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| And then the Heritage Foundation senior fellow Mike Gonzalez on Congress's efforts to cut $9 billion in foreign aid and public broadcasting funding. | ||
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| On this vote, the yays are 216. | ||
| The nays are 213. | ||
| The resolution is adopted. | ||
| Good morning and welcome to the Washington Journal. | ||
| The House earlier this morning approving President Trump's first round of doge cuts. | ||
| The measure now heads to the President's desk just in time for a midnight deadline. | ||
| The vote was delayed for hours as Republicans debated how to address the release of the Epstein files. | ||
| This morning, your reaction to those two headlines coming out of Washington. | ||
| Here's how you can join the conversation. | ||
| Democrats dial in at 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, your line is 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you don't want to call, you can text at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Just include your first name, city, and state. | ||
| Or post on facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and on X with the handle at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| We'll get to your calls in just a minute. | ||
| What is in this rescission package? | ||
| That is the procedure that Republicans used in Congress to get this to the president's desk. | ||
| First, the Senate passed this 51 to 48. | ||
| That was early Thursday morning. | ||
| Then around 1 a.m. Today, the House approved it 2.16 to 213. | ||
| Republicans lost two of their own in both of the chambers. | ||
| President Trump is scheduled to sign this before Friday midnight deadline. | ||
| It's $9 billion in cuts. | ||
| This is the first round of Doge cuts. | ||
| $8 billion is cuts to foreign assistance and $1.1 billion for public broadcasting. | ||
| It also notes in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times today that it codifies 5% of the $190 billion in Doge savings that have been identified. | ||
| So it's 5% of the $190 billion. | ||
| And it represents one-tenth of 1% of our nation's $7 trillion federal budget. | ||
| The rescission procedure is a rare one. | ||
| The last time it was used was 1999 under the Clinton administration. | ||
| As we said, the vote over this so-called rescission package was delayed for hours yesterday as the majority Republicans debated how to address the releasing of the Epstein files. | ||
| President Trump on Truth Social posting this yesterday. | ||
| Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I've asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent grand jury testimony subject to court approval. | ||
| This scam perpetuated by the Democrats should end right now. | ||
| Pam Bondi responding in her own post saying, President Trump, we are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts. | ||
| Also happening last night, the Wall Street Journal putting out this article with the headline, Jeffrey Epstein's friends sent him body letters for a 50th birthday album. | ||
| One was from Donald Trump. | ||
| From their reporting, the letter bearing Trump's name, which was reviewed by the journal, is body like others in the album. | ||
| It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. | ||
| A pair of small arcs denotes the woman's breasts, and the future president's signature is a squiggly Donald below her waist, mimicking pubic hair. | ||
| The letter concludes, happy birthday, and may every day be another wonderful secret. | ||
| In an interview with the journal on Tuesday evening, Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture. | ||
| This is not me. | ||
| This is a fake thing. | ||
| It's a fake Wall Street Journal. | ||
| He said, I never wrote a picture in. | ||
| He says in my life, I don't draw pictures of women. | ||
| He said, it's not my language. | ||
| It's not my words. | ||
| He told the journal he was preparing to file a lawsuit. | ||
| It published an article, I'm going to sue the Wall Street Journal, he said, in this interview, just like I sued everyone else. | ||
| So that is what the president said to the Wall Street Journal, and that is hours, that came after hours of delay before the House could move on this budget cuts, these Doge cuts. | ||
| In the end, House Republicans agreed to a non-binding resolution for calling on the administration to release the Epstein files, but the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, would not agree to when that vote would take place, although there's reporting that that could happen next week. | ||
| On the House floor, here's Steve Scalise, the majority leader for House Republicans, pushing it back against criticism from Democrats of trying to dismiss the Epstein files. | ||
| He stressed Republicans are focused instead on cutting waste. | ||
| You know, every time we have tried to get our economy back on track, to put more money in the pockets by the way of hardworking families, as we just succeeded in doing with the One Big Beautiful bill, every step of the way, the only people trying to block that effort have been Democrats in Washington. | ||
| And they are getting nervous, feeling the heat from people back home, Mr. Speaker, that are angry saying, why did you vote those waiters and waitresses who make $32,000 a year when they keep hearing them talk about billionaires and voting not against billionaires, they're voting against $32,000 a year waiters and waitresses, cops working the beat who don't want to have to pay overtime taxes and we protected them from that. | ||
| Every Democrat voted no, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I can understand why they come up here and they want to talk about anything other than what we're actually doing to deliver for those families. | ||
| Interesting how they talk about Jeffrey Epstein because for four years, Mr. Speaker, President Joe Biden had those files and not a single Democrat that you're hearing tonight tried to get those files released. | ||
| And so the House Republicans are working to do that. | ||
| And of course, they're in a tizzy, Mr. Speaker, because they're finally being exposed for covering it up for four years. | ||
| And so let them continue to come up and talk about all the deficit spending that they created. | ||
| From the House floor, last night, the Majority Leader Steve Scalise from Louisiana, let's turn to your thoughts on these two headlines this morning. | ||
| The House approving $9 billion in Doge cuts amid this debate over releasing the Epstein files. | ||
| Brenda in California, Democratic caller, good morning to you. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| One of the things I'd like to say, I listened to Scalise, but he's talking out of both classes now. | ||
| Number one, about Epstein, it needs to be released. | ||
| And this is not partisan. | ||
| I'm not saying this as a Democrat. | ||
| I'm not saying this because of that, because I'm not one of those Democrats that goes along with everything the Democratic Party says, like I'm hearing from some of the people on the other side. | ||
| But I think that it needs to be released. | ||
| And I think this is all a distraction from everything happening in the streets of this country right now. | ||
| They want to distract everybody away from all of that and just to a discussion of this. | ||
| So this broadcasting should not be cut. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So what, Brenda, what's Brenda? | ||
| What's the distraction? | ||
| The Epstein files or this bill to cut funding identified by the Doge? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that the Epstein file is not a distraction. | |
| It's something they need to deal with. | ||
| I think they know that the president is in trouble and that they had to come up with something else. | ||
| All right. | ||
| So they went to this tax thing about tips and that when a majority of Americans do not work it out for when they get tips, it's not going to impact most of us anyway. | ||
| All right, Brenda. | ||
| Brenda, Democratic caller there in California. | ||
| Reuters Ipsos poll recently released showed that 17% approve of the president's handling of this Epstein issue. | ||
| 60% believe the government is hiding information on Epstein's death. | ||
| And 69% believe the government is hiding Epstein's alleged client list. | ||
| 17% approve, as we said, of the president's approval, handling of this issue. | ||
| This is the lowest number, one of the lowest numbers of an issue for President Trump. | ||
| Joe in New Providence, New Jersey, Independent. | ||
| Joe, good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, how you doing? | |
| I think it's great that he got that thing passed. | ||
| And with Epstein, I mean, it was, Biden had it. | ||
| Now it was quiet. | ||
| Now that Trump has it, it's a big deal. | ||
| Everything Trump does with the newspaper, with TV, and everything, they make a big deal out of it. | ||
| And it's all his fault. | ||
| Got it, Joe. | ||
| Robert, Clearwater, Florida, Republican. | ||
| What do you say, Robert? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't think anything's going to go against Trump. | |
| I mean, he's doing a great job. | ||
| Also, about that Epstein guy, I don't think he hung himself. | ||
| I think somebody killed him. | ||
| I mean, there's no pictures of it. | ||
| There's nothing of it. | ||
| So do you then agree as a Republican that they need to release these Epstein files, that we need to see the government's investigation? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, whatever they want to do, I mean, actually they get their kicks out, they could release the files. | |
| But I'm just saying I don't think he killed them till I think because nobody was there when he went, no pictures of them dying or nothing like that. | ||
| I think somebody killed them. | ||
| Somebody inside that thing killed them. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And a lot of other people believe the same thing. | ||
| All right, Robert. | ||
| So why are these documents sealed? | ||
| This is from the front page of the Washington Times. | ||
| As many of you know, Maureen Comey, who is the former FBI director, James Comey's daughter, kept the Epstein files sealed. | ||
| They report that Maureen Comey, who President Trump fired this week without explanation, was one of the assistant U.S. attorneys in charge of prosecuting Maxwell and Epstein on sex trafficking charges. | ||
| On January 30th, 2024, she urged the judge to keep secret the thousands of pages of evidence compiled against the two after an extensive FBI investigation and Justice Department prosecution that resulted in Maxwell's conviction. | ||
| The judge agreed, and the evidence remained locked down. | ||
| The court is, the court order is one of the reasons the White House has not released more information without the case, about the case to the public. | ||
| That was cited by the White House press secretary yesterday. | ||
| Now, inside the Washington Times reporting on this, they go on to note this about Maureen Comey, that Ms. Comey argued in court that the documents that the government's of the documents that the government's extensive files from the investigation and prosecution of Maxwell must remain concealed in case of a retrial. | ||
| If exposed, the material could influence future witness testimony, result in the destruction of evidence, chill or intimidate witnesses, or reveal, quote, the scope and nature of the government's investigation. | ||
| William in San Diego Democratic Caller. | ||
| William, good morning to you. | ||
| Your take on these two headlines this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Well, my take is it's very frustrating to watch all this play out. | ||
| Basically, I see Trump eroding all our government services through this doge. | ||
| The Congress is just rubber stamping everything he's wanting to do. | ||
| This is going to hurt a lot of people. | ||
| And it's just so frustrating that I feel like the Republicans or the naked people just aren't seeing it or choose not to see it. | ||
| And at least this Epstein thing maybe might open some people's eyes. | ||
| All right, William. | ||
| Well, Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic leader in the House of New York on the floor earlier this morning or Thursday was talking about this rescission package and he said that the cuts, largely most of these cuts are for foreign assistance, 8 billion of the 9 billion are going to hurt and undermine America's soft power. | ||
| Here's what he had to say. | ||
| When you look at this particular piece of legislation that's in front of us right now, this reckless Republican rescissions package, it undermines American national security and American leadership in the world. | ||
| This is not an America first bill. | ||
| It's a China first bill because of the void that's being created all across the world. | ||
| It's in America's interests, our national security interests, our leadership interests to make sure that we're investing in development and diplomacy and democracy all across the world. | ||
| Great leaders have recognized that throughout the American journey. | ||
| It was Abraham Lincoln, who came to the House chamber in the middle of the Civil War in the early 1860s, spoke to the Congress and talked about America being the last best hope on earth. | ||
| President Lincoln said that in the 1860s, visionary declaration of the role that America might one day play as the leader of the free world. | ||
| And this legislation, this reckless Republican rescissions package, undermines our ability to keep our people safe here and to project America's soft power all over the globe. | ||
| Why would we undermine our ability to use diplomacy, democracy, and development to protect our own national security? | ||
| The Democratic leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, on the floor opposing the Doge cuts. | ||
| $9 billion total, but $8 billion of that is for foreign assistance programs. | ||
| Do you agree with him or disagree with him on the Republicans and the president's effort to cut foreign assistance? | ||
| There are the lines on your screen. | ||
| Join us for this conversation in the first hour here of the Washington Journal. | ||
| Winston in Charlotte, North Carolina, Republican. | ||
| What do you think? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Well, I think in general, as long as the cuts are somewhat reasonable, I think it's something that we should do. | ||
| That will probably be my general 50,000-foot view there. | ||
| Of course, devils in the details as always, but broadly speaking, I think it's something we should do. | ||
| And yeah. | ||
| And Winston, are you for the cuts to public broadcasting? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So that I would have to say yes. | |
| And the reason is because public dollars should not be going to any organization to promote or put out views that are obviously political views, right? | ||
| Everybody has their views, and that's totally fine. | ||
| And I fully support freedom of expression for absolutely everyone. | ||
| Of course, it changes when you're getting public dollars to promote those views. | ||
| That, I think, is a fundamentally different situation. | ||
| And that's something that I don't think there's a good argument for with regards to corporation with public broadcasting or anybody else. | ||
| I haven't heard any good argument for that. | ||
| Yeah, and Winston, some are arguing that this is going to hurt rural America in particular because rural America relies on their local public broadcasting for weather alerts. | ||
| After we saw what happened in Kerrville, Texas with the flash flooding, there's more flash flooding that's been happening around the country. | ||
| When there is severe weather, they say rural America is relying on public broadcasting to alert them to this severe weather. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that's a stretch. | |
| I think that's bending over backwards, desperately trying to make a connection between this and the floods. | ||
| I can see it. | ||
| Is the bill completely perfect? | ||
| Of course not, right? | ||
| Are there potential downstream effects? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| But I think the overall question undoubtedly is the big picture. | ||
| And I think just as a first step, right? | ||
| And by the way, I support refunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting the right way because the way it's been set up is wrong. | ||
| But as a first step, yes, I think it's appropriate to remove some of the funding because again, I don't think any private organization should be receiving public dollars to push partisan views. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Got it, Winston. | ||
| I'm going to leave it there because we've got other people waiting. | ||
| And I want to note from the New York Times reporting: NPR and PBS would survive. | ||
| Only a small percentage of their funding comes from the federal government. | ||
| But the cuts would force many local stations to sharply reduce their programming and operations as early as this fall. | ||
| Many public broadcasters receive more than 50% of their budgets from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. | ||
| That's the federal organization that doles out that money from the federal budget. | ||
| Brenda in Tifton, Georgia, Democratic Caller. | ||
| Let's hear from you, Brenda. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Yes, I think the bill is ridiculous, especially cutting PBS. | ||
| That is something that we all grew up on. | ||
| And you're correct. | ||
| The rural area has to get their information from them. | ||
| And it's very important, even though they are cutting FEMA. | ||
| But listen, we need to follow the money. | ||
| Where are they allocating the money? | ||
| They are doing all this budget cut, but where are they allocating the money? | ||
| They never said where they are putting the money back into. | ||
| Are they putting it back into the states? | ||
| Because they're saying, well, let the states handle it. | ||
| Let the states do this. | ||
| Okay, but if you're doing all this cutting, but where is the money? | ||
| Well, Brenda, what are you doing with this? | ||
| Yeah, Brenda, part of this is an effort by Republicans in response to their tax and spending cuts bill. | ||
| So they're trying to save money because they've lowered taxes on people. | ||
| So they would say that these two efforts go hand in hand. | ||
| First, they passed the so-called One Big Beautiful bill. | ||
| Now they're passing these rescission packages, these Doge cuts. | ||
| The White House is saying this is the first round. | ||
| It's $9 billion of the $190 billion identified by Doge. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, that's the problem. | |
| Doge cut. | ||
| But okay, that $100 billion in cut, where are they cutting it from? | ||
| They're taking it from PBS. | ||
| They're taking it from the people. | ||
| Medicaid, Medicare, education. | ||
| But where are they putting the money? | ||
| This is what I'm trying to find. | ||
| Understood. | ||
| Understood, Brenda. | ||
| Brenda there in Tifton, Georgia, with her question, Democratic caller. | ||
| Let's go back to the House floor in this debate yesterday. | ||
| Here is Congressman Chip Roy, Republican of Texas, speaking in support of defunding public broadcasting. | ||
| Fact of the matter is, they know it's true. | ||
| And right now, what they don't want to do is have the American people focusing on the Republicans in Congress who are doing the thing they sent us here to do, which is end wasteful spending to stop the ridiculous spending of a bureaucratic government that has been weaponized against the people. | ||
| Dollars that are being used and wasted, being sent around the world for $32,000 for transgender comic books in Peru. | ||
| That's how they want to use taxpayer money. | ||
| We're over here trying to make sure we're saving that money instead of having $5 million to fund tourism or $6 million to fund tourism in Egypt or $2 million for sex changes and LGBT activism in Guatemala. | ||
| Why should the people of Texas be paying for that instead of paying to clean up the flood in Texas? | ||
| The fact of the matter is, the people of Texas want their money to be used for the things they care about. | ||
| But we listened to the minority leader come to the floor and lecture us about the virtues of public radio and public broadcasting. | ||
| Yet, nevertheless, the truth is it took NPR through Texas Public Radio 19 hours, 19 hours to post anything about the flooding on its social media pages after the floods hit in Texas. | ||
| What was NPR and Texas Public Radio doing that morning? | ||
| They weren't breaking to talk about what was happening in Texas. | ||
