| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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Coming up on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live. | |
| Then Thomas Onig, formerly of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, discusses the economic outlook and President Trump's calls for Fed Chair Jerome Powell to resign. | ||
| And Notice reporter Jasmine Wright previews the week ahead at the White House and news of the day. | ||
| Also, Cliff Young with Ipsos talks through his organization's polling on President Trump's record so far in his second term. | ||
| Washington Journal starts now. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| It's Monday, July 14th, 2025. | ||
| The House is in at noon Eastern. | ||
| The Senate is in at 3 p.m. | ||
|
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But we begin at the White House, where we're expecting President Trump to make what's being described as a major statement on Russia today. | |
| That statement likely to come as the president meets with NATO's Secretary General and amid reports of new weapons sales to Ukraine. | ||
| So this morning, we're asking you, what do you want to hear from President Trump when it comes to Russia and Ukraine? | ||
| Give us a call on phone lines split as usual by political party. | ||
|
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Democrats, it's 202-748-8000. | |
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can also send us a text, that number 202-748-8003. | ||
| If you do, please include your name and where you're from. | ||
| Otherwise, catch up with us on social media on X, it's at C-SPANWJ on Facebook. | ||
| It's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN. | ||
| And a very good Monday morning to you. | ||
|
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You can go ahead and start calling in now. | |
| President Trump, yesterday on his way back to Washington, teased the announcement about Russia today. | ||
| This is what he told reporters. | ||
| Well, I'm going to have a meeting with the Secretary General. | ||
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It's coming in tomorrow. | |
| But we basically are going to send them various pieces of very sophisticated military, and they're going to pay us 100% for them. | ||
| And that's the way we want it. | ||
| And we've been trying to get that again. | ||
| I don't think Biden ever asked for. | ||
| We're in for about $350 billion. | ||
| Europe is in for $100 billion. | ||
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That's a lot of money, $100. | |
| But they should be in actually for more than us. | ||
| So as we send equipment, they're going to reimburse us for that equipment. | ||
|
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Doesn't that sound good? | |
| That's the way it should have been a long time ago. | ||
| I can still send tech pictures and files to Ukraine. | ||
| I haven't agreed on the number yet, but they're going to have some because they do need protection. | ||
| But the European Union is paying for it. | ||
| We're not paying anything for it, but we will send it. | ||
| It'll be business for us, and we will send them patriots, which they desperately need. | ||
| Because Putin really surprised a lot of people. | ||
| He talks nice, and then he bombs everybody in the evening. | ||
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There's a little bit of a problem there, and I don't like it. | |
| That was President Trump speaking to reporters yesterday. | ||
|
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This is the lead story in today's Wall Street Journal focusing on the Patriot missile sales. | |
| The story noting that sending more Patriot missiles would be a significant step for this White House, marking the first time the President has approved providing a major weapon system to Kyiv beyond the number that was authorized by the previous administration. | ||
| That story in today's Wall Street Journal. | ||
| We're asking you this morning, what do you want to hear from the president when he makes this statement today? | ||
| Again, phone lines for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents having this conversation in the first hour of the Washington Journal. | ||
| As you call in with those numbers on your screen, it was yesterday on CBS's Face the Nation that Lindsey Graham, senator from South Carolina, talked about today's announcement as well. | ||
| The Republican senator saying this. | ||
| Well, just stay tuned for tomorrow's announcement. | ||
| The idea of America selling weapons to help Ukraine is very much in play. | ||
| We've given Ukraine a lot. | ||
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We've given them money. | |
| We'll give them military aid. | ||
| We now have a minerals agreement with Ukraine that's worth trillions of dollars. | ||
| So I don't want to get ahead of the president, but stay tuned about seized assets. | ||
| The Europeans want to limit the interest on the assets to go to Ukraine. | ||
| Secretary Bessett wants to go further. | ||
| Stay tuned about a plan to go after the seized assets more aggressively. | ||
| Stay tuned for a plan where America will begin to sell to our European allies tremendous amount of weapons that can benefit Ukraine. | ||
| Putin has calculated that we would get tired and Europe would get weary. | ||
| He made a huge mistake. | ||
| NATO is bigger and stronger, and we're more committed to ever to make sure he does not take Ukraine by force. | ||
| So Congress is on the verge of passing the most consequential sanction package in the history of the country. | ||
| It will give President Trump tools he doesn't have today, a literal sledgehammer. | ||
| And the big offender here is China, India, and Brazil. | ||
| India buys oil from Russia cheap and resells it. | ||
| That's despicable. | ||
| I've talked to President Trump. | ||
| He said last week it's time to move. | ||
| He's tried to entice Putin to the table, but my goal is to end this war. | ||
| And the only way you're going to end this war is to get people who prop up Putin, make them choose between the American economy and helping Putin. | ||
| And you can only have one negotiator, and that's going to be President Trump with maximum flexibility to end this war. | ||
| China, India, and Brazil, you're about to get hurt big time if you keep helping Putin. | ||
| Lindsey Graham, there yesterday on CBS's Face the Nation, he's sponsoring legislation along with Richard Blumenthal, Democrat from Connecticut, for tariffs for fines of upwards of 500% on countries that aid Russia in its war on Ukraine. | ||
| That's part of their legislation that they're trying to move through Capitol Hill. | ||
| This coming as President Trump, again, saying there's going to be a major announcement today when it comes to Russia. | ||
| We're asking you, what do you want to hear from the president when he makes that statement? | ||
| We don't have a timing on it just yet, but we'll let you know when we do. | ||
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This is Daniel out of Kentucky. | |
| Up first line for Democrats. | ||
| Daniel, what are you expecting? | ||
| What do you want to hear today? | ||
| Thank you, Proceeds Band. | ||
| I think we really need to hear more about the situation in Ukraine because it's been a while since I've really heard anything about it in general. | ||
| Also, John, I have a question for you. | ||
| How much do usually you hear about Daniel in Kentucky taking your phone calls on lines for Democrats, Republicans, and independents? | ||
| 202-748-8000 for Democrats to call in Republicans. | ||
| 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents. | ||
| 202748-8002. | ||
| Again, we're having this conversation the first hour of the Washington Journal today. | ||
| Later on today, we'll dive more into the one big, beautiful bill, that piece of legislation, its economic impact. | ||
| And we'll also look at some of the latest polling from the first six months of the second Trump administration polling out of Ipsos that we'll dive into. | ||
| But having this conversation on Russia and Ukraine and what you want to hear from President Trump today. | ||
| Sharon is in South Carolina, Independent. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Sharon, you're with us. | ||
| Okay, hang it up. | ||
| What do you want to hear from President Trump today when it comes to Russia and Ukraine? | ||
| Hello. | ||
| Go ahead, Sharon. | ||
| You're on the air. | ||
| Oh, okay. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| I'm calling on the wrong line. | ||
| I'm calling the Democratic line. | ||
| But could I give my opinion anyway? | ||
| Go ahead, Sharon. | ||
| Okay, thank you. | ||
| I'm just calling. | ||
| I think President Trump is going to just muffle everything. | ||
| I think he's just stalling for some reason. | ||
| He's trying to get money out of Ukraine to pay for these weapons, and I don't think Ukraine will do it. | ||
| So I think he's just muffling and just putting on and just wasting time as usual. | ||
| So, Sharon, what we're hearing is that the EU, countries supporting Ukraine in Europe, would pay for these weapons that would eventually go to Ukraine. | ||
| It's a way of selling these weapons and not selling them directly to Ukraine. | ||
| Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen, though. | ||
| I don't think that's going to happen at all. | ||
| I think he's just muffling, trying to score some points for some reason with Russia. | ||
| And I just don't think that's going to happen. | ||
| That's Sharon in South Carolina. | ||
| Doug is in Florida. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Yeah, I'm all for it. | ||
| I think it's about time because every weapon we sell or give for Ukraine means manufactured in the United States. | ||
| That's supposed to be a good thing, ain't it? | ||
| Y'all have a good day. | ||
| Bye. | ||
| That's Doug in Florida. | ||
| This is Dan in Georgia. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning, Don. | ||
| I just think that we seem to be getting involved in everybody else's war around the world. | ||
| It doesn't concern us, poses no threats. | ||
| Can you tell us why what threat Ukraine war between Russia and Ukraine? | ||
| What threat it is to the United States? | ||
| Dan, were you a Trump voter in 2024? | ||
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Yes, sir. | |
| And what were you voting for when it came to Ukraine, Russia? | ||
| This issue very much was part of the 2024 election. | ||
|
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What were you expecting from the president on that front? | |
| I was hoping that President Trump wouldn't keep us involved. | ||
| He poses no threat to us to spend our money rather than that war between Ukraine and Russia. | ||
| NATO has pushed the red line against Putin, keeps encroaching upon him. | ||
| I believe it's the Cuban missile crisis in reverse. | ||
| And we should take those monies and funds and spend it on our own veterans and people. | ||
| That's Dan in Georgia, Axios, with some news last night about the announcement today and what's expected, what could be included in this announcement. | ||
| Again, coming from the president, he's meeting with NATO Secretary General today, and we're expecting the announcement sometime around that meeting. | ||
| Axius writing that President Trump will announce a new plan to arm Ukraine that is expected to include offensive weapons, according to two sources with knowledge of those plans and their discussions with Axios. | ||
| More from Axios saying that those sources said that they had reason to believe that the plan is likely to include long-range missiles that could reach targets deep inside of Russian territory, including Moscow. | ||
| However, neither was aware of a final decision at this point. | ||
| So these are the stories about the expectations of what's going to happen today. | ||
| We will know more certainly this afternoon, likely by the end of the day, that meeting between the president and the secretary general taking place today. | ||
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And we're having this conversation this morning ahead of that meeting. | |
| This is John in Franklin, North Carolina. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
| What do you want to hear from President Trump when it comes to Russia and Ukraine? | ||
| Well, I don't think he'll have much to say. | ||
| He'll probably put it off for two weeks. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's John in North Carolina. | ||
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The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, was taking questions last week while he was traveling in Asia about the U.S. weapons pause to Ukraine and the moves to change what the status is when it comes to the United States providing weapons to Ukraine amid this whole discussion about what the United States is doing over there. | |
| This was part of those discussions from Thursday. | ||
| You said, Secretary, that the weapons pause by the Pentagon in the narrow scope in which it occurred made sense, but was it a decision on which the State Department was consulted or what was the level of pending review? | ||
| And so we were constantly, the Pentagon is constantly reviewing stockpiles, especially after an engagement such as the one we had in the Middle East. | ||
| So my point is that there wasn't a policy decision not to give weapons to Ukraine. | ||
| It was a review in which certain munitions were temporarily paused for that review and for that purpose. | ||
| And this reporting out there that there was no awareness of it is not true now. | ||
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But no policy decision was made. | |
| In essence, no one ever said we're not sending weapons to Ukraine. | ||
| That's been appropriated by Congress and that's continued. | ||
| And that continues to this very day. | ||
| But when you're doing a review, there's some period of time in which during that review, it's possible that some shipping is slowed down, not stopped. | ||
| But because it's being reviewed, someone would say, okay, well, let's not send it today. | ||
| Let's wait a couple days because we're conducting the review of that particular munition. | ||
| So that's what happened here. | ||
| And I think it was not appropriately reported initially. | ||
| But nonetheless, it's pretty clear now that review has occurred. | ||
| And as the president's made clear, there's been no change to our posture with regards to providing what we have available. | ||
| Now, I would remind everybody, again, I go back to the point I made, and that is that there are certain things that Ukraine needs, like Patriot batteries. | ||
| Those are available. | ||
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There are multiple countries in Europe that possess Patriot batteries that they could share with Ukraine. | |
| And we're actively talking to countries about doing that. | ||
| Anyone specifically? | ||
| Well, the Spaniards have one. | ||
| They're really far from Ukraine, and they have one. | ||
| The Germans have. | ||
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Others have. | |
| I'm not signaling them out, but I'm just telling you those are two that I know. | ||
| There are other Patriot batteries. | ||
| And there are other opportunities. | ||
| Countries that have ordered Patriot batteries that are about to receive shipments of them. | ||
| It'd be great if one of them volunteered to defer that shipment and send it to Ukraine instead. | ||
| So we're looking for creative ways to provide them these defensive weapons that they would need. | ||
| Now, that's not going to help them with the drone attacks. | ||
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That's a very different technique that you use in order to bring those down. | |
| But it would help them with some of these missile attacks that we're seeing. | ||
| Again, these are defensive weapons. | ||
| That was Secretary of State Marker Rubio. | ||
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That was just Thursday. | |
| And now new reports coming out over the weekend that the announcement today could include weapons of an offensive nature that could strike targets deep inside of Russia. | ||
| We'll find out more of what the latest is when we hear from the president today. | ||
| He's said that there will be a major announcement coming today. | ||
| Taking your phone calls. | ||
| What do you want to hear from him when it comes to Russia and Ukraine? | ||
| 202-748-8000 is the number for Democrats to call. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| A few more tweets for you. | ||
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Mark Ruta, the NATO Secretary General who's going to be at the White House today meeting with the President. | |
| This was his ex-post from last week, from last Thursday, saying, Russia's continued massive attacks against Ukrainian civilians are deplorable. | ||
| Earlier today, I urged leaders to go farther so Ukraine has more ammunition and air defenses, saying, Ben, I've just spoken with President Trump and am now working closely with allies to get Ukraine the help they need. | ||
| We're likely to hear from him today as well. | ||
| Andrew is in Alexandria, Virginia, Independent. | ||
| Andrew, what do you want to hear from the president today? | ||
| Yes, I hope to hear that he says the war is coming to an end. | ||
| That's what he said during the election. | ||
| So that's what I hope I hear. | ||
| I hope that the weapon sales and all of that will deter Russia and that he'll make a big announcement that they're going to have a ceasefire or they both sides, Russia and Ukraine, have accepted some sort of settlement. | ||
| But yeah, that's the big announcement I hope to hear that this war is coming to an end. | ||
| Andrew, on wars coming to an end, multiple fronts right now around the world, where do you think there's more likely to be a peace deal first when it comes to Gaza and Israel or Ukraine and Russia? | ||
| Great question. | ||
| I definitely think it would be Ukraine and Russia over Gaza, Israel, or Israel, Iran. | ||
| I definitely think the Russia-Ukraine conflict will, there'll be a ceasefire or settlement, or it'll come to an end first. | ||
| What gives you more optimism, is that the right word? | ||
| That this one comes to an end sooner? | ||
| Hmm. | ||
| I think the conflicts in the Middle East have been going on so long, and there's so many, it seems like so many undefined elements that's causing it. | ||
| But to me, the Russia-Ukraine war, this can be settled. | ||
| It seems like it's something it's, I don't believe either side is going to, of course, any settlement, either side is going to get exactly what it wants. | ||
| I don't think Ukraine is going to get all their entire land territory. | ||
| I don't believe Russia is going to get maybe as much of the eastern side of Ukraine they want, it seems, or it seems like Ukraine hasn't joined NATO yet, so they get that. | ||
| So I think that's what makes me think. | ||
| And it seems like also we're further along in the negotiations with the Russia-Ukraine war than we are with the wars of the Middle East as well. | ||
| That's Andrew in Alexandria, Virginia. | ||
| Here's a few of your comments from social media about what you want to hear from President Trump today on Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| This is Anthony saying defunding and U.S. exit of NATO is what he wants to hear. | ||
| That would be putting America first, but he won't. | ||
| Andrew says Trump is actually the best thing to happen for NATO and the deep state in a generation, contrary to what both his liberal detractors and supporters would like to imagine. | ||
| That's just one of your comments from social media this morning. | ||
| Here's another one. | ||
| Gino saying, make NATO do its job. | ||
| The whole free world should be squeezing whatever money Russia is making in order to stay afloat during this war that they started. | ||
| And one more from Who Cares on X. | ||
| He wants to hear the same thing that the President has always said, end the war. | ||
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This is Troy out of Pittsburgh, Republican. | |
| Troy, what do you want? | ||
| Good morning, C-SPAN. | ||
| I was calling because I believe a lot of people that are calling and know what's going on over there in the war. | ||
| Right now in the East, three strategic cities are about to get encircled. | ||
| The war has turned. | ||
| Trump, I guess, just wants to make money because he's going to give them the Patriot batteries. | ||
| But I believe that they're going to strike them down because it's a total different warfare now. | ||
| They got drones. | ||
| And these drones, if you watch any of the videos on YouTube or anything, you would know that the war is totally different. | ||
| Those batteries are not going to help them. | ||
| When you say the war has turned, are you saying it's turned in Russia's favor? | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| And the media in America is still on this pipe dream of, you know, the Ukrainian is going to win. | ||
| They got chased out of Russia. | ||
| They left all their American equipment up there. | ||
| And I hope that they don't get these batteries because we're at a point where we're getting close to World War III. | ||
| And I hope we don't go that far. | ||
| Have a great day. | ||
| That's Troy in Pittsburgh on the drone war that Troy was talking about. | ||
| This is Julian K. Melkier in the Wall Street Journal, a member of the journal's editorial board, was in Kyiv in Ukraine writing about their experience there. | ||
