement of the U.S. Washington Journal starts now. | ||
| This is Washington Journal for Saturday, July 12th. | ||
| Yesterday, President Trump toured the devastation from a catastrophic storm in Texas as search efforts continue for more than 170 people still missing after the July 4th flash floods. | ||
| Also, this week, President Trump announced new tariffs on two countries and threatened to impose blanket tariffs on most others as the August 1st deadline to reach trade deals nears. | ||
| And President Trump announced the U.S. will send weapons to Ukraine through NATO. | ||
| Those are just a few of the stories C-SPAN has been following. | ||
| And for the first hour of today's program, we're asking you, what's your top news story of the week? | ||
| Here are the lines: Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001, and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can text your comments to 202-748-8003. | ||
| Be sure to include your name and city. | ||
| You can also post a question or comment on Facebook at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Good morning, and thank you for being with us. | ||
| We'll get to your calls and comments in just a few minutes. | ||
| But first, wanted to start with one of those top stories just mentioned. | ||
| That is the storms and aftermath in Texas. | ||
| This is the headline from the Associated Press: Trump tours Texas flood sites and defends officials ask questions mount about response. | ||
| It says that President Donald Trump on Friday toured the devastation from those catastrophic flooding in Texas and lauded state and local officials, even amid mounting criticism that they may have failed to warn residents quickly enough that a deadly wall of water was coming their way. | ||
| Trump has repeatedly promised to do away with the Federal Emergency Management Agency as part of his larger pledge to dramatically shrink the size of government. | ||
| And he's fond of decrying officials in Democrat-run states hit by past natural disasters and tragedy. | ||
| But the president struck a far more somber and empathetic tone while visiting America's most populous Republican state, highlighting the heartbreak of what happened while effusively praising elected officials and first responders alike. | ||
| President Trump made remarks yesterday after touring those deadly floods in Kerr County, Texas. | ||
| Here are some of those remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
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We just were making a little tour of the area. | |
| It's hard to believe the devastation. | ||
| Trees that are 100 years old just ripped out of the ground. | ||
| I've never seen anything like it. | ||
| I've seen a lot of bad ones. | ||
| I've gone to a lot of hurricanes, a lot of tornadoes. | ||
| I've never seen anything like this. | ||
| This is a bad one we just visited with incredible families that, I mean, look, they've been devastated. | ||
| They lost their child or two children. | ||
| And just hard to believe what I've never seen anything like it. | ||
| A little narrow river that becomes a monster. | ||
| And that's what happened. | ||
| But the First Lady and I are here in Texas to express the love and support and the anguish of our entire nation in the aftermath of this really horrific and deadly flood. | ||
| Nobody has any idea how and why a thing like this could happen. | ||
| It's, and by the way, I have to tell you the people here, first responders, the sheriff's office, all of the police, law enforcement, they've done an unbelievable job. | ||
| And in speaking to the parents, they said everybody has been so professional from the governor to the senators all the way down to the local people on the site that really are a little bit used to this. | ||
| They've been looking at this for years, but in much smaller doses and on much, much smaller doses. | ||
| The floods in Texas and the aftermath. | ||
| Just one of the stories C-SPAN has been following this week for the first hour of today's program. | ||
| We're asking you, we want to know your top news story of the week. | ||
| Again, the lines there on your screen, Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can also reach us on social media and by text. | ||
| We'll start with Samuel in South Pasadena, California, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Samuel. | ||
|
unidentified
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Oh, good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| Can I talk about the tragedy in Texas? | ||
| Yes, go ahead, Samuel. | ||
|
unidentified
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Oh, okay, yeah. | |
| I just wanted to say that, yeah, that is a real horrible tragedy, what happened there and everything. | ||
| And I feel for the people there. | ||
| But let me say this: as long as I live and wherever I go, I will always remember those people that passed away there with gratitude, one of affection and with love and honor. | ||
| And I will be donating money there, just like I did for the wildfires here in California. | ||
| And I just want to say that I just want to say God bless the people of Texas. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| That was Samuel in California. | ||
| Ray in New York, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Ray. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| My top story of the week is what's happening to our ICE agents, people throwing rocks at them, ruining vans, just treating them terribly. | ||
| And then the Democrats are in the press trying to get them to remove their masks where their families are being threatened. | ||
| And I just think it's just a terrible way to treat our law enforcement. | ||
| All they're doing is what their jobs require. | ||
| And I just, again, I think it's absolutely terrible. | ||
| And I support the ICE agents and President Trump. | ||
| And we should treat them better. | ||
| Ray, you're in New York. | ||
| Have you seen any of the ICE effort or the ICE raids there happening? | ||
|
unidentified
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I haven't seen anything in my location. | |
| So I haven't seen anything, at least in my location, that I'm aware of. | ||
| That was Ray in New York. | ||
| Patricia, Chesapeake, Virginia, line for Independents. | ||
| Good morning, Patricia. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I just wanted to get on the topics that, you know, all the devastation that's happening in Texas is really bad. | ||
| And I think it's a good effort that, you know, President Trump even went out there and looked over the devastation himself. | ||
| And I think it's, you know, it's just really bad, all the stuff that went on out there. | ||
| But you can't blame it on anyone. | ||
| It's an act of God that happened. | ||
| And they're doing what they can. | ||
| And this stuff happens over time, you know. | ||
| It would happen. | ||
| And they knew it happened. | ||
| And it happens over and over and over again. | ||
| But dude, the blame game trying to blame a particular person for or people for this to happen is just wrong. | ||
| And I think it's really bad that they're trying to blame Trump and the Republicans and all this kind of stuff for this to happen is wrong. | ||
| But, I mean, that's a lot to put on a person, you know, that and for him to go and see it in person, you could tell it really devastated him. | ||
| And I think we could just end a Ukrainian war just by taking Putin out of the picture and arresting him for the war criminal that he is. | ||
| That was Patricia in Virginia. | ||
| Let's hear from Brian in Massachusetts, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Brian. | ||
| Hi, Brian. | ||
|
unidentified
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Are you there? | |
| Hi, Dan. | ||
| Here. | ||
| Hi, Brian. | ||
|
unidentified
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Go ahead. | |
| I'm pretty much just appalled by how the Trump administration has been dealing with the situation. | ||
| Obviously, the female being disbanded is very bad. | ||
| You know, I personally live in Bunceville, and I also live in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. | ||
| Tweet street indicator. | ||
| Let's hear from Perry in South Dakota, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Perry. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you for taking my call. | |
| And I think C-Span does a great job. | ||
| I'd just like to say that I think President Trump and what he does is the biggest happening in the USA and really across the world in a way. | ||
| He cares for people. | ||
| He's a good man. | ||
| Him and his wife go down to Texas and take that all in down there has to be the big story. | ||
| What Trump inherited from the previous administration was just unbelievable. | ||
| I mean, he's trying to make the whole thing work. | ||
| That's the main thing. | ||
| That's what the president is supposed to do. | ||
| Make the whole thing of the USA work for all people. | ||
| And he really does that. | ||
| He really cares about all the people. | ||
| I don't think he has a really bad bone in his body when it comes to taking care of things and taking care of this country. | ||
| He inherited a real mess. | ||
| It wasn't sustainable. | ||
| It wasn't sustainable. | ||
| What was going on previous? | ||
| And I think he is the big story of the week. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| That was Perry in South Dakota. | ||
| Stephen in Lawrence, Kansas, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Stephen. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, good morning. | |
| I think the story of the week that hasn't been getting a lot of attention is these attacks on the ICE facilities all over the country. | ||
| It appears that the extreme left Democratic wing fostered at these elite universities has created a Frankenstein's monster, which the Democrats cannot control. | ||
| And I'm very concerned that they can't get these people under control that's going to continue to spiral and get more violent, that they need to provoke the ICE agents into violence, sort of like Ken State back in the universities in the 70s. | ||
| And no one seems to be addressing it or seems to care that much. | ||
| I mean, there's maybe one report every now and again. | ||
| Maybe it's because the Democrats have created this monster that they cannot control anymore. | ||
| So kind of keep, I encourage the viewers to keep your eye on this, that no one seems to be condemning it as well on Capitol Hill. | ||
| It's kind of fascinating. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Stephen, you said that you haven't seen many stories on it. | ||
| Oh, we lost Stephen. | ||
| We'll go to Jim in Florida, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Jim. | ||
|
unidentified
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All right, good morning. | |
| I'd just like to comment on your opening segment for this morning. | ||
| The comments that you opened with commented on Trump's visit to Kerrville. | ||
| And even in that, you managed to twist this around so that Trump is the bad guy. | ||
| You pointed out that Trump has cut some of the FEMA manpower, and therefore he's at fault for all of this. | ||
|
unidentified
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I watched the whole thing yesterday, and I could see no nothing in the coverage that they showed that Trump had anything but nice things to say to the people of Kerrville. | |
| Can't you just give it a break? | ||
| Jim, I've been one day. | ||
| Well, Jim, I'm going back and I'm looking at what I read, and I pointed out that he has reading from an AP article that he's repeatedly promised to do away with FEMA. | ||
| I didn't say anything that he cut funding. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, yeah, you're correct in that. | |
| Now, comment on what you said about Trump in that opening segment. | ||
| I didn't say anything about Trump cutting FEMA funding in the opening segment. | ||
|
unidentified
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No, you missed the point. | |
| Well, you're not going to get the point. | ||
| I see that. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Have a great day there. | ||
| Keep up spewing the hate. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Jim in Florida. | ||
| Let's go to Clifton in Maryland, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Clifton. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| My top news story has been both those floods: the one in Texas and the one in, I guess it's what, New Mexico? | ||
| New Mexico. | ||
|
unidentified
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You know, they were pretty devastating. | |
| I wasn't that surprised. | ||
| It tended to mimic what went on in China. | ||
| China had a similar flooding devastation that overtook a city, and it has some really incredible photos. | ||
| And what's interesting is that this hasn't been picked up in the news media, at least I haven't heard it, but there has been talk from some scientists or professionals, as well as some people that I know, that, and this is not any way casting blame, that China in building its infrastructure with those two dams, one already complete, I think, one is still underway, | ||
| and all the desert reforestation, that it has actually changed the weather, not only in the Asian region, but also globally. | ||
| And that warrants to me something to look into, not as they did a cause for it, but to look into the significance of that so that there could be some preparation in the future for what looks like something that's commonplace now. | ||
| So I wouldn't be surprised if 60 Minutes picks it up, you know, to really look, do a hard look into it. | ||
| Because that's really interesting that what they do is change weather globally. | ||
| And I was really surprised a while back where there was this huge cyclone off the coast of California. | ||
| I don't recall ever seeing that before. | ||
| And it made me think, wow, is China what they're doing? | ||
| Has it really had this devastating impact globally? | ||
| So I'm just bringing that out to see if it would be looked into further. | ||
| Clifton, you said that it hasn't been reported anywhere. | ||
| You haven't been seeing it. | ||
| Where have you seen this? | ||
| Where did you get the information? | ||
|
unidentified
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I saw it online, the devastation in China online, but the regular news media hasn't picked it up. | |
| And I was talking to a friend of mine who rides me around when I go out. | ||
| He's a cab driver. | ||
| And I said, hey, man, did you hear about China and stuff? | ||
| He said, man, that's interesting you said that because I know a professor who had just came back from Asia. | ||
| They had a conference over there to discuss, you know, the water currents and the weather. | ||
| And he told him that China has an impact not only for the Asian region, but globally. | ||
| And I thought that that was really interesting, but I haven't heard it any other place. | ||
| That was Clifton in Maryland. | ||
| Another story that we have been following this week, and it is the President Trump announcing arms are going to be going to NATO. | ||
| It was yesterday. | ||
| It was on the Hill on your screen, Trump deal struck to send Ukraine weapons through NATO. | ||
| And it was a topic that Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader, was asked about on CNN Wednesday, asking about how President Trump has responded to Russia. | ||
| Here's that clip. | ||
| Trump says he's now considering supporting a bill in the Senate that would impose punishing sanctions on Russia. | ||
| Leader Jeffries, what do you make of the president's change in tone against Russia and Vladimir Putin for that matter? | ||
| And do you expect that these sanctions, this sanctions bill, will ultimately come up for a vote? | ||
| There's strong and bipartisan support for sanctions against Vladimir Putin and Russia. | ||
| And it's unfortunate that the Trump administration has spent months playing footsie with Vladimir Putin and some would suggest bending the knee to an enemy of this country. | ||
| This war of aggression that Russia has launched against Ukraine is clear. | ||
| It's not just about territorial integrity. | ||
| It's a battle between democracy and autocracy, between freedom and tyranny, between truth and propaganda. | ||
| And the United States of America should always stand on the side of democracy and freedom and truth. | ||
| That means standing on the side of Ukraine until victory is won. | ||
| So you would support these sanctions if, in fact, they're passed? | ||
| Certainly need to take a look at the specifics of the sanctions, but I am a strong supporter of continuing to escalate and intensify the sanctions that have been previously put into place relative to Russia until they back down. | ||
| And withdraw from Ukraine and create a situation where Ukraine's sovereignty can be restored and the killing of innocent civilians stops, including the killing of Ukrainian children that have been targeted by Russia and Vladimir Putin. | ||
| Back to your calls this first hour, asking your top news story of the week. | ||
| We'll hear from Chris in Grants Pass, Oregon, line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Chris. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, how are you doing? | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Go ahead, Chris. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Well, there's quite a lot to unpack here. | ||
| I do think that there's a lot of like there's a lot of lenience coming from the Trump administration regarding what is going on in Ukraine. | ||
| And I honestly feel like we haven't really heard much from Trump regarding what the plan is for Ukraine. | ||
| And I definitely think that we need to hear more about that from him. | ||
| I also think that he needs to talk more about skibbety toilet. | ||
| Let's hear from Tim in Grandview, Texas, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Tim. | ||
| Let's hear from Gary in Connorsville, Indiana, line for independents. | ||
| Good morning, Gary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, ma'am. | |
| That very last caller, I think that's outrageous. | ||
| Please do not say racist comments on this show, please. | ||
| But I would like to say my top news story of the week is the Texas flooding and everything. | ||
| And my heart goes out to each and every individual out there. | ||
| And I'm glad that Mr. Trump's going out there to attend to it and to see that things are done that need to be done. | ||
| And the situation with Ukraine is also a concern. | ||
| I just think that any and every measure that is necessary needs to be taken to try to get things rectified once and for all. | ||
| And ma'am, I would like to say, lastly, that one guy that accused you of being a hater and all that, he's totally in the wrong. | ||
| He doesn't know where his head's at. | ||
| I think you do an outstanding job. | ||
| And I really mean that from the heart. | ||
| As a matter of fact, I have been a C-SPAN caller for over 10 years on a regular basis. | ||
| I am proud to say so. | ||
| And this is a second to none station, and I really appreciate it. | ||
| I say that on behalf of a lot of people. | ||
| God bless you and peace out. | ||
| That was Gary in Indiana. | ||
| Let's hear from Reggie in Arizona, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Reggie. | ||
|
unidentified
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How are you doing? | |
| Doing well, Reggie. | ||
|
unidentified
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How are you doing this morning? | |
| We're great, Reggie. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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I just want to talk about what's going on in Texas. | |
| We don't have any control over the weather. | ||
| It was tragic what happened. | ||
| But God is in control. | ||
| That's my whole message to anybody that's listening. | ||
| We've got to trust in God and depend on him for everything. | ||
| I know there's people that are still missing. | ||
| And me, I'm what you call a prayer warrior. | ||
| I'm in prayer all the time. | ||
| I have some setbacks in my life. | ||
| I'm in a wheelchair. | ||
| I had a soak in 2010. | ||
| And so I have my challenges. | ||
| But I had that stroke. | ||
| They gave me 48 hours to live. | ||
| And I'm speaking on behalf of what God did for me. | ||
| He spared my life. | ||
| And I'm still here. | ||
| And all the ones, you know, all the children that have died in this tragic thing. | ||
| No. | ||
| They're in God's hands. | ||
| And also, too, all the grown-ups that have died in this situation, too. | ||
| Like I said, God is in control. | ||
| And we have to depend on him. | ||
| We're a nation. | ||
| We were a nation that was created under godly principles. | ||
| If you've got anybody listening to me other than you, I'm telling everybody to be in prayer. | ||
| That was Reggie in Arizona. | ||
| Let's hear from Rob in Port Crane, New York, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Rob. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Good morning, Tammy. | ||
| My biggest story was the cover-up of this S. Epstein stuff. | ||
| I remember years ago, Alex Acosta, during Trump's first term, he was appointed to be labor secretary because he gave Epstein a sweetheart deal where the man could go home for 18 hours a day. | ||
| And this man trafficked children. | ||
| And he trafficked children to rich people and the well-connected people, the so-called elites. | ||