| They were running ads saying people should call Congress to fund them. | ||
| But the private stations in Texas were breaking to release reports and to tell people what to do because that's what private stations can do. | ||
| Because they respond to the people because they're locally owned, they're locally run, and they're not run by the bureaucrats from this town. | ||
| The fact is, we're going to save money for the American people and end the absurdity of this leftist propaganda being put out under public radio. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Congressman Chip Roy on the floor defending the cuts to public broadcasting. | ||
| We're getting your take this morning on the House approving $9 billion in Doge cuts in the first round and the debate over releasing the Epstein files, which held up approval in the House for hours yesterday. | ||
| Mark in New York, Independent. | ||
| Mark, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for C-SPAN. | ||
| I just want to say that watching the Republicans and the Democrats debate this this morning has really put a bad taste in my mouth. | ||
| I mean, you know, they're cutting $9 billion from foreign aid or $8 billion, whatever it is. | ||
| And they talk about it's all about like, you know, transgender stuff. | ||
| That's ridiculous. | ||
| Do you know that they cut money from feeding famine victims in Sudan? | ||
| People are dying because of the money they cut. | ||
| And the foreign aid is 1% of our budget. | ||
| They gave more money to the Pentagon. | ||
| Okay, so they're not into cuts. | ||
| They're only into increasing what they like and decreasing what they don't like. | ||
| I mean, we have no more renewable energy plans thanks to the MAGA people. | ||
| We have huge cuts to Medicaid. | ||
| They're going after Medicare. | ||
| They're not helping anybody but the billionaires. | ||
| And, you know, I'm just so tired of distractions. | ||
| Like all the Democrats are yelling about are the Epstein files. | ||
| We know Trump is dirty. | ||
| We don't even need to see these files. | ||
| We just need to get our economy in order. | ||
| And neither party seems willing to do that. | ||
| So, Mark, you disagree with Democrats' efforts to bring the Epstein, to compel the administration to release the Epstein files. | ||
| They've tried in the Senate, on the Senate floor, and on the House floor, too. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I don't disagree with them. | |
| I mean, we should be able to see them, but this should have happened a long time ago. | ||
| As the Republicans said, Joe Biden could have released them. | ||
| I mean, I hate to agree with anything that any of these people say because they're all just playing games. | ||
| You know, instead of it, just like what good old boy Chip Roy from Texas said, oh, you know, the people of Texas don't want to pay for transgenders in Guatemala. | ||
| Well, they were paying for people to not die in a famine. | ||
| And then those people would like our country. | ||
| Now all those people are going to hate our country, which is going to increase the chance of war. | ||
| And they're cutting all these important programs that are to help people. | ||
| Meanwhile, they're increasing our debt by $4 trillion. | ||
| It's a joke. | ||
| It's like a farce. | ||
| I mean, I can't even believe how bad our government has gotten. | ||
| All right, Mark's thoughts there. | ||
| In New York, an independent caller. | ||
| Let's go to the House floor. | ||
| Congressman RoConna, Democrat of California who's been traveling around to Republican districts in recent weeks, had this to say when he offered a resolution to release the Epstein files. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, the American people, Republicans, Independents, Democrats, want the Epstein files released with the victims' identity protected. | ||
| Now, most people don't understand how this town works, so I'm going to try to explain this really simply. | ||
| Congressman Massey and I introduced a bipartisan bill to release all the Epstein files and to make sure victims were protected. | ||
| There are 10 Republican co-sponsors of that bill, including MAGA stalwarts like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, including Lauren Boebert, including Tim Burchett. | ||
| And we have the votes tonight to pass it. | ||
| But what happened is in the Rules Committee, they don't want to have this vote tonight because they know they're going to lose, because they know their own members want to vote for it. | ||
| What's even sillier is they have this non-binding resolution. | ||
| So I thought, surely we would vote on a non-binding resolution. | ||
| They don't even want to vote on the non-binding resolution in case Donald Trump gets slightly offended. | ||
| They don't even want the vote on the non-binding resolution tonight. | ||
| Now, the president is paying attention, not just because his favorite Congressman Thomas Massey is involved. | ||
| He's paying attention and he said, okay, let's release. | ||
| He directs the Attorney General Pamboni, let's release and ask the courts to release the grand jury testimony. | ||
| Here's the problem. | ||
| The grand jury testimony is largely about Epstein and Maxwell, not about all the rich and powerful men who abused, assaulted, and abandoned young women. | ||
| Those people are still being protected. | ||
| And by the way, the courts usually don't release grand jury testimony. | ||
| But you know what? | ||
| The president is hearing the American people. | ||
| And the president knows that if there's a vote tonight, this body overwhelmingly would vote for the release of the files. | ||
| Congressman Rokana on the floor late last night arguing that if a vote was held on compelling the administration to release those Epstein files, it would pass, that there would be enough Republican support. | ||
| That is what held up the vote over this Doge cuts package for hours as Republicans worked out how they would address this. | ||
| You heard from the congressman. | ||
| Instead, they came up with a non-binding resolution on this. | ||
| It would say that the files should be released, but again, it's non-binding. | ||
| The Speaker would not agree to a time for that vote. | ||
| So here's Chad Pergram with his reporting, Fox News producer on Capitol Hill. | ||
| Johnson, at 12.48 a.m. this morning, says there's no daylight between House Republicans and the Trump administration on handling Epstein documents, but does not say when, if the House will consider the resolution to release the Epstein files. | ||
| That's the non-binding one. | ||
| We're talking this morning about House approving $9 billion in Doge cuts. | ||
| It's the first round of a rescission procedure where they will go, Republicans will push through cuts identified by the Department of Government efficiency that was run by Elon Musk. | ||
| Joe in Tom's River, New Jersey, New Jersey, Democratic Caller. | ||
| We're getting your reaction to these two headlines. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, what happened to the Democratic Party? | |
| It is terrible what happened to the Democratic Party. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| You have Keem Jeffries on stage talking for hours against the president that's in office. | ||
| And it's terrible. | ||
| All these channels push hatred towards the president. | ||
| They don't work together. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| The Democratic Party, all they do is put the president down and work against the president. | ||
| It's terrible. | ||
| It really is. | ||
| They have cuts. | ||
| Clinton put cuts on what's going on with the spending. | ||
| Nobody said nothing. | ||
| Obama put cuts against the spending. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Oh, everybody was for it. | ||
| Now, because Trump has a Doge that is going, is trying to cut all this wasteful spending, and they should. | ||
| It's terrible. | ||
| It is so terrible. | ||
| And they think that the Democratic Party thinks that the American people are stupid because they sit there and spew all lies. | ||
| And it's terrible. | ||
| Just like this channel spews lies, okay? | ||
| And they don't work with the people. | ||
| PBS shouldn't have, they shouldn't be paid, okay? | ||
| They shouldn't have that because it's a biased channel. | ||
| Just like Chip Roy said, they didn't do nothing. | ||
| They didn't do nothing for the people in Texas. | ||
| They didn't warn them. | ||
| Those poor kids died. | ||
| Nobody did nothing. | ||
| And now they go out and promote this stuff because these kids died. | ||
| All these people died. | ||
| And it's terrible. | ||
| When is the Democratic Party going to stop it? | ||
| Because they think we are dumb. | ||
| And I was a Democratic person. | ||
| I was Democratic. | ||
| I was a union member. | ||
| It is disgusting what they are doing. | ||
| Just like all these biased channels. | ||
| Joe, when did you decide not to be a Democrat anymore? | ||
|
unidentified
|
When Bush went into office, okay, I didn't like what he did. | |
| He put amnesty on illegals coming here into this country. | ||
| He tried to give them licenses. | ||
| It is disgusting that this goes on. | ||
| I mean, these people are illegal. | ||
| Okay, Joe there in New Jersey with his thoughts. | ||
| As he mentioned, this rescission package, $9 billion in Doge cuts, was approved by the Senate, 51 to 48. | ||
| They lost two Republicans in that vote early Thursday morning. | ||
| And then the House approved it early this Friday morning, 216 to 213. | ||
| Again, two Republicans, Mike Turner of Ohio and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, they voted no. | ||
| The president slated to sign this today before the Friday midnight deadline. | ||
| Most of the cuts, 8 billion, are for foreign assistance programs, and then 1.1 billion is for public broadcasting. | ||
| The Wall Street Journal and New York Times reports that this codifies about 5% of the $190 billion in Doge that was identified by Doge earlier this year under Elon Musk. | ||
| So this is 5% of that $190 billion. | ||
| And it represents one-tenth of one percent of the nation's $7 trillion federal budget. | ||
| The last time the rescission procedure was used, according to the papers, was in 1999. | ||
| It's a rare procedure, and that was under President Bill Clinton. | ||
| Now, yesterday, the budget director for the White House, Russ Vogt, told reporters more rescission packages could be soon headed to Capitol Hill. | ||
| You know, with regard to rescissions, we wanted to see how this vote was going to go. | ||
| It was really important for it to be successful. | ||
| We're on the one-yard line in the House. | ||
| We need to get across that one-yard line. | ||
| The critical vote was in the Senate. | ||
| We are very, very pleased with the passage of the Senate bill. | ||
| Our enthusiasm, the President's enthusiasm to send additional packages, we were watching closely about that first vote, and I think it's likely you'll see an additional package. | ||
| We're not here to announce anything on this front, but in terms of seeing whether this was a useful effort that was not a waste of time, it certainly has satisfied that threshold, and we'll see where we go from here. | ||
| The White House budget director promising more rescission packages coming to Capitol Hill in the weeks ahead from this Trump administration. | ||
| Now, on the floor earlier this week, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski argued that these rescission bills goes against the role of Congress in making cuts. | ||
| It is not that I don't think that we should be doing more when it comes to oversight of our budget. | ||
| It's not that I don't think that we should be doing more when it comes to ensuring that we're working to get our levels of spending down. | ||
| But I also think that we need to be doing more as legislators, more as lawmakers, more as senators when it comes to our own authorities, our constitutional authorities, when it comes to the power of the purse. | ||
| We do rescissions. | ||
| We do rescissions in our annual budget bills, in our own appropriations bills. | ||
| In fact, bills that we are working on right now as appropriators. | ||
| We've got a series of markups that are going to be coming up this week. | ||
| We had some last week. | ||
| We do this. | ||
| We look to provisions that have been included in the budgets. | ||
| We look to reprogram. | ||
| We look to rescind. | ||
| We do that as legislators. | ||
| There's a good reason, I think, that we haven't seen a successful rescissions package before the Senate in almost 33 years. | ||
| It's because we've recognized that, hey, that's our role here. | ||
| Lisa Murkowski on the Senate floor saying the rescission route is a run-around-run Congress, that they are responsible for spending under the Constitution and that they do these cuts when they take up the bipartisan appropriations process. | ||
| Senate leader for the Democrats, Chuck Schumer, called on the firing of the budget, the budget chief, that's the headline in the Washington Times yesterday after he advocated for this partisan spending process instead of having Congress fulfill its role in the appropriations process. | ||
| We're getting your take on this debate here in Washington. | ||
| John in Pennsylvania, Republican, we'll go to you. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| The reason that PBS and NRP lost their funding was because the DEOs, the two women were there, were nothing but liberal Democrats pushing by Joe Biden's agenda, like Steve Cobur. | ||
| The reason he's getting axed is the same reason. | ||
| He's not like Johnny Carson. | ||
| He's nowhere near Johnny Carson. | ||
| Nobody watches NBC. | ||
| Nobody watches PBS and listens to NPR. | ||
| We're not talking about 1960 and 70 anymore. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And as far as the Epstein thing was going on, there is more information in there about Bill Clinton, Bill Richardson, and the Democrats than there is about Donald Trump. | ||
| And if you think James Comey didn't write that birthday letter, then you're all a bunch of idiots because he's the one that put the shell formation on the beach. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And his daughter was there when Epstein was in jail. | ||
| She let the guy so-called kill himself, which that's a lie, too. | ||
| So I'm telling you, this is all crap by the Democrats. | ||
| We're $37 trillion in debt. | ||
| We don't need to be giving money away to a bunch of liberal broadcasting companies and some cobert guy that all he can do is trash Donald Trump every night. | ||
| All right. | ||
| All right, John. | ||
| Well, you and others may be interested in coming up on the Washington Journal. | ||
| Kate Riley is going to be joining us. | ||
| She's the president and CEO of the advocacy group for America's public television stations. | ||
| She'll be joining us on the Washington Journal. | ||
| Before that, though, we're going to talk to the Heritage Foundation's Mike Gonzalez. | ||
| He has testified on Capitol Hill in favor of these cuts to public broadcasting. | ||
| So we'll have those conversations here in the Washington Journal coming up. | ||
| James in New York, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, James. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Hi. | ||
| The propensity of hypocrisy. | ||
| What I am hearing is mind-boggling. | ||
| And I would like to issue a challenge to your Republican callers. | ||
| All of these cuts are going to affect you. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| In what way? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, the rural people, the nutritional assistant program, Medicare, Medicaid, the lack of public, we're talking about the PBS and NPR. | |
| People in rural communities will not be able to be notified when there's a flash flood. | ||
| You are, we are all in a rude awakening. | ||
| And my question and my challenge to one Republican caller on C-SPAN is the animus towards the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. | ||
| I'm going to make it very simple. | ||
| You have one party that wants to take away Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Rick Scott, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Florida. | ||
| And the other party does not want to. | ||
| I have been an actor since I was a child. | ||
| I get Social Security. | ||
| I get my pension. | ||
| Why is it that Republicans just want to take and destroy and enrich wealthy people? | ||
| Why is it that they only want to take what does GOP stand for? | ||
| In my language, it's grievance, opposition, and pessimism. | ||
| And we're not talking about those hundreds of girls, innocent girls that were raped. | ||
| And this goes for everybody. | ||
| Trump, Clinton, whatever. | ||
| I'm not saying they did it, but they were on the plane. | ||
| This means that the Republican Party that voted against releasing those files, they're all for it. | ||
| Don't they have daughters? | ||
| Don't they care about their children? | ||
| So my question to one Republican, just answer me this. | ||
| Would you like your Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid or the American Care Act, which is known as Obamacare, taken away from you? | ||
| Is your animus and evil just so hard? | ||
| You know what? | ||
| I feel like an ugly American. | ||
| All right, James, I'm going to jump in on spending cuts and Republicans' efforts to cut the federal budget in certain ways. | ||
| Washington Times front page features Eric Schmidt. | ||
| Eric Schmidt is just starting Crusade Against Waste. | ||
| After decades of talk, the senator delivers tangible spending cuts. | ||
| Senator Eric Schmidt told the White House Budget Office in January that he wanted to help it cut wasteful spending using a rare procedure known as rescissions. | ||
| Five months later, the Mississippi Republican was put in charge of ushering President Trump's 9.4 billion rescissions requests through the Senate, where there was some Republican resistance to the process and to the proposed cuts to foreign aid and public broadcasting. | ||
| It goes on to say that on Thursday morning, Mr. Schmidt was celebrating the Senate's passage of $9 billion of the President's requested cuts, which will codify 5% of the $190 billion in savings the Department of Government Efficiency says it has identified. | ||
| Here is Senator Schmidt on the floor from Tuesday talking about the rescission package. | ||
| While the actual American people are working long hours to afford groceries and gas, their government has been writing checks to left-wing propaganda outlets and spending billions overseas on countries that hate us. | ||
| Enough is enough. | ||
| This rescissions package is our opportunity to drain the swamp, not just in theory, but in practice. | ||
| It claws back nearly $10 billion in spending, $9 billion, including billions for radical NGOs, hundreds of millions for foreign interests, and yes, the taxpayer funding that props up corrupt and ideologically captured institutions like NPR and PBS. | ||
| And let's talk about that for just a minute, because no part of this debate has sparked more hysteria and more outrage from the left than defunding so-called public broadcasting. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because they know exactly what's at stake. | ||
| NPR and PBS are not neutral media outlets. | ||
| They are the closest thing we've ever had in this country to Pravda. | ||
| They are the arms of the left-wing activist class, taxpayer-funded platforms for political propaganda masquerading as journalism. | ||
| Senator Eric Schmidt from Mississippi Republican, who spearheaded the effort to get this first rescission package through Congress, it's heading to the president's desk finally after a delay over releasing the Epstein files. | ||
| The president expected to sign this legislation into law today ahead of a midnight deadline. | ||
| Take a look at the history of public television. | ||
| In 1952 is when the first public station went on air. | ||
| In 1955, Alabama Public Television launched the first statewide broadcast network. | ||
| Congress established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 1967, establishing the system that we have today. | ||
| More than 350 stations across the United States exist right now, and it serves more than 97% of the country. | ||
| Steve, in Florida, independent, what's your take on this debate? | ||
|
unidentified
|
First thing I'd like to say is, why didn't the Democrats release Epstein? | |
| Second thing, I got a few things here. | ||
| PBS. | ||
| It's all about fraud, waste, and abuse. | ||
| And also, it has to do with being biased. | ||
| The CEO, I don't know whether it's true. | ||
| There's been pictures of her with a hat for Biden. | ||
| I'm against PBS. | ||