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This is what Julian K. Melchior writes: that to put the size of these drone attacks in context, the Kyiv Independent reports that through the entire month of June of 2024, Russia launched a total of 332 drones. | |
| Last week, Moscow launched more than twice that number in a single night. | ||
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Experts here estimate that Russia is producing between 100 and 170 drones daily. | |
| They're rolling off the assembly line and into the Ukrainian skies every few days, with Russia concentrating its deadly attention on one city at a time. | ||
| The writer going on to say Russia's massive drone attacks on Ukrainian cities this past week should be a wake-up call to the West, but they aren't prompting the same level of introspective concern as Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb, which targeted air bases deep inside Russia and destroyed dozens of strategic bombers last month. | ||
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That mission made Europe and the United States recognize that they share vulnerabilities with Russia. | |
| Do they realize that they share vulnerabilities with Ukraine as well? | ||
| That story in the Wall Street Journal, if you want to read more on it. | ||
|
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This is Pamela in Florida. | |
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
| What do you want to hear from the president today? | ||
| I'm not a Democrat. | ||
| I'm an independent. | ||
| I thought I called on the independent line. | ||
| They didn't even ask me. | ||
| Well, anyways, I was wondering how this war got started. | ||
| You know, I remember hearing about this big oil line that was dug out, and I think it went to that area through Ukraine. | ||
| And I was wondering if that's the reason why they want that strip of land so much so that they can sell their oil. | ||
| And I'm not even sure what it was about. | ||
| I never hear anything about that. | ||
| I only hear about, you know, how they're making drones and all this other stuff. | ||
| And, you know, they're not going to give up. | ||
| Those people in Russia are not going to give up until they get that land. | ||
| They're going to keep going. | ||
| And I was just wondering if that has anything to do with it. | ||
| And that was, I mean, that's a question, but, you know, I don't know if it could ever be answered. | ||
| That's Pamela in Florida. | ||
| This is Mary Lou out of Newington, Connecticut. | ||
| Independent. | ||
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unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Yes. | ||
| In my humble opinion, Vladimir Putin is never going to give up until every Ukrainian is under the Russian flag. | ||
| He believes those people are Russians, and nothing this country or anybody else can do can change his mind. | ||
| That is Trump's Achilles heel. | ||
| He thought that he could talk Putin into stopping it, but Vladimir Putin will not, until the day he dies, give up his trying to get Ukraine into Russia. | ||
| So Mary Lou, what should the United States do? | ||
| What do you want to hear from the president today? | ||
|
unidentified
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I don't know. | |
| They can keep sending money and sending weapons. | ||
| And I don't know what they can do because unless Putin is killed, he will not give up. | ||
| He believes absolutely that the Ukrainians are Russians. | ||
| I know this because I know people from Ukraine and they wanted, they couldn't believe Putin was going to keep going and going, but he will not give up until he's dead. | ||
| And I don't know. | ||
| I don't understand what they can give all the weapons and Europe can do it until they get rid of Putin. | ||
| That's what it's going to be like. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| That's how I look at it. | ||
| That's Mary Lou in Connecticut, 202748-8000 to call in for Democrats. | ||
| 202748-8001 for Republicans. | ||
|
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Independents, 202-748-8002. | |
| We showed you Lindsey Graham, the Republican from South Carolina earlier. | ||
| He was on Face the Nation yesterday talking about congressional efforts, a new piece of legislation he's working on with Richard Blumenthal, Democrat from Connecticut, when it comes to sanctioning countries that support Russia in its war in Ukraine. | ||
| Richard Blumenthal joined Lindsey Graham on Face the Nation and talked more about that legislative, that sanctions package. | ||
|
unidentified
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This is Richard Blumenthal. | |
| Senator Blumenthal, on those sanctions, the president said he expects the Senate to pass this measure you put together. | ||
| And he described being able to terminate it as totally at my option. | ||
| It very respectfully lets the president do whatever he wants and decide whether or not to exercise it. | ||
| I know that has raised some concerns among your fellow Democrats, like Senators Kaine and Senator Coons. | ||
| How do you assure them that this is as tough as you promise? | ||
| This has to be a critical moment for these sanctions. | ||
|
unidentified
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And bringing down this sledgehammer at this moment was emphasized by all of the European allies who were at the meeting that Senator Graham and I attended in Europe. | |
| They are absolutely in solidarity, one after another in that closed-door setting, express the view that these sanctions have to be tough and rigorous to change behavior. | ||
| And so the waiver language that we will have in this bill is very much alike the provisions that have existed in past similar measures that give the president the ability to act in the national security, but also provide congressional oversight. | ||
| And I think that kind of assurance to my Democratic colleagues is very important. | ||
|
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But what is most important, I think, at this moment is our unity. | |
| Senator Graham and I, Republican and Democrat, coming together, the European leaders with diverse views, also in unity. | ||
| And we want to make use of the seized assets, again, in a unified way. | ||
| I think a multifaceted approach here is the only way to bring Putin to the table because he's a thug. | ||
|
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He understands only force. | |
| Richard Blumenthal yesterday with Lindsey Graham on CBS's Face the Nation. | ||
|
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We're expecting to hear from the president today. | |
| He's calling it a major announcement when it comes to Russia. | ||
| We're asking you, what do you want that announcement to be? | ||
| 202-748-8,000 for Democrats. | ||
| 202-748-8001 for Republicans. | ||
|
unidentified
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Independence, 202-748-8002. | |
| You can also send us a text, 202748-8003. | ||
| Timbo sent us a text from Mountain Home, Arkansas, saying that Trump needs to tell Putin that I'm taking the kid gloves off. | ||
| This is a war in Ukraine that you will never win, and I will personally see to it when I'm done with your country. | ||
| You will be a pariah. | ||
| That's what Timbo wants to hear. | ||
|
unidentified
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One more, Joe from Pennsylvania. | |
| I want to hear that China and Iran agreed to stop supplying Russia with drones and drone parts and stop buying Russian natural resources. | ||
| And this is from Jeff in Illinois. | ||
| I want to hear full support for Ukraine and get tough on Russia. | ||
| A few of your comments this morning. | ||
| You can also call in like Terry did out of Altoona. | ||
|
unidentified
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Independent, good morning. | |
| Yeah, this is Trump's not going to say much of anything. | ||
| This is all about the price of oil. | ||
| He doesn't want to disrupt global oil prices because that'll just mess up our economy more. | ||
| That's all it's about. | ||
| He's more worried about the stock market and things like that. | ||
| It's a shame to see what Marco Ruby has become. | ||
| He's just like a mouthpiece puppet for Trump and Lindsey Graham. | ||
| He's a joke. | ||
| I don't know who down there keeps voting for him, putting him in office. | ||
| Terry, were you a Trump supporter in 2024? | ||
| Absolutely not. | ||
| I've never supported him. | ||
| He was the worst of two evils. | ||
| I didn't vote in 2016 for either one. | ||
| I voted for Biden, which was a mistake. | ||
| So there's not much out there. | ||
| I don't know what's going to happen to us going forward. | ||
| There's not much out. | ||
| Nobody out there you can really put your faith in and believe in. | ||
| So that's all I have. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Terry, before you go, you said there's nobody you can put your faith in or believe in. | ||
|
unidentified
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There's a talk about Elon Musk starting a third party. | |
| Is that something that you'd be interested in? | ||
| We lost Terry, but you can call in on phone lines for Democrats, 202748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202748-8001. | ||
| Independence, 202748-8002. | ||
| Again, here's where we are today. | ||
| The House is in at noon Eastern. | ||
|
unidentified
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The Senate is in at 3 p.m. Eastern today. | |
| President Trump is meeting with the Secretary General at the White House. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mark Ruda is his name. | |
| And he has said that there will be a major announcement today when it comes to Russia. | ||
|
unidentified
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And we've been asking you this morning what you would like to hear in that announcement. | |
| This is Carl out of Lake Charles, Louisiana, a Republican. | ||
| Carl, how would you answer that question? | ||
|
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As far as Putin, the lady said, he's never going to stop, but it's a win-win for him if you look at it. | |
| He's taking all the money and bombs and stuff out of our family's mouth, so to speak. | ||
| You know, we're doing without for our people, and he's going to take over sooner or later. | ||
| He's not going to stop. | ||
| Carl, when you say he's taking bombs from us, are you saying that by doing this he's depleting the United States supply of weapons? | ||
| Is that what you're concerned about? | ||
|
unidentified
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Exactly. | |
| So What would you say to those individuals that say that Russia has spent a lot of its military, its personnel, its equipment, its money in Ukraine, and that the United States has, by providing weapons and money, been able to deplete a lot of Russia's stockpile of weapons and soldiers? | ||
| Russia has used most of their modern technology on their backup stuff, but they're also taking away from the United States as well. | ||
| That's why I'm saying to Putin, it's a win-win. | ||
| That makes sense. | ||
| That's Carl in Louisiana. | ||
| This is Ursula, Spring Lake, North Carolina. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
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Ursula. | |
| Hello, John. | ||
| Go ahead, ma'am. | ||
| Okay, John. | ||
| Bless our hearts. | ||
| John, I'm a Berliner by birth, and I'm an American by choice. | ||
| And I've watched C-SPAN for quite a few years now, and it amazes me. | ||
| Most of the callers, they're younger people. | ||
| And like I said, Russia has been playing footsie with the United States for 80 years now. | ||
| We put up with a Berlin blockade back in the 60s. | ||
| And we're not going to win this war, John. | ||
| And I don't know if the Europeans have to step up, but I'm tired that we're sending things over there. | ||
| And I don't know what the Europeans are doing, John. | ||
| They need to help more than we cannot deplete our arsenal. | ||
| I don't know if people understand that or not. | ||
| I appreciate this. | ||
| What President Trump said yesterday is that this is in teasing this announcement and weapon sales to the EU, which will then move those weapons to Ukraine, that this is a win-win for the United States, that we're selling arms to the EU. | ||
| They're buying them from us. | ||
|
unidentified
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And Ukraine gets weapons to fight Russia. | |
| John, that's not going to happen. | ||
| And I tell you why. | ||
| I know the Ukrainians want to be independent, but Putin is pushing and pushing. | ||
| He wants all of Russia back, and that's crazy. | ||
| We gave up so much after World War II. | ||
| We should have put a red line in the sand back when, and we did not do it. | ||
| And we're paying the price for it now. | ||
| Because nobody stops these people. | ||
| Well, the Russian people don't want war, John. | ||
| We all know that. | ||
| But this leader up there, Putin, he is crazy, John. | ||
| And I just don't think he's going to quit as long as he's going to get support from all these other countries. | ||
| Ursula, you said you were born in Berlin. | ||
| When did you live in Berlin? | ||
|
unidentified
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When did you leave? | |
| John, I was born in 1940 during the war, and I left in 1960 when Eisenhower was president. | ||
| It was just before John Kennedy came into presidency. | ||
| I was here, and right after I got here, they put the Berlin Wall up. | ||
| I was devastated, John, because, like I said, Russia will not quit. | ||
| And we gave them too much leadway after World War II. | ||
| If you read a book that was written by General Taylor, I believe it was Zachary Taylor. | ||
| In this book, he says, America has to make up their mind if they're going to be allies with Russia or the Chinese or somebody. | ||
| But whatever is happening here, John, Trump is not going to be able to do a dead gum thing. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| What president, and you've watched this over the years, what president do you think was most effective in pushing back against the Soviet Union and then Russia? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, John, I'll be honest with you. | |
| I like Kennedy. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| You know, he's the only one, you know, through the Cuban Missile Crisis and whatnot. | ||
| I think he was the only one that really pushed back, and maybe Reagan. | ||
| Now, Reagan had something to do to get the Berlin Wall down. | ||
| Now, how that happened, I don't know, but it was a few years after Reagan left office that that happened, Ursula. | ||
| But you're saying that he laid the groundwork for it? | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes. | |
| I think he did. | ||
| But all these other presidents, I think they were all not, I wouldn't say scared, but I think they know that, like one of your callers said earlier this morning, you know, are we pushing for World War III? | ||
| I hope not, John. | ||
| It scares the hell out of me. | ||
| I'm so sorry to say that. | ||
| It's, you know, I just realize, I hope all these young, and I call them young people, John, that sitting there up there with President Trump, I hope they know our history with Russia. | ||
| You know, it's, like I said, John, I'm scared, just a little bit. | ||
| It's Ursula in North Carolina. | ||
| About 25 minutes left in this first hour of the Washington Journal. | ||
| We've been asking you this morning, what do you want to hear when it comes to President Trump, his big announcement today when it comes to Russia? | ||
| We're expecting the president to meet with the NATO Secretary General in the Oval Office at 10 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| That's according to reporting from roll call this morning. | ||
| So that big announcement likely to come in that meeting or not soon afterwards or very soon afterwards, I should say. | ||
|
unidentified
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So we'll be watching that today for you. | |
| And in the time until that meeting happens, we're asking what do you want to hear from the president? | ||
| 202-748-8000 for Democrats. | ||
| 202-748-8001 for Republicans. | ||
| Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Speaking of the president and more recent history, the story on the front page today from the Washington Post about the Senate report on the failures that took place before the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania during the 2024 campaign against President Trump. | ||
| Lots of reporting from that very detailed report that came out. | ||
|
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Here's the lead from the Washington Post. | |
| The Secret Service failed to prevent the assassination attempt on Donald Trump last year at his Pennsylvania campaign rally, according to a Senate committee report, which accuses the agency of botched operations snarled by communication fumbles and the repeated denial of extra security assets at a time when the former president faced heightened threats to his life. | ||
|
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Documents shared by the Senate committee as part of its report also reveal new details about what its Republican chairman characterized as insufficient disciplinary actions against the agents and officers involved. | |
| The committee, which is chaired by Senator Rand Paul, conducted 17 interviews with Secret Service staff and reviewed more than 75,000 pages of law enforcement documents during its investigation over the past year to reach its conclusion, the anniversary of that attempted assassination taking place over the weekend. | ||
| And President Trump also asked about that yesterday as he was making his way back to Washington, D.C. | ||
|
unidentified
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This is the president. | |
| On this one-year anniversary of Butler, what was going through your mind this morning when you woke up? | ||
| I know that you're praising God you're alive, but a lot of people want to know how you're taking this day on this one-year anniversary. | ||
| God was protecting me. | ||
| Maybe because God wanted to see our country do better or do really well, make America great again. | ||
| But God was protecting me, Brian. | ||
| I'll tell you, the more you think about it, the more you see it. | ||
|
unidentified
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But no, I just don't like to think about it much. | |
| You know, I have a job to do, so I don't like to think about it much. | ||
| It's a little bit of a dangerous profession being president. | ||
| But I really don't like to think about it too much. | ||
| I think you're better off not thinking about it. | ||
| That was President Trump yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
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We're expecting to hear more from the president today. | |
| He's going to be in that meeting with the NATO Secretary General. | ||
| 10 a.m. Eastern is the reporting on when that's going to be expected. | ||
|
unidentified
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And we're asking you, what do you want to hear from the president on Russia and Ukraine at or after that meeting? | |
| This is Dan in Santa Barbara, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
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Dan, go ahead. | |
| Yeah, well, we all know that Putin's a bully, but Trump's also a bully. | ||
| And the only thing bullies understand is, you know, brute force. | ||
| And I'm not going to use the word threaten, but I think in an ideal world, Trump should, I don't know, bluff Putin or say he's going to arm Ukraine to the teeth, not just the regular shipment of defensive weapons, but like long-range missiles, bombers, attack planes, attack helicopters. | ||
| I mean, this is stuff that the Biden administration should have armed Ukraine with. | ||
| You know, they should have been armed right when that invasion happened because as we all know now, Russia is a paper tiger. | ||
| And the Ukrainians, to their credit, have done a great job repelling them and stopping them from taking over the country. | ||
| So I think that's what Trump needs to do. | ||
| It sounds like he's kind of done with Putin's BS. | ||
| He literally said that. | ||
| So in an ideal world, that's what I'm hoping that Trump says. | ||
| But at the same time, he's dealing with his isolationist base, which has hijacked the Republican Party. | ||
| And they all lost their minds a few weeks ago when he attacked or bombed Iran. | ||
| But again, Iran was also shown, mainly by Israel, that they're also a paper tiger. | ||
| Which leads me to my last point. | ||
| I hear a lot of the callers calling today, and I saw a lot of things on social media during that Iran war. | ||
| And unfortunately, America, we've gone, a lot of people have gone far left and far right, and both of them are like isolationist ends of that horseshoe theory. | ||
| And on the far left, we have like Code Pink, which is funded by China, and the squad. | ||
| And then on the right, we have like Marjorie Taylor Green and like Tucker Katarlson, who went to Russia and did propaganda videos for him. | ||
| And they were all saying the same thing. | ||
| Oh, it's going to be World War III-3 with Iran. | ||
| It wasn't. | ||
| It was a brilliant military attack on the nuclear facilities, and that was it. | ||
| And Iran is like 10 times more weakened. | ||
| Same thing with Russia. | ||
| They're weak. | ||
| All they have is men. | ||
| He's throwing millions of men in the meat grinder. | ||
| But their Air Force, their Navy, a lot of their equipment has been decimated. | ||