| And when I heard this cover-up the other day, now I voted for Trump, you know, because I wanted something different than what we had for a government. | ||
| And this is horrible. | ||
| I feel like I've just been, you know, I've been wronged. | ||
| You know, I heard Josh Kash Patel. | ||
| He says, I've seen the files. | ||
| Well, these files supposedly don't exist. | ||
| And then I see Dan Bongino saying, once you've seen one suicide, you've seen them all. | ||
| How many suicides has Dan Bongino seen? | ||
| That's my question. | ||
| You know, this is crazy. | ||
| And then Bongino didn't show up for work yesterday. | ||
| I hope he does quit. | ||
| And I hope he comes out and tells everybody that the deep state's in charge. | ||
| And it's Obama's people and some of these other people that were put in place that they're not on the ballots. | ||
| This is the deep state people. | ||
| These are the people that are working against us. | ||
| This is horrible. | ||
| This is the worst cover-up since JFK. | ||
| And that's the other thing. | ||
| Those JFK files, garbage. | ||
| The MLK files that came out, garbage. | ||
| It was just something to pacify the stupid people so this government can go on doing what they usually do. | ||
| Let's go from one war to another war to another war. | ||
| You know, it's like Obama took us from two wars to seven, and the Democrats to this day say, oh, he was the best president we ever had. | ||
| It's just crazy. | ||
| So what are they going to say about Trump? | ||
| Was he a great president if he gets us into three more wars, four more wars? | ||
| I don't get it, Tammy, but I feel like we've all been wronged. | ||
| That was Rob in New York and Rob talking about the announcement this week by the FBI. | ||
| This is the headline from Axios. | ||
| It says, DOJ and FBI conclude Epstein had no client list, died by suicide. | ||
| It says that President Trump's Justice Department and FBI have concluded 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 obtained by Axios. | ||
| On Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi spoke with reporters when was asked about the Epstein list, and here is how she responded. | ||
| Your memo and release yesterday in Jeffrey Epstein, it left some lingering mysteries. | ||
| One of the biggest ones is whether he ever worked for a American or foreign intelligence agency. | ||
| The former labor secretary, who was Miami U.S. Attorney Alex Akosta, he allegedly said that he did work for an intelligence agency. | ||
| So could you resolve whether or not he did? | ||
| And also, could you say why there was a minute missing from the jailhouse tape on the night of the step? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, sure. | |
| Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? | ||
| This guy's been talked about for years. | ||
| You're asking, we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things. | ||
|
unidentified
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And are people still talking about this guy, this creep? | |
| That is unbelievable. | ||
| Do you want to waste the time? | ||
| Do you feel like answering? | ||
| I don't mind answering. | ||
| I mean, I can't believe you're asking a question on Epstein at a time like this where we're having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas. | ||
| It just seems like a desecration, but you go ahead. | ||
| Sure, sure. | ||
| First, to back up on that, in February, I did an interview on Fox, and it's been getting a lot of attention because I said I was asked a question about the client list, and my response was it's sitting on my desk to be reviewed, meaning the file, along with the JFK MLK files as well. | ||
| That's what I meant by that. | ||
| Also, to the tens of thousands of video, they turned out to be child porn downloaded by that disgusting Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| Child porn is what they were. | ||
| Never going to be released, never going to see the light of day. | ||
| To him being an agent, I have no knowledge about that. | ||
| We can get back to you on that. | ||
| And the minute missing from the video, we released the video showing definitively the video was not conclusive, but the evidence prior to it was showing he committed suicide. | ||
| And what was on that, there was a minute that was off the counter. | ||
| And what we learned from Bureau of Prisons was every year, every night, they redo that video. | ||
| It's old from like 1999. | ||
| So every night the video is reset, and every night should have the same minute missing. | ||
| So we're looking for that video to release that as well, showing that a minute is missing every night. | ||
| And that's it on Epstein. | ||
| About 30 minutes left in this first hour. | ||
| Today's Washington Journal asking for your top news story of the week. | ||
| We'll hear from Jim in Hudson, Florida, line for Republicans. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Jim. | |
| There's been a lot said about Epstein. | ||
| Some of the things I was going to say has been covered. | ||
| But I noticed that the major networks have not got into this because if Trump does something wrong, they're going to get into it. | ||
| And then Dan Vangino, he's a straight arrow and he's upset about this because he's seen what it is. | ||
| And if Pam Bondi says there's nothing there, there's nothing there, then why is Epstein's girlfriend in jail? | ||
| Why is she in jail if there's nothing there? | ||
| And that's all I've got to say. | ||
| And I appreciate your time. | ||
| That was Jim in Florida. | ||
| Robert, San Antonio, Texas, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Robert. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| You know, I'm just calling Andy Cogg. | ||
| Nobody believes, or nobody blamed President Trump for what happened in Texas. | ||
| We know it's not his fault. | ||
| But what we blame him for is not being prepared. | ||
| He's cutting FEMA when we know we're going to have disaster. | ||
| We know we're going to need help in the GIPA area. | ||
| It's like the fireman. | ||
| You know, you've got about 10 or 12 firemen sitting around the fire station when there's no fire. | ||
| They're wasting money and time. | ||
| But when you have a fire, you need all the fire that you can get your hand on to help put that fire out. | ||
| And that's what the president prepared America for. | ||
| That when we do have a disaster, he will help. | ||
| The federal government can help these states recover from the disaster. | ||
| And that's all I got to say. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| That was Robert in Texas. | ||
| Scott, Gresham, Oregon. | ||
| Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Scott. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for checking my call. | ||
| I just wanted to comment. | ||
| I watched the president mention the fast response ad, but I think it took 72 hours before FEMA was allowed to help. | ||
| So I think Mexico did a better job in handling the search and rescue than we did, the United States. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So that's all I have to say. | |
| But thank you for taking my call. | ||
| And thoughts all go out to those who were lost in Texas. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Scott in Oregon. | ||
| Robert in Tampa, Florida. | ||
| Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Robert. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| God bless you. | ||
| Hey, listen, let's not forget when we had all the hurricane in North Carolina, how long it took FEMA to react and the little measly $700 that the Biden administration offered to people. | ||
| But that's not why I called. | ||
| I called to talk about the arms that Trump's given to NATO. | ||
| He's not giving it to them. | ||
| He's selling it to them to give to Ukraine to defend themselves against Russia. | ||
| And don't forget, before Trump left office, there were no wars at all. | ||
| He had sanctions, if I'm correct, on Russia and Iran and people like that. | ||
| And they reversed that. | ||
| And it caused all the wars and conflict that's going around the world today. | ||
| I mean, just look at the mess we have in all these states. | ||
| It's ridiculous how these people are pushing for violence. | ||
| I mean, they're just, it's terrible how they're protecting migrants or illegal immigrants that are coming from other countries that are criminals and murderists and rapists. | ||
| And we want legal immigration. | ||
| We just don't want illegal immigration. | ||
| So that's all I got to say. | ||
| God bless you. | ||
| Have a wonderful weekend. | ||
| That was Robert in Florida. | ||
| Faye in Ithaca, New York, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Faye. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning to you. | ||
| I have a couple things that I'd like to say. | ||
| First of all, and I'm not saying that to be mean or disrespectful in any way, but I believe in facts and I believe in good journalism. | ||
| And that good journalism is out there. | ||
| So I want to say that Trump is the biggest liar, the biggest con artist, the biggest manipulator we've seen in government. | ||
| He is protected by people in the Supreme Court who have allowed him to win this election and keep backing him up with powers. | ||
| And the Jeffrey Epstein situation, I will tell you with all my heart, I feel he was murdered. | ||
| I feel that he's being protected and Trump is being protected because there are very famous people, very powerful people that used that facility. | ||
| I mean, Jeffrey Epstein was not some isolated person. | ||
| He had an island. | ||
| I mean, it is so obvious that there's a cover-up here. | ||
| And I do believe he was murdered. | ||
| I mean, look at the facts. | ||
| If you put the facts together, if you put what Trump has been saying with what he said in the past, he constantly changes things. | ||
| He's constantly lying. | ||
| And it's all in front of us. | ||
| Please, American people, I'm not trying to be mean. | ||
| I would say this even if it was a Democrat. | ||
| I'm a Democrat, and I am upset with a lot of the things the Democrats have done. | ||
| Okay, and I also want to say that the airplane that Trump accepted is unbelievable. | ||
| I mean, he is going to use that for his own good, and he's conning the American taxpayers because we're paying for it to be refurbished only for him to use it after he's gone, after he's president. | ||
| Okay, he has used people, including Musk, who I can't stand. | ||
| Okay, he uses people and throws them under the bus. | ||
| And he's doing that also with the American people. | ||
| He's taking away their health care. | ||
| I mean, it's unbelievable to me that this man has been reelected. | ||
| But he's been re-elected because he cons people. | ||
| He tells people that he's going to end wars, which he's not. | ||
| He's definitely friends with Putin. | ||
| And God knows what the connections are because, you know, the issue of banks and bank accounts were never resolved in Europe, okay, with his bank affiliations. | ||
| Things get dropped after it becomes an issue, just like with the Jeffrey Epstein situation years ago. | ||
| Got your point, Faye. | ||
| We'll go to Bernadette in Scotts Plains, New Jersey on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Bernadette. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, there. | |
| I wanted to praise Reggie, the fellow in the wheelchair since 2010 or 2012. | ||
| He had such a nice call about God and how God is in charge of everything. | ||
| And there was a book by Harold Kirsner that said why bad things happen to good people. | ||
| I read it, but it was 40 years ago, so I kind of forget. | ||
| And also, Ken from Florida had a great call about, he said, wouldn't you think that if Trump had been with Epstein or done that, the media would have found out about it and pursued it? | ||
| I kind of agree with that. | ||
| And I agree with Robert, who said that NATO is paying for the weapons. | ||
| They're paying the United States for the weapons that are going, the defensive weapons that are going to Ukraine from the United States. | ||
| But we're going to get paid for that as opposed to when we send them to Ukraine. | ||
| We probably wouldn't. | ||
| I just hope we get the mineral rights that were promised. | ||
| And that's it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Bernadette in New Jersey, Jack in Tallahassee, Florida, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Jack. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning, Tammy. | ||
| And good morning, C-SPAN. | ||
| I'm a little nervous. | ||
| But this Jeffrey Epstein, his girlfriend is in the federal penitentiary in Tallahassee. | ||
| She's been there when she was convicted of whatever they abstained and she was doing. | ||
| And so there must be something there. | ||
| But Trump is a notorious liar. | ||
| He lies about everything. | ||
| And I do not like the people that are surrounded by him. | ||
| Anybody that supports a liar, I just don't understand it. | ||
| I really truly don't. | ||
| But anyway, that's my thought for today. | ||
| And thank you. | ||
| I've been listening to the ceasefire for quite a while now, a number of years. | ||
| So take care and everybody be safe. | ||
| Bye. | ||
| And that was Jack in Florida, Matt in Virginia, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Matt. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I think my story of the week, I hope, is that it should be more clear than ever to folks around the country that the federal government does have a role in everyone's lives and that when you start cutting programs and services that the federal government provides to citizens around the country, it comes at a cost. | ||
| When you fire employees at agencies that provide critical services like at NOAA or start to dismantle FEMA, it can, there are real-life consequences. | ||
| And what we saw that happened with the flooding in Texas, that in theory, it sounds good. | ||
| Everybody wants small government, and I think everybody agrees you want more efficient government. | ||
| But it has to be thoughtful the way you go about it when you just get rid of employees and dismantle agencies without a plan and without a thought about the long-term ramifications. | ||
| There's real cost to everyday Americans. | ||
| I'm a formal federal employee, and I know for years and years there was a lot of disparagement about the work me and my agency did. | ||
| But everybody doesn't, you know, nobody thinks about that they actually need the federal government. | ||
| You know, nobody needs the government until they do. | ||
| And I just hope that citizens around the country can agree that there are certain services the states are just unable to provide by themselves. | ||
| They don't have the resources or the capability. | ||
| In that case, that is what the federal government's for. | ||
| And I hope people will just take a minute to think about that and appreciate what the government can do and that there are ramifications if you try to get rid of those services for states and people that can't take care of themselves. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Matt in Virginia. | ||
| And Matt mentioning that he was a, he's a federal, former federal employee. | ||
| This headline from Axios says Supreme Court allows Trump to fire federal workers. | ||
| It says Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for the Trump administration to fire federal workers. | ||
| The big picture, the majority decision, which lifts a federal judge's earlier order freezing the cuts, gives the administration power to resume its goal of reshaping and scaling back federal agencies. | ||
| It says it could lead to tens of thousands of people losing their jobs across government agencies like the Departments of State and Treasury. | ||
| It says the justices noted in the unsigned opinion that they were not ruling on the legality of any specific layoff plans for federal agencies, just that, quote, the government is likely to succeed on its argument that the executive order and memorandum are unlawful. | ||
| Also notes that liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined the conservative justices in the ruling. | ||
| It says that the plan themselves are not before this court at this stage, and we thus have no occasion to consider whether they can and will be carried out consistent with the constraints of law. | ||
| That was what Justice Sotomayor wrote in that unsigned opinion. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| Marvin in Forest City, Iowa, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Marvin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| Just at 69 years of age, I find that the common sense in our country has gone out the window. | ||
| We have people that were managing this country for four years who were incompetent. | ||
| Everybody was washing every other buddy's back and getting kids jobs and their friends and their relatives. | ||
| The government is for the people. | ||
| I understand that. | ||
| But why are we letting them dictate to us about stuff that doesn't have anything to do with our daily work? | ||
| We all work, and maybe they're rich, our employers. | ||
| But if it weren't for them, there'd be no taxes. | ||
| There'd be no jobs. | ||
| There probably wouldn't be much more than just the rich and the poor. | ||
| But that's just the way it is. | ||
| It's been that way for 69 years of my life, and I don't see it changing. | ||
| So just bring some common sense back to your table and drink some coffee and have a good day. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Marvin in Iowa. | ||
| Eric in New York, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Eric. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The common sense in our country. | |
| Eric, are you there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We have people that were managing this country. | |
| Hello. | ||
| Hi, Eric. | ||
| Can you go ahead and turn your television down in the background? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yep. | |
| Yeah, no problem. | ||
| Okay, go ahead, Eric. | ||
| You're on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, so a couple things. | |
| Regarding Pambondi, if there was nothing there, why all the to-do with walking around and waving around the red binders and, oh, we're going to be releasing everything and then turn around, not but a couple months later and say there's nothing here. | ||
| It feels like smoke and mirrors to me. | ||
| And the other thing I have to say is, of course, we pray for the flood victims in Texas and pray for their families and that they can grieve and that'll never get easier. | ||
| But as far as the other things going on, we have people in Texas that were also targeting the coordinated attack there the other day with the group of people who set up the ambush on the ice agents. | ||
| That's just the way where we've gotten in this country with politics is just mind-boggling. | ||
| How is it that we're at a point where violence is okay and we can't denounce it, right? | ||
| Like you see some people, but generally, I haven't seen anybody on the left really denounce any of it because maybe they're, I don't know if they're okay with it or not, but it seems to fit that goal, right? | ||
| Like resist at any cost. | ||
| And that's just not the way. | ||
| Thank you for your time. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| That was Eric in New York. | ||
| Leah in Sandy, Utah. | ||
| Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Leah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
...about California was because they had so much drought, they extremely seeded a cloud, and it created a lot of rainfall. | |
| But if it could be put in a computer nationwide and accessed correctly, then people going to camp could check out the computer and see, well, have four states extremely seeded the clouds. | ||
| And is it coming right for Texas? | ||
| Then they could decide not to go to camp this week, maybe another time. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Leah in Utah. | ||
| Frank in Lynchburg, Virginia, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Frank. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| And yes, I am an independent, but I got to say that I've listened to a lot of the Democrat calls in here, and I'm actually ashamed for them to say that this is a corrupt administration. | ||
| Where were they at when Hunter's laptop was a topic of discussion and every Democrat defended it? | ||
| At least on the Republican side, they are holding this president accountable by questioning the Jeffrey Epstein decision. | ||
| I'm sorry, if you're a Democrat caller on here and you have stood by and you've been complicit with those type of policies, you should be ashamed of yourself. | ||
| And another thing that I do want to say is this: I don't know why the news agencies do it. | ||
| CAC SPAN, you've been guilty of it as well. | ||
| An immigrant is someone who legally comes to the United States of America and goes through the process of citizenship. | ||
| An illegal immigrant is someone who does not follow the process and comes to the United States to obtain whatever they come here for. | ||
| A migrant is someone who gets a temporary work visa, who comes to the United States temporarily and then relocates. | ||
| For you guys, for the media, for Democrats, for anybody who is advocating for these people, and I'm not saying they shouldn't be here, but anyone advocating for them and can't define them and they have to manipulate or lie about what these people are. | ||
| If you say a migrant is a person who actually is legal, you're being intentional. | ||