| I don't want PBS. | ||
| It's not the same as it was in the 50s. | ||
| Okay, I'm for I voted for Barack Obama twice. | ||
| I was very upset with him. | ||
| I don't believe him. | ||
| I don't believe most of everything that the Democrats say. | ||
| I do believe most of everything that Trump says. | ||
| I didn't vote for Trump the first time. | ||
| I didn't vote for Hillary either. | ||
| Trump is helping all Americans, the poor, the middle, and the rich. | ||
| Trump is like on an airplane. | ||
| You got to get the air mask for yourself. | ||
| Trump's saving America first. | ||
| Then he'll help the other countries. | ||
| And why didn't, oh, yeah. | ||
| Correct me if I'm wrong. | ||
| Are you telling me now that they're going to put it in the Senate for the vote for the Epstein file? | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| What they agreed to, excuse me, yesterday in the House is a non-binding resolution that the Speaker at any point can call to the House floor, although he would not commit to when he will do that. | ||
| So that's how they resolve that. | ||
| Democrats, there was a bipartisan proposal by Roe Conna and Thomas Massey that would compel the administration to release the Epstein files. | ||
| And the Republican leadership did away with that. | ||
| RoConna argued on the House floor that they had the votes, that there were enough Republican and Democratic votes to compel the administration to do so. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, this is my thought. | |
| Trump is a genius because Trump is going to put it on the House floor where they have to vote for it. | ||
| The Democrats don't want it and Republicans don't want it. | ||
| So we'll see if it gets passed. | ||
| And like I said, why didn't the Democrats release Epstein file for four years? | ||
| The Biden administration, why didn't they do it? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Matthew, Dearborn, Michigan, Democratic caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| I'd like to say how bad this Doge thing was implemented. | ||
| Now, I understand the new administration can come in and they have a plan because the whole thing was to lower our debt. | ||
| That was the idea behind this. | ||
| And they started out they were going to get trillions. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, they only got $150 billion. | |
| And this $9 billion that they're debating right now is nothing but a distraction at the incompetence of the Congress and the Senate. | ||
| They're horrible. | ||
| They should have never cut the taxes because you're never going to bring down the debt unless you do two things. | ||
| You got to raise the taxes and you have to cut some programs. | ||
| Well, they never want, they always say if we cut the taxes, oh, it's going to ruin our economy. | ||
| That's false. | ||
| Our economy is steamrolling. | ||
| It can absorb this. | ||
| This country's got more money than anywhere else in the world. | ||
| And there's the big lie to the people. | ||
| Well, Matthew, they spend money, and then they distract people by saying, by saying, oh, we're spending the money overseas or we're spending it on TV, which is baloney. | ||
| You know, we have poor people here. | ||
| It's true we have poor people here, but we have ungodly rich people and ungodly rich corporations that can afford to pay more taxes. | ||
| And that's the only way we'll ever get to making a dent in our debt. | ||
| And Matthew, on that point, the other side of the ledger, you said you have to cut some programs. | ||
| Budget analysts will say it has to be cut on the mandatory side, which is Social Security and Medicare. | ||
| Those two programs, which makes up, along with the Defense Department, the largest of the nation's budget. | ||
| So would you agree? that you've got to take a look at Social Security and Medicare and the Defense Department. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There is the lie that I think. | |
| They say, oh, your Social Security and that has got to be cut. | ||
| NVIDIA's a $4 trillion has a $4 trillion worth. | ||
| And most of that worth they got from probably lower taxes or some kind of federal benefit. | ||
| I mean, you think about that. | ||
| They're worth $4 trillion. | ||
| And there's other trillion-dollar worth companies. | ||
| They can afford to pay more. | ||
| That's where they're not telling the truth. | ||
| That's where the con remember, the Congress and the Senate, they're blaming all these programs, but they're incompetent. | ||
| They've ceded all the power to the president somehow. | ||
| That's another thing they've done that's just awful. | ||
| They need to step up. | ||
| I mean, that's the way our government should work. | ||
| All right, Matthew. | ||
| Bill, Wyoming, Michigan Independent. | ||
| It's your turn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| These pen love the program. | ||
| It's morality. | ||
| It's morality. | ||
| This country has forgotten what it means to have some leadership with some direction for the country. | ||
| Like my favorite, Mr. Carter, President Carter, late President Carter, a family man with direction. | ||
| A pox on both the houses that they call Congress right now is absolutely abysmal. | ||
| Our country can do so much better. | ||
| Has anybody ever thought about resource-based economy as a future? | ||
| Capitalism sucks. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I've been around for 76 years, and I've been around the block. | |
| I'm a veteran. | ||
| And I truly don't give a rip for the Republicans or the Democrats as far as what they're selling because nobody is selling a solution. | ||
| All right, Ben. | ||
| I'm going to move on to Sam, who's in Florida, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Sam. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I've been on hold so long, I've almost forgotten what Nation called in for. | ||
| But first of all, I am in favor of the Doge cuts. | ||
| It's basically the situation with the public broadcasting, which is extremely biased. | ||
| It was very obvious from the hearings when the two ladies were in front of the committee. | ||
| It was pointed out that of the 98 employees of one of the two organizations, all 98 were registered Democrats. | ||
| You cannot tell me that's unbiased. | ||
| Also, in regard to Medicaid, the only cuts to Medicaid are not going to be the rural people. | ||
| It's going to be the young men and young ladies who are able to work and they're being asked to do 20 hours of work or community service. | ||
| That's not too much at all to do rather than just sit at home. | ||
| People who are in their elderly age are not being cut. | ||
| As to the Epstein situation, I too would like to see an opening to a hearing, a press conference from Pam Bondi. | ||
| She made statements and she does need to back them up. | ||
| They're doing a backwalk. | ||
| I will agree with that. | ||
| And the only thing I have is it's also odd that the Democrats are coming out now, all of a sudden pushing when they had 40 years when they were on office and never said a word. | ||
| All right, Sam. | ||
| Sam, we're Republican there in Florida. | ||
| Let's listen to the PBS president, Paula Kerger. | ||
| She was asked about what happens if PBS loses federal funding and if private funds could make up the difference. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Over the years, we've worked very hard in what we see as what has been a tremendously successful public-private partnership. | |
| We look to match the money that the federal government contributes actually by seven to one. | ||
| And in communities where there are more resources, those stations are more aggressive and successful in the way that they've been able to raise money. | ||
| But in small communities, the resources just don't exist. | ||
| The other thing that people don't always understand about PBS is not only are we not a network, every station is individual. | ||
| They make their own decisions of what they broadcast. | ||
| They create their own content. | ||
| But we also provide, we are part of the infrastructure for the emergency alert system in this country. | ||
| Public safety is a big piece of the work that we do. | ||
| And if you have been in an emergency, you know that the cellular service often fails because of it being overloaded. | ||
| Broadcast is one too many. | ||
| And so there are the alerts that people see that they can watch on their stations that they get through their phones. | ||
| Many of that is fed by us, as well as the emergency alerts that we feed using our broadcast technology directly to emergency responders. | ||
| And so, you know, we take seriously our role as a public service organization. | ||
| All of that is at risk. | ||
| If stations start to go off the air, that means that parts of the country will not have access to that kind of over-the-air coverage that in moments of great stress are really profoundly important. | ||
| The PBS CB, the PBS CEO in an interview with Scripps, Andrea, in La Mesa, California, an independent, were talking about the Congress approving this $9 billion in Doge cuts. | ||
| It's headed to the president's desk. | ||
| The vote delayed over a debate over releasing the Epstein files. | ||
| Your take. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Can't leave it's 5 a.m. on the West Coast, and I'm calling a new C fan. | ||
| I never thought this would happen. | ||
| But some things are just too important to be quiet about. | ||
| So being a Reserve Independent, I grew up in a Democratic household. | ||
| And, you know, I voted that way when I was younger. | ||
| And I still am less leaning, especially socially. | ||
| But to your point, with these cuts, they're so dangerous. | ||
| And I can't believe I heard an independent say that Trump is trying to help poor people and rich people. | ||
| Literally, these cuts are taking away Medicaid and funding for preventative care services. | ||
| And I'll use a personal anecdote. | ||
| I had to receive Planned Parenthood when I was in between jobs. | ||
| I had started a new job and I could not understand why things weren't exactly, you know, right in a certain area. | ||
| But I went into Planned Parenthood because I didn't have health insurance and I was able to be seen because of these taxpayers' safety nets, things that I paid into as a working person. | ||
| I was able to receive services that made sure I didn't have cancer. | ||
| Do they understand what is happening here? | ||
| Do they understand that Republicans are being very self-serving and giving tax breaks to their donors who don't need them, to billionaires, to tech bros who do not need these tax breaks? | ||
| And Chip Roy should be ashamed of himself. | ||
| Like, honestly, with the amount of uneducated Republican callers I've heard while I've been on hold, who have very loud opinions about things they don't understand. | ||
| Chip Roy represents San Antonio and Kerrville, the area that just dealt with disastrous floods and deadly floods. | ||
| They are still trying to recover dead bodies. | ||
| And he wants to cut public radio funding so that way they further don't know when their flooding is happening. | ||
| They haven't even upgraded their flood system. | ||
| Texas takes in a lot of federal funding because they don't have pay taxes. | ||
| And he wants to cut these access to services for people in his area. | ||
| How does that make sense? | ||
| He really should be ashamed of himself. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Andrea's thoughts there in California. | ||
| I'll follow up on what she said. | ||
| The House passed crypto bills yesterday before they moved on to these Doge cuts. | ||
| The House of Representatives advanced three bills Thursday aimed at setting up regulations for cryptocurrencies, continuing the industry's recent momentum on Capitol Hill. | ||
| In a bipartisan 308 to 122 vote on Thursday, the House passed a bill laying out standards for stable coins, a popular type of digital currency whose price is pegged to the dollar or other traditional currency. | ||
| The bill called the Genius Act passed the Senate in June and is now poised to become the first ever U.S. piece of crypto legislation once President Trump signs into law, as he has indicated he would. | ||
| The House also passed a broader bill laying out rules for crypto exchanges, brokers, and issuers. | ||
| The legislation determines which regulators will oversee the digital asset market and will now go to the Senate. | ||
| Alan in Brooklyn, Democratic caller. | ||
| Alan, good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and thank you. | |
| I want to try to be as factual as I can be here because I think most of your listeners and most college-educated people don't know an essential fact about broadcasting in America. | ||
| Whether we are talking about commercial or public broadcast stations, all licenses for over-air broadcasting are given away basically for free. | ||
| There is no purchase like the cost of buying a piece of land or renting a piece of land. | ||
| There are administrative or application fees or renewal fees, but there's no actual price paid to the government for the value of that broadcast real estate. | ||
| So we have two categories of users of that real estate. | ||
| One of them can make a profit on it, commercial stations like Fox, which even Republicans must admit is not objective. | ||
| It has its own bias. | ||
| And they believe that because it is not getting direct operating aid funds from the government, that somehow that bias is justified because they're getting no aid cash from the government. | ||
| But based on the fact that they are allowed to advertise and make a maximum profit, it's the difference between giving away two equal acres of land. | ||
| One to someone who's being told you can operate a senior citizen center here to feed meals to the poor. | ||
| And the other one is told you can use this land for any profit-making venture you'd like to. | ||
| Who is getting a greater block of aid given away by the government? | ||
| The property owner that's being told he can earn maximum profit on his land. | ||
| That's what Fox is doing. | ||
| FOX is getting far more value from the government for free, just by being able to advertise and then state all its opinions freely on its channel, than all of the NPR and PBS stations are in any given year, because they're getting a fraction in cash of the value that the commercial biased stations are allowed to earn on property given to. | ||
| them by the government for free. | ||
| All right, Alan, I jump in, and you'll be interested in the conversation coming up here. | ||
| Later on in the Washington Journal, Kate Riley, the president and CEO of the advocacy group for America's public television stations, she'll join us to discuss her group's opposition to those funding cuts. | ||
| But first, we'll talk with the Heritage Foundation's Mike Gonzalez about Congress's effort to cut $9 billion in funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting. | ||
| Stay with us. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
American History TV, Saturdays on Z-SPAN 2, exploring the people and events that tell the American story. | |
| This weekend, as the nation prepares to celebrate its semi-quincentennial, American History TV begins a year-long series, America 250, on the American Revolution and its impact on the country. | ||
| This weekend at 11 a.m. Eastern, we look back at how the April 1775 battles of Lexington and Concord led to the larger outbreak of war in Britain's American colonies with Citadel professor David Preston. | ||
| At 4 p.m. Eastern, historian Claire Hoffman, author of Sister Sinner, talks about the rise and fame of evangelist Amy Semple McPherson, along with her mysterious 1926 disappearance that launched a month-long investigation and a nationwide media frenzy. | ||
| Then, at 5 p.m. Eastern, military historian Harry Labor on General Andrew Jackson and the 1815 Battle of New Orleans. | ||
| And at 10:15 p.m. Eastern, a look back on July 20th, 1969. | ||
| One fall fifth for man. | ||
| One diamond leaf for man. | ||
| Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first humans to set foot on the moon. | ||
| Watch a pre-launch interview with the two moonwalkers and Michael Collins, who piloted the command module Columbia, followed by a NASA film documenting the Apollo 11 mission from launch to the astronauts' return to Earth. | ||
| Exploring the American story. | ||
| Watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. | ||
| As 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. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We are speaking to the country. | |
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Back at our table this morning is Mike Gonzalez, Senior Fellow with the Heritage Foundation. | ||
| He's testified about public broadcasting cuts and this rescission package. | ||
| This is $9 billion worth of Doge cuts of the $190 billion identified by Doge. | ||
| Why are you in support of this? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, I'm very much in support. | |
| I think it's a great day for the American taxpayer. | ||
| It's a great day for conservatives. | ||
| Conservatives for 50 years have been asking for the CPB to be defunded. | ||
| We have charged for public broadcasting, which collects the money appropriated by Congress and distributes it to NPR, PBS, and hundreds of public television radio and television stations. | ||
| So we have said for 50 years that it is biased. | ||
| From the point, from the moment that LBJ signed the Public Broadcasting Act in 1967, every Republican president in Congress has tried to do this. | ||
| You know, we use the word historic for many things, a catch in the end zone, a home run. | ||
| This is truly historic because what Scalia and Newt Gingrich and Ronald Reagan, giants, tried to do and failed, Trump has accomplished. | ||
| So let's not lose sight of what happened last night, well, this morning actually, and it's going to happen later today in the White House when the president signs his bill into law. | ||
| The New York Times reports this morning that NPR and PBS would survive. | ||
| Only a small percentage of their funding comes from the federal government, but the cuts would force many local stations to sharply reduce their programming and operations as early as this fall. | ||
| Many public broadcasters receive more than 50% of their budget from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. | ||
| So New York Times saying that this won't hurt NPR and PBS because they don't get a lot of money anyway from this corporation public broadcasting, but this is really about rural America, which is what the heads of those PBS and NPR have been arguing as well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So there's a lot of fake news in all that. | |
| First of all, I think PBS and NPR will survive. | ||
| If you work for NPR and PBS right now, I wish you the best. | ||
| You're going to have to compete now with everyone else, with Greta, with CNN, with Fox. | ||
| But you will survive and you will thrive. | ||
| You have a good membership model. | ||
| In fact, as Uri Berliner said yesterday, this is your Independence Day. | ||
| You can now embrace who you are. | ||
| You're woke, you're progressive, and you don't have to apologize for it anymore. | ||
| But the point that the New York Times makes, and NPR and PBS have been making this point, and supporters of them have been making this point about rural stations, is cynical. | ||
| Because NPR and PBS, every polling shows, it's a bi-coastal broadcaster. | ||
| It's followed by the elites, the college professor, the binary person with purple hair. | ||
| That is the typical consumer of NPR and PBS, not the rural folks at all. | ||
| Now they have discovered this. | ||
| They're saying, well, the rural stations are going to be hurt. | ||
| You know what they can do, Greta? | ||
| PBS and NPR can eliminate or cut down the licensing fees that they charge these stations because another lie in that, in what you just read to me, is that they give very little money. | ||
| Yes, by statute, CPV sends 30% to PBS and NPR and 70% to local stations. | ||
| But what happens then? | ||
| The local stations, 1,500 of them, turn around and send the money back for licensing fees, buying programming from NPR and PBS or GBH or whatever. | ||
| So the money that the local stations get actually goes back to NPR and PBS. | ||
| A lot of it, most of it. | ||
| I've looked at the, for the last few months, I've been looking at the programming schedule for these local stations. | ||
| Some of them don't run a single minute of local news. | ||
| So one of the arguments that we're making is this is the only business model left for local news. | ||
| No, they run GBH, they run WAMU programming, they run whatever NPR and PBS put out, they run the BBC, which is international, BBC World News, for three hours. | ||