| And Putin knows that. | ||
| And so if all the people think there's going to be World War III, I'll see that happening. | ||
| And the other thing is Europe and America. | ||
| Do you think Ukraine should be part of NATO? | ||
| Again, an ideal world, yes, but I don't know the politics or the whole technicality of NATO. | ||
| I do know that Ukraine should not have had its nukes taken away, because that was the next thing I was going to say: Putin is saber-rattling with nukes, and everyone's like, oh, we don't want Putin to nuke us. | ||
| He's not going to nuke anyone. | ||
| He knows if he uses any nukes, he will be dead. | ||
| Moscow will be destroyed, and he will be dead. | ||
| He's not suicidal. | ||
| So, yeah, so I don't know. | ||
| I think we got to punch this guy back in the face, arm Ukraine to the teeth, and know it's not going to be World War III. | ||
| It's going to be Ukraine staying up for its literal existence because they're facing a genocide right now. | ||
| It's Dan in California. | ||
| Curtis is in Savannah, Georgia. | ||
| Republican, good morning. | ||
| Hey, John. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hey, John, how you doing? | |
| Doing well. | ||
|
unidentified
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This is Curtis in Pembroke, right down from Hinesville, Georgia, where Fort Stewart's at. | |
| I was in the 6th of the 9th Field Artillery Unit from 80 to 82 back when the wall was up. | ||
| And our mission, we had big eight-inch high witchers that shot a 209-pound round. | ||
| And our mission was right there on the full of the gap: to get out three conventional nuke rounds, and our life expectancy was like 23 minutes at the most. | ||
|
unidentified
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Now, the only thing Putin understands is force. | |
| But you got to realize that our leaders today, most of them are bullies. | ||
| I mean, call Trump a bully. | ||
| Everybody calls Trump a bully, but that's what it takes. | ||
| I think we need somebody that can bully the bullies. | ||
| But this guy over in the Soviet Union, I still call it the Soviet Union. | ||
| He's a madman. | ||
| And I look at things kind of from a different perspective than most, I guess. | ||
| I look at these leaders like Kim and Putin and Xi of China. | ||
| You think about it. | ||
| They're all in their 70s, 80s. | ||
| It's all about their legacy. | ||
| So what's going to stop Putin going? | ||
| Well, I don't care. | ||
| All I want to do is make sure that my legacy is left behind. | ||
| When that guy starts chunking new ground, conventional new grounds out of artillery and aircraft, and all these people that love to talk about war, I was in Iraq 2005, 2006 on the Syrian border, Al-Assad, that you hear on the news all the time, doing convoy escort, making sure our guys have beans and bullets and hitting IEDs every freaking day. | ||
| And all these people love wars. | ||
| The Republicans love war. | ||
| And what's really scary to me is that they're going to wait for a Democrat like Joe Biden to get in office, like an AOC or whatever, one of them weak little, whatever you want to call them. | ||
| And that's when China's going to do Taiwan. | ||
|
unidentified
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That's when Putin's going to do Ukraine. | |
| And it's a snowball effect. | ||
| But I'm just kind of upset, John, about people talking about war all the time. | ||
| War is ugly, and nothing good comes from it. | ||
|
unidentified
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And that's the point I want to drive home this morning: nothing good comes from it. | |
| Them Europeans over there, they need to buck up. | ||
| Trump's right about the Europeans. | ||
| They're weak. | ||
| And if they don't want to buck up and pay up, then we don't need to drag around that ball and chain. | ||
| And, you know, I'm just really frustrated at our country right now, all the hate and division. | ||
| Man, we're the United States of America. | ||
| And anybody that hasn't traveled out of this country, go travel out of this country. | ||
| And I bet within a week you'll be dying to get back to this place. | ||
| And I'm tired of people bad-mouthing my neighbors. | ||
| Curtis, how many years were you in the military? | ||
| 29 years. | ||
| Did your opinions about war change over the course of those 29 years? | ||
|
unidentified
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Man, I was one of them John Wayne wannabes. | |
| I'm going to go over there and be hood and use my training. | ||
| I can't wait to stack the bodies and all that. | ||
| But I'm going to tell you what is true about all that war matter was the guy to my left and right, my brother, that were willing to take a bullet in the forehead for me. | ||
| And all this stuff about people just constantly talking about, we need to do this and we need to do that. | ||
| Man, if you ain't been there and done that, you might want to hold your tongue a little bit because you definitely don't know what you're talking about unless you've done it. | ||
| Curtis, do you think we have the greatest military in the world right now? | ||
|
unidentified
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And how does it stack up to when you were in the military? | |
| Well, to me, we don't, but that's one thing I can say about the bully in the White House. | ||
| I voted for the guy because I knew the weakness on the other side. | ||
| I mean, you can see it. | ||
| If you're paying attention, you can see the weakness in that party. | ||
|
unidentified
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What was the question, John? | |
| I was right there when you just asked me about our. | ||
| Just on the U.S. military and how it stacks up around the world? | ||
|
unidentified
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I believe that this Pete Hesset, he was there doing that ghost fighting like I was doing. | |
| And what you got to do, these young men are soft today, man. | ||
| Most of them are overweight. | ||
| But I'm going to tell you what, John, I also had a change of heart about that. | ||
| I am so proud that there were still young men today willing to lay down their lives and sign their name on a contract saying I'll die for my country. | ||
| And nothing makes me prouder than that. | ||
| It's Curtis in Georgia. | ||
| This is Jacob in Carson City, Nevada. | ||
| Line for Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I want to say the way Trump is talking to Putin is wrong, and the negotiating he's doing is awful. | ||
| All right, Joe, Iowa, Independent, good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Are you there? | ||
| Yes, ma'am. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| As I'm sitting here thinking about what are my thoughts on Trump and Russia, I've come up with a good acronym, and everybody's using the word bully. | ||
| So our acronym for the day is Burrito. | ||
| No tacos. | ||
| Burrito. | ||
| Bully under Red Russia's influence. | ||
| Trump, obviously. | ||
| I'll repeat that. | ||
| Burrito. | ||
| Bully under Red Russia's influence. | ||
| Trump, obviously. | ||
| So, Joe, what do you want to hear from the president today? | ||
| I want to hear the truth all day long. | ||
| And what's the truth that you want to hear? | ||
| The truth? | ||
| Oh, he won't tell the truth about anything. | ||
| I want him to quit kowtowing to Putin. | ||
| He is truly under his influence. | ||
| They've got dirt on him when he was young, and I think they got film on him doing sexual crap, you know. | ||
| It's all, it goes back a long ways. | ||
| But they've got dirt on him. | ||
| All right, that's Joe in Iowa. | ||
| The president set to meet with the UN Secretary General, Mark Ruda, at 10 a.m. Eastern Time at the White House. | ||
| And this major announcement could come during that meeting. | ||
| The president was teasing the announcement yesterday when he was talking to reporters. | ||
| And it was also the topic of discussion on the Sunday shows yesterday. | ||
| Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican of South Carolina, was on CBS's Face the Nation. | ||
| Here's more of what he had to say about what he expects. | ||
| The president's rhetoric has changed this week on Russia. | ||
| He is making clear his patience is very thin. | ||
| But he's got right now at his fingertips just short of $4 billion in presidential drawdown authority. | ||
| He doesn't need to ask Congress. | ||
| He doesn't need to ask the Europeans for that money. | ||
| He's got it if he wants to tap it. | ||
| Wouldn't it be a stronger sign if he just sent those weapons or surged them? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the $4 billion is not nearly enough. | |
| I expect him to exercise that drawdown authority. | ||
| But the game regarding Putin's invasion of Russia is about to change. | ||
| I expect in the coming days, you will see weapons flowing at a record level to help Ukraine defend themselves. | ||
| I expect in the coming days that there will be tariffs and sanctions available to President Trump. | ||
| He's never had before. | ||
| I expect in the coming days more support from Europe regarding their efforts to help Ukraine. | ||
| Putin made a miscalculation here. | ||
| For six months, President Trump tried to entice Putin to the table. | ||
| The tax have gone up, not down. | ||
| One of the biggest miscalculations Putin has made is to play Trump. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And you just watch. | |
| In the coming days and weeks, there's going to be a massive effort to get Putin to the table. | ||
| And to those who are helping him, China, buying cheap Russian oil and having no accountability, those days are about over. | ||
| Lindsey Graham, yesterday on CBS's Face the Nation. | ||
| Back to your phone calls. | ||
|
unidentified
|
A few minutes left in this first segment of the Washington Journal. | |
| Simply asking you, what do you want to hear from the president today when it comes to Russia and Ukraine? | ||
| This is Dale in North Carolina, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Go ahead, Dale. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Yeah, the caller from Georgia, he pretty much nailed it. | ||
| Can you hear me? | ||
| I can, Dale. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What do you think? | |
| He nailed it when he said China, Russia, they will wait at her weakest point. | ||
| They will wait till a Democrat goes in office to do their shenanigans. | ||
| They always do. | ||
| Look at Kamala Harris. | ||
| What happened when she went over there cackling and doing her thing? | ||
| It didn't take them no time. | ||
| They were on their way. | ||
| But the thing is, I believe Putin is wrong. | ||
| He's playing the wrong man. | ||
| He will come to the table because Trump will get enough of it and he'll supply them with the kind of stuff that he don't want them to have. | ||
| And Putin will come to the table. | ||
| He's not going to use nuclear stuff in his back door. | ||
| The only way he'd use that is if his back was again the wall, he's going again the wrong president this time. | ||
| And I think he's going to understand that in the near future. | ||
| Dale, I assume you voted for Donald Trump in 2024? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, yeah, I'll vote Republican. | |
| What did you expect Donald Trump would do when it came to Ukraine and Russia, an issue that was very much a part of campaign 2024? | ||
| He'd try to stop it like he's been doing. | ||
| He'd try to stop it without a lot of force or aiding Ukraine or trying to help one side and make the other one mad. | ||
| He'd try to stop it like he's done. | ||
| But he will get enough. | ||
| And He will beef up the artillery of the Ukrainians, but the coward from Georgia, he nailed it, man. | ||
| He nailed it. | ||
| They wait till Democrat parties go in and then they go crazy. | ||
| That's when they pull this stuff. | ||
| That's Dale in North Carolina. | ||
| Time for a few more calls. | ||
|
unidentified
|
About five minutes left here. | |
| Annabelle, Ocean Grove, New Jersey, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning to you. | ||
| Hi, good morning to you. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, so the whole thing that's happening is theater. | |
| And I realized it at 3 in the morning when I looked on X thing and saw that the White House that Trump was going to make a big announcement on Monday about Ukraine. | ||
| So this whole week has been about diverting the public about what horrible things are going on in our country because of his administration. | ||
| So when he didn't know, said he didn't know Higsworth caused weapons that were already approved by Congress. | ||
| Maybe he didn't know, but his cabinet knew. | ||
| The people behind him knew. | ||
| And Rubio going to Russia to reprimand Putin was just theater. | ||
| Also, Rubio isn't reprimanding Putin. | ||
| Putin Trump never does anything to Putin. | ||
| What this whole thing is, is they're trying to make him a Superman. | ||
| And that was the headline on my letter to the editor before I even saw what the White House put out, which was Trump's head on Superman, because this is all theater. | ||
| They are doing nothing to help anybody. | ||
| And all we have to do is make Ukraine part of NATO and the war will stop. | ||
| Do you think that's all theater? | ||
| Do you think that'll do it? | ||
| The Article 5? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that'll do it, but Trump's not going to do it because Trump, because Putin has something on him. | |
| But the point is, this is all theater. | ||
| This is all theater. | ||
| Can you see that? | ||
| I saw it. | ||
| Annabelle in New Jersey. | ||
| Got your point. | ||
| Time for just a couple more calls. | ||
| This is Tony in Maryland, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call on C-SPAN. | ||
| I'm following up the last caller. | ||
| This is just theater. | ||
| And American people are so stupid because they keep falling for the same theater. | ||
| They never learned from Vietnam. | ||
| When we went to Vietnam, oh, we want a superpower. | ||
| We're going to win this war. | ||
| It's going to be easy. | ||
| We haven't won a war since World War II. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| And we keep having these people saying that the guy who yells the loudest, which Trump is, he's nothing but full of air because he comes out and just blasts everything and people just fall for it. | ||
| I mean, when are we going to wake up? | ||
| This is a game. | ||
| It doesn't matter whether it's Republican or Democrats or it's the military-industrial complex who's making the money, who's running this war. | ||
| Remember, Trump promised he was going to end the war. | ||
| Well, they made sure that he fell in line. | ||
| And now he's following Biden's footsteps. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| And all these Republicans are following it, like, oh, well, you know, Donald Trump is the man. | ||
| He's a superman. | ||
| He's a superhero. | ||
| You can't miss. | ||
| Donald Trump ain't going to be doing nothing about Putin. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| Putin is not playing. | ||
| Just like we didn't want the Cubans. | ||
| I mean, the missile crisis when the Soviet Union tried to put their missiles here, Putin doesn't want any of NATO. | ||
| NATO is the enemy. | ||
| Imagine your enemy coming in your backyard. | ||
| What you going to do? | ||
| You're just going to fool? | ||
| No. | ||
| So what I want to hear from the president is to say that the war is over. | ||
| We're not supporting Ukraine. | ||
| We started this mess in 2014 with Obama when they overthrew the government because the coup, the mind on was one of those made-up it's all theater. | ||
| And we keep American people keep falling for the foolishness. | ||
| That's Tony. | ||
| One more call. | ||
| This is Al in California Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, John. | |
| Thank you for having me on. | ||
| John, the last time I called, I cried and I had to hang up because of the three military guys that were killed in Syria. | ||
| Do you remember that? | ||
| There's three wars going on right now. | ||
| Russia war. | ||
| I'm vogue German. | ||
| My family migrated in the 1900s from Russia. | ||
| They were being killed. | ||
| And let's not forget, as of 2024, Ukraine was considered the most corrupt country in the world. | ||
| And also, I was cleaning out the garage and my wife's, excuse me, sir. | ||
| And my wife's, her Vogue magazine was there. | ||
| And who did I see on Vogue magazine? | ||
| The president and his wife from Ukraine. | ||
| And also the three. | ||
| So Al, bring me to this question because I'm running short on time. | ||
| Just about 20 seconds left. | ||
| What do you want to hear from President Trump today on Russia and Ukraine? | ||
| I want him to, he's going to have to defend Ukraine just because of the dynamics of the world and that region of the world. | ||
| And I just think we should all pray for him and our nation. | ||
| He's the keystone of the world right now. | ||
| And when the Democrats and everyone else is trying to pull the stones before the top of the threshold, it's going to create some damage. | ||
| And my only concern, I'm up in the mountains. | ||
| It's mellow. | ||
| I'm having my coffee. | ||
| And to hear, to hear this, it's brilliant. | ||
| That's Al in California, our last caller in this first hour of the Washington Journal. | ||
| Stick around. | ||
| A lot more to talk about today, including a little later, Cliff Young of Ipsus will discuss the latest polling numbers on President Trump's first six months of his second term. | ||
| But first, we'll talk about the economy with George Mason University's Mercatus Center's Thomas Hoenig. | ||
| Stick around for that discussion up next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This 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 rescions 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 this 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. | ||
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Thomas Hoenig is back with us now via Zoom, a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. | ||
| He's now with George Mason University's Mercatus Center. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning to you, sir. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| How are you? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Lots of economics topics to get to this morning, but I want to start with more of a policy question. | |
| Can you start by explaining the relationship between the Federal Reserve and the executive and legislative branches, how the system was set up and why? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it's a love-hate relationship in some ways, but first of all, the responsibilities for monetary policy under the Constitution are with the Congress. | |
| And at the turn of the, from the basically the 19th to the 20th century, because of financial crisis, Congress then established the third bank of the United States, the Federal Reserve System, which is the central bank, third central bank of the United States, with the specific purpose of providing liquidity into the financial system when there were crises, because that's what they had found repeating itself, that there was no liquidity. | ||
| So the Federal Reserve was set up. | ||
| Now, there's a great deal of concern about how independent it would be and how non-centralized it would be. | ||
| So the Congress at the time and since then established a system where you have a board of governors. | ||
| That is the group in Washington, D.C., made up of seven members appointed by the president, confirmed by the Senate. | ||
| And you have 12 reserve banks, regional reserve banks located across the United States. | ||
| Those are more private institutions. | ||
| They have their own boards of directors, and those directors are made up of people from the regions in which they're located, business, consumer, labor, all form a nine-member board for each of those banks. | ||
| Those banks and the board of governors come together eight times a year for what's called the Federal Open Market Committee, and it is the policy body established by Congress to conduct monetary policy for the United States. | ||
| That is, provide liquidity for the system, affect interest rates for the system, and therefore affect the overall well-being of the economy. | ||
| Now, it was set up with those board members having long terms, 14-year terms, and the idea was that within government at the Board of Governors and outside with the Reserve Bank, there would be some independence from political control. | ||
| And that is a very important element because it's a natural tendency for politicians to want to push interest rates down, have higher inflation. | ||
| And the founders said, no, we know that and we're going to give more separation to it. | ||
| And that's why you have this FOMC made up of these two groups that form the policy for the United States in that way. | ||
| They meet eight times, they vote. | ||
| The chairman of the Federal Reserve System, who is Jay Powell right now, has one vote. | ||
| He has to bring the rest of the FOMC together when they decide policy. | ||
| So speaking of the chairman, President Trump, as you well know, has been critical about his moves or lack thereof when it comes to fiscal policy. | ||
| Yesterday, on his way back to Washington, D.C., was speaking with reporters, once again, called for Jerome Powell's firing. | ||
| This is about a minute of the president at Andrews Air Force Base last night. | ||
| Jerome Powell's been very bad for our country. | ||
| We should have the lowest interest rate on earth. | ||