| Frank, are you still there? | ||
| Frank? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Of what they are. | |
| Frank, I'm sorry you cut out. | ||
| Can you repeat what you just said? | ||
| You cut out. | ||
| We lost you for a second. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I'm sorry. | |
| I'm back right here, then. | ||
| I said for anybody who doesn't use those terms or they mislead those terms intentionally, whether it be Congress, whether it be your callers, whether it be the news agencies, I strongly discourage anyone from believing them because they can't even identify the people honestly for what they are. | ||
| If you are here illegally, you are not a migrant. | ||
| You are not an immigrant. | ||
| So maybe we can have a conversation, but don't use redefined terms to try to justify something that you know it may not be a good thing. | ||
| And that's supporting people who come here illegally, and we have no idea who they are and where they come from. | ||
| And that could be for C-SPAN, that could be for your callers who call in. | ||
| But I challenge y'all to use the right terms because it sounds like a bunch of liars when you use a different term to describe these cases. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Frank in Virginia. | ||
| A couple other stories from this week. | ||
| This headline from Politico Senate panel advances Trump's nominee to lead CDC. | ||
| It says President Trump's pick to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is one step closer to confirmation. | ||
| On Wednesday, the Senate Health Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee voted to advance the nomination of Susan Monterey, a former acting director who has various health-related roles in the federal government for 20 years, says Monterey advanced along a 12 to 11 party line vote. | ||
| Quote, she is committed to improving transparency to CDC, properly communicating health guidance to the American people, said chair Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana. | ||
| This is especially crucial as the nation is nation's combat redeeming re-emerging public health threats like measles, which has taken three lives in the United States this year. | ||
| One that's not included but is tragic is the Canadian woman who was pregnant, got exposed to measles, lost her child, and hospitalized many more due to misinformation regarding the measles vaccine. | ||
| It says public health experts also say that Monterey is well qualified to lead the agency and hopes she could become a bulwark against some of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s vaccine policy changes. | ||
| Politico also noting followed the NOAA nominee hearing that was held earlier this week. | ||
| It says President Donald Trump's nominee to head NOAA pledged Wednesday to fully staff the National Weather Service after catastrophic Texas floods triggered a new wave of criticism over President Trump's deep cuts across the government. | ||
| We C-SPAN covered that hearing and Neil Jacobs is President Trump's nominee. | ||
| Here's a clip from the hearing in exchange with Ranking Member Maria Cantwell. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What can we do to help communities get better plans? | |
| Well, going back to your weather service question, if confirmed, I will ensure that staffing the weather service offices is a top priority. | ||
| It's really important for the people to be there because they have relationships with the people in the local community. | ||
| They're a trusted source. | ||
| I didn't mean to imply that this was going to be regionalized or anything. | ||
| As I mentioned before. | ||
| Some people have suggested that the private sector, you could just do it in one location. | ||
| And I'm just trying to get to this point that this regional data and integration with the emergency responders is critical. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Consolidating the data, not consolidating the people. | |
| Okay. | ||
| I would love for the people to be more embedded in the community. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Six minutes left in this first portion. | ||
| Today's Washington Journal hearing from you on your top news story of the week. | ||
| Will in Newark, Delaware, line for Republicans is next. | ||
| Good morning, Will. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just want to put my thoughts, hearts, and prayer out to all those who lost their lives. | ||
| And I just wanted to point out: if you notice those bridges, they become dams. | ||
| Maybe we should look at building bridges that arch over top of those rivers and streams so that all that debris can flow downstream and go someplace else instead of becoming a dam and backing all that water up. | ||
| That was Will in Delaware. | ||
| Rory in Florida, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Roy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, how's it going? | |
| I'm just, yeah, those floods were pretty bad. | ||
| But in any case, what's going on with immigration is not good in this country. | ||
| I mean, when we can put people in these concentration camps, which I call it, because they really haven't done anything, the way ICE is acting, ICE is acting like a terrorist force, throwing people to the ground, beating them up, putting them in handcuffs, and all of a sudden they're scared to show their face. | ||
| It's basically kidnapping is what it is. | ||
| You have to identify yourself when you go and take somebody off the street, or it can be kidnapping. | ||
| I mean, the whole thing is we open Alligator Alcatraz down here in Florida, which is ridiculous. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ron DeSantis does nothing about HOA insurance or anything else. | |
| As what I see immigration being, and this is my last point, and I'll let you go, it's a human rights and civil rights violation. | ||
| They're violating the rights. | ||
| They are doing the law, but they're lying. | ||
| They said they were going to get criminals instead of people that have done little petty stuff. | ||
| And I haven't seen many criminals. | ||
| Only 10% of criminals, they went ahead and got in this. | ||
| It's wrong. | ||
| It's against people's human rights for these scumbag ICE agents and these vans that come around undercover and throw people to the ground, beating the hell out of them and taking them to some camp somewhere in awful conditions. | ||
| If you want to do something, send them back to their country. | ||
| Quit wasting money on these prisons. | ||
| Is Trump making money off it? | ||
| Who's the private prison people that are making money off it? | ||
| Send them to their country. | ||
| Get them out of here. | ||
| I'm for that. | ||
| But don't put them in these prisons. | ||
| And don't beat them up on the streets the way you're throwing them around. | ||
| They're going to fight back otherwise. | ||
| Because that's what you're seeing. | ||
| This is not America. | ||
| This is not if we all need to come together and say enough, enough of this. | ||
| If Trump can't do the job and be a president for all Americans, he needs to get out or be removed because he's been terrible from day one. | ||
| You asked me one thing good that he's did the whole time. | ||
| He's cut Medicaid. | ||
| He gave ICE the whole budget. | ||
| He does nothing for veterans. | ||
| He arrests them. | ||
| He just doesn't care anymore. | ||
| This isn't the first Trump in the first term. | ||
| He lied. | ||
| He lied to his voters. | ||
| That was Roy in Florida. | ||
| Also in Florida is Kareth, flying for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Kareth. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I haven't called in quite some time. | ||
| Thoughts and prayers of the people in Texas. | ||
| So I'm really concerned about the perspective that we're taking as Americans because it seems like anything the Democrats says, Republicans object to it. | ||
| Anything the Republicans says says the Democrats object to it. | ||
| We need a healthy Democratic Party, a healthy Republican Party. | ||
| And both should be able to sit at the table, make compromises, and come up with policies that are going to be in the best interest of the American people. | ||
| If it's a Republican president who's in office, the policies are going to lead Republican. | ||
| If a Democratic president is in office, he's going to lead Democratic. | ||
| Anyone who is not concerned about the policy positions that are being taken by the current administration is absolutely crazy. | ||
| Think about if a Democratic president comes into office and says, if you don't believe in a woman's right to choose, we're going to remove all your federal funding. | ||
| What are the implications of that? | ||
| That is exactly what Trump is doing. | ||
| Taking partisan positions. | ||
| He has control of the House, the Senate, and the presidency. | ||
| If you think that these are policies that are worth pursuing, get the legislature to get together and pass these laws. | ||
| Don't just have these executive actions that are being taken on a daily basis on a whim. | ||
| You cannot run the country like that because if we do that, it results in chaos and then we lose credibility around the world. | ||
| Look at the people of the TPS, temporary protective status. | ||
| I mean, this is something by law we granted to people. | ||
| And you just, at the signing of an executive action, you remove that status for all these people. | ||
| This is not American. | ||
| This is not how we operate. | ||
| We are supposed to be this jewel of democracies around the world. | ||
| People look to us. | ||
| And it's really an embarrassment to see how whimsical and reckless this administration has been acting in how they're executing their policies. | ||
| Yes, I mean, you won the election. | ||
| then you need to run the country as a responsible elected official. | ||
| Got your point. | ||
| Well, Karen, there in Florida, want to get in a couple more calls. | ||
| Nat, Staten Island, New York, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Nat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you very much. | ||
| I wish to make a comment on this Jeffrey Epstein case. | ||
| You know, I get the feeling that when Mr. Biden was president, he should have really taken steps to make sure that the people got to know what exactly happened in the Epstein episode. | ||
| There was no doubt about it that she too was probably trying to hide people's names from coming forth because there was a hell of a lot of these folks who were participating in sex with the little girls. | ||
| Now, but then fast over to the Trump administration. | ||
| Why is it that they kept on saying that they would release the files on Epstein? | ||
| And Pam Bondi said she has it all today stacked up on her table, waiting to be taken care of. | ||
| And now suddenly they say there's nothing there. | ||
| And Epstein, you know, she just committed suicide. | ||
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| That was Nat in New York. | ||
| And Daniel, last call for the segment. | ||
| Pennsylvania, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Daniel. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, thank you for taking my call. | |
| I wanted to say that God bless and help the people of Texas and New Mexico with the flooding. | ||
| I'm concerned because we have an army of engineers that should be taking charge of the country and looking at these storms and figuring out a way where some of this water can go and not destroy people's homes and their lives. | ||
| That's the one thing I was concerned about. | ||
| I think the Army Corps of Engineers should be doing something about that with these violent storms because they're not going to go away. | ||
| This is the eighth storm in Texas. | ||
| This isn't the first time. | ||
| They call it flood alley. | ||
| They should be doing something about that so we don't lose more people and more children. | ||
| It's heartbreaking to see all this debris and all this stuff. | ||
| And it really is sad. | ||
| God bless America. | ||
| We had a president that did not serve the people as he should have. | ||
| And we're paying the price for it. | ||
| Thank you and God bless you and thank you for your show. | ||
| Bye. | ||
| That was Daniel in Pennsylvania, our last caller for this segment. | ||
| Later this morning on Washington Journal, War on the Rocks founder and CEO Ryan Evan joins us to discuss the current state of the Russia-Ukraine war and U.S. involvement. | ||
| But next, we'll talk with National Association of Community Health Centers Chief Policy Officer Joe Dunn about how the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could impact community health centers. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
American History TV, exploring the people and events that tell the American story. | |
| This weekend, as the nation prepares to celebrate its semi-quincentennial, American History TV begins a year-long series, America 250, on the American Revolution and its impact on the country. | ||
| This weekend, we'll look back on Patrick Henry's famous words, Give me liberty or give me death, in March 1775 at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia. | ||
| Watch as the Virginia 250 Commission commemorates the speech with tributes and a reenactment at the original site. | ||
| On the Civil War, Anderson Carmen and Andrew Fialca, co-authors of A Civil War History in Graphic Novel Form, talk about guerrilla violence in Kansas and Missouri. | ||
| And on the presidency, Andrew Jackson Papers editor emeritus Daniel Feller looks back at 1834 and the consequential events that year in the life of America's seventh president. | ||
| Exploring the American story, watch American History TV every weekend and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. | ||
| Book TV, every Sunday on C-SPAN 2, features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. | ||
| Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend. | ||
| At 6:45 p.m. Eastern, Financial Times San Francisco correspondent Patrick McGee shares his book, Apple in China, that looks at Apple's relationship with China and the impact of locating so many factories there. | ||
| Then at 8 p.m. Eastern, Joseph Churidian talks about his biography of Chinese President Xi Jinping's father, Zhi Shangzhun, a leading figure in the Chinese Communist Party, in his book, The Party's Interests Come First. | ||
| And at 9:15 p.m. Eastern, from this year's Freedom Fest, Ludlow Institute founder and president Naomi Brockwell, author of Beginner's Introduction to Privacy, talks about the lack of privacy in the digital age and recommends ways for people to preserve it. | ||
| Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org. | ||
| In a nation divided, a rare moment of unity. | ||
| This fall, C-SPAN presents Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
| In a town where partisan fighting prevails, one table, two leaders, one goal, to find common ground. | ||
| This fall, ceasefire on the network that doesn't take sides, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss how the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could impact community health centers is National Association of Community Health Centers Chief Policy Officer Joe Dunn. | ||
| Joe, welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much for having me. | |
| Thank you for coming back on. | ||
| We'll start with just an overview of your organization. | ||
| Remind our audience your mission and who you work with. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so the National Association of Community Health Centers was founded in the 1970s after the Community Health Center movement was started. | |
| We serve in a way to really focus around primary care. | ||
| Our members focus around comprehensive primary care. | ||
| There's 1,500 of them across the country. | ||
| We're coming up on our 60th anniversary of the Community Health Center program and 55 years of the association. | ||
| So we're here in Washington, D.C., lobbying on their behalf. | ||
| You mentioned that your organization is getting ready to celebrate or is celebrating 60 years of community health centers. | ||
| Explain what they are and who uses them, the kind of services that are provided. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so community health centers are an incredible organization. | |
| There's, like I said, 1,500 across the country. | ||
| They provide comprehensive primary care services. | ||
| So that's obviously the medical side, but then also oftentimes dental, oral health, transportation, other services like that. | ||
| They're locally governed. | ||
| So they have a patient community board that really dictates the services that they provide. | ||
| And then also they see everybody regardless of their ability to pay. | ||
| make sure that everybody who comes in gets care. | ||
| There is a sliding fee scale so people pay what they can based on their income, but really we provide that service and that basic primary care that's so important that saves lives and saves money to the long-term system to anybody in the community. | ||
| And it was on the 4th of July that President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law. | ||
| Your reaction to the passage of that piece of legislation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so we were disappointed that the bill was signed into law. | |
| You know, it's something where 50% of our patients are on Medicaid. | ||
| Medicaid is a critical payer, so it's 40% of the revenue, 50% of the patients. | ||
| It's going to have significant changes around Medicaid right now. | ||
| We know that it could lead to up to 4 million community health center patients being uninsured. | ||
| The focus around uncompensated care. | ||
| So health centers operate on razor-thin margins already. | ||
| And so when you think of potentially upwards of $7 billion of newly uncompensated care costs that they're going to have along with uninsured patients, it's very concerning. | ||
| Our guest for the next 35 minutes or so is Joe Dunn. | ||
| He is the chief policy officer for the National Association of Community Health Centers. | ||
| He's joining us for our discussion on how the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could impact community health centers. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for Joe, you can start calling in now the lines Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| And I also want to let you know that we have a special line for health care workers. | ||
| That line is 202-748-8003. | ||
| Joe, I wanted to point out some statistics about community health centers. | ||
| You have on your website, it says that they serve 32.5 million patients annually. | ||
| That's one in 10 Americans, represents only 1% of the total annual health care spending in the U.S. | ||
| That is, of course, before the legislation we just mentioned. | ||
| It says providing care to approximately one in five uninsured individuals, serves one in three people living in poverty, serves one in five in rural America. | ||
| It also supports over 6.4 million patients residing in or near public housing, care for more than 1.4 million individuals experiencing homelessness, also delivers mental health services to nearly 2.8 million patients annually, and says screening over 72% of adolescents and adult patients for depression. | ||
| When we hear those numbers and we hear the cuts that you just mentioned to Medicaid and how they could impact, what impact is it going to have on the people in those statistics I just mentioned who rely on community health centers? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so our mission and the community health center's mission is to really take care of those patients as best they can. | |
| But when you think of the uncompensated care costs that could come through this bill and the uninsured care, it's going to make life much more difficult. | ||
| Our patients, 90% of our patients are 200% or below of the federal poverty level. | ||
| So as you mentioned, low-income individuals who often have multiple jobs. | ||
| It's not that they're not working. | ||
| They actually probably work two or three jobs to make ends meet. | ||
| That's where we want to make sure that we have the resources that we can care for them in a comprehensive way. | ||
| You mentioned behavioral health, mental health. | ||
| We know that we're not meeting the need that's out there right now for those issues. | ||
| And we also know that there's many communities where we could serve more people. | ||
| We did a study a couple years ago. | ||
| Believe that there's 100 million Americans that lack access to basic primary care, and they need that because not only is it going to make them healthier over the long term, but it's also going to save the health care system significant funding over the long term, right? | ||
| We know that we avoid inpatient hospitalizations, right? | ||
| People who go to the hospital unnecessarily, or an emergency department. | ||
| We don't want to have people going there at a very high-cost setting where a lot of these issues and chronic disease could be dealt with at a primary care setting like a community health center. | ||
| And you mentioned that it is primarily primary care. | ||
| How could the impact on community health centers then impact ongoing care or even emergency care? | ||
| You just mentioned that as well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so what we believe is that it could lead to higher-cost settings, right? | |