| And some of them run an hour of local news or no local news if you look at their Monday to Friday schedules. | ||
| So let's really deal with the facts as they are. | ||
| I want to clarify one thing because C-SPAN is not a private network. | ||
| We get our funding from cable providers. | ||
| That's how we started. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, cable providers are private. | |
| Yeah, true, true. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, and you do very well. | |
| And you've shown that you can remain unbiased. | ||
| C-SPAN is a great example of something that can be done. | ||
| That NPR and PBS failed to do when we told them you're failing at this for decades. | ||
| They said, no, no, we're not. | ||
| We're not. | ||
| No, we're unbiased. | ||
| We don't take sides. | ||
| No, you did, and this is why this has happened to you. | ||
| Let's listen to an interview that PBS President Paula Kerger did recently with Scripps News, and I'll have you respond on the other side. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Over the years, we've worked very hard in what we see as what has been a tremendously successful public-private partnership. | ||
| We look to match the money that the federal government contributes actually by seven to one. | ||
| And in communities where there are more resources, those stations are more aggressive and successful in the way that they've been able to raise money. | ||
| But in small communities, the resources just don't exist. | ||
| The other thing that people don't always understand about PBS is not only are we not a network, every station is individual, they make their own decisions of what they broadcast, they create their own content, but we also provide, we are part of the infrastructure for the emergency alert system in this country. | ||
| Public safety is a big piece of the work that we do. | ||
| And if you have been in an emergency, you know that the cellular service often fails because of it being overloaded. | ||
| Broadcast is one to many. | ||
| And so there are the alerts that people see that they can watch on their stations that they get through their phones. | ||
| Many of that is fed by us, as well as the emergency alerts that we feed using our broadcast technology directly to emergency responders. | ||
| And so, you know, we take seriously our role as a public service organization. | ||
| All of that is at risk. | ||
| If stations start to go off the air, that means that parts of the country will not have access to that kind of over-the-air coverage that in moments of great stress are really profoundly important. | ||
| Mike Gonzalez, your response. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I watched what she said earlier when I was in the green room. | |
| First of all, I told Paula Kerger myself, I sat next to her at the hearing. | ||
| When she testified, she and I sat next to each other. | ||
| PBS puts out a good product. | ||
| They're not as biased as NPR, but they're still very biased. | ||
| The news hour is. | ||
| They're going to survive. | ||
| They're going to do very well. | ||
| They're going to belong more to people like Soros, liberal funders are going to be more important now. | ||
| However, let me address this point that she brings up about the weather forecasting. | ||
| MRC, the Media Research Center, which has been a great partner of Heritage's in this endeavor, I rely on their research a lot. | ||
| They looked at what Texas public media did during this horrific tragedy in Texas that we just lived through. | ||
| Not a lot. | ||
| In fact, very little, according to what they looked at. | ||
| They did not react at all. | ||
| They were sending out appeals for people to call their senator and congressmen. | ||
| They were not sending out weather alerts. | ||
| So whatever we can fund that, if that is what they want to do, we can fund that. | ||
| Or we can give it to another agency. | ||
| The U.S. government can give it to NOAA, for example. | ||
| I co-wrote a paper saying NOAA could do this if they want to. | ||
| FEMA, what will be left of FEMA could do this. | ||
| It doesn't have to be the CPB, it doesn't have to be NPR. | ||
| So, no, I think this is an argument that they have been using alongside the local news argument because they lost Big Bird. | ||
| When HBO licensed off Sesame Street in 2015 and now it's gone to Netflix, they lost the argument that it's for the children. | ||
| We have to do this for the children. | ||
| And then they went to, oh, no, we have to save local news and we have to save the weather alert systems. | ||
| As a former journalist, I was a journalist for almost 20 years. | ||
| It is actually, it's offensive for them to say that the taxpayer is the only business model left for local news. | ||
| It is not true. | ||
| And as shown by the fact that they don't do local news, they just take feed from NPR and PBS. | ||
| Mike Gonzalez is our guest here this morning. | ||
| He'll take your questions and comments on cuts to public broadcasting. | ||
| Melvin in Cedar Town, Georgia, Democratic Caller, good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I can know how much money does the Heritage Foundation get from the federal government? | |
| I already know they're getting money. | ||
| Zero. | ||
| How much? | ||
| That's a really good question. | ||
| Very quick, quick question, very quick answer. | ||
| Zero. | ||
| Where does the funding come from? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It comes from mostly individuals, by and large individuals. | |
| Actually, corporations and foundations account for very little of the funding. | ||
| So we have about, I think, I think we have about 600,000 members, or maybe 500,000. | ||
| I don't want them to. | ||
| It's over half a million members who donate money willingly to the Heritage Foundation. | ||
| I'm very happy that they do so. | ||
| I work very hard to do the job that I do because of the support they give us. | ||
| Thomas in Daytona Beach, Florida, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| I was going to ask him about funding and the bias that they have there at the Heritage, but that guy just asked that question. | ||
| So I'll ask him. | ||
| Since his last name is Gonzalez, is he scared to walk down the street worried about an IS agent going to pick him up? | ||
| No, but let's go back to your real question about the bias. | ||
| I am conservative. | ||
| I can embrace my conservatism. | ||
| See, that's the difference. | ||
| NPR and PBS from now on will be able to embrace their liberalism, their progressivism. | ||
| They no longer have to be woke and then say in the next breath, but we're not. | ||
| We're bipartisan. | ||
| We're very down the line. | ||
| They no longer have to do that. | ||
| This is Independence Day for them. | ||
| I am independent. | ||
| I can say I'm conservative. | ||
| I look at things through a conservative prism. | ||
| Very happy to do so. | ||
| Thanks for your call. | ||
| Morgantown, West Virginia. | ||
| Sally's a Democrat. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just want to know, I have a question for you. | ||
| What is so woke about classical music? | ||
| What is so woke about ballet? | ||
| What is so woke about opera? | ||
| What is so woke about programming that we cannot get in rural areas? | ||
| We don't have access to symphonies in rural areas. | ||
| This is the only opportunity that our young people have to be educated about music that our founding fathers listened to. | ||
| This is unbelievable to me that you would take this, rip this out of the rural areas where people and young children don't have the opportunity to listen. | ||
| And I'll tell you right now, there is no private group that is going to make money on providing this service to young people. | ||
| You've already cut the funding for education. | ||
| There is no opportunity for young people to be exposed to these arts. | ||
| Okay, Sally. | ||
| Sally, I'll have Mr. Gonzalez respond to your argument. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Sally, let me introduce you to Spotify or Apple Music. | |
| And if you don't want to shell out for that, you can actually online find free concerts, find free music. | ||
| There's nothing at all woke about ballet or opera or classical music, any of the things you mentioned. | ||
| I love them too. | ||
| What is woke is Drag Queen Story Hour, which PBS put on for children. | ||
| I invite you to go look, you know, Google it and see what was offered to young children at Drag Queen Story Hour. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| That is woke, and that is wrong to ask all American taxpayers, including conservatives, to pay for that. | ||
| That is now over. | ||
| We'll go to Greg, Glenn Allen, Virginia, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| i actually don't think nine billion dollars is enough you know i get up and go to work every day and i don't want my greg let me just jump in because this is the first round The White House has said that they're going to send more rescission packages, more spending cuts packages to Congress. | ||
| This is the first round, $9 billion, $8 billion of that for foreign assistance programs and around $1 billion for the public broadcasting. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, well, that's a good thing. | |
| Can I say something about the foreign aid? | ||
| Sure. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, so like I said, I get up and go to work every day, pay tax money. | |
| And I happen to know that a lot of money gets wasted in foreign aid. | ||
| A lot of money ends up in the pockets of corrupt politicians in foreign countries. | ||
| And we need to pay more attention to that. | ||
| I know foreign aid has some positive elements to it, but I just, people, I think Americans don't realize how much money foreign aid is actually ending up in the pockets of corrupt politicians in foreign countries. | ||
| Greg, how do you respond to viewers and others who say it's actually only 1% of our federal budget, foreign aid? | ||
|
unidentified
|
1% is a lot of money of what, okay, 1% is billions of dollars. | |
| And that's a lot of money, and that's a lot of tax money of hardworking people. | ||
| All right, Greg. | ||
| Mike Gonzalez, before you respond to him, I want to show you and have you respond to Senator Chris Murphy on the Senate floor talking about warning of these cuts to foreign aid and what it means for other countries, and then you can respond. | ||
| Trump is in the middle of a purposeful, relentless campaign to destroy, to destroy America's global information power. | ||
| The Trump administration just shut down the Global Engagement Center. | ||
| That is the capacity at the State Department to try to counter Russian and Chinese propaganda around the world. | ||
| Gone. | ||
| Just gone. | ||
| Global Engagement Center. | ||
| Bipartisan commitment set up years ago by myself and Rob Portman, supported by Marco Rubia when he was a senator, now just doesn't exist any longer. | ||
| The administration is dismantling the U.S. Agency for Global Media. | ||
| That's the umbrella arm that oversees our information programs around the world. | ||
| They laid off 92% of its staff. | ||
| Voice of America, the Middle East broadcasting networks, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, they are on track to disappear. | ||
| The arm of the VOA that combats Iranian anti-American information, gone. | ||
| 54 different radio frequencies operated by Radio Free Asia to counter Chinese anti-American propaganda, gone. | ||
| At the same time, China is opening up 80 new radio frequencies in multiple languages, including in those regions where America is disappearing. | ||
| We are handing the world to China and Russia by deciding to view American power only through a military lens. | ||
| And this rescues bill makes it worse by enacting billions of dollars of cuts to diplomacy, to economic development programs, likely to information programs, because we actually can't see the impact of all of these cuts. | ||
| Mr. Gonzalez, your response. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So first let me address Greg because he asked a fantastic question. | |
| Greg, I completely agree with you. | ||
| This is very small compared to what needs to be done. | ||
| We're $37 trillion in debt, Greg. | ||
| We're going to run out of money. | ||
| We've already run out of money because we owe $37 trillion. | ||
| Future generations are going to have to pay for this. | ||
| It is very misguided for us to continue spending. | ||
| So yes, we have to make cuts. | ||
| Greg's point that 1% is huge, is an excellent point, not just in absolute numbers, but if you look at discretionary spending, which is really what we look at. | ||
| So it's a much larger percentage of discretionary spending than it is of total spending. | ||
| For example, I think in 2018, the cuts that Trump asked for to the CPB, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, were like, I think 10% of the discretionary spending cuts that he asked for. | ||
| So yes, very, very important point. | ||
| As to Senator Murphy, he talks about soft power. | ||
| I wish what a lot of these programs that USIID did were soft power, but they were not. | ||
| They were the opposite of soft power. | ||
| They alienated conservative populations in places like Guatemala and Macedonia and Hungary and all over the world by pushing, by partnering with George Soros in many places where George Soros' foundation is the Open Society Foundation. | ||
| George Soros is a billionaire who's a supporter of very leftist causes, who's now going to become a big supporter, I predict, of NPR and PBS. | ||
| He's already given money to them in the past. | ||
| They were pushing things like euthanasia, the legalization of prostitution, the legalization of drugs, things that people really did not like. | ||
| And I traveled to these places. | ||
| I speak to their prime ministers, I speak to their presidents. | ||
| They complain to me bitterly about these programs and about the things they do. | ||
| What this does is it creates a disaffected population, and it is a gift to our enemies, like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, who are because people begin to turn to them. | ||
| And that is not good because these have real enemies of the United States. | ||
| So, no, it's not soft power, it's the opposite. | ||
| And obviously, it needs to be said, USAID has some really good programs. | ||
| So, I'm really happy that Secretary Rubio says that the things that did good will continue, and they're going to be rolled into the State Department. | ||
| If they advance U.S. national interest, then they're going to be continued. | ||
| And I think that is a very good thing. | ||
| But the things that harmed U.S. national interest, the ones that I just discussed, I'm very happy they're gone. | ||
| We'll go to Ann in Florida, Democratic Color. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, she's Ann. | |
| Good morning, Mike. | ||
| Mike, if somebody has a problem with a euthanasia program or a drag cream program, you know, that's none of their business. | ||
| And Trump may be able to tell Fox News what to say and what not to say, but everything else isn't going anywhere. | ||
| Funding or no funding, Trump isn't shutting anyone up or taking rights away constantly because it's a threat to his ego. | ||
| And MAGA are afraid of drag queens. | ||
| Republicans, I do have a question here. | ||
| Wait a minute. | ||
| Republicans say that this is what I voted for, but only 77 million Americans voted for money-grabbing, debt-raising, convicted felon Trump. | ||
| There are 350 American citizens. | ||
| No American Democrats would oppose waste or fraud. | ||
| That's not what Trump is doing. | ||
| If you're waiting for paperwork or immigration judge, you're not illegal. | ||
| Hundreds of photos of Trump with Epstein and teenage girls throughout the 80s and the 90s. | ||
| They didn't have Facebook back then. | ||
| So hundreds of photos exist with Trump, and that's why he's not releasing it. | ||
| And how do you know that, Ann? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Here's my question. | |
| Wait, I do have a question for Mike. | ||
| Why is the majority deciding to pass dangerous, ignorant bills at one in the morning? | ||
| All Republicans should be voted out, and protests around the country will grow for impeachment. | ||
| All right, and referring to the time of the vote. | ||
| So the Senate passed this around 2.30 a.m. on Thursday. | ||
| This $9 billion in Dogecuts. | ||
| And then the House passed it last night, excuse me, early this morning around 1 a.m. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So good morning, Ann, and thank you for your question. | |
| I'm not necessarily against these things that you mentioned. | ||
| I am against euthanasia. | ||
| And I don't want Drag Queen's Story Hour to be shown to young children that are impressionable. | ||
| But that's not really what I'm against. | ||
| I'm against taxpayer funding of that, extorting money from the American taxpayer to pay for that. | ||
| These are not among the enumerated powers of the Constitution. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| So the second thing that you asked, and that's a very good question. | ||
| Again, you asked good questions. | ||
| Why are these votes being taken at 2 a.m. and 1 a.m.? | ||
| Because the Democrats offered a bunch of amendments ad infinitum that they knew were not going to go anywhere. | ||
| That was on the Senate side. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That was on the Senate side. | |
| And they pushed the vote till 2 a.m. | ||
| Senator Thun, the majority leader, could have called an end to that instead being a nice guy, perhaps too nice, and the Minnesota nice up in the Northwest and in the upper Midwest. | ||
| I think it's from South Dakota. | ||
| South Dakota. | ||
| Allowed these amendments to happen. | ||
| Last night, the same thing in the rules committee. | ||
| There was a big brouhaha over the thing that you just mentioned, abstain. | ||
| It's the first time in my life I said the word in public because I don't look into it. | ||
| It's not one of the things that I study. | ||
| But I have noticed, because I testified in a House subcommittee this Wednesday, that liberals are using this now relentlessly as a wedge issue. | ||
| And they did it again last night. | ||
| That's why the vote was taken as late or as early as it did. | ||
| So good question. | ||
| And I'm very happy I was able to answer it. | ||
| We'll go to Don next, who's in California, Republican. | ||
| Good morning to you, Don. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| When I hear PBS and NPR and stuff talk about how they serve the rural communities of America, I have to laugh. | ||
| I grew up in a rural community. | ||
| I never once listened to NPR. | ||
| I never once watched PBS. | ||
| The PBS station that we had supposedly would barely come in because it was 60, 70 miles away in a big city. | ||
| We had, there's no rural PBS television stations. | ||
| That's a joke. | ||
| And also, all of these people, NPR, PBS, and such, they're unapologetically left-leaning and 100% in the tank with the Democrat Party. | ||
| 100,000%. | ||
| And they will not change. | ||
| Not one of them has said, well, hey, we'll balance our stations. | ||
| We'll put a conservative voice on there. | ||
| We'll have a Republican on there. | ||
| No, never going to happen. | ||
| Watch PBS because I do from time to time till I get so angry that I change the channel. | ||
| We are using tax money to push a political opinion that is opposite of what most Americans have. | ||
| It's horrible. | ||
| From Sesame Street to the PBS News Hour to everything, there is so many subjects that they push, so many things that they try to browbeat us into accepting that goes against our traditions, against our religions, against our beliefs. | ||
| But we're told that they're very smart and we're very stupid and that they're going to teach us. | ||
| And also, this Voice of America, didn't they just arrest a Voice of America guy for threatening to take an AK-47 and shoot a congresswoman? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| John, I'm going to have Mr. Gonzalez jump in, react to what you've just said. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Don is 100% on the money. | |
| They have just discovered rural communities, communities they have ignored for decades. | ||
| All of a sudden, they're using this. | ||
| It's the height of cynicism, what they try to do. | ||
| And again, if you look at these, the local stations in these places, they don't run local news. | ||
| They run the BBC, Three Hours of the BBC, the World Service, news about places like Nigeria and Bangladesh. | ||