| And we don't. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He just refuses to do it. | |
| And yet he's spending $2.5 billion rebuilding the Fed, the Federal Reserve Building. | ||
| And I don't know what he knows about building, but you talk about cost overrun. | ||
| So he got this approved and he started the work during the Biden administration. | ||
| And he doesn't look like the kind of a guy, frankly, that wants to spend $2.5 billion. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And it's very interesting because out of 71 economists, one person, me, and then one other person, I think from Wharton, got it right. | |
| And the others were all wrong in terms of the success of our country this quickly. | ||
| We have no inflation. | ||
| We have cash pouring in. | ||
| It was me and somebody else. | ||
| Then I can tell you, I don't need 5,000 people working for me behind the scenes like Jerome Powell to tell him what he should say once a month because they got it wrong. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Fed got it wrong. | |
| I call him too late. | ||
| He's always too late. | ||
| President Trump, just yesterday evening, Thomas Honin, what's been your reaction to this controversy to President Trump letting it be known what he wants the Fed to do when it comes to interest rates? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, my reaction is it's fairly common that the President of the United States wants lower interest rates, and many politicians do. | |
| In history, we know all the way back to President Truman after World War II when interest rates were paid low, that the Fed, because of inflation, was rising. | ||
| He was very upset with the chairman at the time, Eccles. | ||
| President Johnson, during the Vietnam War and then his efforts for the Great Society, saw that interest rates had to rise or inflation was rising and gave then chairman Martin a very difficult time because he wanted interest rates to stay low. | ||
| Nixon did the same thing with Burns. | ||
| By accommodating that, they had higher inflation. | ||
| So it's not, I'm not surprised at all. | ||
| It's normal for presidents to want lower rates because it temporarily stimulates and it does risk higher inflation. | ||
| I mean, President Biden also wanted lower rates and fiscal expenditures and he got higher inflation. | ||
| So it's very normal. | ||
| I think it's up to the good judgment of all, including the president of the United States, to work your way through this to give us both growth and low inflation. | ||
| Now, he says inflation is extremely low. | ||
| Inflation right now is still closer to 3%. | ||
| That means we lose value every year, at least 3% of the value of our currency. | ||
| And so we have to be mindful of that. | ||
| So I think there will be a time when interest rates should come down, should come down. | ||
| But right now, the economy is fairly strong. | ||
| So to lower rates again might in fact increase inflation even more. | ||
| And those are the trade-offs, and it is always trade-offs that the policymaker has to think through both the president, the Congress, and in this case, the Federal Open Market Committee led by Jerome Powell. | ||
| So it's always controversial, and this is a continuation of that. | ||
| Plenty of topics to talk about with Thomas Hoenig. | ||
| He's with George Mason University's Mercatus Center, former President CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City with us. | ||
| It's about 8:45 Eastern Time, so go ahead and get your calls and questions in phone numbers as usual. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8,000. | ||
| Republicans, 202748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| As folks are calling in on inflation, we're going to get more information this week. | ||
| The June consumer price index numbers are expected to come out this week. | ||
| What are you expecting? | ||
| What should we be looking for as we read those numbers? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, no one knows for sure, but given the way the economy is going, I would expect that inflation would not have risen much, but probably had not fallen much. | |
| So it's still probably in the 3% range for June. | ||
| If that's reported, that would not surprise anyone. | ||
| That's still higher than the 2% target and certainly higher than stable prices. | ||
| Remember, 2% inflation is stable inflation, not stable prices. | ||
| And that's what we have to be aware of. | ||
| And that's what the Federal Reserve and the President needs to be very conscious of. | ||
| Inflation does undermine the economy, does undermine people's purchasing power, and actually hurts the least wealthy more than the most wealthy. | ||
| And that's why it's such a concern for everyone and for the Federal Reserve in particular, whose role it is to keep inflation down. | ||
| Its role is to give us stable prices so that we can have maximum employment and a stable economy. | ||
| That's pretty much understood by all. | ||
| How are tariffs impacting inflation proposed tariffs? | ||
| And do tariffs help create a stable price environment? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, tariffs are basically designed to raise prices on imported goods to, number one, raise revenue, but also to slow the inflow of those foreign goods into the United States. | |
| So it tends to temporarily increase the price level, or I should say increase inflation into a new price level, higher price level. | ||
| And that's a process that we're probably going through right now. | ||
| Given the tariffs that have been imposed, they've been up and down. | ||
| So you will see some, I think, effect of the tariffs raising prices through June and perhaps beyond that, given that there are more tariffs coming. | ||
| So that'll be a factor affecting the inflation numbers going forward and making them higher than they might otherwise be. | ||
| So if tariffs are expected at some point down the road to increase inflation, should the Federal Reserve look ahead and be proactive and try to get ahead of that when it comes to lowering interest rates? | ||
| Or should they be reactive and not lower interest rates until the inflation is happening to battle it in real time? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the answer to the question is they should probably look through that and do very little about it because the increase in the tariffs raised prices. | |
| And once they're up to the new higher level, the new higher tariff tax level, then they should level out. | ||
| The difficulty in trying to judge that for the Federal Reserve and for anyone is that there are other factors that are affecting prices, demand and supply. | ||
| We've just passed a very substantial budget for the United States. | ||
| It has a lot of tax decreases that are stimulative. | ||
| There's a lot of subsidies that are stimulative. | ||
| These will also put, if the demand, if it increases demand as expected, this will also put upward pressure on prices. | ||
| The Fed has to be aware of that, has to adjust for it, has to think about it, and perhaps delay lowering rates in anticipation of this higher inflation. | ||
| And I think that's a very important consideration as we look through the second half of 2025. | ||
| Lots to get to with Thomas Hoenig, including the one big, beautiful bill, but I want to get your calls as well. | ||
| John's waiting in Norfolk, Virginia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Line for Independence. | |
| John, good morning. | ||
| Dr. I'm with Thomas Hoenig. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just want to ask a quick question about the United States debt. | ||
| All right, what makes my debt personally bad is because I have somebody calling me wants to collect on my debt. | ||
| Now, explain to me about the United States debt. | ||
| What country is going to call United States and ask the United States to pay back some of that $36 trillion? | ||
| Because I'm assuming that's what makes debts bad when you have somebody calling upon you to collect. | ||
| What country is going to call United States law and ask to collect on their debt? | ||
| That's my question. | ||
| John, thanks for the question. | ||
| Thomas Hoenick, who are our debt collectors? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, whoever holds the debt, and that is the government's securities, debt securities. | |
| There's about $9 trillion of that debt held by foreigners. | ||
| If they lost confidence in the dollar, what they would try and do is sell that debt. | ||
| That's the same thing as I want to be repaid. | ||
| And the second is commercial banks own that debt. | ||
| It would affect them, individuals. | ||
| Perhaps you, me, others might hold some of that debt. | ||
| And if we lose confidence in the United States' ability to pay that debt and pay the interest on that debt, then the interest rates would rise because people would be selling that very quickly. | ||
| And that would be a sign of loss of confidence, kind of we want to get paid sooner than later message that it would bring. | ||
| If foreigners did that as well. | ||
| Now, the U.S. technically won't go bankrupt because it prints the money to pay the interest on that debt. | ||
| It can print the money to pay off people who are redeeming it, but that then means that you're printing more money and that would create inflation. | ||
| And of course, higher inflation reduces the value of that debt, just like it does for anyone. | ||
| And so those are the complicating factors. | ||
| Finally, you will see it in the value of the dollar because if foreigners say we don't want your debt anymore, they'll sell that stuff and the dollar will become less valuable. | ||
| So there are all kinds of signals that the markets and the international world and those who are our creditors will send the United States if they lose confidence in the United States' long-term ability to repay that debt or at least pay the interest on that debt. | ||
| We head to the Garden State in New Milford. | ||
| It's Stella Independent Line. | ||
| You're on with Thomas Hoenig. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I'd like to ask about this legislation, the Genius Act, and the impact that this tsunami of cryptocurrencies are going to have on our dollar. | ||
| They're pretending that these stable cryptocurrencies are going to be backed by the dollar. | ||
| However, as inflation increases because of the great big beautiful bill, it's going to increase the cost of the dollar in people purchasing these cryptocurrencies. | ||
| And eventually the dollar is going to be replaced. | ||
| It's a frightening issue, and there seems to be an incredible blackout in terms of how this legislation is going to cause this tsunami of cryptocurrencies on our economy, interstate commerce, global trade. | ||
| It's going to be a nightmare. | ||
| That's so in New Jersey. | ||
| Go ahead, sir. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's a very good question. | |
| First of all, Genius Act, the idea of stablecoins, that means individuals, that is, different companies can form. | ||
| They'll issue you a stablecoin, a liability, and they promise that it will be backed 100% by short-term government debt. | ||
| Now, one of the reasons for that, why that was approved, is that does increase the demand for dollars, that is, for U.S. debt, because people will have to have this debt to back those stable currency, or stable coins. | ||
| And yes, those are all things designed to increase the demand for debt. | ||
| Now, to your point, it isn't just the fact that we have stablecoins that are the problem. | ||
| The problem is that we now have $36 trillion of debt outstanding, and that will grow to $50 trillion or more over the next decade. | ||
| And so for the government to issue that debt and have buyers, they have to broaden the market. | ||
| And that's part of the goal of stablecoins, to increase the demand for U.S. debt so that we can issue more debt over the next 10 years and beyond to fund our government. | ||
| Our government now spends about 23 to 24 percent of equivalent of 23 to 24 percent of our gross domestic product, that is our national income. | ||
| Our revenues for the country is about 17 to 18 percent. | ||
| So when you are spending that much more than you are taking in as revenues, then you have to borrow the difference. | ||
| And that's what's causing the debt to go up. | ||
| And as long as we continue to spend more than we take in, the debt will go up and we have to have different ways to increase the demand for that debt. | ||
| Now, you said tsunami. | ||
| I think that's a fair word. | ||
| If we continue to move this debt up, we'll have to print more money and we will have inflation in the long run. | ||
| So it's a very important problem that the Congress knows it has and that we have to take care of as a nation. | ||
| Here's a question on the front page of the money section of today's USA Today. | ||
| Will Trump's tax and spending law be a boon or bust for the U.S. economy? | ||
| It's the one big, beautiful bill that's now a law. | ||
| How would you answer that question? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I would say that in the near term, over the next year and a half, it's going to be expansionary. | |
| It's going to be boom-like, I call it, inviting a boom-like inflationary environment. | ||
| People will make a lot of money nominally, that is from the big spending. | ||
| And then as the debt grows, then it will tend to slow the economy. | ||
| In fact, the Congressional Budget Office, who different people have different opinions about it, project that our ability to grow our economy will slow over the next decade. | ||
| It has grown better than 2% in the past. | ||
| They're projecting it will grow closer to 1.7%, 1.8% over the next decade. | ||
| So our ability to create wealth, that is our productivity and our growth in our real economy, will likely slow. | ||
| And that is concerning to many in Congress and within the public of the United States. | ||
| Greg is waiting in Pennsylvania. | ||
| It's Mechanicsburg Republican line. | ||
| Greg, you're on with Thomas Honeck. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. McCardle, I have a couple questions of you first and then your guests. | |
| First, what are the standards at C-SPAN as to what is tolerated about comments, in particular about Donald J. Trump? | ||
| And secondly, why several times recently when someone called in on the wrong number, you allowed them to speak. | ||
| I think if they can't call in on the wrong number, you should ask them to wait or call in on the correct number. | ||
| Can you answer the first question as to the standards of what's tolerable in comments? | ||
| Sure, Greg. | ||
| And to your second question, I think you were talking about this morning when somebody called in on the wrong line. | ||
| I'll tell you, I let him talk because we didn't have another caller behind that person. | ||
| We were waiting for calls. | ||
| It was at the beginning of the show. | ||
| So the person was there and wanted to talk. | ||
| But usually we do ask people to call in on the lines that best fit them, just because it makes the conversation better. | ||
| On the standards that you're talking about, we're trying to have a free-flowing conversation here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're not going to allow people to say anything about committing violence against somebody. | |
| If somebody is far out of line, we can dump that phone call. | ||
| I have a button right here to do it. | ||
| But what we're trying to do is create a conversation every day and allow people to express their opinions in a respectable manner. | ||
| And not always, people don't always keep to that, but we try to do it every day, Greg. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's more of an art than a science. | |
| Okay, I'll accept that as an answer, but I'll also say that the impression I get is: if you are a woman and a minority, you can say whatever you want to say. | ||
| That's my reply to your answer. | ||
| Now, as to your guest, I'd like to know if your guest accepts or not the fact that it is a fact that the academia economist group have been negative on Donald Trump in his first administration and again now. | ||
| And yet, according to my calculation, the batten average of those negative projections is under the Mendoza line. | ||
| It is much less than 50-50. | ||
| And these are the people that supposedly know what they're talking about. | ||
| So I'd like a comment from your guest. | ||
| Thomas Honeck, your thoughts? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, that's a very broad question. | |
| I know that there are some academics who have been critical. | ||
| I also know that there are academics who have been very supportive of the current president, Donald Trump. | ||
| And it varies. | ||
| Like everything else in America, some people have different opinions. | ||
| And economists, based on their own analysis, which I can't judge in terms of what they bring forward, unless they show me their models and they show me what it is they're talking about. | ||
| But some are going to be critical and others have not been. | ||
| I don't know that it's every academic economist disagrees with the President of the United States because he has some pretty distinguished academic economists who are on his Council of Economic Advisors and in his administration. | ||
| So it varies. | ||
| I think many economists were very critical of President Biden. | ||
| Many economists were very critical of President Obama. | ||
| Many economists were critical of George W. Bush. | ||
| So it's not one-sided. | ||
| It is mixed, as there is so much in terms of the dialogue that goes on in the United States in Congress and elsewhere. | ||
| What does a senior fellow do at George Mason University's Mercatus Center? | ||
| And what was your path to becoming the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, my background, let me talk to that first. | |
| As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, I was trained as an economist at Iowa State University. | ||
| I have a doctorate degree from there. | ||
| Then I went to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, and I worked in the, actually the bank area of bank supervision, which I found very instructive because you saw how banks operated in the basics of running a bank and how things worked, how the economy affected the bank and how the bank affected the economy. | ||
| And then I also worked in monetary policy. | ||
| So that was my background before being named president of the bank. | ||
| And then I became a member of the FOMC at that point. | ||
| I then went on to be the vice chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation following the great financial crisis. | ||
| Saw a lot of the difficulties that the banking industry had at that point. | ||
| Then when I retired, I went to George Mason University to the Mercatus Center. | ||
| The Mercatus Center is a group who are oriented towards classical economics, kind of freedom of the individual is the philosophy behind that, freedom of the economy. | ||
| And so I'm a proponent of free markets and how the economy can run best. | ||
| So that's kind of my background for you as you think about the questions you might want to ask me. | ||
| Thomas Hoenig with us for about the next 20 minutes this morning on the Washington Journal, taking your phone calls. | ||
| Democrats, it's 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| We began this conversation talking about President Trump's criticism, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Fox Business with a story out last week at who could be in the running to replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. | ||
| Names like Scott Pesent, the Treasury Secretary, are on that list along with the Director of National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett. | ||
| Federal Reserve Vice Chair Michelle Bowman is on their list. | ||
| Former Federal Reserve Board Governor Kevin Warsh is on that list as well. | ||
| Any thoughts on those names or if this is something that really could be happening sooner than later? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, on the names, those are all familiar names. | |
| They all have backgrounds either in economics broadly or in policy areas. | ||
| Each of those names, Kevin Warsh was on the board of governors. | ||
| Mickey Bowman is on the board of governors now. | ||
| Kevin Hesse has been a strong economist at the American Enterprise Institute, as well as in Trump's first term. | ||
| These are all names that are very familiar, and I don't know. | ||
| I have no idea who the president would choose, but those are certainly the leading candidates at the moment. | ||
| He might choose someone completely different. | ||
| Who knows for sure? | ||
| So I think that's the main thing about that. | ||
| They do have the background for it, but it's up to the president to make his choices. | ||
| Rick is in California, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You are next. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
My name is Rick. | |
| I've got a degree in math and physics, and I look great a lot of formulas. | ||
| My question is, of all these great people, independent Republicans and so on, they're speaking, they never have the formula, the economic formula for the United States economy. | ||
| Not one of them will do the formula. | ||
| It involves 20 economic variables. | ||
| Where is the formula? | ||
| I've got the formula. | ||
| Rick, what are we talking about here in terms of the formula? | ||
| You're talking about for growth in the U.S. economy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, they always talk about inflation like raising or lowering the inflation rate 1% is going to save the economy. | |