| So if individuals can't get into their primary care setting for their diabetes, they may have more complications, and that may require them to go to an emergency department or to eventually have a higher-cost complication like an amputation. | ||
| That's, you know, as we think of we spend $4.9 trillion on the health care system and less than 5% on primary care right now. | ||
| That is much lower than the rest of the world. | ||
| And I think that's why, you know, our system often feels fragmented for the patient and leads to higher-cost settings that, you know, right now are not delivering the best outcomes for the patients. | ||
| We have callers waiting to talk with you. | ||
| We'll start with Jason in Maryland, Lion for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Jason. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Go ahead, Jason. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You're on. | |
| Thanks. | ||
| Yeah, I think when I'm hearing you, everyone talking about the impacts to, say, the healthcare industry and those patients that are on Medicaid and the implications, I think one thing that's been overlooked in this discussion is what are the impacts that are going to be from those illegal immigrants? | ||
| Oh, I'm sorry, we lost him. | ||
| He was asking about illegal immigrants. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so thanks so much for the call, Jason. | |
| Community health centers are required by federal law to serve all residents in their communities right now. | ||
| We don't ask for immigration status, and it's our mission to serve everybody. | ||
| We also, just yesterday or a couple days ago, there was a new announcement by the Trump administration on immigration, and we're certainly assessing those new details, waiting for some additional guidance from the federal government through the Department of HHS. | ||
| And we want to make sure that health centers continue to stay compliant with federal and state laws because that's exactly what they have always done. | ||
| Where we want to make sure that that continues. | ||
| You mentioned that announcement, the Trump administration halting access by undocumented immigrants to several services and community, including community health care centers. | ||
| Where you mentioned they can currently get coverage. | ||
| What are the alternatives for people who may be turned away in the future? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so right now, like I said, we don't ask for immigration status. | |
| That is not something that we're required to do, but we are required to serve everybody. | ||
| And so that's the real mission that they want to focus on providing the best quality care for all the individuals in their community. | ||
| Certainly, if there are changes, that may lead to additional outbreaks of disease and then, again, possibly going to emergency departments because hospitals have other rules around immigration. | ||
| But right now, we are fully compliant with the law across the country with health centers, and we're going to continue to do that. | ||
| Let's hear from Sarah in Columbia, South Carolina, Line for Independence. | ||
| Sarah, we're having a hard time hearing and you're breaking up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sorry. | |
| Sorry, you're still breaking up, Sarah. | ||
| Go ahead and try to give us a call back and see if we can get a better connection. | ||
| We'll go to Nick in Charlestown, West Virginia, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Nick. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello thank you so much for taking my call. | |
| It's great to be here with you this morning. | ||
| So my question is, I'm from West Virginia. | ||
| We are a very, very rural state. | ||
| And, you know, frankly, there is a lot of chronic disease in West Virginia. | ||
| And what I wanted to ask your speaker is what kind of impact do these community health centers have on a state like West Virginia? | ||
| And what would be the impact of this one big beautiful bill on my state? | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| Well, thanks so much for the question, Nick. | ||
| West Virginia is a state where community health centers are integral to their health care system. | ||
| They serve one in three West Virginians right now. | ||
| And, you know, it's just central to the future of the state that they have a vibrant community health center network of organizations that can continue to provide that high quality care. | ||
| I would say, you know, we are very concerned with the, you know, focus around these cuts, and we want to make sure that health centers have the funding and resources they need because they are so good at managing and preventing chronic disease. | ||
| Health center patients are 35% more likely to have chronic disease, and chronic disease is a major epidemic in the country that Secretary Kennedy has identified. | ||
| But, you know, they've also said that health centers are at the forefront of addressing these chronic disease issues. | ||
| And so we want to make sure that they have the resources they need to move forward and continue to provide high-quality care. | ||
| So thanks so much for the question. | ||
| And wanted to point out that your organization has maps on the website breaking down each congressional district. | ||
| If anyone is interested in knowing, learning more about how many organizations community health centers operate in your state or the funding that has been going to them as well as patients served, you can find that on the website nach.org. | ||
| Let's hear from Alex in Bayer, Delaware, line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Alex. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, how are you doing? | |
| I think I got the answer, but the immigrants getting care, health care, and all. | ||
| When they go to get their health care and they take care of them and get them going again, just take them out and deport them back to their country so they can get their health care in their own country. | ||
| And that's all I got to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Thanks, Alex, for that statement. | ||
| You know, like I said, health centers are not required and they don't ask for immigration status. | ||
| We provide care for everybody, but appreciate your perspective on the issue. | ||
| The community health centers themselves, they are going to obviously be impacted by the legislation. | ||
| How are they preparing for what could come? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so we do have an example of in recent memory during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a significant change to Medicaid where there was an ability to redetermine eligibility for Medicaid. | |
| So eventually when that happened, health centers did see a $600,000 loss through the loss of coverage for people as they shifted from one coverage source to the other. | ||
| What they try to do is connect people with the most relevant coverage and whatever they're eligible for for social services or other kind of health care needs. | ||
| So, I think what we're going to see, and obviously it's only been a week, but we are going to prepare health centers to ensure that they have the ability to take care of their patients, screen for different coverage options, hopefully try to help them maintain that coverage through Medicaid and go from there. | ||
| But, you know, it's one of these things that they operate on razor-thin margins, like I mentioned. | ||
| About 40% of them have less than 90 days cash on hand, and that's why the issue is so critical. | ||
| We have a funding deadline at the end of the year of the fiscal year, and that's why we're going to be pushing for bipartisan support for increased funding to help address these additional cuts. | ||
| Let's hear from Glenn in Pompano Beach, Florida, on the line for healthcare workers. | ||
| Good morning, Glenn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I don't know if your panel could speak to what would happen if an illegal alien who works in the hospital industry has tuberculosis and is denied care and continued to work. | ||
| What type of impact would that have on that business and the wider community? | ||
| Could he speak to that? | ||
| So, thanks so much for the question, Glenn. | ||
| It sounds like you're asking if there's an untreated patient with tuberculosis, what could happen? | ||
| I'm not a healthcare professional, so I couldn't speak to the exact spread of a disease, but certainly any kind of disease outbreak would be concerning. | ||
| So, it's an interesting question, but again, I'm not a healthcare professional to give you kind of a blow-by-blow of what would potentially happen if somebody's untreated. | ||
| Larry in Southport, North Carolina, line for Democrats. | ||
| Go ahead, Larry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| The lady there mentioned immigrants to illegal aliens. | ||
| And I don't watch the woke news because when they say something, the sky's falling. | ||
| But here's my thing: all they're doing is weeding out people that doesn't need vegetarian Medicare that's just laying on the butts and able-bodied people to work. | ||
| But you know, thank you. | ||
| Well, thanks so much, Larry, for the comments. | ||
| You know, I would say that what we've seen in other states that have implemented a work requirement in Georgia and then Arkansas is actually a lot of people are working. | ||
| And like I mentioned, health center patients are typically working multiple jobs. | ||
| But it's typically the administrative barriers to prove your coverage or exemption that has led to coverage losses in those states. | ||
| So that's one of the things we're concerned about. | ||
| But, you know, that's why we want to provide those resources, ensure that we're meeting the needs of patients, connecting them with the care that they need so they can be healthy and continue to work in the community and be productive citizens. | ||
| Em in Dayton, Ohio, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Em. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, my mother is 86 years old. | |
| She worked all of her life. | ||
| She raised all six of her children. | ||
| She's helped with raising her grandchildren. | ||
| And now that she's elderly and she's on Medicaid and another form of insurance to supplementize that, what's going to happen to her? | ||
| Will she be kicked off of her Medicaid? | ||
| Would she not be able to go into a nursing home if she needed like follow-up care after she was released from the hospital? | ||
| I mean, are they just going to boot her out after working all her life and paying into the system? | ||
| Well, thanks so much, Em. | ||
| And it sounds like your mom was or is a pretty amazing person raising six kids. | ||
| I have two kids myself, so I can imagine having six. | ||
| You know, that would be a real journey to be on. | ||
| But I would say that, you know, many of the provisions of this law would not affect your mother. | ||
| The work requirements, for example, is for individuals from 19 to 64. | ||
| So somebody in their mid-80s would not be included in that. | ||
| So I wouldn't anticipate that there would be much change, but certainly each state is going to implement the law differently. | ||
| And so, you know, I would keep tabs on it moving forward. | ||
| The Senate Republicans, as they worked on the reconciliation bill, they added $50 billion or I'm sorry, $50 million to the rural, $50 billion to the rural hospital fund. | ||
| But rural hospitals are still expecting to get hit by cuts. | ||
| Explain the connection between community health centers and rural hospitals. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so thanks so much, because we had worked on this. | |
| We believe that community health centers should be a big part of this new fund. | ||
| Like I mentioned, we believe that the focus around primary care is going to be a great way for the federal government to have a significant bang for your buck by investing in primary care. | ||
| But around the connection, health centers and rural hospitals often work very closely in rural communities. | ||
| But we've also seen, because of a number of factors, rural hospitals have closed at an alarming rate over the last decade. | ||
| Oftentimes, then that leaves the community health center in the rural area as the only primary care provider. | ||
| And one of the things that we've often said is, you know, you can't attract a business, a processing plant, a factory if you don't have a primary care network for your workers to go to, that you don't have labor and delivery for families and young families who want to start or, you know, have children. | ||
| So as we think of this new law and the new fund, we believe that there's a role for rural hospitals, but also that the focus needs to also be on community health centers to have that real primary care investment to help attract that economic development, maintain those vibrant rural communities. | ||
| We do serve about one in five individuals in rural America, so it's a significant portion of our patient population. | ||
| We want to make sure that that is maintained and continued and progresses into the future. | ||
| Mary in Bethesda, Maryland, line for healthcare workers. | ||
| Hi, Mary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Go ahead, Mary. | ||
| You're honor. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, my question is, I currently work for a health center and we already deal with so much stress and we are already taking care of so many patients as best we can. | |
| What is this act going to do to us? | ||
| And what can we do to stop the impact? | ||
| Well, thanks so much for your service, Mary. | ||
| That's great. | ||
| I would love to connect with you at some point and know which health center you're working in in Maryland. | ||
| I would say that it's going to take some time to be implemented. | ||
| But when it is fully implemented, one of the things that we believe is going to be an important element for health centers to screen their patients and make sure that they are connected to coverage. | ||
| Make sure they know if they have coverage or not. | ||
| One of the things, as I mentioned a couple years ago, you probably saw a lot of patients who come in and they thought they had Medicaid, but they actually didn't because maybe they missed a notification in the mail because they moved or they missed a phone call because their number changed. | ||
| So that is a real-life example that we believe is going to happen where health centers like yours, I'm sure, will go out of their way to do everything they can to take care of those patients. | ||
| But it's going to be an added burden at a time when resources are tight. | ||
| And right now, health centers, about 40% of them have less than 90 days cash on hand. | ||
| And so what we're going to try to do is through Washington and our bipartisan champions in Congress is push for increased funding to address some of these challenges and give you the resources you need to have the patient care that the patients deserve. | ||
| You mentioned that some community health centers only have a 90-day cash supply. | ||
| When could they start seeing the effect of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act? | ||
| When could they start feeling the, I guess, the worst impact? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so it will really go in stages, but it could be as early as this year as people start to think about and start to plan for, you know, what the next steps are. | |
| Health centers have already made really difficult changes and choices. | ||
| We've had a number of health centers that have had to close sites or lay off staff. | ||
| And so that's what we've tried to articulate to the members of Congress and their staff of, you know, there's not slack in the system. | ||
| They don't have the resources to fall back on or the cushion. | ||
| The average margin is about negative 2%. | ||
| And so they need to have the funding to take care of constituents in places like West Virginia or Texas or Maryland, right? | ||
| And so, but, you know, some of the biggest provisions will start to kick in next year and then beyond into the future. | ||
| Nancy in Austin, Texas, Line for Independence. | ||
| Hi, Nancy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| One thing I probably needed to explain because it seems like it's been lost on Mr. Dunn, is our country is $36 trillion plus in debt. | ||
| Now, the government overspending, it's been for quite a long time, and they don't have the money to pay for what they're spending. | ||
| They can either borrow the money from another country, in which case they want interest, or the Federal Reserve creates it out of thin air, increases the money supply, and that's what causes the prices to go up. | ||
| That's where the price increase goes up because there's more money chasing the same goods. | ||
| So you probably know that our debt has been recently downgraded. | ||
| And so that makes them have to pay more interest on the debt. | ||
| So that makes our debt even go higher because, you know, of course, other countries can buy our debt. | ||
| If our debt is not worth as much as far as it's grading, they want more interest on it. | ||
| Do you see this tumbling kind of thing? | ||
| So we want to make sure we have enough money to pay for the health care, the Medicaid, Medicare, everything else for American citizens. | ||
| We have in excess of 40 million illegal aliens. | ||
| 20 of those came from under the Biden administration when the borders were wide open. | ||
| I live in Texas, so I saw it. | ||
| So we have got to get that under control so we can take care of Americans. | ||
| So when you talk about constituents as this generic term, I guess that includes both illegal aliens and American citizens. | ||
| I'm caring about American citizens. | ||
| The illegals need to go home and have their own country take care of them or whatever they have to be. | ||
| I feel sorry for them. | ||
| But we've got to take care of our own citizens. | ||
| I know immigration is something you've addressed with previous callers. | ||
| Any responses? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would just say, you know, Nancy, I appreciate the comments on the debt. | |
| Like I mentioned, I have two kids, two teenagers, and, you know, their future is very important to me. | ||
| And the fact that we are $36 trillion in debt is a concern. | ||
| What I would say, like I mentioned, is we spend almost $5 trillion on health care in the country. | ||
| And it's not that we're not spending enough money on health care. | ||
| We're not deploying that in the most strategic way. | ||
| And so what we've found, this is research from academics and then also from the government that shows that community health centers actually save money to Medicaid. | ||
| They save about $1,400 for every adult and about $800 for kids compared to the other care that is often at a higher cost setting like a hospital. | ||
| And so that's where I think we can all agree that we want to be more efficient with our dollars and utilize health care dollars in a way that are going to make people more, that provide higher quality to make them able to work and be productive citizens across the country. | ||
| Barb in Long Grove, Illinois text in this question. | ||
| Does Mr. Denn ever collaborate with hospital systems or pharmaceutical corporations like Walgreens or CVS to provide more comprehensive care? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so our members have many partnerships with hospitals across the country. | |
| You know, oftentimes it'll be where physicians, community health centers will deliver babies or provide access to specialty care. | ||
| So that is a really important collaboration and partnership. | ||
| And hospitals have an incredible role in maintaining the nation's health as well. | ||
| So I don't want to make it out that health centers are the only way. | ||
| But I would also say, you know, about 20% of our health care spending is around pharmaceutical drugs. | ||
| And so those could be anything from the ear infection, you know, amoxicillin to higher cost medications. | ||
| And so we work with the pharmaceutical companies, the CVSs, and the pharmacies like Walgreens, you know, within this broader ecosystem. | ||
| So yes, very much so. | ||
| We work together in partnership in a lot of different ways. | ||
| Diana in St. Paul, Minnesota, on the line for healthcare workers. | ||
| Hi, Diana. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| So I am actually a provider at a community health center right now. | ||
| And I just want to say that this bill is extremely dangerous. | ||
| So not only to the population who relies on health centers, but to many Americans. | ||
| So I hope there is some pushback on this bill. | ||
| This is very, very dangerous. | ||
| There is clearly enough money to fund the military in ICE, but not health care. | ||
| I feel like a lot of callers who've been calling and been concerned about that need to use their common sense. | ||
| I serve my community in Minnesota and going into benefit. | ||
| We don't deny care to patients. | ||
| So to deny care to patients is to indirectly cause harm. | ||
| And we take an oath not to cause any harm. | ||
| Yeah, so thanks so much, Diana, for your service in the community of Minnesota. | ||
| You know, what I would say is we are concerned, like you, about the law. | ||
| We believe that it could lead to 6,000 preventable deaths every year, closures at health centers, and loss of staff. | ||
| And so that's what we're very concerned about. | ||
| And you're exactly right, that health centers do everything in their power to not turn anybody away. | ||
| They serve everybody regardless of their ability to pay. | ||