| That's what the BBC World Service does. | ||
| So you're 100% right. | ||
| I don't know that anybody believed in this. | ||
| It was a Hail Mary pass that they tried. | ||
| But it was a cynical one to try to say, no, we're doing this for rural folks. | ||
| When in fact, every polling shows that they're listeners, they're people that cater to their audience, and they themselves are bi-coastal, Ivy League educated, live in big cities, not at all, you know, people who work on farms. | ||
| Ruth, Temple Hills, Maryland, Independent. | ||
| Good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning, everyone. | ||
| I've been listening to all of these comments, and I'd like to make just probably two. | ||
| One is about PBS. | ||
| All of my life, even when my children were young, they were educated by PBS, learning the ABCs and things of that sort. | ||
| And now that I'm an adult, I have learned so much about eating well and taking care of my health from PBS. | ||
| And I ask everyone listening to this station who are educated. | ||
| And I don't know what these people have against people with education, continue to donate to PBS and make up the Slack because it's a great, great program. | ||
| And the other side, you know, talking about foreign aid, and I hear a number of people talk about we're Christian. | ||
| This is a Christian nation. | ||
| If you read your Bible, it talks about the least of these and how we're supposed to help people who cannot help themselves. | ||
| It even tells us to tide, which is 10% of our income. | ||
| We're talking about less than 1% of this nation's income. | ||
| That puts food in the mouths of babies who are dying and starving all over this world. | ||
| And how can anybody be so cruel and sit down and eat breakfast this morning and not worry about a kid who's dying because of lack of it? | ||
| All right, Ruth. | ||
| Mr. Gonzalez. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Ruth makes very good points. | |
| Good morning to you, Ruth. | ||
| You're going to continue to, your kids will be able to continue to watch this because PBS and NPR are not going away. | ||
| They're going to do well. | ||
| I want them to do well. | ||
| I'm not like Catherine Maher, the CEO of NPR, that wants to stamp out opposite views. | ||
| I don't care that MSNBC and the New York Times exist. | ||
| I actually, I'm a consumer of NPR. | ||
| I listen to NPR every day. | ||
| Almost every day, I listen to the beginning of the news hour on radio at least. | ||
| So I'm a huge, I told Paula Kerger, the CEO of PBS, your product is good. | ||
| You're going to thrive. | ||
| So none of this is going away. | ||
| Second of all, you're right that USAID and foreign aid does do a lot of good. | ||
| And again, as I said, Secretary Rubio has said that those programs will not go away. | ||
| They're going to be folded into the State Department. | ||
| PEPFAR, as you saw, which is the Bush, proud member of the W. Bush administration, they created the PEPFAR program, which is AIDS in Africa. | ||
| That will continue. | ||
| That was taken out. | ||
| That was the amendment that was made in the Senate. | ||
| That's why the House had to vote again last night because the Senate changed the bill the House sent over. | ||
| So that survived. | ||
| And I actually agree with you. | ||
| So, yeah, we're in violent agreement here, you and I. | ||
| And I'll just pick up on what you're talking about. | ||
| To win the votes of Republican senators who initially objected, GOP leaders agreed to strip out a $400 million cut that Mr. Trump requested to the President's emergency plan for AIDS relief known as PEPFAR. | ||
| Ron, Selma, North Carolina, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Ron. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Morning, Ron. | ||
| We're listening to you. | ||
| Question or comment? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I got a couple of questions. | |
| One has to do with PBS and one has to do with USAID. | ||
| First question, Mr. Gonzalez, I've been in, I was in the military for over 15 years, traveled all throughout the hot spots in the 80s, Middle East, Central America, South America, Africa. | ||
| But going to the PBS question, the first question is, who's supposed to be watching over this? | ||
| There has to be somebody that should be held accountable for giving all this money to organizations who are leaning to one side. | ||
| Any 501c3 says they do not push a political agenda. | ||
| So I don't know how they're getting all this money and what kind of organization is PBS. | ||
| So let's take up that point about their tax status. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, PBS gets funded by money that not just money that Congress appropriates. | |
| PBS also gets money from foundations, from private donors, by selling tote bags. | ||
| Look, I agree with you. | ||
| First of all, I want to say thank you for your service. | ||
| It needs to be said every time. | ||
| Thank you for what you did for my family, for the country defending it. | ||
| Back to PBS. | ||
| Yeah, I think that was the problem. | ||
| You can't set up a system. | ||
| And at the beginning, Fred Friendly and all the other people who advised on how to set up PBS back in the late 60s, they said, well, this is going to be a problem because Congress is sending over money, but Congress cannot be telling journalists what to do or say. | ||
| So they had editorial independence. | ||
| At first, they could not do public affairs programming. | ||
| Then Supreme Court made a decision in the 80s, and they said, yes, they should be able to do public affairs programming. | ||
| And they had complete editorial decisions. | ||
| They could have done as C-SPAN has done and remained neutral and objective. | ||
| They did not do that, even though we warned them for years. | ||
| I started writing about, I wrote my first piece in 2010. | ||
| The title was Fire NPR, After the Fire of Juan Williams. | ||
| So for many, many years, they have been told you're biased. | ||
| They just scoffed in our faces and said, no, we're not. | ||
| Shut up and pay. | ||
| Well, this is what they got now because of this. | ||
| But they're not going away, nor do I wish them to go away. | ||
| I wish them the best of luck. | ||
| You just don't want taxpayers to pay for it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just, that's the only thing. | |
| That's really the only thing I thought that was a grave injustice. | ||
| And now this injustice has been resolved. | ||
| Brendan, Florida, Nicole, Democratic Caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning, and thank you for allowing me to talk. | |
| So basically, I got a couple of things to say. | ||
| So the first thing about the PBS. | ||
| So to me, and I'm in my 60s. | ||
| So I grew up always knowing about PBS, about Sesame Street, the ballet, the Nutcracker, and all those different programs. | ||
| But we really, as a minority, we really never watch them. | ||
| And honestly, when they say that PBS provides service to the rural area, as quiet as it's kept, I really think they're saying that they provide service to the minorities. | ||
| But at any rate, I mean, you should be used to this, and now you want to fight. | ||
| I mean, you cut African American literature. | ||
| Heck, you took God out of the church. | ||
| Every year, we got a debate on what kind of books are taught to our children in the school. | ||
| So that's my first thing. | ||
| Okay, as far as the foreign aid, absolutely, I'm a Democrat. | ||
| And let me tell you, cut it, cut it, cut it. | ||
| Because not only am I a Democrat, I'm a middle class. | ||
| And I've had to work for everything I have. | ||
| I don't qualify for programs because I make too much, but yet I don't make enough to take care of my family. | ||
| And at the end of the day, you still have to have two incomes in a family to make it. | ||
| And I don't think it's fair that all our programs get to be cut and we don't cut something that has nothing to do with us. | ||
| Foreign money, that ain't got nothing to do with us. | ||
| So absolutely, I'm for the cut. | ||
| I'm definitely for it. | ||
| All right, Nicole, you're the voice of the American taxpayer. | ||
| Very briefly, because I don't think you asked any questions, really. | ||
| Sesame Street licensed off to HBO in 2015. | ||
| PBS lost that talking point. | ||
| Now it's at Netflix. | ||
| They're making money because people, there is a demand for Sesame Street and the Muppets. | ||
| I don't watch it, but there is a demand for it. | ||
| And as to the question of how hard you have to work to have the standard of living that you deserve as an American and a hard worker, I'm 100% behind you. | ||
| It is an outrage that you're taxed to do things that are frivolous. | ||
| Now, I don't consider saving lives in dire situations in some places in the world frivolous. | ||
| But a lot of things that were done by USAID and our government were frivolous and politically intended. | ||
| And those are the things that I'm against. | ||
| Those are the things that have been cut. | ||
| This is all very good, I think. | ||
| Tony, in Florida, Pennsylvania, independent. | ||
| Tony, what's your take on this? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think it's a very interesting conversation. | |
| I think the guest, you know, he comes from a conservative heritage foundation that believes in not doing things run by government. | ||
| They want it all taken over by private interest and run in that way. | ||
| I think there are some benefits to that perspective, but I think we need balance. | ||
| My concern is that the, I know he's talking about PBS, but my concern is that there's a problem with news in America. | ||
| There is a problem with Fox. | ||
| There is a problem with CNN. | ||
| There is a problem with MSNBC. | ||
| And I would agree with the guest. | ||
| Again, I'm an independent. | ||
| I am not conservative. | ||
| I've never voted Republican in my life. | ||
| But I would agree with the guest. | ||
| There is a bias. | ||
| There is a slant. | ||
| Not left, though, corporate Democrat. | ||
| And I think that that's where we get really confused on the show. | ||
| But I do appreciate the guest wanting a more fair and balanced news programming. | ||
| And I would ask him to maybe talk about the fairness doctrine when news had to present both sides. | ||
| And I think that news should be almost like a public good, not like a traded commodity, and that the government would have an interest in providing a fair and balanced product. | ||
| Again, I think this is a really beneficial program. | ||
| I also think C-SPAN, again, you guys are sort of funded by cable monopolies, but I think we want to be clear about funding. | ||
| And this guy, when he talked about I have 500,000 small donors doing bake sales to be the Paritage Foundation, he's a little disingenuous. | ||
| And I think that C-SPAN, if they're going to have people on from think tanks, need to show the money. | ||
| And if think tanks want to hide that money because it's a foreign interest or some other entity, C-SPAN should not allow those think tanks on. | ||
| We need transparency. | ||
| We need accurate information. | ||
| And it's okay to be biased. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| It's okay. | ||
| It's okay if PBS wants to be biased. | ||
| We shouldn't fund it. | ||
| I agree with the guest. | ||
| But also, C-SPAN, when they have these think tanks come on, they need to dissect where the money comes from and not allow them to lie time after time. | ||
| These are. | ||
| Sorry, Tony. | ||
| I heard your point. | ||
| Can people find on your website who donates to the Heritage Foundation? | ||
| Is it public information? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We have 990s. | |
| You can go to that. | ||
| Tony, I was going to say your comments were thoughtful until the last, what you just said. | ||
| We receive zero money from the government and zero money from foreign entities. | ||
| So, yes, we're very transparent with who we are. | ||
| We do have like half a million members. | ||
| So you can just look at, you know, look at who donates to the Heritage Foundation. | ||
| I think the 990s will have some information on that. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| All right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I may be wrong. | |
| I don't really haven't looked at the 990s ever, I don't think. | ||
| Mike Gonzalez, Senior Fellow with the Heritage. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Gonzalez, for the conversation this morning. | ||
| We appreciate it. | ||
| Thank you for coming on and talking to our viewers. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Guena. | |
| And great to be here. | ||
| All right. | ||
| We're going to take a break when we come back. | ||
| Kate Riley, president and CEO of the advocacy group, America's for America's Public Television Stations, joins us to discuss her group's opposition to the funding cuts for public broadcasting. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2, exploring the people and events that tell the American story. | |
| This weekend, as the nation prepares to celebrate its semi-quincentennial, American History TV begins a year-long series, America 250, on the American Revolution and its impact on the country. | ||
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| At 4 p.m. Eastern, historian Claire Hoffman, author of Sister Sinner, talks about the rise and fame of evangelist Amy Semple McPherson, along with her mysterious 1926 disappearance that launched a month-long investigation and a nationwide media frenzy. | ||
| Then, at 5 p.m. Eastern, military historian Harry Labor on General Andrew Jackson and the 1815 Battle of New Orleans. | ||
| And at 10.15 p.m. Eastern, a look back on July 20, 1969. | ||
| One small step for man. | ||
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| Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first humans to set foot on the moon. | ||
| Watch a pre-launch interview with the two moonwalkers and Michael Collins, who piloted the command module Columbia, followed by a NASA film documenting the Apollo 11 mission from launch to the astronauts' return to Earth. | ||
| Exploring the American story. | ||
| Watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. | ||
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| Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org. | ||
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| Over a year of historic moments. | ||
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us this morning is Kate Riley, President and CEO of America's Public Television Stations, here to give us the other side of the debate over cuts to public broadcasting. | ||
| Kate Riley, let's just begin with your organization first. | ||
| What do you do and how are you tied to public broadcasting? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| So we represent the local public television stations that are all around the country, locally controlled in their communities, responsive to their communities. | ||
| And we represent their interests up here in Washington. | ||
| So that goes to talking to Congress, talking to departments and agencies, the Federal Communications Commission, trying to ensure that our local public television stations are secure and are able to have a productive future going forward. | ||
| Are you representing PBS and NPR as well? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, we represent these locally controlled stations. | |
| There's over 360 local public television stations around the country, and together we reach 97% of the American population with a free over-the-air signal. | ||
| Explain how they are funded. | ||
| How does it work? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| So public broadcasting is a successful public-private partnership. | ||
| So our stations receive federal funding. | ||
| Some of them receive funding from their states. | ||
| And then the majority of their funding comes from viewers like you, private donations. | ||
| We have found that this model is essential to ensuring service in the most rural areas of our country and to ensuring programming that is truly educational and different from things that are available on any other media landscape. | ||
| You said the majority of it comes from viewers like you. | ||
| How much? | ||
| What's the percentage from the federal government? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So it's really hard to speak in aggregate because each situation is so different for every local station. | |
| So I should say in aggregate, most of the funding comes from viewers like you. | ||
| For each individual station, that funding percentage is going to be different. | ||
| And we have a number of public television stations serving more rural and small communities where the federal funding makes up a very large portion of their budget. | ||
| And those are the stations that are most at risk of now going off air with the elimination of federal funding. | ||
| Okay, what are you hearing from the member stations across the country about these cuts? | ||
| Give us some examples of how they say it'll impact them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So we are hearing deep concern and people are very worried about how they're going to continue their services. | |
| I think one of the things that people don't realize about public television stations is that we are far more than just what you may see on TV or stream online. | ||
| These stations are community institutions that are dedicated to enhancing the public safety and education and community connections in their local communities. | ||
| That means that they do a significant number of on-the-ground events in addition to the programming. | ||
| And that kind of local work outreach events and the local programs that really highlight the unique interests and history of their communities, those are the things that are going to be cut first. | ||
| Those are the expensive things to create. | ||
| Those are the things that there's really no other entity willing to step in to create this local programming in small towns all around the country. | ||
| So we have many of our stations saying we are looking at layoffs, we are looking at what services we are going to cut, and some of them are saying we've only got a certain amount of time before we have to go dark. | ||
| This fall, correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, so starting October 1, there'll be no more federal funding for public television stations. | |
| That gives these stations less than two and a half months to try to figure out how to fix a pretty significant hole in many of their budgets. | ||
| And it's going to be real cuts to services and communities. | ||
| Advocates for public broadcasting are pointing to weather alerts as well. | ||
| That without this money, that could be in jeopardy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so we actually support public safety on a number of different levels. | |
| On one hand, we are some of the only broadcasters in more rural communities. | ||
| So when you have emergencies where the electricity has gone out, where the internet has gone out, people rely on their local public media stations for up-to-the-minute news and information about evacuation routes. | ||
| So there is that reach in terms of our broadcast signal. | ||
| But we also support public safety as a partner to FEMA and the integrated public alert and warning system. | ||
| We are one of the pathways that the wireless emergency alerts that are geotargeted and delivered to phones, we are one of the pathways that those alerts are distributed. | ||
| So it's critically important that if the internet goes down, those alerts can still be distributed over the broadcast spectrum. | ||
| And we have this tremendous broadcast infrastructure that the American people have been investing in, and we use it for many different types of public service missions, and public safety is one of them. | ||
| So as our small stations across the country start to go dark, that is no longer a nationwide system. | ||
| Those alerts will not reach into every rural community the way that they do now. | ||
| Let's listen to Chip Roy, Republican of Texas, on the House floor yesterday talking about what was happening in Texas during this flash flooding with the local broadcast to public broadcasting. | ||
| The fact of the matter is they know it's true. | ||
| And right now what they don't want to do is have the American people focusing on the Republicans in Congress who are doing the thing they sent us here to do, which is end wasteful spending, to stop the ridiculous spending of a bureaucratic government that has been weaponized against the people. | ||
| Dollars that are being used and wasted being sent around the world for $32,000 for transgender comic books in Peru. | ||