| There are 20 variables in the economic formula for the United States economy, about 20 variables. | ||
| Some say 25, some say more. | ||
| Not one of them proposes or states the economic formula. | ||
| Got your point. | ||
| That's Rick in California. | ||
| Thomas Hoenig, what are the most important variables in your mind for growth in the U.S. economy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, first of all, I would suggest that most economists, many of the economists that are in policy, do create models, design models to mimic the operating elements of the economy. | |
| The simplest one of those is that the national income, the GDP, equals consumer spending plus investment plus net exports and plus government spending. | ||
| So that's the basic there, but it becomes much more complicated. | ||
| There's general equilibrium models. | ||
| Economists are quite known for all these things. | ||
| I would tell you, though, from my perspective to your guests, your call-in, is that economics is not physics. | ||
| It is economics and it's more of a philosophy because it also depends. | ||
| How the economy depends is on human nature, on people making choices. | ||
| They talk about when people are in a boom, they're very optimistic. | ||
| When people are not, they're very pessimistic. | ||
| Those affect how the models that the economists design work. | ||
| So it's not just a formula. | ||
| It's understanding human nature, understanding how choices are made. | ||
| Economics used to be called political economy because it involves individuals making decisions, politics affecting how the economy is run, whether we're going to spend more than we take in. | ||
| All these things affect the economy. | ||
| If there was a physics formula that gave you a perfect outcome, that would be wonderful, but there aren't any. | ||
| And I think people have to remember that. | ||
| Economics is often as much politics as it is physics. | ||
| How much do you pay attention to the stock market on a day-to-day basis? | ||
| And what do you tell people who get particularly worried about ups and downs in the stock market day to day? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I don't follow the stock market closely on a day-to-day basis. | |
| I look at it over time. | ||
| It is one indicator of people's attitudes toward the economy, but it is not the defining factor. | ||
| I look more carefully at how the consumer is operating. | ||
| How strong is consumer demand? | ||
| What is happening to investments? | ||
| What is happening internationally? | ||
| Because we now compete with China. | ||
| How are they affecting demand for our goods in the world because of how they produce goods at lower costs? | ||
| What about inflation? | ||
| Inflation does affect the cost of labor. | ||
| Inflation does affect the cost of goods and services. | ||
| If inflation gets out of hand, it affects how we allocate those resources. | ||
| These are all things that have to be taken into account when you're trying to judge the economy going forward from here. | ||
| A few minutes left with Thomas Hoenig this morning, taking your phone calls. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is Joseph in Daytona Beach, Florida, line for Democrats. | |
| Joseph, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just wanted to ask Mr. Hanek, how on earth, Mr. Haney, do you think we will ever surmount this massive debt that was put on us by the recent so-called Big Beautiful bill? | ||
| Well, we have a real challenge. | ||
| The United States has a real challenge ahead of us in addressing this debt. | ||
| It's not, and I have to be fair, it's not just one president. | ||
| We have been running this, increasing this debt since the early 1970s when we officially went off any kind of external gold standard to constrain our spending. | ||
| So we have been doing this for decades. | ||
| And what is happening is the debt grows extremely strong. | ||
| It is a factor in reallocating the wealth in the United States. | ||
| That's why we have winners and losers because of our inflationary spending excess. | ||
| These are all things that we have to take into account. | ||
| So going forward, I think it's very important for the Congress of the United States to understand that this cannot continue. | ||
| Now, you can't just stop it at once. | ||
| You have to slow the spending and bring it back down very carefully, but systematically over time to where we're closer to being in balance. | ||
| Some people say we can run a 3% of our national income, our GDP, as a deficit, and do okay. | ||
| Well, we're now at over 6%. | ||
| So we have a ways to go. | ||
| And it's up to the Congress of the United States. | ||
| It's not up to the Federal Reserve or anyone else. | ||
| It's up to the Congress of the United States to slow the spending going forward and get the spending and the revenues better in line. | ||
| That's the only solution. | ||
| And it will take more than a decade to do it. | ||
| Phone numbers, if you want to call in, 202-748-8,000 for Democrats. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
|
unidentified
|
One of our viewers tweeting along on X this morning wants us to go back to the conversation about Jerome Powell and who could actually replace him. | |
| The question, can Donald Trump actually fire the Federal Reserve Chairman? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, as I understand, the recent Supreme Court decision and that Trump has acknowledged, at least to this point, he cannot fire the chairman of the Federal Reserve. | |
| Jerome Powell has, as chairman, he has till May of 2026 that he can serve out. | ||
| Other board members are staggered over that period, but he has till May as chairman. | ||
| Now, he could technically stay on as a regular governor without being the chairman after that. | ||
| That's very seldom has been done in history, but that is an option he has as well. | ||
| But under the current rulings, the president cannot fire him. | ||
| You say the current rulings, is there a chance that this goes to the Supreme Court and there's a new ruling on this? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it depends on what the administration chooses to do. | |
| Now, the administration did question some appointments that had already been in place, and the Supreme Court allowed him to fire those individuals, but it carved out, as I understand it, I may be wrong, but as I understand it, it carved out the chairman of the Federal Reserve from that decision. | ||
| Frank is in Jacksonville, Florida line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're on with Thomas Hoenig. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| What's your question or comment, Frank? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, yes, I would like to know about the stock market. | |
| I know that Mr. Thomas said that he does not follow it regularly on a daily basis, but I do. | ||
| And it appears that when the stock market goes down, there is a lot of activity or buying when stocks are low. | ||
| I am just Milo Layman's opinion. | ||
| I believe that it's being manipulated so that people who are wealthy enough to buy stock when they low, that they benefit from this radical swing ups and downs. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| Thomas Honeg, is the system fixed? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'd like to think not. | |
| It's a fairly open market. | ||
| You have to bid and go forward from there on the stock exchange. | ||
| But I will say that I think part of the issue around the stock market has been the inflation that the United States has suffered and the amount of money that has been put into the economy over the last decade. | ||
| That has put a lot of excess demand, and that's why you see the stock market going up overall. | ||
| Now, it goes down when people lose confidence temporarily and so forth. | ||
| But that's how markets work. | ||
| Markets go up when people are confident. | ||
| If they get worried about the economy, they tend to then sell and the market goes down. | ||
| But overall, if you look at the U.S. stock market, it has generally been nothing but up over the last many decades. | ||
| Whether it's manipulated, there's always someone trying to do it. | ||
| But the Securities and Exchange Commission is pretty careful about making sure things are done in the open to the maximum extent possible. | ||
| So there may be attempts, but I don't think it's a systemic within the stock market that it's somehow rigged. | ||
| Phil in New York City, Republican line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Thanks for waiting. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| My question to your guest is this. | ||
| Are there economists at his university or at any university in the United States who are using their position as professors to promote a political anti-Trump agenda? | ||
| Thomas Honeg, a bigger question about education. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I don't have an answer to that other than everyone has an opinion. | |
| And when you are teaching like anything else, that opinion probably comes into your lesson plan, whatever you want to call it. | ||
| But I also give students some credit for being able to understand what they're being taught and to ask hard questions themselves before they just take it all in as gospel. | ||
| So I think, yeah, some professors probably have a bias towards the Democrats. | ||
| Some professors have a bias towards the Republicans. | ||
| Some professors are fairly independent, just like everyone else in this country. | ||
| And so you're going to get opinions affected by what their beliefs are as far as the government is concerned. | ||
| A few more callers waiting for you, sir. | ||
| This is Orlando in New Jersey, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| And forgive me if this question is or it seems a little simplistic, but when you said earlier this economy now has winners and losers, and there's quite the amount of the winners, the amount of the money that the winners have, could they invest that into the people? | ||
| And would that affect the economy for the better, help bring down the debt, as well as help communities that are in need? | ||
| And with this big, beautiful bill, it seems like it's going to affect a lot of people negatively. | ||
| Couldn't individuals, rich individuals, billionaires, help and bring the economy in a better place? | ||
| Well, the answer to that is yes. | ||
| They could and they do, depending on how they invest, how much they, how many jobs they are able to help create by investing in new endeavors, whether that's in the tech area or in the engineering area or in the industrial area. | ||
| Now, they're not going to do it as, now they also may be charitable individuals. | ||
| They may give a lot of money out. | ||
| They make foundations, but they're not going to make major investments unless there is a return on that investment. | ||
| That's how capitalism works. | ||
| I think those are the sorts of things that they should be doing, and many of them are doing, but it varies by the individual like everything else. | ||
| Now, the government also plays a role. | ||
| They subsidize different businesses and hopefully create jobs that way. | ||
| And those are all factors that go into the United States economy. | ||
| Taxes affect the economy. | ||
| Spending affects the economy. | ||
| Investment by the very rich and even savings of small investments by the middle class will actually define the growth of the economy and its future success. | ||
| I will say, if you are borrowing, if the government borrows more than it takes in decade after decade, then you will slow growth and that actually harms the economy in the long run. | ||
| And those are also factors that the leadership of this country has to take into account. | ||
| Time for one more call. | ||
| This is Mike Waiting in Jarrettsville, Maryland, Republican. | ||
| Mike, thanks for waiting. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning, John, and thanks for taking my call. | |
| You're doing a great job, by the way. | ||
| So I'll be as quick as I can here since I'm the last caller. | ||
| Okay, so this is what I understand on this whole debt thing. | ||
| The thing is, it's the United States debt. | ||
| So what that means is, yes, we're spending more money than we're taking in. | ||
| But who holds that debt is us. | ||
| I mean, unless the United States goes out of business, the debt is a whole theoretical construct thing that these economists, I'm a political science major too, you know, came up with. | ||
| And like you said, it's more art than science. | ||
| So the definition of inflation is you have too many dollars chasing too few goods. | ||
| So the question is, how many is too many? | ||
| How few is too few? | ||
| This stuff is all theoretical. | ||
| Look, it's the United States borrowing money essentially against itself. | ||
| And unless the country goes out of business and unless there's a revolution, people, listen, you can go home, have a, it's nine o'clock here on the East. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Sit back and relax. | ||
| Whatever it is you do to relax, the world is not going to end. | ||
| This debt, it's all, like you said, it maybe lends to inflation over time or whatever. | ||
| But John, thank you so much. | ||
| That's Mike and Marilyn. | ||
| Give you the final two minutes here, Mr. Hoenick. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I will tell you, I understand what you're saying, but remember this, that if you get so much debt, now $9 trillion of that debt is held by people outside the nation, and they have the money to buy that because we bought their goods instead of our goods. | |
| We've created excess demand in this country, which is fine, but someone else has to be willing to hold that debt, and that's what's part of it. | ||
| Now, the second thing is, I don't think we necessarily go out of business anytime soon, but by creating more and more debt that we have to service, we're spending more on interest now than we are on our national defense, for example. | ||
| We slow the growth. | ||
| We slow the ability of the economy to create new goods and services over time. | ||
| That's what the projections show. | ||
| Instead of growing over 2% or 3%, we're growing less than 2%. | ||
| That means real wealth decline. | ||
| So we don't disappear. | ||
| The Federal Reserve can create new money. | ||
| The Congress can spend more money. | ||
| That's fine. | ||
| But as inflation takes up, people can afford less unless we continue to inflate their wages as well. | ||
| And we slow the economy's growth over time. | ||
| And that happens to other nations and have in history happened to other nations. | ||
| And they become less influential in the world, less wealthy. | ||
| The wealth becomes more distributed more unevenly over time. | ||
| Those are the things we need to be careful of. | ||
| And so what the formula is, if you want a formula, is prices should be stable and the market should be able to take the price signals in terms of allocating resources to their best use and their most productive use. | ||
| When you interfere with that process by allowing inflation, by creating excess amounts of debt that have to be serviced by more and more printing of money, then you undercut that ability to create real wealth in your nation. | ||
| And that's where I think the risks lie. | ||
| Thomas Hoenick is a distinguished senior fellow at George Mason University's Mercatus Center. | ||
| You can see his work on their website at mercatus.org. | ||
| And we always appreciate your time on the Washington Journal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you very much for having me. | |
| It's been good to be with you. | ||
| Coming up in about 30 minutes this morning, we'll be joined by Ipsos public affairs polling expert Cliff Young with some of the latest data out of Ipsos on the first six months of President Trump's second term. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But until then, it's our open forum. | |
| Any public policy issue, any political issue that you want to talk about, phone lines are yours to do so. | ||
| The numbers are on your screen. | ||
| Go ahead and start calling in now, and we will get to your calls right after the break. | ||
|
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. | ||
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| only on the C-SPAN networks. | ||
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Here's where we are on Capitol Hill today. | ||
| The House is in at noon Eastern time. | ||
| The Senate is back at 3 p.m. Eastern over at the White House in about an hour and 10 minutes. | ||
| We're expecting President Trump to meet with NATO Secretary General Mark Ruda and promises of a big announcement from the president when it comes to Russia. | ||
| We'll find out more about that. | ||
| Also, this afternoon on C-SPAN, a discussion on the legacy of communism and present-day challenges in communist nations. | ||
| That's being hosted by the Victims of Communism Museum here in Washington. | ||
| Airing that on C-SPAN2CSPAN.org and the free C-SPAN Now video app at 1 p.m. at 3 p.m. Eastern, a hearing on information technology. | ||
| Officials set to testify on priorities for the Veterans Affairs Department's modernization efforts. | ||
| That's before the House Veterans Affairs Technology Modernization Subcommittee, airing that from Capitol Hill this afternoon. | ||
| Hope you join us throughout the day here on C-SPAN. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Here, though, on the Washington Journal, for about the next 25 minutes, it's our open forum. | |
| Any public policy issue, any political issue that you want to talk about, now is the time to call in. | ||
| We're letting you lead the discussion. | ||
| And we'll start with Shirley in Connecticut. | ||
| Republican, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I was calling yesterday. | ||
| There was a lot on the different channels about the politicians visiting Alcatraz, Alligator Alcatraz, whatever, and the deplorable conditions. | ||
| And I would like all of the congressmen and senators to go visit the prisons and jails in their own state and report back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
As I understand it, there are rodents, the food isn't good, and the conditions are just as deplorable, if not worse, than Alligator Alcatraz. | |
| Thank you so much. | ||
| Here's the lead from the story on that visit by bipartisan group of members of Congress to that prison. | ||
| Democratic lawmakers condemned Florida's new Everglades immigration detention center after visiting Saturday, describing it as crowded, unsanitary, and bug-infested. | ||
| Republicans on the same tour said they saw nothing of the sort at the remote facility that officials have dubbed Alligator Alcatraz. | ||
| The state-arranged tour came after some Democrats were blocked earlier from viewing the 3,000-bed detention center that the state rapidly built on an isolated airstrip surrounded by swampland. | ||
| So many state legislators and members of Congress turned up on Saturday that they were split into multiple different tour groups. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Washington Times with their wrap-up of those visits. | |
| This is Alan in Brooklyn. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Pleasure to speak to you again. | ||
| Although, given the circumstances, the pleasure is a bit diminished. | ||
| We have the first anniversary of the event at Butler PA last year. | ||
| The anniversary was yesterday. | ||
| And it seems that it turned many Republicans into believers that the survival of this assassination attempt or parent assassination attempt was proof that it was God's will that the current president be seated in office. | ||
| And that changed the minds of many supporters and donors to redouble their efforts to re-elect him. | ||
| I just want them to reflect on the past six months of his administration and ask whether these seem to be actions that would be favored by any benign deity, whether it's abusing Hispanic American workers because their paperwork isn't in line with the ICE authorities and rounding them up at workplaces, | ||
| even though they have no criminal records, whether it's eradicating our vast body of research, proving that climate is a real threat and rolling back rules and laws in favor of not only allowing more pollution, but basically manufacturing more pollution sources in the name of data centers that supposedly sustain artificial intelligence, | ||
| but where the intelligence of the enterprise of adding carbon to the atmosphere to build AI at a time when the atmosphere is already producing disasters like the flood in Texas is just so absurd. | ||
| Would any benign and rational God want someone in power who is doing some of these things? | ||
| I could go on for an hour if your schedule allowed it with aberrations. | ||
| It was yesterday, on the anniversary of the Butler assassination attempt that President Trump was asked about his view 365 days later. | ||
| This is what he had to say. | ||
|
unidentified
|
On this one-year anniversary of Butler, what was going through your mind this morning when you woke up? | |
| I know that you're praising God you're alive, but a lot of people want to know how you're taking this day on this one-year anniversary. | ||
| God was protecting me. | ||
| Maybe because God wanted to see our country do better or do really well, make America great again. | ||
| But God was protecting me, Brian. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'll tell you, the more you think about it, the more you see it. | |
| But no, I just don't like to think about it much. | ||
| You know, I have a job to do, so I don't like to think about it much. | ||