| But like I said, they also set people up on sliding fee scales so they can pay what they can based on their income. | ||
| So that's where the beauty of the health center movement and where we are providing that care across the country. | ||
| And Pep posted this on X to your guest. | ||
| Does the government bill affect local emergency care clinics? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Pep, thanks so much for the question. | |
| I'd be curious, local emergency care clinics, that may be connected to a hospital or maybe outside of a hospital. | ||
| There are some independent emergency departments, but typically the ones within the hospital, hospitals will be impacted significantly with this bill as well. | ||
| There are some community health centers that also have emergency departments to meet the needs of the community. | ||
| They are, like I said, locally controlled. | ||
| And so that local board of patients really makes up the difference or makes the decisions on what kind of care and services are available and what they want to invest in. | ||
| But it would probably dictate on how the structure is for your local community for the local emergency care department. | ||
| Let's hear from Sherry in Stafford, Virginia, also line for healthcare workers. | ||
| Hi, Sherry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sherry, are you there? | |
| Oh, Cherie, I'm sorry. | ||
| Hi, Cherie. | ||
| Cherie? | ||
| Okay, Cherie will go ahead and give us a call back. | ||
| She may have walked away from her phone. | ||
| Let's hear from Lacey, Wilmington, North Carolina, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Lacey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Joe. | |
| I'm from North Carolina, where we recently passed Medicaid expansion. | ||
| And I wanted to ask you kind of a scenario question about my family situation. | ||
| My sister and her husband, they've gone through, they're both in the military and they've gone through multiple military deployments to Kuwait and Iraq over the past few years. | ||
| And they have a young toddler. | ||
| So my mom moved in with them and has worked as an unpaid caregiver to them during their various deployments. | ||
| She previously had ACA insurance and that was really expensive for her. | ||
| But she did find some relief when she newly qualified for Medicaid under North Carolina expansion and even actually discovered that she had a serious chronic condition after getting care at a North Carolina community health center. | ||
| She's only 62. | ||
| So I wanted to ask you about this scenario for, for example, military families who have their grandparents kind of carrying for them. | ||
| What would this bill mean for somebody like her and what could it mean for the health center if she is kicked off Medicaid? | ||
| Yeah, so thank you so much for the question, Lacey, and I appreciate the military service in your family. | ||
| And as a son of a Navy veteran, I really appreciate that. | ||
| So I would say that we'll have to wait and see all the details, but one of the new provisions in the bill that your mother would be required to do is to prove that they're working or they're engaged in the community. | ||
| And so it sounds like if much of her time is taking care of a grandchild, then that might be something that she would have to do something else, either through a volunteer service with a local community organization or potentially a work program outside of caregiving. | ||
| So it is something to be aware of. | ||
| That specific provision could go into effect as early as the end of next year, or it could be extended out to the end of 2028. | ||
| So it depends on where North Carolina falls on that scale to really know how it would impact your mother because it could be that she's eligible for Medicare at that point and then would transition over to Medicare instead of Medicaid. | ||
| But really appreciate it. | ||
| I would suggest that you stay, you know, just engaged and aware. | ||
| And I'm sure that the local community health center would also have information that they could provide at the time. | ||
| And if that's not the case, then feel free to reach out to us at the National Association. | ||
| We'll try to track it down for you. | ||
| A couple headlines want to ask you about this week. | ||
| This from Fox News. | ||
| It says CDC declares bird flu emergency over as experts warn of possible fall resurgence. | ||
| And it was the Associated Press also had the headline, the U.S. is having its worst year for measles in more than three decades. | ||
| That data coming from the CDC. | ||
| What role do community health centers play in helping prevent the spread of infectious diseases? | ||
| And how could the cuts impact that work? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so one of the required services that health centers are required to provide is around vaccines and immunizations for preventable diseases. | |
| So, you know, we do a number of vaccines for a variety of different diseases, illnesses, mainly for children. | ||
| But we were a significant player within the COVID-19 response and provided those. | ||
| So certainly we would need to have the access to the vaccines. | ||
| Not all of these are affordable for our patients. | ||
| And so that is a big component of it. | ||
| And whether they're available, whether there's actually a vaccine available at the time and developed. | ||
| So something we are watching, but definitely concerned about the measles outbreak for something that has been long treated and was eradicated years ago. | ||
| Jim in Eagle Point, Oregon, Line for Independence. | ||
| Hi, Jim. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Joe, I'd like to ask two questions. | ||
| One is that I'm 64 years old and I'm permanently disabled. | ||
| My wife is 62 years old and she is my caretaker. | ||
| She takes care of me and she's on Medicaid. | ||
| I'm on full disability. | ||
| When, from what I understand, when we sell our home eventually, that Medicaid that my wife is on will be deducted or paid for back to our state. | ||
| Is that true? | ||
| That's my first question. | ||
| My second question is: how much do you think we're going to be able to bring the deficit down by taking the people off of the Medicaid, Medicare, et cetera? | ||
| Because we're adding $4 trillion to it. | ||
| I'll take my question offline. | ||
| Thank you so much, sir. | ||
| Appreciate it. | ||
| Well, thanks so much, Jim, for the question. | ||
| You know, certainly I would suggest that you maybe connect with an estate planning lawyer to understand what the real true impact would be by selling your house and Medicaid. | ||
| It does get technical, and I certainly wouldn't want to try to speculate without knowing more of the details for your specific situation. | ||
| So I would suggest that you do that. | ||
| You know, in terms of the deficit and the debt, we, you know, there's different interpretations. | ||
| The Congressional Budget Office does say that this law will increase the debt. | ||
| And so others have said that's not the case. | ||
| But, you know, this is something where we believe really a different way of going about it would be to invest in primary care. | ||
| And that would be a way to get higher quality outcomes in a way that is going to lead to more healthier patient population that deals with these chronic diseases in a lower cost setting. | ||
| So I appreciate the question. | ||
| It's certainly an important one. | ||
| And again, good luck with your estate planning. | ||
| Our guest, Joe Dunn, Chief Policy Officer for the National Association of Community Health Care Centers or Health Centers. | ||
| You can find the organization online at nach.org. | ||
| Joe, thank you so much for your time this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Appreciate it. | ||
| Later this morning on Washington Journal, War on the Rocks founder and CEO Ryan Everen will join us to discuss the current state of the Russia-Ukraine war and the U.S. involvement. | ||
| But next, it's open forum. | ||
| You can start calling in now. | ||
| Here are the lines: Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wednesday. | |
| Watch C-SPAN's coverage of the 17th annual Congressional Women's Softball Game live from Audi Field in Washington, D.C. Join members of Congress along with the Washington, D.C. Press Corps, for more than just a time of friendly competition and camaraderie. | ||
| A shared mission to strike out breast cancer. | ||
| Don't miss the Congressional Women's Softball Game. | ||
| Live coverage starts Wednesday at 7.30 p.m. Eastern on the C-SPAN networks. | ||
| Get C-SPAN wherever you are with C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app that puts you at the center of democracy, live and on demand. | ||
| Keep up with the day's biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings and hearings from the U.S. Congress, White House events, the courts, campaigns, and more from the world of politics, all at your fingertips. | ||
| Catch the latest episodes of Washington Journal. | ||
| Find scheduling information for C-SPAN's TV and radio networks, plus a variety of compelling podcasts. | ||
| The C-SPAN Now app is available at the Apple Store and Google Play. | ||
| Download it for free today. | ||
| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| Next week on the C-SPAN networks, the House and Senate are in session. | ||
| The House will consider legislation regulating cryptocurrency as well as 2026 defense spending. | ||
| The Senate plans to vote on the White House's rescissions package request to cut $9.4 billion in foreign aid and public broadcasting funding already approved by Congress. | ||
| On Tuesday, former Congressman and one-time Trump National Security Advisor Mike Waltz appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as the president's nominee to be U.S. Representative at the United Nations. | ||
| It's part of a larger confirmation hearing before the committee. | ||
| Wednesday, Transportation Secretary and acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy testifies before the House Transportation Committee regarding his department's 2026 budget. | ||
| Also on Wednesday, coverage of the 17th annual Congressional Women's Softball Game at Audi Field in Washington, D.C. between a bipartisan congressional team against a team from the Washington, D.C. Press Corps. | ||
| Watch live next week on the C-SPAN Networks or on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app. | ||
| Also, head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or to watch live or on demand anytime. | ||
| C-SPAN, democracy unfiltered. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back for the next 30 minutes. | ||
| We are in open form. | ||
| You can go ahead and give us a call. | ||
| The Lions Democrats 202-748-8000, Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll start with Joe in Texas, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is that me? | |
| Yes, go ahead, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, I got a question to ask, and I'll a few questions with somebody that called in with the answer for me. | |
| Number one, these ICE agents is raiding these people and keeping them masked on all the time. | ||
| How do we know who they are? | ||
| Are they some of the people that Donald Trump pardoned and he said he wants them to get him some restitution? | ||
| And it's one way of paying them for being locked up. | ||
| And then, number two, the reason why Trump is not going out to Putin, you remember when he, in his first term, he said that he trusts Putin of his own intelligence agency? | ||
| Either Trump knows Putin knows something about him, something he's done, or something else. | ||
| Oh, and also, I'd like to know some of these people that called in there, especially the elderly whites. | ||
| What have Trump done for you? | ||
| Now, I'm poor, black. | ||
| He haven't done anything for me. | ||
| I wanted something done for the older people. | ||
| It's just his racial views. | ||
| And the race of views is not going to put a dime in your pocket or your grandkey's a key's pockets. | ||
| That's the part I cannot understand. | ||
| We know he's a racist. | ||
| Everybody knows that. | ||
| And look at the people that he's putting in power. | ||
| He got all the people that loyal to him, not to the Constitution, not to the United States. | ||
| You look for Trump. | ||
| 2026, the election is not going to go right. | ||
| And in the second part, if something happened in 2028, Trump is not coming out of the White House. | ||
| You can forget about that. | ||
| And I said it before, he will not come out. | ||
| He got people in the right position that will keep him in that White House. | ||
| So now you older white people that think that he loved them. | ||
| It's all about money and power to Donald Trump. | ||
| That was Joe in Texas. | ||
| Tim in Mountain Home, Arkansas, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Tim. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| This is Tim. | ||
| I'm a physician, actually, north central Arkansas. | ||
| I practice in a rural area and have for 30 years. | ||
| I wonder how close we are to a single-payer system if that question hadn't been asked this morning and discuss if anything has been brought up about patients being mandated to sign up on Medicaid for coverage. | ||
| We have a lot of people who won't even agree to sign up on it. | ||
| So that's my comment. | ||
| Tim, what kind of medicine do you practice? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm in primary care medicine, a lot of geriatrics and rural medicine. | |
| We do house call medicine in our area now because people's access is limited. | ||
| And have you, we just got done discussing the impact the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could have on those who use community health care centers. | ||
| Is that something that's going to affect you as well? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That'll drastically affect our health care system in our area, as well as others. | |
| I'm sure we're at risk of losing one out of five rural hospitals in our state because of that. | ||
| I'm in favor of the work requirement because many are using the system. | ||
| But of course, on the other hand, your health care in the country is so vital to everything in the system that it needs to be looked at again. | ||
| That was Tim in Arkansas. | ||
| Kathy in Michigan, lying for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Kathy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes, thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I was enjoying the gentleman that you had on previously talking about, you know, the health centers. | ||
| I live in a rural community, and we have very active health centers, federally funded, and it would be a shame if they have to reduce their staff or reduce their services. | ||
| So I'm fully in support of the health centers. | ||
| I would love to see the gentleman that you just had on be interviewed on some of the more conservative networks. | ||
| Also, I think the message about what health centers are doing is not really out there for people to actually understand what the impact will be in their own areas. | ||
| So I totally support that. | ||
| And I do enjoy C-SPAN, and thank you for all that you do. | ||
| That was Kathy in Michigan. | ||
| Carlos in Denver City, Texas, line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Carlos. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I got one thing to ask. | ||
| Why do we let other people from other countries come in here and fly their nasty flags in the United States? | ||
| You go to Mexico and you fight the American flag over there and see what the hell happens to you. | ||
| That was Carlos in Texas. | ||
| This headline from Politico federal judge blocks roving immigration arrests amid Los Angeles crackdown. | ||
| It says that a federal judge has blocked the Trump administration's quote roving immigration arrests amid its large-scale immigration crackdown in Los Angeles, saying aspects of the operation were unconstitutional. | ||
| A U.S. district judge ruled Friday that immigration and customs enforcement agents were conducting quote roving patrols of the city and coordinating arrests without reasonable suspicion that their targets were in the country illegally. | ||
| Rather, she ruled that they are relying on improper factors, race, accent, and line of work. | ||
| It goes on to say that the order is a sweeping rebuke of the aggressive immigration operation the Department of Homeland Security launched in Los Angeles, one that has provoked fierce and sometimes violent protests, and it bars the administration from making arrests without relying on other more specific factors that would suggest a person is in the country illegally. | ||
| Back to your calls, Rosette and I'm sorry, Rosetta in St. Albans, New York, line for Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Rosetta. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'd like to know what happens if the hospital that I go to closes and the nearest hospital is 19 miles away from me and in my condition, I could die. | |
| So, what happens to me? | ||
| You know, like have they considered that people have conditions that could kill them if they start closing hospitals? | ||
| And another thing I wanted to know: when the Republicans read the bill, because I stayed up for two days for them to read this bill page to page, why did they read it so loud and so fast that you couldn't hear one thing or you couldn't understand anything? | ||
| If the bill is so good, close my hospital down now so that I'll know what hospitals will be open to me. | ||
| That was Rosetta in New York. | ||
| Stan, Grants Pass, Oregon, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Grant. | ||
| Or I'm sorry, Stan. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| My heart goes out to Texas. | ||
| Tammy, I want you to forgive me because I couldn't get my phone off the last time I talked to you, and my carbo tunnel was bothering me so bad. | ||
| But we all got to understand what happens in weather. | ||
| Like I was saying, the Interior Secretary didn't have the key, and I had the key to the gate to the Forest Service. | ||
| And it depends on the weather. | ||
| Need trees need to get planted out here on the West Coast. | ||
| I know it helps with the El Niño and El Niña. | ||
| Everybody's got a story. | ||
| It's how we live our life. | ||
| I blame myself for not standing up for the rights that we had to have a clean air. | ||
| Starts out here on the coast first. | ||
| God loves us all. | ||
| It's about the souls. | ||
| Thank you for the time. | ||
| That was Stan in Oregon. | ||
| Alice in Point State, Port St. Lucia, Florida, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Alice. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| This may be off topic, but I was calling about the party system. | ||
| You know, we have the Democrat Republican, the Green Party, the Independent Party, and now there's talk of another party. | ||
| I would be more in favor of no parties and no donations being allowed to politicians. | ||
| But maybe the three major media, ABC, NBC, CBS, providing free time. | ||
| That could be called a donation to allow debates and so forth and information sharing. | ||
| I think we've kind of gone off the rails with the us and them thing. | ||
| And so I think if we were all we, we were all Americans, and we just could see individuals debating and sharing their opinions, we would be better off. | ||
| Thank you so much for taking my call. | ||
| That was Alice in Florida. | ||
| Dan in Nebraska, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Dan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, thank you. | |
| Several calls back, there was a gentleman called from, I believe it was Texas, identified himself as black and poor. | ||
| And he says that Trump has never done anything for him. | ||
| And I would ask, what has he done for himself? | ||
| How does he spend his money? | ||
| Is he full of tattoos, cigarettes, booze? | ||
| There are exposures being made with comments like he made that indicate an attitude by far too many people in this country. | ||
| They want the government to do everything for them. | ||
| And our country is really based on people being self-sufficient, doing things for themselves. | ||
| And he maybe ought to reevaluate his attitude about what the government should do for him. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I appreciate the call. | ||
| That was Dan in Nebraska. | ||
| Jonathan in Schenectady, New York, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Jonathan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Like the previous call, my heart goes out to those who flooded in the floods in Texas. | ||
| And I do also believe in the no-party system as was originally formed. | ||
| I just wanted to comment on Trump when he was in front of his cabinet, and they were all telling the Naked King that he has a fine wardrobe. | ||
| Well, he gave a statement that was not accurate. | ||
| He said that Herbert Hoover had made a whole lot of money for the country in tariffs and that Roosevelt spent it all. | ||
| And that's not true. | ||
| The tariffs actually helped the recession of during that time period. | ||
| And Roosevelt, with all his projects, convinced rich donors to donate, to help those projects happen. | ||
| And that's what I wanted to do. | ||
| When I heard that that day, I just wanted to call in and comment on that. | ||
| This is my first time calling. | ||
| I appreciate the call. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Jonathan in New York. | ||