| That's how they want to use taxpayer money. | ||
| We're over here trying to make sure we're saving that money. | ||
| Instead of having $5 million to fund tourism or $6 million to fund tourism in Egypt or $2 million for sex changes and LGBT activism in Guatemala, why should the people of Texas be paying for that instead of paying to clean up the flood in Texas? | ||
| The fact of the matter is the people of Texas want their money to be used for the things they care about. | ||
| But we listened to the minority leader come to the floor and lecture us about the virtues of public radio and public broadcasting. | ||
| Yet nevertheless, the truth is it took NPR through Texas Public Radio 19 hours, 19 hours to post anything about the flooding on its social media pages after the floods hit in Texas. | ||
| What was NPR and Texas Public Radio doing that morning? | ||
| They weren't breaking to talk about what was happening in Texas. | ||
| They were running ads saying people should call Congress to fund fund them. | ||
| But the private stations in Texas were breaking to release reports and to tell people what to do because that's what private stations can do because they respond to the people because they're locally owned, they're locally run and they're not run by the bureaucrats from this town. | ||
| The fact is we're going to save money for the American people and end the absurdity of this leftist propaganda being put out under public radio. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Kate Riley, respond to the Texas representative there. | ||
| He represents Kerrville and what was happening the day of the flash flooding. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I work for public television so I can't really speak to what was happening on public radio on that day but I do know that our stations in San Antonio and Austin which are the closest to the Kerrville area have been doing extensive work with their community to try to support them through this disaster. | |
| What we have seen time and time again is that public television stations and public radio stations are a lifeline to their communities for different information. | ||
| We saw Senator Murkowski speak on the Senate floor earlier this week highlighting that during an earthquake that happened this week, a rural public radio station was one of the few resources that people in a small community had to figure out what the tsunami warning was, how to get to a safe place to ride that out. | ||
| So, you know, obviously all of our thoughts go to the devastation in Texas and I know that our stations have been working with their communities to help support the emergency response and their relief and recovery efforts. | ||
| Before we get to the next calls here, can stations make up this shortfall by fundraising and grants? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| We've seen numerous studies, including from the government accountability office, that there is no replacement for federal funding. | ||
| The reason that some of our stations are the only broadcast stations in these rural communities is because there is not a commercial incentive for other for-profit stations to be there. | ||
| There is not money to be made by investing in expensive infrastructure to carry signals over mountains and through canyons to serve some of these small communities that have small populations. | ||
| But as Americans, they deserve to have access to free educational content, and that's what we do. | ||
| So we really do not see a way for stations to fill this gap, particularly those stations in smaller and more rural areas. | ||
| We'll go to Jeff, who's in Cumberland, Tennessee, Independent. | ||
| Hi, Jeff. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Question or comment here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mostly a comment. | |
| I was a public school teacher, taught middle school, general science, and then high school biology. | ||
| I use PBS programming, ANOVA, and nature programming a lot in my classrooms. | ||
| Partly for one reason, the copyright laws were lenient and I could continue to use them. | ||
| But over the years, PBS, their television programs, their nature program became way too climate change focused and became less and less useful. | ||
| Of course, I'm retired now. | ||
| I don't use it. | ||
| But I have to say, I have to agree with the people about the bias in PBS. | ||
| And unfortunately, the science has become not as good as it used to be. | ||
| All right, Jeff. | ||
| Kate Riley. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, we hear from a lot of different teachers who use public media content in their classrooms. | |
| There's something called PBS Learning Media, which provides tens of thousands of digital resources for free. | ||
| And these are clips of different programs so that teachers can incorporate them into their lessons plans. | ||
| PBS Learning Media also has lessons plans and different digital objects and games as a way to engage kids in learning. | ||
| So we do deeply value our partnership with teachers and educators and parents because really parents are their kids' first teachers. | ||
| And so our resources are designed to make sure that families can access these resources, teachers can access these resources. | ||
| And what we've seen is that there's strong support for the American public for our work in education. | ||
| 88% of parents agree that PBS Kids is a safe and trusted place for their kids to consume media. | ||
| How do you respond to the arguments that the programming is biased and that taxpayer-funded taxpayer funds are being used for biased programming that conservatives don't agree with? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, we wake up every day to try to make sure that we are hitting the mark on programming that is down the middle. | |
| Now, I speak for the local public television stations, and they create programming that is responsive to their communities. | ||
| And they hear from their community advisory boards. | ||
| They have forums and town halls at their communities, and they really look at what does our community want to hear about. | ||
| And that's what they focus on. | ||
| Dion in McKinney, Texas, Democratic Color. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, good morning. | |
| I just wanted to somewhat correct the comment made by the previous caller concerning PBS's and NPR's reach into the rural areas. | ||
| Both of those organizations with their local stations do serve rural areas when he said they didn't. | ||
| And it was just a ruse used by the Democrats to raise concern. | ||
| That's not true. | ||
| They do penetrate into the rural areas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I lived in a rural area, stayed with my mother for a while, and she listened to NPR. | |
| She was 40 miles from the station, from both NPR and PBS station in Amarello, Texas, in the Texas Panhandle. | ||
| They had strong signals that reached into every rural community and in the country where the farmers lived. | ||
| So that's not true, what Mr. Gonzalez said. | ||
| PBS and NPR do penetrate into rural communities in rural areas. | ||
| The other comment I want to make is it's like everything else. | ||
| Waste is in the eye of the beholder. | ||
| So is biased. | ||
| We're all very comfortable in hearing what we want to hear. | ||
| Sometimes we need to hear what we don't want to hear. | ||
| I'll remind viewers, both conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans, that William Buckley used PBS for some of his programming for a few years, I believe, with Firing Line and other programs, if I'm not mistaken. | ||
| You get conservatives and liberals on PBS and on C-SPAN. | ||
| So we do, it's not one big conglomerate out there. | ||
| All right, Dean. | ||
| We'll have Kate jump in. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I couldn't agree more about the rural service that our stations provide, and I appreciate the caller highlighting that. | |
| We hear that from numerous viewers and supporters around the country that in many communities, their local public television stations are the only broadcast channel that they can receive. | ||
| And it's very important that people can receive a channel free over the air regardless of their zip code and regardless of their ability to pay. | ||
| Dave, Hale, Michigan, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning to you. | |
| And Kate, I want to ask you why there isn't some kind of franchise agreements that you could couple up with NOAA and the weather channel, recreational services for local. | ||
| All these things can be wrapped up at a certain time span that you're not just going to be taken off the air just in certain aspects of real priority items, you know, and Emergency services, whatsoever, whether it's the police or whatever it is. | ||
| If you elaborate on that, I appreciate it. | ||
| Yeah, thanks for the question. | ||
| So, you know, our local stations do partner with entities in their communities. | ||
| We have a number of partnerships with public safety officials to figure out how we can use our broadcast communications infrastructure to address their needs and the needs of the community. | ||
| You know, in California, we have a partnership with the California Office of Emergency Services to enhance the delivery of early earthquake warning. | ||
| So, we are able to reduce the time it takes to deliver an early earthquake warning from 30 seconds to one second. | ||
| That's a critical period of time as people prepare for an earthquake. | ||
| It allows fire stations to open their bay doors so the fire engines don't get trapped inside. | ||
| It allows doctors to pause technical medical procedures before the shaking starts. | ||
| So, those are the kinds of partnerships that we are pursuing constantly. | ||
| You know, in terms of franchise, I think the most important thing is that one of the unique aspects of our service is that we are local. | ||
| So, I would be concerned to see that local piece removed. | ||
| But any local partnerships that we are able to create, and I know that all of our stations are constantly looking at how we can better serve our community, what other organizations can we partner with, and how do we provide the best possible service. | ||
| We'll go to John in California, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, John. | |
| Oh, hi, good morning. | ||
| Yeah, I wanted to just comment on this idea of NPR and these types of organizations that they are not really set up to make a profit. | ||
| And when you look at, and I watch a lot of Fox News, CMN, MSNBC, and the reason I was doing that was I was teaching for us at a college level on American political science and so on and so forth. | ||
| And it took me a while to wake up to the fact that what people do when they pick a station to watch, whether it's the Fox News or an MSNBC, is they're trying to reaffirm their conclusions about what they believe. | ||
| And if you're operating a platform to sell information, a corporate for-profit platform, what you do is you try to grow your audience because the bigger the audience, the more you can charge for advertising. | ||
| So, you know, to bring that back to NPR and related public broadcasting, it's one way to get away from a company packaging their message in order to draw an audience that just wants to reaffirm its convictions. | ||
| Anyway, that's what I have for you. | ||
| All right, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that's a great point. | |
| You know, what we have found time and time again is that there is not a commercial incentive for broadcasters and other local media to be in these smaller, more rural markets. | ||
| And that is why our service is so important and why we believe so deeply in the mission of providing that service to all Americans, regardless of what size of a community that they live in. | ||
| And I think it's very important to remember that this total elimination of funding that Congress has passed, while being billed as defunding PBS and NPR, is actually going to defund these local stations. | ||
| Over 70% of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding goes directly to these local stations by statute. | ||
| There's no leeway. | ||
| So it is that funding the stations that is going to be so detrimental to the service and communities, particularly the more rural communities. | ||
| George and Maryland Independent, you're up next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Greta. | |
| I look forward to finally getting through and have nothing but respect for you, C-SPAN, and certainly PBS and public broadcasting. | ||
| We watch it every night. | ||
| And gosh, I've got so much to say here. | ||
| I was trying to write down a number of things. | ||
| But if I could get back to Gonzalez just for one second, and then I'll come back to you and Kate. | ||
| I think he referred to me as an elite. | ||
| And I'm a conservative. | ||
| I'm an independent. | ||
| I'm a John McCain Republican. | ||
| My sister was a missionary in Sudan and El Salvador. | ||
| So I've got a big interest in what goes on with this USAID and the funding that we give to other countries. | ||
| I'd like to say, too, to you and Kate that back in one of the Oval Office episodes when he was, I don't even like to say hosting Zelensky, it was such an insult to me and that office, I think, the way they treated Zelensky. | ||
| But he had accused Ukraine, Trump had accused Ukraine of starting the war. | ||
| Then when someone addressed him about that comment, he said, did I say that? | ||
| I didn't say that. | ||
| So for anyone to say that C-SPAN or PBS is biased, all C-SPAN and PBS does is share the truth with its listeners. | ||
| Now, you, your fellow hosts and hostesses on C-SPAN, the people on PBS, NPR, they're very comfortable in their skin. | ||
| What they're saying, I think they have no problem telling the truth and the true side of any story. | ||
| To watch Frontline and all the children's shows that my children watched and grew up on, I think it's a travesty to accuse your station and PBS of being biased when, you know, how do you try to be neutral when the president comes right out and says, did I say that? | ||
| I didn't say that. | ||
| When it was on television, right in the Oval Office on 600,000 stations of what he said. | ||
| All right, George. | ||
| Ms. Riley. | ||
|
unidentified
|
George, thanks for calling. | |
| And you are one of the 76% of Americans who believe that public television is an excellent investment and provides a good value. | ||
| So we appreciate that you are listening and watching. | ||
| And, you know, that includes 65% of people who voted for President Trump think that public television is either adequately funded or underfunded. | ||
| So the American people support this service. | ||
| And that's part of why it is such a disappointment to see Congress really moving against the will of the American people. | ||
| Keyport, New Jersey, Pat is watching there, calling on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Pat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I was moved to call when I heard you say that in a lot of these rural communities, the PBS station is the only over-the-air station that they have access to. | |
| We're a long way from having rabbit ears on our television sets. | ||
| How many areas, especially since the development of the internet, have been electrified? | ||
| They have cable, they have satellite, and aren't the cable and satellite companies required to carry the PBS stations on their channels. | ||
| So, you know, I think there really is a big difference between what we see in more urban areas and suburban areas in terms of broadband penetration and cell coverage and what we see in more rural areas. | ||
| And I think it's very important for all of us to really think about what people in other parts of the country are experiencing. | ||
| You know, we know for a fact that there are many communities throughout the country that do not have any other broadcast service. | ||
| I think there's, you know, New Mexico PBS serves a dozen communities that have no other broadcast service and wouldn't really be at a loss without that local information that they need in emergencies, whether it's wildfires or just what's going on in their local area. | ||
| So, you know, we have we also identify that over half of all Americans see themselves as cord cutters, not subscribing to cable anymore. | ||
| We are a service that is there for all Americans on whatever platform they choose to consume media. | ||
| But it is critically important that we provide that free over-the-air service in every single community in the country. | ||
| We'll go to Cheryl in Kernersville, North Carolina, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I just wanted to say that I think my observation is that the whole thing about bias is a smokescreen. | ||
| I believe that it's a thing where private equity wants to get into, get those frequencies. | ||
| People would be amazed if they knew how much of the media in this country has been taken over, excuse me, by private equity. | ||
| Also, they have convinced people in this country that we are blue or we are red. | ||
| We have chosen a sports team. | ||
| And it's just tearing this country apart. | ||
| But just follow the money. | ||
| Well, thanks for that call. | ||
| And, you know, we aim to be down the middle. | ||
| That is our goal every day. | ||
| And what we really appreciate is the local service that stations provide. | ||
| You know, I always think about Lakeland PBS, which is in Bemidji, Minnesota, very small town in northern Minnesota. | ||
| They are the only local nightly newscast in their region. | ||
| And that provides a critical resource for their community. | ||
| Tom, California, Democratic Color. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I was curious if you had heard of the passport program on PBS. | |
| I called when it was initiated and objected to it because it seems hypocritical that they should have such a program to try to extort people to purchase programming from PBS. | ||
| It's kind of like pay-per-view in a way. | ||
| I think, and also at the end of different programs like Christiano, I'm Poor and Antiques Road Show and science shows and things. | ||
| Poor guys, you know, poor inner city people. | ||
| I mean, I'm not poor, but there are poor people that can't afford that. | ||
| You have programs about the poor people. | ||
| And it seems hypocritical that you should try to sell them something that they can't afford to buy. | ||
| Do you understand the passport program? | ||
| Yeah, so all of our programming is free over the air when you watch it live. | ||
| And then it is also free for a period of time online streaming. | ||
| Now, unfortunately, due to negotiation of rights, digital rights, the global rights, streaming rights, we don't own these programs for an infinite period of time. | ||
| So we would gladly have more funding so that we could own more of our programming for an infinite period of time so that it could be provided free to the American public. | ||
| But that would actually require a much more significant investment from the government. | ||
| And of course, we have just seen the government vote to eliminate all of our federal funding. | ||
| But I will note the passport program is basically a membership level that gives you more access to programming beyond the normal time limits that the licensing is agreed to. | ||
| So, you know, it is, I think, about $60 a year. | ||
| So, you know, we do take it seriously, though, to try to provide as much programming for free for as long as possible on as many platforms. | ||
| But unfortunately, we are somewhat constricted by the fact that we don't have an unlimited source of funding to secure those ongoing rights. | ||
| We'll go to Chicago. | ||
| Jill, good morning to you. | ||
| Independent caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I'm so glad that you have done this program this morning. | ||
| It's a guy from Heritage Foundation, as always. | ||
| They tend to get my temper up, so I'm glad that I called during a calm period here. | ||
| I totally agree with an earlier caller that said that she thinks that the grab for taking away funding for PBS is because private equity wants to get access to their channel. | ||
| I found during an early part of my, I'm an old lady now, so when I was working, I frequently traveled. | ||
| I'm talking like three weeks, you know, in a small town someplace in the Midwest, in the Great Lakes region. | ||
| And that's when I found C-SPAN, NPR, and various PBS channels. | ||
| They were the best programming I could find. | ||
| When I got home, I wanted to see the same kind of programming. | ||
| Most of what I watch is science history and mystery programs. | ||
| I just kind of hooked on it. | ||