| It's a little bit of a dangerous profession being president, but I really don't like to think about it too much. | ||
| I think you're better off not thinking about it. | ||
| That was President Trump on the one-year anniversary. | ||
| Also, should note that the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee are releasing that new report on Secret Service failures ahead of the assassination attempt at Butler. | ||
| Front page story on today's Washington Post about it. | ||
| But you can also read from that report from the committee website that getting a lot of attention this weekend as well on the one-year anniversary. | ||
| It's open forum. | ||
| Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, now's the time to call in. | ||
| This is Carolyn in Georgia, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm calling because I'm concerned about the way the country is headed. | ||
| This country is focusing on three generations. | ||
| That's Z, Millenniums, and Generation X. | ||
| And I see that because when I look at the Trump administration, I see those generations among him and also the Democrats. | ||
| Those generations are among him. | ||
| So the boomers are changing. | ||
| They're going into a different direction. | ||
| And it's called into older age between 70 and 79. | ||
| The youngest baby boomer is 70 and the oldest is 79. | ||
| And these generations, the boomers are moving to the end stage, which sad to say, but we're losing about 7,000 a day. | ||
| And so we, the baby boomer generation, is a generation that's moving toward the end. | ||
| So we need to see and support Generation X, Z, and the Millenniums. | ||
| And also, I want to know if possible, don't cut me off, please. | ||
| C-SPAN with the lines that we have now are catered to the baby boomers. | ||
| But I want to know if we can put in lines for Generation of Z, Millenniums, and X, because those are the generations that are coming to the front now. | ||
| Baby boomers are moving to the side. | ||
| And these generations, a lot of times, don't want to hear anything baby boomers have to say. | ||
| Generation X is trying to teach Z and Generation Millenniums. | ||
| So we need to start focusing more on these generations also. | ||
| And Caroline, we do occasionally split up our phone lines by age groups, trying to get younger callers as well. | ||
| So we'll do that occasionally as it fits for various topics. | ||
| When it comes to open forum, we generally just do the phone lines, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, because it's just the easiest way to run open forum. | ||
| But I do appreciate the comment. | ||
| In Georgia this morning, we have about 15 minutes left in open forum. | ||
| So go ahead and keep calling in. | ||
| As you are calling in, want to head to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue now, where Notice reporter Jasmine Wright joins us for a look at the week ahead at the White House. | ||
| And Jasmine Wright, let's start with what we're expecting today from President Trump when it comes to that statement on Russia. | ||
| We know his meeting with the NATO Secretary General is expected to take place in about an hour or so. | ||
| What are you hearing there at the White House about that meeting? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, the President is promising to put out a major statement that potentially will have a weapons package attached to it. | |
| Obviously, this is kind of a 180 turn, John, from where President Trump was when he entered the White House in January, kind of more of a negative view on providing Ukraine more weapons. | ||
| Now we see him kind of on a positive outlook. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I think you can attribute it to basically three things. | |
| One is that he's been lobbied by Republican lawmakers to try to put more support on Ukraine as they face an onslaught of attacks from Russia, particularly in the last month or so. | ||
| Then, of course, it's his continued conversations with President Zelensky after that dust up in the Oval Office a few months ago. | ||
| Obviously, that relationship has really changed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And we've seen President Trump meet with Zelensky time and time again. | |
| And third is, of course, his relationship with Russia's president, Vladimir Putin. | ||
| Obviously, that has soured in the last few weeks. | ||
| We've heard President Trump say really vocally that President Putin may say one thing on the phone, but then continues to bomb Ukraine with his drones and other bombing campaign. | ||
| And that the conversations really have gone nowhere. | ||
| He said those things both publicly and privately to his advisors. | ||
| And so we could see a really turnabout situation when it comes to what President Trump is planning to provide to Ukraine. | ||
| Now, of course, he said with the Patriot missiles, something that Ukraine has been asking for really since the Biden time, really trying to get President Trump to go beyond the capacity of weapons that was sent to them under the last administration. | ||
| President Trump has said that he will be sending Patriot missiles. | ||
| Now he says that the European Union will be paying for those, and that's, of course, where we're going to see the NATO general come in today, whether or not they're able to make a deal on that today versus in a couple of days. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But certainly we expect to see something pretty robust come from the president today when it comes to what they are prepared to give Ukraine to defend themselves against Russia. | |
| Jasmine Wright and her colleagues at Notice will be covering it today. | ||
| Notice.org, N-O-T-U-S.org is where you can go for their coverage. | ||
| So that's the focus for today. | ||
| What else is happening this week that you're going to be watching for there at the White House on the president's schedule? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, I mean, trade is number one. | |
| Of course, we know that last week President Trump basically threatened 25 nations, some of the major trading partners with the U.S., with higher levies, basically saying that you have until August 1st to try to negotiate a deal. | ||
| So the question is whether or not some of those countries are going to be able to negotiate a deal or whether or not the status quo is going to stay put what he put in those letters. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So that's going to be a huge thing. | |
| Obviously, more things that this White House is doing on foreign policy, seeing if there are any updates on that. | ||
| And then domestic issues. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Obviously, last week it was a huge, huge issue when that birthright citizenship ruling came down from that federal court. | |
| The White House called it an unlawful circumventing of the Supreme Court guidance that said that basically these federal courts cannot be issuing nationwide injunctions. | ||
| Now, of course, this birthright sedition case is a bit different because it actually is a class action suit, something that the Supreme Court did say could be used to issue a nationwide injunction. | ||
| And so we're going to see how that evolves over the course of the week and whether or not the White House not just asks the Supreme Court to basically put it on its shadow docket, something that would be kind of fast forwarding them to at least issue some sort of guidance or injunction on the physical ruling from that federal judge, but also whether or not they actually sue the judge, something that they've been doing in these cases where these judges have had put in these nationwide injunctions. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I asked Tom Holman, the immigration czar yesterday, I mean, excuse me, on Thursday, whether or not potentially the White House could be doing that. | |
| And he said he didn't want to preview any of the White House's moves, but he did say that these judges are trying to stop the Trump agenda. | ||
| So we're hearing some really aggressive language from them on this issue, something that is pretty personal to President Trump, John. | ||
| As usual, a busy week ahead in Washington. | ||
| Can I get you to focus on the weekend behind and part of your story on President Trump's true social posts over the weekend, posts directed at his base, trying to calm tensions as you write on notice with his base and particularly the Jeffrey Epstein case? | ||
| Can you explain? | ||
| Yeah, I mean, it's a big question as what happens going forward. | ||
| Obviously, President Trump has been vocal over the weekend in that social media post, basically saying it was time to put the Epstein files behind his MAGA base. | ||
| But I talked to one MAGA strategist who is close to the White House who basically said that the president's base is unmoved by that post, telling people to move on, but also telling people to kind of lay off Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has basically faced the brunt of the attacks when it comes to how this administration has handled the Epstein files. | ||
| So folks in that base are unmoved and they're going to continue asking questions. | ||
| I think that the onus is now on President Trump to see how he continues to respond. | ||
| If he basically ignores his base, something that folks have been vocal about saying that for really the first time in this first six months, they view it as Trump misjudging the moment or misjudging where his base is at. | ||
| We know that President Trump is somebody who likes to check in on his base and who likes to be up to date on how they're feeling and how they're reacting to the post. | ||
| So there's going to be a question about how President Trump handles this, but also a question about how Deputy FBI Chief Dan Borgino handles this. | ||
| Obviously, we know that he did not show up for work on Friday. | ||
| Notice was able to confirm because he was so upset at Pam Bondi over her handling of the Epstein case. | ||
| So there's going to be a question of whether or not he shows up today. | ||
| He shows up the rest of the week and how long he does stay with the administration. | ||
| But obviously, there are some major questions that they're going to have to decide on in that building behind me about how they go forward because we know that President Trump likes to be very loyal to his base because he feels as though they are very loyal to him. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But in this case, they're having a real issue. | |
| Just on Dan Bongino for a second, more. | ||
| Is the expectation that it's a matter of when he leaves, not if he leaves? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, all the cards are really in Dan Bongino's court. | |
| I was talking to one person familiar with him who basically said he knows he's in a position of strength and he knows that the MAGA base is behind him. | ||
| And I don't think that that necessarily applies as much to Attorney General Pam Bondi, who folks have been basically calling on her to resign, but also calling on President Trump to fire her over what they feel is a lack of transparency on her part because of what she said in the past on the Epstein files, basically claiming that she had a case, a client list on her desk. | ||
| And then, of course, we know that unsigned memo just two weeks ago said that there was no client list and they would not be making available more information. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And so it could be a matter of when. | |
| It could be that he stays for a few months and then leaves. | ||
| Nobody is quite clear right now, but President Trump did say yesterday on the tarmac that he spoke to his deputy FBI director and that he said that he's a good guy and that he's known him for a long time. | ||
| And so potentially maybe some of that friction that would have caused him to leave immediately is over. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Really, just time will tell, John. | |
| Jasmine Wright, always very helpful on these updates from the White House in the week ahead. | ||
| It's notice.org for viewers if they want to check out you and your colleagues' work. | ||
| Thanks so much for your time. | ||
| We'll let you get to it. | ||
| Back to your phone calls in open forum. | ||
| Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, now's the time to call in. | ||
| Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, phone lines for each. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We will go to Vicksburg, Mississippi. | |
| This is John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Independent. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Hi, it's well, actually, Vicksburg, Michigan. | ||
| Vicksburg, Michigan. | ||
| I didn't know there was a Vicksburg, Michigan. | ||
| You know, people talk about God having saved Trump to intern for him to save the United States. | ||
| Well, the possibility also exists that God saved Trump to punish the United States. | ||
| I mean, several verses in the Bible say, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord, O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, show thyself. | ||
| So you have to look at this in both sides. | ||
| That's John in Michigan in Vicksburg. | ||
| This is Steve in North Charleston, South Carolina. | ||
| Republican, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you doing? | ||
| Doing well, sir. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| I was just going to say, you know, as far as the people going down there in Florida to check on the illegals down there in that alligator Alcatraz, like they ain't never gone into jail and check on the American people. | ||
| You know, I mean, it's worse, like that lady said, you know, it's just as bad in jails for Americans, and they don't seem to care about them. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| And then, second thing is, until the bankers and the money people quit giving loans for people to buy beachfront houses, I really wouldn't be worried about climate change. | ||
| I mean, that's just a scam for Democrats to get money. | ||
| I mean, everybody knows it. | ||
| And another thing I'd like to ask everybody is: what do they think the number one job of the U.S. government is? | ||
| It's to protect America. | ||
| All else is secondary. | ||
| If they don't protect America, it don't matter. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| And, you know, if you vote for a Democrat, you're voting to destroy America. | ||
| That's the only thing I got to say. | ||
| Appreciate it. | ||
| That's Steve in Charleston. | ||
| We'll head to the West Coast. | ||
| This is Jim Medford, Oregon. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| In regards to the fellow that called you around five-something, you were talking to the economist, and he started complaining about how you were handling things. | ||
| My question would be to him in terms of how he views what's going on. | ||
| You know, there would be very little scrutinization of Trump if he would just quit lying. | ||
| He lies every time he talks. | ||
| And we need to go to a point where truth is important, and it doesn't happen in this administration. | ||
| And if people think that they're being picked on, I don't understand that. | ||
| Why the MAGA people think that we're picking on them as everybody else is complaining? | ||
| Jim, when was the last time you thought that truth was important, truth was apparent in any administration? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I've always thought that. | |
| As a matter of fact, I am a Democrat. | ||
| I've been a Democrat for over 60 years. | ||
| But I am irritated with the Democrats because they have not spoken the truth in almost 40 years. | ||
| They have allowed the money people to step in instead of them going out to the people and finding out what the people want, not what the rich want. | ||
| So, Jim, you're thinking it was. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's a big problem. | |
| You're thinking it was Jimmy Carter in the 70s? | ||
| Is the last time you felt that way? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Yeah, they ignored everything that Ronald Reagan did, like taxing Social Security, going after the unions, and they never defended either one of those issues. | ||
| And now you got Trump saying he's going to take the taxes off of Social Security. | ||
| Why didn't the Democrats do that when it was done? | ||
| Ronald Reagan put that on because he gave that great big tax break to the rich. | ||
| And, you know, trickle-down theory has never worked, and that's what's trying to happen right now. | ||
| It's a sad process. | ||
| That's Jim out in Oregon, just outside the beltway here in the D.C. area. | ||
| It's Vienna, Virginia. | ||
| John, Democrat, good morning. | ||
| John, you're with us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
John? | |
| You're on the air, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, just my basic comment. | |
| Like, I'm retired. | ||
| I'm 72 years old. | ||
| What I can do now, I used to be able to do much better, a lot of stuff. | ||
| One of the biggest problems is if you look at the politicians and the leaders, Trump, one Trump in particular, is the age. | ||
| And we are so full of old people who are not up to the game they used to be. | ||
| We need to be much younger, more intelligent, functional politicians, government workers, and leaders who can understand they want to improve their lives looking forward 50 years. | ||
| I'm going to be a lucky day if I dig to be another 20 years further into my life. | ||
| That's not the way for people to lead. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| John, how old is too old to be a president, a member of Congress? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would say if someone gets past 65, they're too old and they need to put it away, go out and play golf the rest of their lives, move to the villages, do something, and get people who can understand and focus on the future. | |
| That's John in Vienna, Virginia. | ||
| This is James in Madison, Wisconsin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Independent, go ahead. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'd just like to make a comment about this God interfering when Trump was assassinated attempts. | |
| You know, I'm sure God's a lot smarter person than being than what we are. | ||
| But if he really wanted to interfere, he would have interfered before that bullet left the barrel and possibly got into that kid's mind and told him not to do it. | ||
| So it's mighty funny that God's will saved President Trump, yet took the life of a firefighter sitting right behind him who had two little kids. | ||
| So that's not how God works. | ||
| Somebody should inform Trump since he wants to try to become religious all of a sudden now that he's a president, not chasing young girls around with Epstein. | ||
| All right. | ||
| That's James in Wisconsin. | ||
| This is Tim in Kentucky. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, everybody. | |
| It's C-SPAN. | ||
| Thank you, C-SPAN. | ||
| Here's one thing I can't really figure out. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| All these people that support Trump 100%, they're all gung-ho on Trump, whatever. | ||
| He's doing this, he's doing that. | ||
| The way I see it is he hasn't accomplished anything yet. | ||
| He's done nothing but cause chaos. | ||
| Okay, the wars don't go on. | ||
| The prices are still high. | ||
| All that. | ||
| He hasn't done a thing but say that he's doing this, he's doing that, whatever. | ||
| If people would just look at it and listen to what the guy said, well, he hadn't done nothing. | ||
| All right. | ||
| That's the Bluegrass State, the Magnolia State. | ||
| This is Gina, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| What's on your mind? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Well, I would just like to remind all of the people watching that this same scenario that we have going on just this morning, the Trump hate, has been going on now for 10 years. | ||
| And all these Democrats, they're calling in, saying that everything Trump says is a lie. | ||
| It's just getting so old that, frankly, as a person who has watched C-SPAN and Washington Journal for many, many years before Trump even came on, I have stopped watching it most days. | ||
| Today I decided to watch it again, but it's just got to where it's just so boring and so ridiculous what the things that they say, and none of them can prove anything what they say. | ||
| And you, John, you really should ask them where did they hear that, these ridiculous things they say. | ||
| So I don't understand why Washington Journal, you had a potential for being the greatest show on television, if you would just stop the lying. | ||
| I think lying should be against the law on a public network. | ||
| I think it would just, you know, it's ruining the country. | ||
| The Democrats don't even really have a clue what they're even talking about anymore. | ||
| They're just been, they've been propagandized and they just believe nothing, they believe nothing but lies. | ||
| That's Gina. | ||
| This is Renee in Florida. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, John. | |
| Thank you for C-SPAN. | ||
| Thank you for you and teaching us history. | ||
| And, you know, I feel bad for that lady that just called because she's not watching all of C-SPAN. | ||
| She doesn't sound like she's in the hearings or, you know, the Senate or the Congress. | ||
| And I don't know when she's tuning in. | ||
| But I want to thank Miss North Carolina this morning. | ||
| She was like one of the first callers. | ||
| You know, that history lesson. | ||