| More news from this past week. | ||
| This is a headline in today's Wall Street Journal. | ||
| State Department lays off 1,300 staff. | ||
| It says the State Department is laying off more than 1,300 employees as part of a sweeping reorganization plan that the Trump administration, Trump administration officials say will cut down on unwielding bureaucracy and modernize the agency. | ||
| The department on Friday began notifying the employees being let go, including more than 1,100 civil servants and about 250 Foreign Service officers, according to internal documents and officials familiar with the matter. | ||
| It says the reorganization, the reorganization plan is aimed at cutting back overlapping and duplicative offices within the department and streamlining how it functions, according to a senior State Department official. | ||
| It also says that under the reorganization led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the department aims to cut 15% of its domestic workforce of roughly 18,000. | ||
| About 1,600 employees took deferred resignations before the mass layoffs. | ||
| About 15 minutes left in this open form. | ||
| Let's hear from Christopher in Charlotte, North Carolina, Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Christopher. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, how are you? | |
| I was wondering, I've noticed that you have the guy on there talking about the cuts on the primary care health, and obviously he's going to defend that part and say that it's going to be bad of what's happening. | ||
| I'm just wondering whether you've got somebody on the opposite side to show you that the reason it's being cut and the positive parts because there must be a positive part to the cuts, but nobody's showing that. | ||
| Everybody's just showing the negative. | ||
| So that's what I was wondering. | ||
| Whether you're going to show the other part to it. | ||
| Thanks very much. | ||
| That was Christopher in North Carolina. | ||
| Charlie in New York, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Charlie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just a quick rebuttal of the last caller. | |
| What are the good parts? | ||
| I mean, you know, he's got his insurance, no problem. | ||
| This, that, the other. | ||
| Let me just say this: there's a number of things that Americans are worried about with the cuts and Medicaid. | ||
| And they can't even then look at other areas absolutely dealing with their day-to-day life. | ||
| The corporate entity in the United States, probably in Europe as well, but not as much, is so influential that how things can change, I'm not sure. | ||
| People really need to understand that the most biggest disease there is, that there is across the world, is greed. | ||
| And the amount of greed in corporate and people, too. | ||
| It's just money. | ||
| Now, the bottom line is this is something that a criticism I have toward not only the general news in America, but also C-SPAN to some degree. | ||
| If people were to see the tragedy going on in Gaza, kids being killed, if they showed that on TV, like they did finally when guys were getting killed in Vietnam or people were getting killed, of Marines and other work, other people in the service getting killed, that changed a little bit. | ||
| But it's awful. | ||
| And, you know, I have a lot of friends who are Jewish. | ||
| And the fact of the matter is, if they're against what Israel is doing, they're called anti-Semites. | ||
| I mean, give me a break. | ||
| Any Jewish person Who basically doesn't realize what they're doing, the government in Israel is no different one that the Nazis did basically to Jews and other people in the 30s, 40s. | ||
| That was Charlie in New York. | ||
| Wanted to go back to Christopher, who was asking about having somebody on to talk about the benefits or the good in the Medicaid cuts to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. | ||
| Wanted to let you know, in case you missed it, it was on Thursday that we did have two people on together. | ||
| It was Ryan Long and Brandon Novick. | ||
| They had a discussion covering both the good and bad that came out of those Medicaid cuts in the legislation. | ||
| If you wanted to watch it, you can find it on our website at c-span.org. | ||
| Let's hear from Ray in Fayetteville, North Carolina, line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Ray. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| First of all, I want to start off by a statement of what Donald Trump said to his followers. | ||
| You are the most uneducated people in America, number one. | ||
| Number two, let's bring out the Epstein files. | ||
| Now, there's numerous clips that's showing Donald Trump with this Epstein guy hard and down. | ||
| Number three, the economy was, we had the greatest economy after Cobra after the pandemic. | ||
| And these Republicans constantly call in. | ||
| This economy was so messed up. | ||
| Everything. | ||
| Get real, people. | ||
| I really wanted to talk to the healthcare guy because this bill will affect the Red Spec states greater than anybody. | ||
| I'm good. | ||
| I'm V8, 100%. | ||
| You understand? | ||
| It won't affect me. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| That was Ray in North Carolina. | ||
| Angel, I'm sorry, Angel in Waynesboro, Georgia, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Angel. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I just wanted to say, give a shout out to Donald Trump. | |
| For one thing, I worked a job for 16 years that I consider menial. | ||
| And when Donald Trump, his four years, his last four years, I could save some money. | ||
| I could pay for gas. | ||
| Prices were low. | ||
| I just can't understand why Democrats keep saying that Donald Trump just wants to have tax cuts for the wealthy. | ||
| That is just, that is just, that's just false because I'm living proof that it happened. | ||
| And thank you for taking my call. | ||
| That was Angel in Georgia, Terry, Virginia, line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Terry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, how are you? | |
| Thank you for having me on. | ||
| I would like to chime in on an open form, first of all, about the, I wanted to know would you all consider having someone to come on about this multi-state lottery ripoff? | ||
| And actually, if you win the lottery, you have these large corporations that are running the lottery. | ||
| They take 55% of the pot, and then you have to pay 24% federal taxes, and then you have to pay 4% state taxes, and you will come out with just 20% of your jackpot winnings. | ||
| I would love for someone to come on and explain that. | ||
| And also, someone called in earlier about the debt clock and how much money that foreign countries are buying our debt. | ||
| That's not true. | ||
| We are buying our debt. | ||
| 80% of our debt are the citizens of this country. | ||
| And I think it's awful and very sad that they're doing away with health care centers. | ||
| Many of us need those health care centers because we can't afford to go to these expensive hospitals. | ||
| I understand Donald Trump is the president. | ||
| I like to work with anyone. | ||
| I don't condemn anyone, but the rich will always be rich, and the poor will always be poor. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| That was Terry in Virginia. | ||
| Rhonda, New Jersey, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Rhonda. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning, America. | ||
| Excuse my voice. | ||
| I went to a wedding last night. | ||
| I just wanted to make America aware that what's really going on in this country is we're being robbed. | ||
| Donald Trump and the Trump organization is robbing America. | ||
| I want you guys to be aware that your tax on tips and your no tax on overtime only lasts to the next election because he doesn't want you to see or feel the sting so you can be stupid enough to vote the Republicans back in in the Congress next year. | ||
| And we need to vote every single one of these people out. | ||
| My problem is what happened in Texas and all these babies that are dead. | ||
| I can't imagine being a grandmother there and losing my grandchildren in such a horrific way. | ||
| Now, FEMA has to get permission from Donald Trump's lady, whoever that Christy Noam, the crazy girl that kills dogs with guns. | ||
| She has to sign off in order for FEMA to help us. | ||
| They deliberately let those kids drown. | ||
| Blood is on the Republicans' hand. | ||
| We have no protection anymore. | ||
| None. | ||
| And these ICE agents, they get $40,000 to sign on to kidnap people. | ||
| And we've got concentration camps in Florida, and they're going in all the red states. | ||
| And we think there's no God in heaven that doesn't see what we're doing. | ||
| God is going to punish America. | ||
| All these babies were helping Netanyahu kill and starve and guard the guys. | ||
| He's a terrorist. | ||
| Got your point, Rhonda. | ||
| We'll go to Kayvon in Indiana, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Kayvon. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, yeah. | |
| Lifelong Republican here, although I have never voted for Donald Trump. | ||
| And I just want to echo Rhonda from New Jersey saying I agree with everything that she says. | ||
| I voted for Ronald Reagan. | ||
| I voted for George Bush. | ||
| I voted Republican my whole life. | ||
| But this Donald Trump is not a Republican. | ||
| He's an evil, evil man. | ||
| Just look what he's done in Brazil, where he has put that whole country on ransom, saying if they don't adjust their tariff rates, saying if they don't let Bolsonaro go, he's going to put higher tariffs on their country. | ||
| Is nobody watching this? | ||
| Is nobody just like, what is this? | ||
| This is not a world leader. | ||
| This isn't a politician. | ||
| This is a dictator. | ||
| This is an evil, evil man who needs to be stopped. | ||
| And I agree completely with Rhonda. | ||
| If there is a God, I don't know if there is a way. | ||
| If there is a God and he's watching, we're screwed. | ||
| America is screwed. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| That was Kayvon in Indiana. | ||
| He mentioned the tariffs that President Trump has talked about this week. | ||
| This is new from Axios coming out just about 15 minutes ago. | ||
| The headline, Trump threatens EU Mexico with 30% tariff rate. | ||
| It says that President Trump on Saturday posted letters threatening the European Union and Mexico with 30% tariffs as of August 1st. | ||
| It says that in separate letters posted on Truth Social on Saturday, Trump said that the U.S. would implement tariffs of 30% on U.S.-bound goods from Mexico and Europe. | ||
| In the case of Europe, the letter disrupts the talks between the two nations aimed at landing a deal this month. | ||
| Trump's threats for higher levies on Mexican goods escalates trade tensions across North America, which the White House has used to try to pressure Mexico and Canada to tighten up border controls. | ||
| It also notes the letter to Europe seems to include a sort of command to Europe to drop its tariffs and apparent condition of any future deal. | ||
| Just a few minutes left in this open forum. | ||
| Let's hear from Carol in Texas, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Carol. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Cease Van, and thank you for taking my call. | |
| I really appreciate everything y'all do, letting people get on and speak openly. | ||
| I don't know if people realize it, but there's been a lot of things said about politicizing disasters when they happen and things like that. | ||
| And I think they're doing a fairly good job. | ||
| They've toned it down a lot with the disaster here in Texas. | ||
| It was not covered very well because it happened on a holiday. | ||
| The local news media were all basically coasting along with their weekend broadcasts and taking that Friday off. | ||
| And so I didn't see the first broadcast of a news conference from Kerrville, except on national news. | ||
| Our local spectrum people, they didn't even run it that day because they were basically just posting along. | ||
| So the coverage wasn't very good to start out. | ||
| And I think that's why everybody's so shocked because they had their hands completely full and were trying to implement rescues. | ||
| And the news coverage was really lagging behind on a local basis here in Texas. | ||
| We don't have very good coverage. | ||
| Texas has been in control of the Republicans for 20 years. | ||
| And everybody that says, oh, y'all, y'all Democrats politicized this and things like that. | ||
| I want you to remember when Donald Trump first came into his second term, we had a plane crash where a plane and a helicopter ran into each other in Washington, D.C. airspace above the airport. | ||
| The day or the night of the plane crash, Within 48 hours of the plane crash, they had a news conference with Pete Exeter and Donald Trump and the brand new Secretary of Transportation, and they got up there and falsely, you know, falsely said, oh, this happened because of DEI. | ||
| They picked on their favorite political talking point that that plane crash happened because of DEI. | ||
| So let's not forget that the Republicans too politicize things that shouldn't be politicized. | ||
| The only other thing I wanted to say is I disagree with people calling the president a terrorist and things like that. | ||
| I think he's wrong. | ||
| He's as wrong as he can be. | ||
| We have a lot of politicians in Texas that need to go. | ||
| Ted Cruz, once again, was somewhere else doing something else and was delayed in his response getting back. | ||
| Even the Republicans here in Texas can't stand Ted Cruz, but we're stuck with this guy. | ||
| And then our other senator, John Corn, he's going to be running against a really corrupt attorney general in Ken Paxton. | ||
| So we got big problems here in Texas. | ||
| But I don't know that we're going to solve them. | ||
| We're certainly not going to solve them by having Christian Noam and FEMA get the daylights cut out of them. | ||
| I got one more point, and that is, if you want to have the plus side of the Medicare cuts told, you need to have a billionaire come and sit at your desk there and take questions because the billionaires reap all the benefits where they cut everything from poor folks and they're going to hand the money to their billionaire pals. | ||
| So you're having the wrong people on. | ||
| You need to have some billionaire bankers from Wall Street and stuff like that, some hedge fund manager come in and tell you, yeah, y'all go ahead and cut your health care and cut Grand Ma's Medicaid, and we'll take all the money because we rich folks, we need more. | ||
| Thanks very much. | ||
| Now it's Carol in Texas and Russell in Louisiana. | ||
| Line for Republicans, our last call. | ||
| Go ahead, Russell. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You're on. | |
| Morning. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| I had a lot to say, but after listening to some of your callers, I don't know which direction to go. | ||
| I never heard so many delusional people in all my life. | ||
| You know, two of you callers mentioned something about God, that God's watching what we do and everything. | ||
| I would ask them two people, that man and that lady, where was your God when these floods started? | ||
| Where was the leprosy type healings and miracles that were supposedly done way in the past? | ||
| One old boy said he wasn't sure if he believes in God or not, but if there is a God, he's watching the USA and he's going to punish us and everything. | ||
| Where was y'all God when these little children are dying in the hospitals and children's hospital with no sins at all? | ||
| They don't know how to hate like you and I have learned to hate over the years as adults. | ||
| And as far as for that man, comparing Israel to what they're doing in Gaza to the Nazis is absolutely ridiculous. | ||
| What if it happens to you? | ||
| What if somebody invades us? | ||
| Well, hell, we've been invaded by the border, and all the Democrats are whining and crying about it. | ||
| What happens when one of your family members get murdered or raped? | ||
| What happens when these Democratic senators and legislators, when their families get murdered and raped? | ||
| When it hits home, I think they're going to actually have a different opinion on it. | ||
| But all the Democrats do is whine and cry about Donald Trump, this, this, and this. | ||
| My God, you want to blame that flooding on Donald Trump? | ||
| That's how delusional these people are. | ||
| All I hear is them whining and crying this, this, this, and this. | ||
| Got your point. | ||
| That was Russell in Louisiana. | ||
| Our last call for this hour wanted to share a programming note for later today. | ||
| Border Advisor Tom Homan, Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam, and Steve Bannon are among the speakers at Turning Point USA's Student Action Summit. | ||
| It's taking place in Tampa, Florida. | ||
| There will be live coverage on C-SPAN starting at 4:25 Eastern. | ||
| You can also find that coverage on C-SPAN Now. | ||
| That's our free mobile video app or online at c-span.org. | ||
| Next on Washington Journal, War on the Rocks founder and CEO Ryan Evan sits down with us to discuss the current state of the Ukraine war, the Russia-Ukraine war, and U.S. involvement. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sunday on C-SPAN's Q&A. | |
| Dr. Robert Malone, recently appointed to the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, talks about his book, Cy War, in which he argues that the U.S. government uses psychological warfare against Americans to control them. | ||
| He also talks about how his career as a virologist and immunologist took a turn after he criticized the government's response to the COVID pandemic. | ||
| I think what we had was kind of an emergent, multifaceted campaign that was driven by fear and driven by a number of falsehoods that were readily accepted and promoted through money by various organizations such as USAID and various NGOs, | ||
| and perhaps by the pharmaceutical industry to suppress alternative voices and promote a harmonized narrative wrapped around the logic that anything that would cause people to become vaccine hesitant had to be suppressed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And of course, that is in direct opposition to the logic of informed consent. | |
| American physician and biochemist Dr. Robert Malone, Sunday night at 8 Eastern on C-SPAN's QA. | ||
| You can listen to QA and all of our podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts, or on the free C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| Next week on the C-SPAN networks, the House and Senate are in session. | ||
| The House will consider legislation regulating cryptocurrency as well as 2026 defense spending. | ||
| The Senate plans to vote on the White House's rescissions package request to cut $9.4 billion in foreign aid and public broadcasting funding already approved by Congress. | ||
| On Tuesday, former Congressman and one-time Trump National Security Advisor Mike Waltz appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as the president's nominee to be U.S. Representative at the United Nations. | ||
| It's part of a larger confirmation hearing before the committee. | ||
| Wednesday, Transportation Secretary and acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy testifies before the House Transportation Committee regarding his department's 2026 budget. | ||
| Also on Wednesday, coverage of the 17th annual Congressional Women's Softball Game at Audi Field in Washington, D.C. between a bipartisan congressional team against a team from the Washington, D.C. Press Corps. | ||
| Watch live next week on the C-SPAN networks or on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app. | ||
| Also, head over to C-SPAN.org for scheduling information or to watch live or on demand anytime. | ||
| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss the current state of the Russia-Ukraine war and the U.S.'s role in involvement is Ryan Evans. | ||
| He's the founder and CEO of War on the Rocks. | ||
| Ryan, thank you for being with us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks so much for having me today. | |
| I know you've been on the program several times, but why don't you start by reminding our audience about your organization, the mission, and how you're funded? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| I launched War on the Rocks in 2013 to center experienced voices on strategy, defense, and foreign affairs. | ||
| I'd gotten back from working in Afghanistan in late 2011 and was disappointed by the tone, tenor, and quality of media on defense and foreign policy. | ||
| It was becoming increasingly clickbaity. | ||
| And so War on the Rocks is really to center these experience-based conversations. | ||
| We're mostly funded through our membership program, so if you want to become a member, you can at warontherocks.com slash membership. | ||
| And we also do partnerships and events as well. | ||
| We are now more than three years into the Russia-Ukraine war. | ||
| That is a topic that you write heavily about. | ||
| What is the current situation? | ||
| How are the two sides holding up? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I like to think of us as in the phase of the aftermath of this Trump push for there to be peace negotiations, which obviously haven't led any party anywhere because Russia wasn't actually interested in peace negotiations. | |