| They've been doing the Nova series on dinosaurs. | ||
| I've never been that interested in dinosaurs, but to see them depicted the way that they're currently, I mean, it's just, it's fascinating to me. | ||
| I can't even begin to understand why people always want to say, you know, this is biased, but what I like is not biased. | ||
| That's biased right there. | ||
| You know, I can't even watch Fox. | ||
| I can't even watch some of the other channels. | ||
| I like to go through if there's interesting news stories happen. | ||
| I do, you know, check out to see what MSNBC, CNN, the various regular channels just to see kind of how they cover it. | ||
| But when I come to look for information or to want to see some interesting program, it is always C-SPAN, NPR, and PBS. | ||
| I'm lucky enough in the Chicago area, we have three PBS channels. | ||
| So no one is going to convince me that they should have their funding pulled, that they shouldn't be getting more funding. | ||
| The educational value for kids, I used to do, I'm an environmental scientist, and I would frequently go into, especially these days, because we just think people, kids aren't exposed to science. | ||
| They don't teach science much anymore. | ||
| The reason I became a scientist is my fourth and fifth grade teachers were phenomenal. | ||
| You know, they like taught science, and that's what got me interested in it. | ||
| I am real concerned that young kids today are not being exposed to science. | ||
| All right, Jill, I'm going to have Kate Riley respond to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for that call. | |
| You know, there are so many great points there. | ||
| One of the things that we are very worried about is that as we see these small rural stations go dark, their licenses will be sent back to the FCC. | ||
| So if we are able to restore funding in the future, it is going to be very challenging to get those licenses back. | ||
| So I think there is a very real concern about this service going away and not being able to be revived. | ||
| And then your point about science education, one of the great programs that one of our stations runs, PBS Reno in Nevada, they have a program called Curiosity Classroom, where they actually have instructors and lesson plans from the station developed by the educational experts at PBS Reno that they partner with local schools to bring into the classroom. | ||
| And these are STEM-focused programs. | ||
| They are creating robots. | ||
| They are programming computer models. | ||
| It's incredible work, and it's something that the teachers and the schools in that area deeply rely on and think is adding incredible value. | ||
| And that's the kind of local partnerships that our stations provide that are at risk of going away with this elimination of funding. | ||
| And the elimination of funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting amounts to $1.60 per American per year. | ||
| This is a very small investment that provides a huge return. | ||
| Tom, Gibbonsburg, Ohio, Republican caller. | ||
| Tom, in Ohio, Republican caller. | ||
| Are you there? | ||
| All right, let me move on to Nicole, Hollywood, Florida, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Nicole. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I just want to say that I have been watching PBS for 50 years since I was a child. | ||
| I watched Sesame Street, Zoom, The Electric Company, and I've been watching PBS into my adulthood. | ||
| Now I'm in my 50s. | ||
| I love it. | ||
| It's just, there's no other programming like it on TV. | ||
| I watch Masterpiece Mystery, Frontline, PBS News, and it is not biased. | ||
| They tell the truth. | ||
| That's why I think Trump doesn't like it, because they tell the truth. | ||
| And it's just wonderful programming, and it would be sad to see it go away. | ||
| That's my comment. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thanks so much for that comment. | ||
| You know, we hear that from viewers every day. | ||
| And I think some of the things that are most resourceful in communities are the local programs. | ||
| You know, we have a number of programs at stations that really address local needs. | ||
| You know, in Iowa, Iowa PBS produces Market to Market, which is the longest-running program about the agriculture business. | ||
| And this is critical to Iowa's farmers to hear what is going on that affects their business. | ||
| These are the types of programs that our local stations provide that no one else in the media landscape will if we are not able to. | ||
| Duane in Heron, Illinois, Independent. | ||
| Dwayne, welcome to the conversation this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for taking my call. | |
| And I'm enjoying the program and hearing the balanced perspectives, hearing the Heritage Foundation, and now your current guests. | ||
| I want to bring up the subject of a former employee of public broadcasting, and that was Juan Williams. | ||
| And the thing that turned it for me through the years as I thought about public funding of public broadcasting was the treatment that Juan Williams received, very unfair treatment by public broadcasting. | ||
| And that turned it for me. | ||
| That made it where I thought that it should not be funded by the taxpayers. | ||
| And I just wanted to throw that into the mix. | ||
| And thanks for taking my call. | ||
| Well, thanks for that comment. | ||
| You know, I think Juan Williams was an employee of NPR in the situation that you are referring to, so I can't speak directly to that, of course, but I do know that our local stations work to create balanced programs every day. | ||
| You know, in Alabama, Alabama Public Television has a program called Capital Journal, which is a weekly news and public affairs program. | ||
| And it's renowned for showing balanced perspectives. | ||
| It's something that the Alabama congressional delegation deeply appreciates that there is a local program that is providing coverage of what is happening in Alabama and what's happening in the rest of the country that affects Alabama. | ||
| Bob is next for Kate Riley here in Boldenville, Massachusetts, Republican. | ||
| Good morning to you, Bob. | ||
| You're on the air with Kate Riley. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Gee, Kate, I had a question, but I was going to ask you about how you really think it's going to affect everything in the Midwest and stuff. | ||
| But listen to the callers, I got to ask one other question. | ||
| I watched NPR in Congress, and the leader of NPR, pretty nice looking woman, said that you weren't biased and that they weren't biased. | ||
| But they don't have anybody working in their offices that is a Republican. | ||
| Everybody working in their offices is a Democrat. | ||
| So I'm sorry, no matter what you think, that does make you biased. | ||
| If you can't hire Republicans to put up an alternating fact to you, because you wouldn't cover Hunter Biden's laptop, you wouldn't cover the retro collusion. | ||
| And you guys dropped the ball on about everything. | ||
| So to say you're not biased, pretty much a joke. | ||
| Have a nice day. | ||
| All right, Bob. | ||
| Hey, Bob. | ||
| Before you go, just listen to Kay Riley explain her group and who she represents, because you were talking about NPR. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| I represent the local public television stations around the country. | ||
| So I can't speak directly to what NPR does. | ||
| I appreciate hearing your comment, though. | ||
| Of course, what we know is that our local stations are focused on how can they best represent their community. | ||
| I know our station leaders are always in conversation with their community, hearing about what are the issues and what are the challenges facing their community, and how can we help be a part of those solutions. | ||
| Martin is next. | ||
| Holland, Michigan, independent caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I have two points I want to make. | |
| Number one, all these stations throughout the country, what is the expense level for each station and how can you compare? | ||
| What are the salaries compared station to station? | ||
| Also, with the technology that we have today, you go on TV and say, oh, CNN has so many viewers. | ||
| MSNBC has so many viewers. | ||
| And you keep on saying this is so vital to the royal community. | ||
| How many viewers do you have per station? | ||
| And how many hours of the day do these viewers tune in on? | ||
| I think that would be a valid study to go ahead and provide to show how important it is. | ||
| Okay, Martin. | ||
| Ms. Riley, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, thanks for that comment. | |
| You know, it is because our system is locally controlled and decentralized, there is no national stat that I can give you. | ||
| And those numbers will vary market by market. | ||
| And of course, the number of viewers you might have in a larger market is going to be different than the number of viewers you're going to have in a smaller market. | ||
| You know, I think over the course of a year, over 58% of all Americans tune in to PBS or their local public television station over linear television throughout the year. | ||
| So that's a pretty significant number. | ||
| A majority of the American people watch public television, and that's linear, not even to mention where they go back and watch via the app or via web streaming. | ||
| So, you know, what I would say is that our stations and many of our stations around the country are some of the highest ratings in their markets because they are the only ones providing local content that isn't available anywhere else. | ||
| Schenectady, New York, Bill is a Republican. | ||
| Welcome, Bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, hi. | |
| Thanks for taking the call. | ||
| First of all, I just want to make a comment that Ms. Riley is an excellent spokesman. | ||
| Too bad she wasn't running the whole show. | ||
| I know she's doing the local. | ||
| But I think just as an observation, we watch a lot of C-SPAN. | ||
| We watch a lot of PBS. | ||
| But the problem that I observe with it, what I think has gotten the ire of a lot of people, is the political programming. | ||
| For years, we watched McDeal Lerner. | ||
| Loved them. | ||
| They were very objective. | ||
| And I was watching the News Hour and various shows. | ||
| I think what turned it for me was in 2016, that campaign with Trump, I think there was such hatred for him. | ||
| I remember watching the, I purposely put them on to hear the results because I always regarded them as going to be fair-minded. | ||
| And about, I think most of them are crying openly about the results. | ||
| And I realized all of a sudden that this is not objectivity. | ||
| This is awful. | ||
| And it's kind of been that way since that time. | ||
| And it's kept me from watching any of the news shows. | ||
| I do love Masterpiece Theater and the various edification that they do bring. | ||
| But I think it's so prominent, especially in our climate for the political scene, that they should have worked on that a little better, I think, and perhaps we wouldn't be in the predicament we're in today. | ||
| But thank you very much. | ||
| You're a great spokesman. | ||
| All right, Bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thanks for your comment. | |
| And, you know, what I would encourage you to do is please share any feedback you have with our local stations. | ||
| And I think also with the news hour directly. | ||
| It's something that I always work to do. | ||
| Whenever I hear someone raise an issue of concern, we pass that along. | ||
| And we have found that there's a great deal of openness and conversation because the goal, the mission of our work is to be down the middle and balanced. | ||
| And so we are constantly looking for how we can do that better and better every single day. | ||
| Audrey, Hammond, Indiana, Democratic caller, Audrey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| I'm here. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Question or comment? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The PBS, this is, I'm in a rural area and I get PBS and I love PBS and I will get to continue to be funded because it has programs which give you biographical information, geographical information, and also it gives you health information. | |
| So please do not take away PBS. | ||
| Kate Riley, do you know what's next for the public broadcasting stations? | ||
| What have they talked about doing when they face this fall deadline? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| So, and thanks so much to the caller for that message of support. | ||
| You know, this elimination of funding, which has been passed by Congress and we expect to be signed into law by the president later today, will make Americans less safe. | ||
| It will reduce the educational resources available to kids. | ||
| And it will leave American history and stories untold because those stations will not be there to write and create those local programs. | ||
| So as we look to the future, you know, we are looking to restore funding in the FY 2026 appropriations process, which is underway at Congress. | ||
| But we do see that we will have at least a gap of funding because that process is unlikely to be completed by October 1, which is technically the deadline. | ||
| But we expect it will take several months more than that to complete that process. | ||
| So we are going to see at least a gap of many months where our stations are not receiving the funding that they have expected and planned for for the last two years. | ||
| Kate Riley is the president and CEO of America's public television stations. | ||
| Thank you for the conversation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Appreciate it. | |
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| We'll take a break. | ||
| When we come back, we will be in open forum. | ||
| Any public policy or political issue that's on your mind, we will take that here in the last hour of today's Washington Journal. | ||
| The lines will be on your screen. | ||
| You can start dialing in. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sunday on C-SPAN's Q&A, a discussion on preserving the legacies of U.S. presidents and the work their privately funded organizations do to achieve this, including through the Presidential Leadership Scholars Program, which launched in 2015. | |
| The participants talk about the relationship between their foundations and the government-funded presidential library system, which is overseen by the National Archives. | ||
| The idea of opening the George W. Bush Center on SMU campus was first broached. | ||
| There was some resistance among faculty and students. | ||
| That has totally changed. | ||
| And these days, now, President Bush, on occasion, may make surprise appearances in classrooms. | ||
| And I think that's a huge hit for a lot of the students, some of whom weren't born when he was first elected president. | ||
| The partnership is really what's important at all of our institutions. | ||
| And we all have a little bit of a different model at the Clinton Presidential Center. | ||
| The foundation and the library, we work very closely together on our programs, but the library staff really, a lot of them, focus on the core mission, which is to preserve and open the records of those eight years. | ||
| We do try to bring programming to either the Texas AM campus utilizing our network so that students have the opportunity to be exposed to those that embody the principles, the values of the 41st president, so that the legacy is living on in that way. | ||
| The foundations put additional money into these institutions. | ||
| Actually, they build the libraries, they build the edifices, and turn them over to the American people through the National Archives, which maintain these institutions. | ||
| But we continue to be involved and put money into them to make them what they are. | ||
| Preserving the legacies of U.S. presidents Sunday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's QA. | ||
| You can listen to Q&A and all our podcasts wherever you get your podcasts or on our free C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| Mike said before, I happened to listen to him. | ||
| He was on C-SPAN One. | ||
| That's a big upgrade, right? | ||
| But I've read about it in the history books. | ||
| I've seen the C-SPAN footage. | ||
| If it's a really good idea, present it in public view on C-SPAN. | ||
| 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 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. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We are speaking to the country. | |
| Nonfiction book lovers, C-SPAN has a number of podcasts for you. | ||
| Listen to best-selling non-fiction authors and influential interviewers on the Afterwords podcast and on QA. | ||
| Hear wide-ranging conversations with the non-fiction authors and others who are making things happen. | ||
| And BookNotes Plus episodes are weekly hour-long conversations that regularly feature fascinating authors of non-fiction books on a wide variety of topics. | ||
| Find all of our podcasts by downloading the free C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts and on our website, c-span.org/slash podcasts. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| We are an open forum for the remainder of today's Washington Journal. | ||
| Any public policy issue or political debate that's on your mind, we want to hear from you. | ||
| We'll begin with the debate over releasing the Epstein files. | ||
| President Trump at 9 p.m. yesterday posted on Truth Social based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| Have asked Attorney General Pom Pambondi to produce any and all pertinent grand jury testimony subject to court approval. | ||
| This scam perpetuated by the Democrats should end right now. | ||
| This morning, he posted on his media platform, if there was a, quote, smoking gun on Epstein, why didn't the Dems, who controlled the files for four years and had Garland and Comey in charge, use it? | ||
| Because they had nothing. | ||
| Now, Pam Bondi responded in her own post last night to the president saying, President Trump, we are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts. | ||
| That's from the Attorney General responding to that. | ||
| Also happening last night, the Wall Street Journal released this story. | ||
| Jeffrey Epstein's friends sent him body letters for his 50th birthday album. | ||
| One was from Donald Trump. | ||
| Inside the Wall Street Journal's reporting, the letter bearing Trump's name, which was reviewed by the journal, is body like others in the album. | ||
| It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn. | ||
| It says, with a heavy marker. | ||
| The reporting from the Wall Street Journal continues. | ||
| A pair of small arcs denotes the woman's breasts, and the future president's signature is a squiggly Donald below her waist, mimicking pubic hair. | ||
| The letter concludes, happy birthday, and may every day be another wonderful secret. | ||
| In an interview with the journal on Tuesday evening, Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture. | ||
| This is not me. | ||
| This is a fake thing. | ||
| It's a fake Wall Street Journal story. | ||
| He said, I never wrote a picture in my life. | ||
| I don't draw pictures of women. | ||
| He said, it's not my language. | ||
| It's not my words. | ||
| He told the journal he was preparing to file a lawsuit. | ||
| If it published an article, I'm going to sue the Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else. | ||
| That's what the president had to say to the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| Now, a new poll out from Reuters conducted for Reuters by Ipsos shows that 17% of those surveyed approve of President Trump handling of this issue. | ||
| 60% believe the government is hiding information on Epstein's death, and 69% believe the government is hiding Epstein's alleged client list. | ||
| Yesterday on the House floor, Congressman Roe Conna, Democrat of California, spoke about a measure he has proposed, bipartisan one with Thomas Massey, to compel the government, the Trump administration, to release the Epstein files. | ||
| Here's what he had to say. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, the American people, Republicans, Independents, Democrats, want the Epstein files released with the victim's identity protected. | ||
| Now, most people don't understand how this town works, so I'm going to try to explain this really simply. | ||
| Congressman Massey and I introduced a bipartisan bill to release all the Epstein files and to make sure victims were protected. | ||
| There are 10 Republican co-sponsors of that bill, including MAGA stalwarts like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, including Lauren Bobert, including Tim Burchett. | ||