| I love that. | ||
| And Mr. Oregon and Mr. Georgia, even though they have a difference of opinion, but we have been programmed or I guess you would say programmed by what we're taking in, the propaganda we're taking in. | ||
| And I do agree with Miss, I think maybe she was from Mississippi, I'm not sure. | ||
| But I do agree with her about, you know, getting facts and stuff and where we get our information. | ||
| And Renee you're talking about the previous caller. | ||
| She said she wants to outlaw lying on television. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Exactly. | |
| Do you agree with that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, absolutely. | |
| Like Fox, not the news, their LLC does not say, it says an entertainment channel. | ||
| If it's a lie, it needs to be posted on there. | ||
| And these people that lie to Congress, they need to be prosecuted for that because they shouldn't be allowed to come to Congress and lie to people. | ||
| So yes, that's one thing I agree with her on. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Renee, we'll leave it there. | ||
| That's about 30 minutes of open forum. | ||
| And coming up next, we'll talk about the latest on Ipsos' polling on the first six months of President Trump's second term. | ||
| We'll be joined by Cliff Young for that discussion. | ||
| Stick around. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We'll be right back. Mike said before, I happened to listen to him. | |
| He was on C-SPAN 1. | ||
| That's a big upgrade, right? | ||
| But I've read about it in the history books. | ||
| I've seen the C-SPAN footage. | ||
| If it's a really good idea, present it in public view on C-SPAN. | ||
| Every single time I tuned in on TikTok or C-SPAN or YouTube or anything, there were tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people watching. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I went home after the speech and I turned on C-SPAN. | |
| I was on C-SPAN just this week. | ||
| To the American people, now is the time to tune in to C-SPAN. | ||
| They had something $2.50 a gallon. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I saw on television a little while ago in between my watching my great friends on C-SPAN. | |
| C-SPAN is televising this right now live. | ||
| So we are not just speaking to Los Angeles. | ||
| We are speaking to the country. | ||
| Looking to contact your members of Congress? | ||
| Well, C-SPAN is making it easy for you with our 2025 Congressional Directory. | ||
| Get essential contact information for government officials all in one place. | ||
| This compact, spiral-bound guide contains bio and contact information for every House and Senate member of the 119th Congress. | ||
| Contact information on congressional committees, the President's Cabinet, federal agencies, and state governors. | ||
| The Congressional Directory costs $32.95 plus shipping and handling, and every purchase helps support C-SPAN's nonprofit operations. | ||
| Scan the code on the right or go to c-spanshop.org to order your copy today. | ||
| 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. | ||
| Cliff Young is certainly no stranger to the Washington Journal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He oversees polling and societal trend surveys at Ipsos Public Affairs. | |
| Back with us today with a slew of new data on how Americans feel about President Trump's first six months of his second term. | ||
| So let's start with overall approval ratings. | ||
| Where does President Trump stand right now? | ||
| And then how does he compare with other presidents at the beginning of their second terms in office? | ||
| And so what we did, by the way, it's great to be here. | ||
| And always good to have you. | ||
| Yeah, great. | ||
| Great to be here. | ||
| What we did was take the average of the average, not just Ipsus polls, but polls across the board. | ||
| And Trump is around 40%, 45%, excuse me, approval ratings. | ||
| The question is, is that good or bad? | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I would say he's in a pretty good place. | |
| Relative to 2017, he's in a much better place than he was in that first administration. | ||
| And if you look at the average decline across all administrations since 1948, he's right at the average. | ||
| He's declined about five or six points. | ||
| That is the average, which is six points. | ||
| He took a stronger dip a few months ago, as we know. | ||
| There's a lot of friction, especially around tariffs. | ||
| He paused a bit. | ||
| He stepped back that as Trump stepped back a bit. | ||
| And he, from an approval standpoint, is in a pretty good place. | ||
| Is it an apples-to-apples comparison to talk about Trump's second term versus other two-term presidents because he had that four-year break between his first and second term? | ||
| Yeah, that's a great question. | ||
| It's a difficult one to find empirical evidence on. | ||
| I'd say probably he's a little bit different than the norm than the average. | ||
| But I think it's reasonable to compare his first term with his second term. | ||
| President Trump, at the beginning of this second term, making a big bet on the one big, beautiful bill, which is now a law. | ||
| How do Americans feel about the One Big Beautiful law? | ||
| It depends. | ||
| If you ask Americans in general, if they're in favor of it, it's not so clear, only about a plurality or in support. | ||
| It really depends on how you phrase it, how you word it. | ||
| But somewhere between 20% and 35% of Americans are in favor of the bill. | ||
| We have some data that suggests about 20, 22%. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But the bill is not a monolith. | |
| And when you peel away the onion, there are a lot of nuggets in there. | ||
| There are a lot of details in there that Americans are in favor of, especially as they have to do with the middle class, such as no tax on tips. | ||
| Do Americans feel like they understand what's actually in this bill? | ||
| No, it's still very distant. | ||
| It's not front and center. | ||
| They're worried about making ends meet. | ||
| They're worried about taking kids to summer sports. | ||
| They're worried about their health. | ||
| They're worried about being safe, et cetera, et cetera, with those more meat and potato issues. | ||
| So it is still distant. | ||
| But when we present them the details of the bill, that is the specific benefits, potential benefits of the bill, Americans tend to be more in favor of it than not. | ||
| So how do you do that with a piece of legislation, a law at this point, that is so big? | ||
| How do you choose what to pull out and present people with when you're asking them whether they support this law or not? | ||
| How do you do that as a pollster? | ||
| Yeah, that's a great question. | ||
| There's some sort of judgment involved. | ||
| We followed the script of the ACA. | ||
| We did the same thing with Obamacare. | ||
| We asked a general ballot question, like, in general, are you in favor of this bill? | ||
| We don't put a lot of specifics there. | ||
| We make sure it's somewhat vague. | ||
| And then we go into the details of the bill. | ||
| Now, what we pull out or pins out is a judgment call. | ||
| We try to get those things we think will create consensus. | ||
| Those other things that will be more controversial. | ||
| And we lay it out and we ask the specifics. | ||
| So typically what we'll do is we'll ask a general question about the ballot that is abstract, more conceptual in nature, and then we'll ask the specifics. | ||
| Clip Young with us is in charge of polling and societal trends for Ipsos public affairs. | ||
| A great person to ask your polling questions of. | ||
| He's steeped in all of it with us for the next 35 minutes here on the Washington Journal until the end of our program. | ||
| If you want to join the conversation and you're a Democrat, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You've also been in the field polling since the U.S. airstrikes on Iran. | ||
| What did you find on that front? | ||
| That America is divided, that it's controversial. | ||
| About a third of the population, especially Republicans, are very much in favor of the administration's actions. | ||
| Democrats aren't. | ||
| Like I said, it's very partisan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There's a lot of queuing, right? | |
| If you like Trump, you're probably in favor of the bill. | ||
| If you don't like Trump, you're probably not in favor of the bill. | ||
| I think more fundamentally, though, what we find is a huge age differentiation. | ||
| What we're finding, not just with Iran, but also with Gaza as well as the Ukraine across the board, foreign policy in general, young Americans are less in favor of a more muscular policy. | ||
| They're much different than baby boomers. | ||
| They're much different than gen xers like myself. | ||
| And that's a general trend we're finding independent of partisanship, and it manifests itself as well on the Iranian airstrikes. | ||
| Is that something that is cyclical, though? | ||
| Are those young people today going to be the older people of tomorrow who are a bit more okay with interventionalism than then the young people of tomorrow will be against it? | ||
| What have you found over time? | ||
| Or is that something unique to this time that we are in? | ||
| Yeah, basically as you get older, you get more conservative. | ||
| You get more cratchy, like me. | ||
| I become more cratchy over time. | ||
| No, actually, what's interesting is that when we compare younger people, let's say to the Vietnam generation or to the Iraq 1 generation or the Iraq 2 generation, younger people today are definitively less interventionist in nature. | ||
| The question would be why, and there's a variety of factors, one of which I believe are the forever wars, the fact that young Americans feel like the government has lied to them over time. | ||
| And this is something we believe that is a significant generational difference that will shape America looking forward into the future. | ||
| Just for our visual learners, let me show the chart. | ||
| The question that was asked: do you support or oppose the recent U.S. airstrikes on Iranian military targets? | ||
| Overall, among all Americans, 35%, 36%, I should say, support it. | ||
| Among Gen Z, though, it's just 25%, millennials, 27%, Gen Xers, 39%, baby boomers, 47%. | ||
| You can see those numbers creep up as individuals get older. | ||
| One more topic before we go to calls, and it's on the foreign policy front. | ||
| We're expecting an announcement from President Trump today on Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| What do you find in your polling about American support for Ukraine in its war with Russia? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, once again, it's more distant. | |
| Americans are concerned about bread and butter issues for the most part. | ||
| There is a spark partisan break there. | ||
| Basically, Democrats are more in favor of Ukraine intervention, let's say more specifically, than are Republicans. | ||
| But it's one of those things that I believe is just a tertiary issue, really, relative to all the more fundamental issues like the economy, like political extremism, and like immigration. | ||
| And we can get to some of those other issues as well. | ||
| Let me bring in some calls, though. | ||
| We'll head first to the city of Tucson in Arizona. | ||
| This is Carolyn, Line for Democrats. | ||
| You are on with Cliff Young. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Excuse me. | |
| Hi. | ||
| Yes, those were fascinating points to me because I am a relic. | ||
| And so my political beliefs kind of stem from a humanitarian viewpoint. | ||
| And my observation of government is similar to the youth in that I definitely feel we're manipulated. | ||
| I'm disappointed, in fact, that in journalism, there's not one area, we have no venue where someone, for example, will take Project 2025 and read it, however boring, and speak of what that is because I feel that war has become very transactional, | ||
| probably always has been transactional. | ||
| But what the media used to do was inspire, I wouldn't say patriotism, but an emotional, a visceral response, which indicated the trend, the heart of your nation. | ||
| So, Carolyn, what are some of the news outlets do you trust? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, that's what I'm saying, I think. | |
| I don't trust any per se, and that I would feel better if when the big beautiful bill arrives, someone would attempt to read the whole thing publicly, take 15 minutes of a broadcast. | ||
| So, Carolyn, they did read most of that bill publicly on the floor of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, forcing Republicans. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I did. | |
| I did watch that, yes. | ||
| And that's very important, but that's not generally. | ||
| I'm talking broadcast news, not public information, because that will become more and more limited via Project 2025. | ||
| And it's unfortunate because most people don't pursue, don't have the time for that matter. | ||
| That's why we've gone to soundbite. | ||
| Well, Carolyn, let me take your point. | ||
| Cliff Young, give you a chance to respond. | ||
| Yeah, I think that she represents a broad trend in America today, which is people believe the system is broken. | ||
| They no longer believe traditional institutions, no matter what they are, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Media, science, big business, you can kind of list them out. | |
| And that's reflective in terms of what she's saying. | ||
| And it's not a partisan issue. | ||
| Republicans feel the same as Democrats. | ||
| They feel the system is broken. | ||
| They feel like the establishment no longer works for the average person. | ||
| Indeed, we can understand the political outcome today in that context. | ||
| Donald Trump specifically represents one threat in that thinking. | ||
| He's a champion for many Americans who believe the system is broken. | ||
| He's there to, in their minds, fix a broken system. | ||
| And obviously, on the other side, Democrats feel very much the same sort of thing. | ||
| Maybe their champions are different. | ||
| And it's a belief system that's not just here in the United States. | ||
| It's something we find at IPSOS all over the world. | ||
| And it's really ingrained in our politics today. | ||
| So through that lens, how would you view Donald Trump reaching out to his MAGA base via True Social over the weekend saying it's time to move past the Epstein case and how much consternation this case continues to cause? | ||
| Well, there's a couple things there. | ||
| The very fact that he has a direct connection with his base is something new. | ||
| I mean, he's bypassing more traditional media sources. | ||
| That's very much a hallmark of this anti-establishment movement, not just in the United States, but globally speaking. | ||
| And Epstein, in my mind, is one of those, let's call them, political proof points or problems with the base, right? | ||
| Because if the system is broken, maybe Epstein is an example of that. | ||
| And that is the base elected champions to fix a broken system. | ||
| And it creates noise. | ||
| And definitely that's what we're seeing right now. | ||
| The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal taking up the Epstein case, just the two first two graphs of their editorial today. | ||
| Donald Trump has traded in conspiracy stories for years. | ||
| Barack Obama was born in Kenya. | ||
| Ted Cruz's father had a link to the JFK killer. | ||
| The 2020 election with stolen migrants are barbecuing people's pets. | ||
| He seems to think this is good show business with appeal in certain niches of a fragmented culture. | ||
| Yet now he's upset that the Jeffrey Epstein theories that he fanned are proving hard to tamp down. | ||
| Mr. Trump lamenting online on Saturday that his administration is taking heat over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| For years it's Epstein over and over again. | ||
| His advisors are suggesting that this was a snipe hunt, but the MAGA base is in fear and disbelief since the same people pledged to catch some snipe. | ||
| Yeah, and the context is a broad base belief that the system is broken. | ||
| And again, I don't think in the grand scheme of things, it will weigh so heavily from a voting or public opinion standpoint. | ||
| But there is noise in the system today because the principal champion, President Trump, had been touting for a long time that he would fix a broken system. | ||
| And this seems to be contrary to that point. | ||
| Again, the context is such that these sorts of things are not easy for someone in a place like Donald Trump. | ||
| Back to the bluegrass state, Arlington, Kentucky. | ||
| Betty, Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| He is the worst president that I've been through. | ||
| And I'm 90 years old, and I've seen quite a few. | ||
| And he has the filthiest mouth that I've ever heard of anybody as a president that people are supposed to look up to. | ||
| It only woes one word. | ||
| I, I, I, I. | ||
| And I is bull bully. | ||
| Betty, who's the best president you've seen in 90 years? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Jimmy Carter. | |
| What did you like about Jimmy Carter? | ||
|
unidentified
|
He was honest, and he didn't have a, and he was a good Christian. | |
| And Kennedy was a good president, too. | ||
| I can't complain about any of them, Harley, except Trump. | ||
| And he's broke every law that has ever been made. | ||
| And he is, we're hitting, we're in socialism right now, and people don't know it. | ||
| I lived in 16 states. | ||
| I lived in every kind of there is. | ||
| And I would go overseas now because I'd be scared I'd be left over there. | ||
| It's Betty in Kentucky. | ||
| How would you respond to Betty? | ||
| Well, first, Trump is a polarizing figure. | ||
| It's very clear in the data. | ||
| You know, you either love him or you hate him, though there's individuals in the middle. | ||
| There's nuance. | ||
| We have to be careful with making, you know, overstaying the point. | ||
| But he's not in a bad place from a popular perspective, as we were saying before. | ||
| He's at 45% approval rating, and that's a pretty good place, as we've already said. | ||
| It's within his work average. | ||
| And so whether she dislikes him specifically, she represents a certain sort of segment of the population. | ||
| There are many other Americans that think the contrary. | ||
| Will Donald Trump, if he goes through with them on August 1st with a slew of new tariffs, are those tariffs supported by that same base and that same 45% that is approving his job right now? | ||
| Yeah, first I would say the tariffs in general are a risk, right? | ||
| Americans see them as inflationary in nature. | ||
| They're worried about making ends meet. | ||
| We just came off a very difficult inflationary moment that we know, obviously, things have gotten better over the last little bit, the last few months, but that definitely is the fear of Americans. | ||
| But his base has supported him throughout. | ||
| You know, they understand, or at least their perception is, yes, there might be problems in the short term, but there are long-term benefits, like bringing jobs back to America. | ||
| And they've held steady and with steady support for him and his tariff regime. | ||
| I would say anywhere from 65% plus, depending on how you ask the question. | ||
| And that in part, in large part, is why he is where he is with his approval ratings. | ||
| An interesting question. | ||
| You asked Americans whether they expect prices of certain goods to increase due to tariffs. | ||
| And this is the percent of people that responded saying they did expect an increase in prices on personal and electronic phones. | ||
| 77% of Americans said they expected an increase in prices and that over the course of the next six months. | ||
| For automobiles, 73% expected an increase in prices. | ||
| The items you buy every day, 73%, household appliances, 72%, fresh produce, 70%. | ||
| Home repairs and improvements, 62%. | ||
| Dairy items at just 56%. | ||
| Why did you want to ask and delve into specific items that people thought there would be price increases on? | ||
| Because Americans are discerning. | ||
| When you do surveys on their household purchase behavior, they're very discerning, obviously. | ||
| They know where every nickel and dime goes in terms of their expenditures. | ||
| But what we wanted to get overall was: do Americans perceive tariffs as inflationary? | ||
| And the simple answer is yes, they do. | ||
| And in part, the sort of trepidation, unease we see in the polls in general, not in the approval ratings, but in relative optimism, and consumer confidence as examples. | ||
| They're more negative right now. | ||
| Americans are more pessimistic. | ||
| It's partially a function of this worry about future inflationary pressures. | ||
| 20 minutes left with Cliff Young of Ipsos Polling and taking your phone calls. | ||
| This is Tom in Philly Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you today? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
| What's your question or comment? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, this is a core problem with the polling industry and the fact that all the media uses it in different reasons. | |
| Your polling industry uses percentage all the time, but very a few times it actually tells you the number of people polled. | ||
| Look at any major news media graphic, and I'll say 70%, 60%, 30%, 20%. | ||
| And that seems like a big thing, but unless you know the sample size, it could be the people in an elevator. | ||
| So is it 10 people? | ||