| And I think the president has come to understand that he was sort of being jerked around by Putin. | ||
| And now the focus is on how to keep Ukraine in the fight in the absence probably of these direct large security packages once the current one runs out. | ||
| Russia is making some gains in the east of Ukraine, particularly around Sumy and in the direction of Petrovsk. | ||
| But Ukraine is not in a crisis in that it's not losing a lot of territory and the front isn't collapsing. | ||
| So Ukraine is adapting to stay in the fight. | ||
| And one thing that they're doing, there's been headlines very similar, days after days, saying that Russia batters Ukraine with more than 700 drones, the largest barrage of the war. | ||
| What is the goal of these drone attacks? | ||
| What impact are they having? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, I think the goal is to terrorize Ukrainians and make it impose a cost on the civilian population for staying in the fight. | |
| I actually don't think it's going to get Putin anywhere. | ||
| He's probably trying to soften them up for some sort of concessions, but I don't think that's what they're accomplishing. | ||
| What they have done really is shown Trump that Putin is not serious about any sort of negotiations. | ||
| And this week, just yesterday, President Trump announced that the U.S. would start sending weapons to Ukraine again after a pause. | ||
| Those weapons are going to be sent through NATO. | ||
| But explain what happened with the pause. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's hard to know because I only know what I've read in the press like everyone else. | |
| But it seems like the Defense Department decided to pause one package of weapons. | ||
| This isn't an essential package. | ||
| I mean, in a one sense, every anti-airmunition to Ukraine is essential, but this wasn't a massive package. | ||
| But they decided to pause that because of our own munition stocks running low. | ||
| But from what I've read, did not properly socialize that policy decision with the interagency, with the White House, with the State Department. | ||
| So it sort of caught people off guard, and the president then reversed it. | ||
| And President Trump recently told Ukrainian President Zelensky that the U.S. will send as much military aid as we're able. | ||
| You just mentioned U.S. availability of weapons. | ||
| Do we know how much they could send? | ||
| Do we know what could be in this weapons package that goes through NATO? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I believe this was mostly the one that was unfrozen is mostly artillery, munitions, and anti-air. | |
| However, what apparently they're working on now is a big sale of weapons to Europe with the understanding that those weapons will then be donated from Europe to Ukraine. | ||
| So I think once this security package and the presidential drawdown authority that we currently have runs out, that's probably more what the future of equipping of the U.S., at least equipping Ukraine, looks like, is indirectly through its NATO allies through weapon sales. | ||
| Our guest for the next 35 minutes or so is Ryan Evans, founder and CEO of War on the Rocks. | ||
| We're discussing the current state of the Russia-Ukraine war and the U.S. role in involvement. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in now the lines, Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Wanted to ask about the continued assistance the U.S. is giving to Ukraine. | ||
| According to the State Department, as of March, the U.S. had provided the country with about $67 billion in military assistance, but there have been calls about stopping that. | ||
| We've seen fights in Congress about continuing aid. | ||
| What are the arguments for and against continuing to send weapons assistance? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, sure. | |
| First, I want to make clear that this money that we're talking about and the value of this military aid, the vast majority of it is being reinvested. | ||
| It was allocated by Congress to buy munitions and other defense material to make up for what we're giving to Ukraine. | ||
| So most of it goes back into the defense industrial base to re-equip us for the future fight. | ||
| The argument, however, I'll start with against is we can't build enough to restock some of these critical munitions, mostly artillery, patriots, things like that. | ||
| Even though we're investing money, these production lines take time and we've given quite a lot to Ukraine already. | ||
| The argument for giving Ukraine aid is, one, this needs to be a shot and arm for us to modernize our defense industrial base anyway, and we need to be spending a lot more money on that. | ||
| And also defeating Putin is one way of showing that we're just not going to let countries be taken over. | ||
| And so certainly they're watching this very carefully in Taiwan. | ||
| It's no accident that South Korea has actually given more artillery munitions to Ukraine than all of Europe so far in this war. | ||
| So certainly our Korean allies view these theaters as linked. | ||
| And so that's the argument for it. | ||
| We have callers waiting to talk with you. | ||
| We'll start with James in Lancaster, Virginia, line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, James. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Two things. | ||
| First is, I don't understand why we didn't do reforge, returning forces to Europe that we used to do back in the 80s and 90s. | ||
| It was totally avoided as Ukraine war. | ||
| We had equipment in there, and if my memory serves me correctly, back there, when we did have it, Finland and Denmark weren't part of NATO, but they participated. | ||
| And the second thing is, I think we failed to realize that Russia's painting itself in a corner because if you recall, after the Cuban crisis, China and Russia split. | ||
| And actually, China invaded Russia and took some land. | ||
| That's why Brushkoff went on vacation that the Soviet Union sent him on, and the other guy came in and pushed China out. | ||
| So, I mean, Russia just didn't invade Ukraine overnight. | ||
| We've seen it back in 2014 in Crimea, but NATO in America, we just sat on our hands and even the lead-up to the war where Russia took weeks to build up and we didn't do anything. | ||
| I don't understand why didn't we just simply do reforge? | ||
| It wouldn't have cost anything. | ||
| It's already built into the budget and the military. | ||
| Now we're spending billions of dollars and millions of lives have lost on something that could have been so simply avoided. | ||
| And I'll take my answer off there. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, so through your first question, you're referring to this major military exercise we conduct in Europe. | ||
| There is a very strong pace of military exercises and training ongoing in Europe. | ||
| I think the problem with what you proposed is that unless Putin was confident that we were actually going to intervene ourselves, which we had made clear that we would not under the Biden administration, that would have been sort of an empty threat or an empty signal. | ||
| I do think there are other ways we could have avoided this war. | ||
| You know, people are still debating how World War I started all this time later. | ||
| We're going to be debating this for a long time to come. | ||
| And as to your second point, yes, the Sino-Soviet split in the middle of the Cold War helped lead to this reopening of China and Kissinger's diplomacy that sort of triangulated against the Soviet Union. | ||
| The problem now is China and Russia are closer than they've ever been, even during the height of their friendship before the Sino-Soviet split. | ||
| They're much closer. | ||
| They're fully integrated in each other's supply chains and industry. | ||
| They're sharing advanced technology. | ||
| So our adversaries are actually working more closely together now than they have been in the last hundred years. | ||
| I mean, even if you look at the relationship between the Axis powers in World War II before the war started, China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran are even closer in terms of industrial integration than those powers were back then, unfortunately. | ||
| Let's talk with Herb in High Point, North Carolina, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Herb. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I just wanted him to talk a little bit more about our stockpiles on ammunition and stuff when we actually don't have a war going ourselves. | ||
| And, you know, we spend more money on military than a lot of countries combined. | ||
| And so somebody's taking some money and taking supplies. | ||
| It's just more greed than anything going on there to me. | ||
| And thank you. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| Bye-bye. | ||
| Yeah, thanks for calling. | ||
| You know, I know a lot of people in the defense industrial basin, and the vast majority of them are patriots that want to help their country. | ||
| I do think there's a conversation to be had about military spending, but with the commitments that we currently have to our allies, and let's be clear, this alliance network benefits the United States first and foremost because it allows us to ensure that we have free trade, that we have partners that are democracies to trade with and closely linked to us on a military level as well. | ||
| And my view personally is that we actually need to be spending a lot more on defense than either party's been willing to do. | ||
| Shelly in Pennsylvania, line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Shelly. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| My question is: okay, so when the pause happened, people, it's like, oh my goodness, Trump didn't know how the pause of the shipment happened, and oh, we need to see how much we have in inventory. | ||
| Well, and Trump said he didn't know anything about it, but it's pretty obvious that nothing happens without Trump's say-so. | ||
| So, my question is: and if you take a look at what he's actually sending, the amount and what he's actually sending, it's very little. | ||
| And so, my question is: how much of this is just yet another delay tactic? | ||
| Because since Trump has taken over for his second term, the attacks have only intensified. | ||
| And to me, it just seems like Trump and Putin are in cahoots, and he's just giving a little bit here so that he can say, oh, I'm doing something while China is gearing up to take Taiwan. | ||
| So, if you could just please address, how much of this do you think is actually just more delay? | ||
| So, I don't think this was an intentional delay by the president in this case. | ||
| I truly believe that he didn't know about this policy change that had happened. | ||
| And it's not too surprising because interagency coordination is tough for early in the administration, and I think it's especially been tough for this administration. | ||
| And I'll just leave that part at that. | ||
| But so, I think this was an actual policy decision pushed by the Pentagon that wasn't properly socialized. | ||
| The Pentagon actually has a pretty sophisticated framework to measure readiness and to know how many munitions they need for different contingencies and how many people in different parts of the world and how this maps against the readiness of units. | ||
| I think it would be interesting to learn the extent to which the current administration employed that framework to try to come to this decision, but I think we still don't fully understand how that decision took place. | ||
| I don't think the president and Putin are in cahoots. | ||
| I think the president had an optimistic view of what he could accomplish through diplomacy with Putin, and he now seems to understand that that was just not going to work. | ||
| And he does seem to be changing course in his policy, and you see it in his remarks. | ||
| On Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with his Russian counterpart and spoke with reporters about the two countries exchanging ideas for Ukraine peace talks. | ||
| I want to play a clip of Rubio and then we'll get your reaction on the other side. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Did you get the sense that they're moving towards flexibility? | ||
| Yeah, I'm not going to characterize our conversation other than to tell you that I expressed what the president has said publicly, which is that we feel as if we've dedicated a lot of time and energy to this matter and just not enough progress has been made. | ||
| We need to see a roadmap moving forward about how this conflict can conclude. | ||
| And then we shared some ideas about what that might look like. | ||
| And obviously I'll take that back. | ||
| It's to the president here as early as this evening. | ||
| And hopefully there's something that we can build on there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Secretary, Russia has launched its most massive attacks in the last three days. | |
| And you, of course, saw your counterpart today. | ||
| Are you willing now to put stronger sanctions on Russia? | ||
| Well, the President has said that that's an option that's available to him, both under existing authorities, but primarily if the Senate and the House can pass legislation that gives them the opportunity to do that. | ||
| So we've been engaging with Congress on what that bill would look like. | ||
| Obviously, the President needs flexibility on how those sanctions would be applied and when, because it gives them maximum leverage in any conversation and negotiation. | ||
| So he has talked about that as being a real option. | ||
| And now, obviously, we've been engaging with the Senate in particular over the last week on what that bill will look like. | ||
| And the leaders of both chambers have said that they're prepared to begin to move forward on that. | ||
| We've expressed this to the Russians weeks ago. | ||
| We told them that the moment would come where something like this could happen. | ||
| And we'll continue to express it because that's the reality. | ||
| But has the moment come or not yet? | ||
| Well, again, that's the President's decision to make. | ||
| The Trump administration has been trying to get a peace deal between the two countries, hasn't been able to reach it, talking about now putting sanctions in place. | ||
| Could that approach lead to peace talks? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It could, and this is what I've been arguing for since President Trump came back into office is what I think should have happened is we should have increased military support to Ukraine, lifted the Biden-era restrictions on how they are allowed to use certain weapons, and enact secondary sanctions, which is what Secretary of State is describing that the Biden administration, frankly, should have enacted years ago. | |
| And that, because Russia won't actually negotiate unless it's experiencing more pain and difficulty than it's actually doing, and we need to create that leverage. | ||
| And hopefully that's what's going to happen with, he's referring to Senator Lindsey Graham's bill that Trump appears to now support. | ||
| Do we know about support for that legislation in Congress? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that if President Trump endorses it, it will pass among Republicans, and Democrats certainly will support it. | |
| President Trump has also said that he is going to make a big announcement on Monday. | ||
| Do we have any idea what that could be? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It could be this. | |
| I'm not really sure, to be honest. | ||
| Sometimes you don't really know what to expect. | ||
| Let's talk with Austin in California, Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Austin. | ||
| Morgan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey. | |
| Hey, I was just wanting to ask your guest. | ||
| You know, it seemed pretty obvious to me that Putin was, you know, from the beginning that he wasn't just going to make some kind of a deal or a compromise. | ||
| You know, that he's trying to build Russia back to what it used to be. | ||
| And I was just wondering if he can did Trump really believe he was going to do this in 24 hours? | ||
| Is he that area that he thinks that, you know, this is some kind of New York City real estate deal? | ||
| That's all. | ||
| I think it's a very fair question. | ||
| I'm not in the business of trying to understand what happens inside the brains of world leaders. | ||
| I think it's very hard to understand their thought processes. | ||
| He probably understood he wouldn't do it in 24 hours, but I do think he was very optimistic that he could get a deal done, and that hasn't happened. | ||
| Sophia in Raleigh, North Carolina, line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Sophia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Tammy. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Excuse me, good morning to Mr. Evans. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| A couple questions, quick ones. | ||
| I'm wondering why no one, none of the countries in the world, the democracies of the world, have never, I've never heard any talk of getting Putin to The Hague being tried for war crimes. | ||
| In other words, why isn't the attitude that Putin, the second you step off Russian soil and we get our hands on you, you're going to be tried for war crimes? | ||
| And that's my main question. | ||
| And then I'm really upset that Trump had periods, or maybe even now, but before they wouldn't give the intelligence to Ukraine, they wouldn't give the weapons. | ||
| I thought that was awful. | ||
| And I agree with you that they should have offensive weapons since. | ||
| But mainly the Hague. | ||
| I mean, why is he even there? | ||
| Why isn't he a pariah to the whole world? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, it's a fair question. | ||
| So he is, I believe, under indictment in the criminal court, and he can't travel. | ||
| Putin cannot travel now to many countries in the world that are a part of the treaty that consents to the criminal court. | ||
| The United States is not one of those treaty partners. | ||
| I believe it's the Rome Treaty or something like that. | ||
| But so there are countries that he now can't travel to. | ||
| And so that's been reflected in his ability to move around the world. | ||
| As far as, I want to do touch on something important, though, when it comes to these war crimes, a lot of the people that investigate this work on the U.S. side and record what's happening and work on a lot of the international diplomatic issues are at the State Department, which is one of the many reasons why it's so disappointing to see Secretary Rubio cutting the size of the State Department, firing all these Foreign Service officers and others who work on really critical issues. | ||
| We need to have a resourced, well-organized, effective State Department. | ||
| And there are certainly reforms that need to be made, but cutting the size of the workforce like this, I think, is a bad idea. | ||
| John in Mississippi, line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, thank you for taking my call. | |
| I want him to follow back up on the question that the guy asked him. | ||
| He said he was talking about that we're not in war and we are low on ammunition. | ||
| How are we low on ammunition and we're not at war? | ||
| And like he was saying, we spend money all the time. | ||
| I don't think you really asked that question to my satisfaction anyway. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, I can address that. | ||
| So we're low on ammunition because it's a hangover from the peace dividend after the Cold War ended. | ||
| And then, you know, I would hear this from my friends who were general officers going back years to, you know, a decade ago, that they called their magazine depth, the number of ammunition that we have, was just not sufficient for a wartime contingency. | ||
| And you're starting to see that, you know, Ukraine can go through 10,000 artillery shells in a day. | ||
| If we were at war, we would be using more than that. | ||
| And we just haven't fully mobilized our defense industrial base to be prepared for a war. | ||
| And peacetime is when you prepare for a war so your enemies understand that you can bring the fight to them and that you'll win, which will hopefully deter them from starting the war in the first place. | ||
| But we need to get much more serious about defense production. | ||
| And to the administration's credit, they are trying to do that. | ||
| Jim in California, Line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Jim. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Ryan. | |
| Thank you for what you're talking about today. | ||
| I just returned from Ukraine. | ||
| I'm a minister. | ||
| And I just see the resilience of the Ukrainian people on the ground. | ||
| And the aspect that I want to talk about is the humanitarian crisis that this thing is. | ||
| And a lot of people, they want to make it a financial decision. | ||
| But the lives of the people that are being impacted is very, very real. | ||
| I've been there, I've seen it, and I just wanted you to speak maybe into the possibility of war crimes that are being committed and things, the reports that I personally have been given, and things that have been happening by Putin and his forces that is really getting under the radar, quite honestly, in a lot of ways, and going out the information to the international community. | ||
| So I just wanted you to maybe speak into the possibility of heightening sanctions against Putin financially and hitting him where he should ultimately be hit so that these sanctions against war crimes and things like that would maybe get highlighted a little bit more. | ||