| And we have the votes tonight to pass it. | ||
| But what happened is in the Rules Committee, they don't want to have this vote tonight because they know they're going to lose, because they know their own members want to vote for it. | ||
| What's even sillier is they have this non-binding resolution. | ||
| So I thought, surely we would vote on a non-binding resolution. | ||
| They don't even want to vote on the non-binding resolution. | ||
| In case Donald Trump gets slightly offended, they don't even want the vote on the non-binding resolution tonight. | ||
| Now, the president is paying attention, not just because his favorite Congressman Thomas Massey is involved. | ||
| He's paying attention and he said, okay, let's release. | ||
| He directs the Attorney General Pamboni, let's release and ask the courts to release the grand jury testimony. | ||
| Here's the problem. | ||
| The grand jury testimony is largely about Epstein and Maxwell, not about all the rich and powerful men who abused, assaulted, and abandoned young women. | ||
| Those people are still being protected. | ||
| And by the way, the courts usually don't release grand jury testimony. | ||
| But you know what? | ||
| The president is hearing the American people. | ||
| And the president knows that if there's a vote tonight, this body overwhelmingly would vote for the release of the files. | ||
| Congressman Rocan, a Democrat of California, Chad Pergram, who is a producer on Capitol Hill for Fox News last night or early this morning, I should say, around 1 a.m. after talking to Speaker Johnson post-votes, said there's no daylight. | ||
| He quotes Johnson saying there's no daylight between House Republicans and the Trump administration on handling the Epstein documents. | ||
| Does not say when if House will consider the resolution to release the Epstein files. | ||
| Punch Bowl News reports this morning that the Epstein issue isn't going to go away. | ||
| Thomas Massey's discharge petition, which mandates the release of the documents, has nine GOP co-sponsors. | ||
| If all Democrats sign the petition when it ripens after the August recess, it will come up for a vote. | ||
| Johnson is stuck between a Republican Party that wants to see the release of the Epstein files and an all-powerful president who badly wants the issue to go away. | ||
| Attorney General Pam Bondi said that she's willing to do that, but that won't stop the pressure on Johnson or Trump. | ||
| There's plenty in the so-called files that goes beyond the scope of the grand jury testimony. | ||
| Johnson never asked to be a referee in decades-old sex trafficking case, but that's part of the job of being Speaker. | ||
| There's some frustration with the Speaker. | ||
| One GOP member reached out to us to say that they have the votes to depose Johnson after the August recess. | ||
| And of course, Johnson's job is only going to get harder. | ||
| He has 74 days until the government funding deadline. | ||
| Liz and Ironsides, Maryland, Democratic Caller, we're an open forum. | ||
| What's on your mind? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Yes. | ||
| I'm sorry I wasn't able to get on with the president of NPR and PBS. | ||
| think that's her title. | ||
| But what I really wanted to say... | ||
| She was the president of the organization that represents local public broadcasting television stations, not national PBS and not radio stations. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, great. | |
| Thank you for that. | ||
| But what I will say, when she mentioned how they treated Juan Williams, that's absolutely correct. | ||
| And that's not the only minority person that local stations have treated inappropriately. | ||
| And the other issue is that NPR does not, none of their stations, and I'm a favorite listener to both NPR and I watch PBS, is they do not show enough minority programming. | ||
| And that's why they are very limited to minority funding. | ||
| So hopefully they will look at that and work hard on that and possibly they will get more minority funding. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All right, Liz. | ||
| Jean, Arthur, Illinois, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Jean. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The reason that the Democrats never wanted the files to come out during the last administration is because Bill Clinton's numbers on that flight log for Epstein's airplane 21 times. | |
| And then he had his blue dress with the heels on in one of Epstein's residences. | ||
| So that tells you everything you need to know. | ||
| That's the reason they're making a fuss now for it to come out because they got all this dirt on Trump again. | ||
| They keep bringing something out every time for the last 10 years and they start on Trump. | ||
| Do you think we should learn everything, whether it's Bill Clinton or Donald Trump? | ||
|
unidentified
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What do you think? | |
| No, everybody on that list. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Gene's thoughts there in Illinois. | ||
| Gary in Connecticut, Independent. | ||
| Good morning, Gary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'd like to talk about one of the issues that concerns me most, and that's our national deficit. | ||
| I'm looking at the new bill that's been passed through Congress, and I don't see any money going to pay down the national debt coming from that bill. | ||
| What I do see is over a trillion dollars in tax relief going to the 1% most wealthy people in this country. | ||
| I don't understand that. | ||
| The issue of the not just a private, it's the problem of revenue. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
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We need to raise taxes on the super wealthy and not cut NPR and nickel dime kind of organizations. | |
| All right. | ||
| So, Gary, are you talking about the Doge cuts that were approved by the House headed to the President's desk for his signature today? | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm talking about what has been characterized as the big deal bill. | |
| Okay, got it. | ||
| Gary there in Connecticut, Independent with his thoughts. | ||
| The House did approve the first round of Doge cuts last night. | ||
| They followed suit after the Senate did it early Thursday morning. | ||
| A 2:30 a.m. vote by the Senate on Thursday, and it was approved 51 to 48. | ||
| They lost a couple of Republicans there. | ||
| Then the House, around 1 a.m. this morning, approves the same legislation, 216 to 213. | ||
| The president said he will sign it today ahead of tonight's midnight deadline. | ||
| $9 billion in cuts total, $8 billion is for foreign assistance programs, and about $1.1 billion for public broadcasting. | ||
| From the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times reporting, they say that this codifies 5% of the $190 billion that Doge has identified in federal savings. | ||
| It represents one-tenth of 1% of the nation's $7 trillion federal budget. | ||
| And this rescission procedure was last used in 1999 under the Bill Clinton administration. | ||
| Diana in Jacksonville, Florida, Democratic caller, what's on your mind? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I've been listening very carefully. | |
| I am an 82-year-old white woman, and I've been a Democrat, of course, all my life. | ||
| I just find it interesting that, number one, I am against funding money for some of these things they've been funding money about, which are against the Bible. | ||
| It's God's teaching. | ||
| But the other interesting thing that I found out in all of this discussion is that it really doesn't make any difference which side you're on because I did watch the meetings, the hearing this morning, all right, from beginning to end. | ||
| And if I heard one time, I heard at least three times more than any other subject about the Epstein file. | ||
| I personally don't care about the Epstein file. | ||
| I'm more concerned about our students here and the funding of money, which I definitely do not agree with. | ||
| And I think if people took a harder look, as I said, really at the issues, but get the people. | ||
| It's the issues. | ||
| Then they might think differently about a lot of things. | ||
| My boys grew up with PBS. | ||
| I don't want to see it. | ||
| Lose PPS. | ||
| But there are other radio stations, television stations, they're making a go of it, even in this economy. | ||
| So maybe we need to be helping them more instead of everybody looking for the handout from the government. | ||
| Okay, Diana. | ||
|
unidentified
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And we're talking about them. | |
| I understood. | ||
| We'll go to Jim in Ohio, Republican. | ||
| Jim. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hi, how are you doing? | |
| Thank you so much for taking my call. | ||
| I have just been, I haven't called for C-SPAN for a long time, but I just wanted to call and make a comment about how great you guys are. | ||
| And the fact that I watched this morning, I watched C-SPAN all the time, but especially today about for having both the other sides about with PBS because the fact both not funding and also with the funding. | ||
| I thought it was just excellent the way that the questions were and everything was handled on with that. | ||
| Thank you so much for what you give to all of the people so they can hear these things and really hear the truth without having it being shaded by either the one side or the other. | ||
| Thank you so much for letting us have that every day. | ||
| I certainly appreciate it. | ||
| Hey, Jim, thank you for that and thank you for watching. | ||
| We appreciate it. | ||
| Doris in Winder, Georgia, Independent. | ||
| Hi, Doris. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| You made me burn my bacon. | ||
| I was trying to watch my breakfast and listen to you guys too, but that's all right. | ||
| I'm glad you let me on. | ||
| Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. | ||
| My comment is a rant, really. | ||
|
unidentified
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This hoax that Donald Trump is involved in is so apparent. | |
| I wish people would take the blinders off their head, their minds, and look at the big picture, how corrupt this whole government has become. | ||
| All right, Doris, let me just hang there because Washington Times report this morning on the Epstein files includes this information, and I want you to respond to it. | ||
| It says, documents made public from a civil trial revealed the names of rich and powerful people who flew on Epstein's private jet, among them former President Bill Clinton, tech billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates, and rock star Mick Jagger. | ||
| Mr. Trump was logged on seven flights in the 1990s, and some of them included his then wife, Marla Maples, and their daughter. | ||
| Mr. Trump denies ever traveling to Epstein's home in the Virgin Islands, where many of the sex crimes with underage girls took place. | ||
| He said he banned Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club in 2007 and that the two had not spoken in more than 15 years. | ||
| Goes on to report that Senator Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat and a top lawmaker on the Senate Finance Committee, said Thursday that he had reviewed portions of the file in person at the Treasury building last year and found 4,725 wire transfers accounting to more than $1 billion from just one of Epstein's bank accounts. | ||
| The files also showed Epstein used Russian banks now under U.S. sanctions to process payments for sex trafficking, and that the women and girls he victimized came from Russia, Belarus, Turkey, and Turmakistan. | ||
| At the time, he did not publicly call for the Biden administration to investigate the case, but now he says a probe should begin under the Trump administration. | ||
| Doris, would you like to learn more based on the Washington Times reporting? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I'd love to hear all of this, but the details are in the mix and people are not seeing it. | |
| Connecting the dots, you can see the influence from Russia even in Trump's tactics to stranglehold all our communication and gain control of each and every crooked politician that's on that heel. | ||
| I want to mention something about Bill Clinton. | ||
| I had a neighbor. | ||
| I lived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. | ||
| I had a neighbor who was a meat inspector for USDA, big talking guy. | ||
| His father was real heavy in politics. | ||
| I won't call his name. | ||
| But the comment he made about Clinton, and this was back in the early 70s, the comment he made about Clinton being so corrupt, he said that Clinton is owned by Tyson Chicken. | ||
| That really amazed me. | ||
| And that's the thing. | ||
| All right, Doris, I have to leave it there because we've got others waiting. | ||
| Jim in Idaho, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I got two subjects to bring up. | |
| One is to explain the two differences in our democracy. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And the first democracy, any president can sign that out with his pen. | ||
| But the Republic democracy, the only way he can change that, he's got to get a majority of all the states together, and they've all got to agree on deleting it. | ||
| Now, subject to take you back in history a bit. | ||
| Congressman Davy Crockett, the senator passed away. | ||
| Congress was trying to figure out a way to help his wife out. | ||
| David Crockett stood up, said it's not your money to be given her. | ||
| So they went with that down the roadaways. | ||
| There was in the city quite a devastation there. | ||
| So Davy Crockett stood up and says, We need to help these people. | ||
| Congress stood up and says, It's not our money to give them. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Jerry in Bowie, Maryland, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, sorry. | |
| How are you doing? | ||
| Morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
First of all, I just want to say thank you. | |
| We do love UC Span. | ||
| You do a great job. | ||
| So you guys keep up the good work, please. | ||
| Also, it's crazy how the big, beautiful bill, you guys, these people are cheering for their own demise. | ||
| It does so much damage to the middle class and the lower class. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| And because they hear someone on Fox News or any other news say it's a good thing or from the president, these people are happy to drink the poison, even though it's going to hurt them in the future. | ||
| Another thing on Epstein, Trump indeed was on the list, the flight list. | ||
| But, you know, this is the thing. | ||
| Elon Musk recently just said he's on the list too. | ||
| Elon Musk had access to doles everywhere, anywhere he wanted to check. | ||
| Elam has had access to it. | ||
| All right. | ||
| So people are okay not taking his word now because it goes against their narrative. | ||
| And this is to me is hilarious. | ||
| I mean, we had a whole history of Trump and women coming forward and say how he raped them in some type of way, including his ex-wife. | ||
| And people still discounted them. | ||
| Now the kids are involved. | ||
| And we all knew Epstein and Trump were friends for 10 to 15 years. | ||
| These people were close. | ||
| It's documented. | ||
| It's more than just pictures. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Go listen to Wolf, Michael Wolf, interview with Epstein. | ||
| It's there. | ||
| It's in Epstein's own words. | ||
| People, please do the research. | ||
| All right, Jerry. | ||
| A CNN poll to share with you that's out this morning. | ||
| Just 23% of Americans say Israeli military actions in Gaza are fully justified. | ||
| Only 23% of Americans say the actions by Israel in Gaza are justified, a 27-point drop from October 2023 poll taken shortly after Hamas' October 7th attacks. | ||
| Another 27% now say those actions have been partially justified, and 22% say that they have not been justified at all. | ||
| In October 2023, just 8% said Israel's actions were not justified at all. | ||
| The poll continues by CNN this morning, also asks about President Trump's foreign policy. | ||
| And the headline is that the president remains underwater on his handling of foreign affairs. | ||
| Americans remain broadly skeptical of Trump's handling of foreign affairs. | ||
| 40% approved to 60% disapprove, almost identical to April. | ||
| In the aftermath of the U.S. military strikes in Iran, the public also expresses doubt about Trump's handling of his role as commander-in-chief, with an approval rating of 40% and a disapproval rating of 59%, higher than at any point in his first term, including January of 2020, when his disapproval rating stood at 53% shortly after he ordered the assassination of the Iranian military leader. | ||
| Thomas, Savannah, Georgia, Democratic caller, let's hear from you, Open Forum. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Mute your television, please. | ||
| Then go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, Mother, could you please? | |
| Thank you. | ||
| I would just like to point out that the Trump foreign policy administration is just woeful because the big biblical bill, the cuts in that bill directly undermine national security. | ||
| And this money that we're taking away, you know, it's $8 billion for international aid. | ||
| That has a big impact. | ||
| I mean, if we're not providing aid to these countries, who is? | ||
| Who's getting a foot in the door in these developing countries? | ||
| It's better if it's us. | ||
| I mean, the U.S. sphere of influence is part of why world peace has been maintained since the end of World War II. | ||
| We would go into these places where there were communist influenced and we would get them out of there before they were able to get any power and launch any attacks against the first world. | ||
| And now that we're not doing that, it leaves a wide open door. | ||
| It's a power vacuum. | ||
| And also, there's the Epstein files. | ||
| There was a caller earlier on the show today talking about how the Democrats didn't make any effort to release that. | ||
| And that irritates me a little bit. | ||
| But honestly, it's better late than never. | ||
| This is something that needs to be brought to light, I feel. | ||
| And thank you for having me on. | ||
| All right, Thomas. | ||
| Gary in Marriottsville, Maryland, Republican. | ||
| Gary, your turn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, can you hear me okay? | |
| We can. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| I'm a QAnon guy. | ||
| And that just means to me, I'm trying to make a sense out of all the chaos that everybody's talking about from both parties and all angles. | ||
| And when I say that, it's all about the globalists versus those that want to keep their countries with sovereignty. | ||
| And the difference between the past administrations, plural, with different parties, both Bushes, et cetera, and Democrats, versus Trump, is he's clearing out the difference of this with both. | ||
| And regarding the Epstein files, whether he was involved with it or not, he probably absolutely was, knowing Epstein. | ||
| He's holding on to these files presently for a bigger audience because it's going to happen. | ||
| All of this is about world view with the masses. | ||
| We all, as a mass community, I have such friends that are Democrats. | ||
| And yes, I'm a Trumper. | ||
| But what's going on, in my view, and it's all clear if you listen to Qdrops and the Q bloggers. | ||
| All right, Gary, I'm going to go to the next Gary, Dayton, Ohio, Democratic Caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, just quickly, I was going to comment on the fact that they're going to cancel the late show with Stephen Colbert. | |
| And this is where I get a good source of my news. | ||
| All the late night talk shows, but Stephen Colbert especially. | ||
| And CBS is going to cancel them because they paid Trump $16 million or thereabouts for this lawsuit to go away so they can get their deal on their merger with some sort of other company. | ||
| And I think we should, next May, we should all boycott CBS for at least a day and a half so they won't get any advertising money. | ||
| So that's my opinion. | ||
| All right, Gary in Dayton, Ohio. | ||
| Thank you all for watching today and calling in. | ||
| We appreciate the conversation. | ||
| We'll be back for another one tomorrow morning, 7 a.m. Eastern Time. | ||
| Enjoy your weekend. | ||
|
unidentified
|
As 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. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We are speaking to the country. |