| Is it 100 people? | ||
| Is it 1,000 people? | ||
| Is it 10,000 people? | ||
| The polling industry is all over the place. | ||
| And that's based on your economics and who you call and who you sample. | ||
| But the news media only uses the 70%, the percentage. | ||
| Got your point. | ||
| Let me just come back and I'll let Cliff Young jump in on this, but let me come back to that slide that I showed on Americans and how they feel about the one big beautiful bill. | ||
| So you saw the overall numbers there and the big bar charts. | ||
| If you look at the small print down on the lower right corner, they get to exactly the question that you're asking. | ||
| And most good polls, as I understand, will put this information right there on the front of the polls. | ||
| So this poll was conducted June 6th through 10th of 2025, a representative sample of 1,167 Americans age 18 plus. | ||
| That includes 336 Republicans, 371 Democrats, and 320 Independents. | ||
| A lot to dig into there, including why you chose those specific numbers of the different people, but I'll let you respond. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, well, this is a great point by the viewer. | |
| You have to be an informed and educated consumer of data. | ||
| I think what he's really saying is, is your poll representative of the population? | ||
| And you really have to dive in and deep and be a good citizen and a good consumer of information. | ||
| The industry in general applies similar methods typically. | ||
| Typically, when we talk about public opinion in general, we're talking about the general population. | ||
| We want to be representative of the general population. | ||
| When we start talking about elections, we're getting close to Election Day. | ||
| We're going to be talking about those who have registered to vote or those who are likely to vote. | ||
| That's a more prescribed specific population. | ||
| It's a smaller one. | ||
| But today, we're talking about Americans in general. | ||
| We're talking about all, you know, representative of all Democrats, all Republicans, all Independents and others. | ||
| And ultimately, ultimately, it is about what population of interest are you representing. | ||
| So for people who heard me read out those numbers, why were there 51 more Democrats than Independents sampled in this survey and 25 more Democrats than Republicans? | ||
| How do you get to those numbers? | ||
| Yeah, that's actually quite random, right? | ||
| That's kind of falls out of the population. | ||
| If we do a representative sample of population where we select individuals randomly, that's kind of the typical break of Democrats and Republicans. | ||
| It's closely or evenly split today in the United States. | ||
| Obviously, there are certain decisions as to how you classify a Republican or a Democrat. | ||
| But it's not our decision a priori to go out there and select so many Republicans or Democrats. | ||
| That's sort of what falls out naturally from the population. | ||
| No, it's a very important political variable, right? | ||
| And that's why we make it transparent so that anyone, including you, John, or anyone who wants to, can go and read and see what our distribution is. | ||
| And when it says Republicans, Democrats, and independents, this is self-identified by people when they take this survey at the start of the survey. | ||
| You'll ask that question, what party do you think? | ||
| Yeah, it'll be you or I saying that we're an independent or a Democrat or Republican. | ||
| That is the respondent saying that it's not the pollster like ourselves, like me, Cliff Young, saying that this person is. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Gotcha. | |
| To the Garden State, this is Eric Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| People were wondering why they would bomb Iran. | ||
| I want people to know it brought the president no pleasure to bomb Iran. | ||
| You know, he wasn't like jumping for joy. | ||
| And you got to understand that we've been fighting with Iran for 40 years. | ||
| And if they have the nuclear button, they would not hesitate to use it. | ||
| That's Eric in New Jersey calling as an independent. | ||
| If you come back to the Ipsos survey on this, 36% of independents, 36% of all Americans, I apologize, say that they supported the recent U.S. airstrikes. | ||
| That includes 71% of Republicans, 12% of Democrats, and 34% of independents. | ||
| Yeah, it's very partisan, right? | ||
| And once again, there's a lot of partisan queuing. | ||
| I'll support my guy, Trump, or I won't because I don't like him. | ||
| Some of the age issues there as well. | ||
| We're not seeing it in that data, but younger Americans on average are more against more muscular interventions, as we've already stated. | ||
| But really, these numbers, we have to be very careful. | ||
| They're typically a function of partisanship, and their breaks are as such. | ||
| That said, there still is nuance. | ||
| If we were to put conditions there, should we put troops on the ground? | ||
| A vast majority of Americans would say no. | ||
| Should we provide sort of technical assistance to countries in the region? | ||
| You'd have a strong majority saying yes. | ||
| So this very simple ballot question hides many times the more nuance that's actually there, and we have to be clear about that. | ||
| Now, we didn't share that data here specifically, but definitely there is a continuum of support depending on the conditionality, the specifics of the measures. | ||
| So it sounds like you know how the numbers would likely move if you asked the question a different way. | ||
| That's what you were just saying, if it's boots on the ground and that sort of thing. | ||
| What is in recent, say the past six months or so, what is the polling question that most surprised you? | ||
| That you had an expectation of where the numbers were going to go. | ||
| You asked the question, and it didn't go in that direction. | ||
| Is there one that comes to mind? | ||
| Yeah, before I go into specifics, I just want to say, like, it's not just how you tweak the question. | ||
| It's basically you're tweaking the policy outcomes. | ||
| And so it's legitimate to be varying the question wording because the question, because of policy outcomes, can be variable. | ||
| And so we have to keep that in mind, right? | ||
| But what's been most surprising is the issue of deportation. | ||
| Immigration is extremely controversial. | ||
| And it really, in my mind, based upon all the research we've done, it's the most important political determinant in America today. | ||
| It defines whether you're Republican or not, where you stand on immigration. | ||
| So it's very important. | ||
| But Americans are very nuanced on it. | ||
| So on the one hand, you have a supermajority of Americans saying, yeah, we should deport illegal immigrants who are criminals, but don't touch children. | ||
| You only have a weak plurality in favor of it. | ||
| So the point being is, even on a controversial issue like immigration, that really defines what side of the aisle you stand, there's nuance to the policy. | ||
| Just some numbers on that front. | ||
| The percent responding saying they support mass deportation of everyone who is in the country without legal status. | ||
| That's one of the questions you asked. | ||
| Overall, 40% of Americans say they agree with that. | ||
| 72% of Republicans say they agree with that, just 14% of Democrats, and 37% of Independents. | ||
| Yeah, and that's just, that's kind of a softball item. | ||
| Like it's kind of the, let's call it one of the extremes of the issue. | ||
| But if we were to draw that out, we know that because we've polled on this as well. | ||
| If we put in there criminals, illegal immigrants who are criminals, you'd have 80-plus percent of Americans agreeing with it. | ||
| If you put in sort of DACA children, put them in, link them to that, you'd only have 30% or so of Americans agreeing with it. | ||
| So again, there's nuance to the issue. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We can't say everything's polarized. | |
| There's lots of polarization out there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But Americans are differentiating as well. | |
| About 10 minutes left with Cliff Young this morning. | ||
| By the way, folks want to see these polls, all available at ipsos.com. | ||
| Everything. | ||
| Everything's out there. | ||
| IPOSOS.com. | ||
| This is Cindy in the Show Me State Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I'm a little bit nervous. | ||
| I have a question that goes back to the beginning of the segment. | ||
| He showed the survey that said, you know, Donald Trump came with a 45% average approval rating. | ||
| And I noticed on the chart it was the New York Times, Washington Post, and I don't remember the third organization. | ||
| It was Real Clear Politics, New York Times, and Silver Bulletin were the three that were shown. | ||
| We'll put it back on the screen for you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, and my question is: did you include any like Breitbart or Fox or Heritage or any of the conservative-leaning organizations when you did your polling? | |
| Because if you didn't, it looks like it's predetermined outcome. | ||
| That's actually a great question, right? | ||
| And we actually use RealClar Politics that has a right-lean. | ||
| They tend to be right-leaning. | ||
| We definitely could have included any other sort of aggregator. | ||
| By the way, they're taking all the polls out there, each of these, and they're averaging them out, though there's different decisions in different places about how they put it all together. | ||
| Real Clear Politics is sort of a poll of polls. | ||
| It's a poll of polls. | ||
| By the way, these are all polls of polls. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| None of this we're looking at specifically is a polling firm. | ||
| We did that deliberately, actually. | ||
| We wanted to sort of get a feel for the average, not just a single poll, not an Ipsus poll or a New York Times poll for sake of argument. | ||
| So what we showed was actually the poll of polls, the average of all polls, and we use RealColor Politics as more of the right-leaning aggregator in the mix. | ||
| We definitely could have used other ones as well. | ||
| I think it's pretty good representation of where he is today. | ||
| And as we said before, that is, Trump is in a pretty good position. | ||
| This is Cheryl in Fitzgerald, Georgia, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes, I was calling just in response to a previous caller who was saying that Trump hasn't done anything in his second term. | ||
| But so far he has shut down the border to illegal immigration, which is a, I think, is a really big deal. | ||
| Illegals cost this country billions of dollars every year, hundreds of billions of dollars, actually. | ||
| And it seems like ever since the 1980s, it's been all about the needs, wants, interests, and desires of the illegal immigrants. | ||
| Meanwhile, Americans struggle with needing car repairs, home repairs, and everything else, while we watch the illegals draining hundreds of billions of tax dollars. | ||
| Also, we can't forget about how Trump stopped the war between Israel and Iran, which saved so many lives. | ||
| And that was a really big deal. | ||
| That's all I have to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Cliff Young. | ||
| I think she represents, the caller represents, the mosaic called America, right? | ||
| And she's very much on the hawk side of the immigration debate. | ||
| There needs to be more restriction, stronger borders, more policing. | ||
| And there are many Americans that actually agree with her. | ||
| Our estimate is that she represents maybe a third of the American population today. | ||
| You have maybe another 20% that are, let's call it, strong anti-immigration and adjacent. | ||
| They come and they go depending on the specific conditionality of the measures. | ||
| But the caller definitely represents a wide swath of America and one which gives life to Trump and his administration, where immigration is the critical issue for the base. | ||
| Billy in Pueblo, Colorado, Independent, good morning. | ||
| Just a few minutes left with Cliff Young. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are y'all this morning? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| You know, I've been sitting here listening to this for quite a few minutes. | ||
| And when I first tried to call, it was, do you agree with the strike in Iran, you know, Donald Trump's strike in Iran? | ||
| Well, you know, I was a Democrat. | ||
| Now I call myself an independent because I can't agree with most of what is underhanded being done by the Democrats with the immigration and with the LGBT scene. | ||
| But I know that when I see theater, you know, and what happened in Iran, what's going on in Israel, mostly what's happened here since last summer with that assassination theatrical event, it's all theater. | ||
| And I'm not, I'm blind. | ||
| I can't even see what's going on. | ||
| I can't see your charts. | ||
| I can't really talk about the polls. | ||
| Billy, are you saying you don't think these things actually happened? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I'm saying I think they were put on for theater just like we're sitting in a Shakespeare play, buddy. | |
| I know they happened. | ||
| I think. | ||
| So, Cliff Young, conspiracy theories and the rise of Americans who believe in conspiracy theories. | ||
| What do you find? | ||
| Well, first, once again, a big chunk of the American population believes the system is broken. | ||
| They believe that the establishment no longer cares about the average person. | ||
| The system is rigged. | ||
| And in a context like that, conspiracy theories have a lot of fuel, right? | ||
| Now that, obviously, we have to separate conspiracy theories from legitimate sort of beliefs that the system is not working for the average person. | ||
| I think they get confused a bit and they get conflated. | ||
| But definitely at Ipsos, there's a chunk of the population, a significant, but small polarity, but significant chunk of population that believes in a whole host of different sort of conspiracy theories. | ||
| But we can't understand that outside the context of the fact that trust is low, institutions are not believed in anymore. | ||
| They're not trustworthy. | ||
| And the caller just represents a certain significant threat in the American population that believes that. | ||
| You've started teaching in higher education now? | ||
| I have, yeah. | ||
| Well, I always have. | ||
| I've taken a new position. | ||
| A new position in higher education. | ||
| What do you think about trust in institutions of higher education? | ||
| Trust in today's teachers, today's professors, and how they're influencing the next generation? | ||
| I think that any institution, whether it be educational or otherwise, is in a very problematic place in America today, exactly for the reasons I've already stated. | ||
| There's a widespread belief that the system is broken, that the average person no longer is cared about, that politicians and parties no longer care about the average American. | ||
| And education is in that mix. | ||
| By the way, pollsters are in that mix as well. | ||
| A lot of what we hear with these callers is consternation in general about the system, and we represent in part the system. | ||
| So knowing that, how do you run your classroom? | ||
| How do you try to get students to trust you? | ||
| It's about transparency. | ||
| It's about if someone has a question about a poll and they're asking how we design the poll, we spend the time to explain how we design the poll. | ||
| Not just trust us. | ||
| Not just trust us. | ||
| No, on the contrary. | ||
| Look at our track record. | ||
| Listen to us. | ||
| Are we fully, do we disclose? | ||
| By the way, our industry tries very hard to be transparent. | ||
| It is very difficult. | ||
| We have very difficult headwinds, obviously, because of this lack of trust in general. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But all you can do is control what you can control. | |
| And that is you. | ||
| Am I being transparent? | ||
| Am I being open? | ||
| Am I explaining things in a way that makes sense? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do I have the patience to do that? | |
| Because we need to have the patience as well. | ||
| Lake Worth, Florida, this is Percy Republican. | ||
| Thanks for waiting. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, how's it going? | |
| I was going to call on a different angle, but actually your conversation at the end here led me to something. | ||
| I want to say, you, sir, the guests, you're a teacher now of the vocation that you're doing. | ||
| That is the change I've seen. | ||
| And I actually enrolled myself back in school to get my bachelor's. | ||
| And that's what's happening. | ||
| I have faith in it. | ||
| That's the change that we need. | ||
| And that's why there was no faith in higher education because we had teachers that were teaching things they didn't know about. | ||
| Beyond that, I wanted to ask, well, first, parliamentary question for you. | ||
| I'm registered as a party that's not on any of these lines. | ||
| I don't do any polls. | ||
| I've never done that. | ||
| I've tried to call in. | ||
| I've never been able to call in as an independent. | ||
| I'm wondering, do you guys like cut that off or is it open for everybody? | ||
| For independents, Percy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I try to call in as an independent. | |
| I always get blocked, so I call in as a Republican. | ||
| I mean, I voted for Trump, so it's whatever. | ||
| So, Percy, I promise you, we don't force you to call in on one line or the other. | ||
| It's your choice on what line to call in on. | ||
| Perhaps when you've tried to call in as an independent, there's just a lot of calls on that line. | ||
| I literally have three open lines for each one of Democrats, Republicans, independents. | ||
| And if all of them are being, if somebody's calling in on all of them, you'll get a busy signal. | ||
| So that might be what's happening. | ||
| But no, we do not force you to call in on a certain line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That means there was a lot of independents. | |
| And I was going to come on here and ban bash everyone for being so partisan lately, because that's how I feel when I listen to everything. | ||
| But that's encouraging, because I really think we need to stop with this partisan crap. | ||
| And I was going to just say, I was going to ask if you guys had seen the crypto testimony on Wednesday and those guys that bullied the, it was Kennedy and some jackass from Ohio bullying these experts. | ||
| I'm like, man, it's like, I'm all for Trump, but sometimes these Republicans, and today with Lindsey Graham, he seemed way too giddy with the, we're selling arms again. | ||
| So, hey, I mean, I voted for Trump. | ||
| I'm for Trump. | ||
| I can be critical of the Republicans too. | ||
| And I think that we need to really. | ||
| We'll take the point, Percy. | ||
| We're running short on time here. | ||
| You mentioned Lindsey Graham and arms to Ukraine. | ||
| We're expecting President Trump to be meeting with the Secretary General of NATO. | ||
| It could start any minute here. | ||
| So we'll take one or two more calls. | ||
| But if that meeting happens and we get live coverage of it, we'll certainly take you there. | ||
| But let me go to Gerald while we're waiting, see if that happens. | ||
| In North Carolina, Democrat, Gerald, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, the 21st Amendment says that no person can be elected president of the United States more than twice. | |
| Trump claims that he was elected in 2016, which he was. | ||
| He claims he was elected in 2020, which he was not. | ||
| But so long as he claims that he was elected in 2020, it seems that he has no real moral basis for serving now. | ||
| That's my question. | ||
| Cliff Young? | ||
| We've done some polling on these sorts of questions. | ||
| People are not in favor of a third term. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We know that, clearly speaking. | |
| We haven't polled on the specifics of Trump. | ||
| I think it's a much-ado-about-nothing. | ||
| You need to have very strong popular support to push it through an agenda like that. | ||
| We've seen that sort of thing happen in other countries. | ||
| You take Brazil as an example, Mexico, some others where they've had term limits. | ||
| But ultimately, I think it's a minor issue relative to the key bread and butter issues of the day. | ||
| Final minute here, not to give it away to your competitors, but what are you going to be polling on this week? | ||
| It's going to be tariffs, right? | ||
| Tariffs is rearing its head. | ||
| I won't say it's an ugly head, but it's a problematic head for the administration. | ||
| We're going to be really focused on that. | ||
| Those are the sorts of things that go directly to the pocketbook and directly to making ends meet. | ||
| And there's been a bit of detente for a while on that specific issue, and I think it'll come back around. | ||
| Ipsos.com, I-P-S-O-S.com is where you can go. | ||
| Cliff Young, also a good follow on social media at Cliff A. Young. | ||
| And we always appreciate your time in the Washington Journal. | ||
| Well, thanks so much, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's great to be here. | |
| That's going to do it for us this morning, but we'll, of course, be back tomorrow morning. | ||
| It's 7 a.m. Eastern, 4 a.m. Pacific. | ||
| In the meantime, have a great Monday, and stay tuned to C-SPAN throughout the day. |