| I just want to get your thoughts on that, if you could, please. | ||
| Yeah, I just fully endorse everything you said. | ||
| The war crimes are horrific. | ||
| What Russia and its forces are doing to the Ukrainian people is really Nazi-level stuff. | ||
| And there does need to be a cost for that. | ||
| Sanctions have not been strong enough to bring the Russian economy to its knees. | ||
| And that's what needs to be the next step. | ||
| But at the end of the day, you know, all these children that Russia has literally kidnapped and stolen and adopted off into Russian families, the millions of people that have had to leave Ukraine, the bombing of cities every single day with drones and missiles and more. | ||
| It's really horrific. | ||
| President Trump has previously blamed what's happening or has blamed Ukraine for the war continuing. | ||
| But last month in NATO, he did admit that Putin was proving to be, he said, more difficult in reaching a peace deal. | ||
| He spoke about Putin during a cabinet meeting. | ||
| We'll play the clip in and get your reaction. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| A lot of people are dying, and it should end. | ||
| And I don't know, we get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin for you want to know the truth. | ||
| He's very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you want to sign them? | |
| Lindsay Graham has a sanctions bill on Russia. | ||
| Do you want him to move? | ||
| I'm looking at it. | ||
| Yeah, no, I'm looking at it. | ||
| The Senate is passing and passed a very, very tough sanctions. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I'm looking at it. | |
| Can you sign up? | ||
| It's an optional bill. | ||
| It's totally at my option. | ||
| They pass it totally at my option and to terminate totally at my option. | ||
| And I'm looking at it very strongly. | ||
| Your reaction to President Trump's comments on President Putin this week and what's behind the shift in tone? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think what we've seen from President Trump is something that a lot of world leaders have experienced. | |
| A lot of American presidents in the past, including Biden and people before him, is they have this strong belief in the power of personal diplomacy, is that if an American president can just get another leader on a call and talk to them, they could work it out. | ||
| But history has shown that that often just doesn't work. | ||
| And, you know, President Trump understands from his days as a real estate businessman that sometimes you need to create leverage and be coercive in these negotiations. | ||
| And so I'm glad that this is where the president has arrived. | ||
| Fritz in Tennessee, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Fritz. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| My question is, after you encourage Ukraine to fight to the last man, to the last Ukrainian, where are you going to get people to repopulate Ukraine? | ||
| Is there a plan for that? | ||
| Are they going to be government from the Middle East? | ||
| Yeah, this is... | ||
| Are they going to be government from Africa? | ||
| Sorry, I'm just going to interrupt. | ||
| This is one of these sort of nonsense talking points that we're forcing Ukraine to fight to the last man. | ||
| I've looked at the demographics. | ||
| They're definitely not in any sort of danger of demographic plummeting or anything like that. | ||
| They're not losing large chunks of their population to the war. | ||
| It's just frankly nonsense. | ||
| And the Ukrainian people and the Ukraine's leaders want to do this. | ||
| We're not forcing them to do something they don't want to do. | ||
| So this has become kind of a crazy talking point. | ||
| We'll go on to Joe in Louisiana, Line for Independence. | ||
| Hi, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Yeah, my question is, if we have about $300 billion in Russian assets seized, why can't we start sending about $10 billion a week to Ukraine until there's a ceasefire? | ||
| Yeah, I think it's a really good question. | ||
| So we had all these frozen Russian funds, and there's been this big debate between the U.S. and Europe about what we can do with these funds. | ||
| I believe it's $300 billion or something like that. | ||
| And the Biden administration was not aggressive enough on this. | ||
| Europe was not aggressive on this. | ||
| Finally, they've started, I believe, using the interest to give to Ukraine, but they should just take it all and give it to Ukraine. | ||
| That's my view. | ||
| I think they're worried about legal issues that, frankly, could be overcome. | ||
| And Philip Zelico has written a lot about this, if you're curious to learn more. | ||
| And they're also worried about giving up leverage in negotiations, that maybe that $300 billion will be important to reaching a settlement with Russia. | ||
| But I think it's more important to create pain for Russia now so they come to the table in ways that they haven't been willing to before. | ||
| Ava in Columbia, Mississippi, line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Ava. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, thank you for taking my call. | |
| I believe that the leader of Russia and Ukraine are in cahoots collecting all the money and the weapons they can. | ||
| I doubt that either country has sacrificed, for lack of a better word, the leaders have sacrificed any members of their family or their friends. | ||
| Russia could have wiped Ukraine out one day if they wanted to. | ||
| There's something going on we don't know about because it'd be like a St. Bernard up against the School of And we know it. | ||
| I don't know what kind of games they're playing, but they're playing some kind of games with the world. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, thanks for calling. | ||
| So I don't agree with what you said, but I can understand when you look at something like this and see what's happened, why the reality on its face doesn't seem credible. | ||
| But the truth is, is, you know, I used to work in Afghanistan. | ||
| I'll tell you a quick story. | ||
| And I was a civil servant, but would go out on patrols, and I was embedded with British forces. | ||
| And I would talk to Afghans, and they'd see the American flag on my shoulder, and they'd be like, we talked to you, but not the British. | ||
| We like the Americans, because this is a part of the country where we have a history of financing development projects. | ||
| And I said, why? | ||
| And they said, well, you know, they control the Taliban because they used to run India and what became Pakistan. | ||
| And the British are controlling all of this. | ||
| And they're friends, and we don't trust them. | ||
| The reality was, is we were sort of quasi-allies with Pakistan, which was also supporting the Taliban against us. | ||
| And so I say this to say that sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. | ||
| Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and they launched it in perhaps the worst possible way that you could launch an invasion. | ||
| I actually thought Russia would defeat Ukraine in a matter of days or weeks. | ||
| And if they had actually fought and planned like they trained and followed their own doctrine, they may have. | ||
| But Russia made tremendous mistakes, was extremely arrogant, used forces in ways that didn't make any sense at all, and the Ukrainians were quite resilient. | ||
| So I understand why this seems kind of confusing, and you sort of reach for these other explanations, but I don't agree with what you said. | ||
| Let's hear from Richard in Arkansas, line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Richard. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know what all this stuff is going on over there and everything. | |
| It's ridiculous because there was a contract made after World War II that everybody would leave Ukraine alone if they got rid of their nukes and didn't join NATO. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, they still haven't joined NATO. | |
| Russia breached a contract. | ||
| Give them their nukes back for crying out loud. | ||
| You want to get it over with? | ||
| Give them their nukes back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, so I appreciate your question. | ||
| You're referring to the Budapest Memorandum, which was signed, I believe, in 1994. | ||
| And the guarantors of that were the United States, Russia, and maybe Britain as well. | ||
| And that was the deal. | ||
| Ukraine had Soviet nukes on their soil and installations that they probably couldn't use. | ||
| So it's not like they had full operational control of this arsenal. | ||
| And they agreed to do this. | ||
| And you're right that their territory was, territorial integrity was guaranteed in that agreement. | ||
| The problem with the Budapest Memorandum is there was no enforcement agreement. | ||
| There was no, well, if someone violates this, here's what happens next. | ||
| And that was sort of the fatal flaw of that agreement. | ||
| Nelson in Florida, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Nelson. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| My comment was pretty much as the last caller. | ||
| Western Europe has had numerous wars over the years. | ||
| And we saw what happened with World War II and Adolf Hitler and the Allies not coming together in time, etc. | ||
| And now we're seeing the same thing with Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| Not one Western Europe country has bothered to send troops to help out the Ukrainians. | ||
| A lot of talk, but no action. | ||
| They talk to talk, but they don't walk the walk. | ||
| And so I think that this is just another indication of international hypocrisy and cowardice on the part of those that claim that they will help a country that needs help when it needs it and then doesn't. | ||
| Thank you and your comments. | ||
| Thanks for that question. | ||
| So I don't think that's entirely fair. | ||
| Our European allies have given a lot in terms of material, political, financial support to Ukraine. | ||
| You can argue, as I have in the past and continue to, that they haven't done enough and they haven't. | ||
| And they're starting ready to do more. | ||
| I think Trump shaked the cage a little bit and they got the message and they're understanding that more needs to be done to ensure that this war ends with Ukraine winning. | ||
| As far as sending troops, France and Britain have discussed sending a 20,000-person, I believe, peacekeeping force as a part of a deal, but we're just not there yet. | ||
| Sending troops to fight is kind of another matter because when you do that, you become a belligerent in the war and you become a part of the war. | ||
| And for a NATO member to go to war against Russia openly, that's kind of a tricky thing. | ||
| And that opens up military retaliation. | ||
| And so no NATO country has been willing to do that yet. | ||
| You talked about Ukraine's use of drones. | ||
| We talked about how Russia has been using them against Ukraine, but Ukraine is using them as well. | ||
| And you covered that in a recent podcast. | ||
| Explain how big a role drones are playing in the fight. | ||
| And are drones the future of warfighting? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, and I just want to recommend my friend and colleague Mike Kaufman, who comes on the War on the Rocks podcast all the time to talk to me about these issues. | |
| And he often goes to Ukraine. | ||
| I think he goes four times a year on these research trips, goes to the front, actually talks to drone units with other colleagues, Franz Stefan Gaddi, Rob Lee, Dharamasiko, and Conrad Muzikot. | ||
| And so the information I have on this, I get from these amazing experts who come on my show. | ||
| Mike has his own show that he does for us called The Russia Contingency. | ||
| And drones have become a very important weapon system in this war. | ||
| In some ways, they were an adaptation to a shortage of more traditional capabilities, especially artillery munitions. | ||
| But we've seen now with these fiber optic cable drones, and these are drones that literally have spools of cable that are strung out behind them. | ||
| And they can go 25 kilometers. | ||
| And because they're wired, they're immune to electronic warfare and interference that you can do through the airwaves. | ||
| And so these become a pretty devastating weapon system. | ||
| And if you Google it, you can find these photos of fields just covered in these old fiber optic cables. | ||
| They look sort of like giant spider webs. | ||
| It's kind of creepy and disturbing. | ||
| But we are in the U.S. military is trying to do a lot to ensure that it is ready for a fight like that in the future. | ||
| The Marine Corps and the Army are making big moves in this direction, and they should be commended for that. | ||
| Let's hear from Harry in New York, Line for Independence. | ||
| Hi, Harry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, thank you for taking my call. | |
| So I have two main thoughts. | ||
| One, we were talking about holding Putin accountable in the criminal courts. | ||
| And I just think the U.S. in particular has lost all credibility, all seriousness in doing that now that they have provided this coverage for Israel and Yahoo and Gaza. | ||
| So I'm curious to hear Mr. Evans' thoughts on that. | ||
| The second thing I would like to hear him talk about is the kind of risk and the danger in providing Ukraine with more offensive weapons. | ||
| Just the general idea of escalation and not knowing where that can lead to. | ||
| I think there's a lot of risk. | ||
| And I'd like to hear that acknowledged. | ||
| So thank you. | ||
| Yeah, let me address that second question first, and I appreciate both of them. | ||
| There is a risk of escalation in any war. | ||
| I think the Biden administration was much too cautious in doling out systems and being very slow thinking about, you know, are we going to provide cluster munition artillery to the Ukrainians and debating it for months and months and months to the point where it actually had a cost and impacted Ukraine's war effort quite negatively in the case of certain systems. | ||
| But we've seen in this experience is Russia is probably not going to escalate to the nuclear level, which was what we're afraid of. | ||
| I mean, they've gone this far and we've supported Ukraine so much with our allies and they haven't escalated. | ||
| So I think we can see from this case that's probably not going to happen. | ||
| China has exerted quite a lot of pressure on Russia as well not to use nuclear weapons behind the scenes. | ||
| As for your first comment, I think you're right. | ||
| I do think we've lost a lot of credibility on this issue because of the Iraq war, because of the coverage that we've given to Netanyahu and what he's been doing in Gaza, which I'm against, and I've written about this in Warm the Rocks. | ||
| But just because we've lost credibility on it for these cases, it doesn't mean we shouldn't still pursue justice for Ukraine and to show the scale of what Russia has done is just so different and horrifying. | ||
| What's happening to the Gazans is also horrifying, and I wish we had a different policy there. | ||
| But we really should make sure that Putin is held accountable. | ||
| Bob in San Diego, California, line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Bob. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Mr. Evans. | |
| Is he still there? | ||
| Yes, he is. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| I just, I was, when I see what's happening, first it used to be this war in Ukraine used to be about democracy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And either you were for democracy or you were for authoritarianism. | |
| And then Trump got involved and said, you know, I can make it go away. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But he went after the mineral rights of Ukraine. | |
| And so he wasn't offering enforcement by the United States of America to back up his involvement. | ||
| And so it's the same thing that happened that broke the contract of when they gave up their nuclear weapons in the first place. | ||
| And we're in the same situation. | ||
| So my suggestion is Mr. Trump get serious about being on what side, you know, being on the right side of democracy, whether it's for democracy or what. | ||
| If you're not on the side of democracy, you're not on the right side. | ||
| And he already sided with Russia against human rights in the UN. | ||
| So people wake up. | ||
| Hopefully Mr. Trump will get this message and he'll make the right decision because any other decision is wrong. | ||
| He's already threatening South Korea and saying that they're getting a free ride by the United States protecting them, which isn't true. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're the ones that are giving all these drones to, you know, they're giving money for drones to Ukraine. | |
| I'd like him to speak a little bit about that. | ||
| Yeah, I'll just, I'll answer the question by zooming out a bit on this democracy versus authoritarian issue. | ||
| To some extent, I agree with you. | ||
| I certainly agree with what you'd like to see happen. | ||
| So I think we should continue to work closely with our allies, whether they're in Europe or Asia. | ||
| I think we should be on Ukraine's side and continue to support them and support them even more. | ||
| But this also came up during the Biden administration is when you frame everything in foreign policy as about democracy versus non-democracies, you're making it harder to work with partners and in some cases allies that are frankly not very democratic, who we still want to make sure that they're on side and that we're able to work with them. | ||
| One small case is Vietnam. | ||
| Vietnam is a neighbor of China. | ||
| They've actually gone to war with China in the 70s after our war with Vietnam ended, or war in Vietnam ended. | ||
| And they are worried about what China is doing. | ||
| And when you make this a democracy club, you're saying, well, we're not really going to work with countries like Vietnam who are willing to be security partners and do things that are important for us and so on and so forth. | ||
| So I think we shouldn't go far in letting that be our ultimate framing of our foreign policy. | ||
| One last call for you, Alan in Tennessee, line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Alan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Evan. | ||
| I appreciate everything here, Dr. Ed. | ||
| I wanted to say I have a background as a special forces operator and also a behavioral therapist. | ||
| And I really appreciate your points about consequences. | ||
| You didn't use the term. | ||
| I use the behavioral term, but this idea that you can somehow reason with Putin or he's going to see the light, it just doesn't make sense to me. | ||
| And my question is, if we really are understanding the behavioral dynamic, for instance, during the Vietnam War, and I took part in the Iraq War for three years, the only way we brought the North Vietnamese to the table was with Operation Linebacker and with the, otherwise we would have been arguing about the shape of the table for negotiations. | ||
| Now, what I'm trying to say is, despite people's discomfort with Trump, which is an understatement, I would say, why is it that the civilized countries of the world don't say, if you trade with Russia, we ourselves are going to give you a tariff. | ||
| Nobody is going to do business with Russia and their very strong wartime economy will ultimately collapse. | ||
| And finally, because I know we're out of time, why is it that the United Nations is endlessly off the hook for brokering anything? | ||
| Yeah, I'll start with the last one. | ||
| I mean, first I want to say thank you for your service. | ||
| I don't really expect much out of the UN, so I'll just leave that there. | ||
| But I agree with you on consequences. | ||
| And that's what this bill introduced by Lindsey Graham is trying to do is impose secondary sanctions on those who buy Russian oil, which includes countries like India and China. | ||
| India is, of course, an important security partner, but we still have to stop providing these avenues for Russia to fill its partners, its coffers rather. | ||
| And when it comes to China, China is deeply integrated in supporting the Russian war effort on the industrial and technological level. | ||
| And that needs to, we need to create some coercion there to stop that and some consequences, frankly. | ||
| You're right. | ||
| I don't think Operation Linebacker is the right, is a good example of this, but maybe we'll meet over beer sometime and debate the history there. | ||
| But thanks for calling in and thanks for your service. | ||
| Ryan Evans is the founder and CEO of War on the Rocks. | ||
| You can find his work on the website warontherocks.com. | ||
| Ryan, thank you so much for being with us this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having me. | |
| Always a pleasure. | ||
| That does it for today's Washington Journal. | ||
| We will be back tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern, 4 a.m. Pacific with another program. | ||
| Until then, enjoy your Saturday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy. | |
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| Later today, Border Advisor Tom Homan, Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam, and Steve Bannon are among the speakers at Turning Point USA's Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida. |