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|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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Hold a discussion focused on education as part of this year's summer meeting of the National Governors Association. | |
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| We're funded by these television companies and more, including Mediacom. | ||
| This is binging. | ||
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| Coming up this morning on Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live. | ||
| And then we'll talk about controversy over the Epstein files and the Trump administration's claims about the 2016 Russia investigation with investigative journalist Katherine Harridge. | ||
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| Good morning. | ||
| It's Friday, July 25th. | ||
| The Trump administration has approved Skydance's $8 billion acquisition of Paramount Global, which owns CBS. | ||
| This comes after Paramount settled a lawsuit with President Trump for $16 million over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. | ||
| CBS also recently announced the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, one of the president's most prominent critics. | ||
| Earlier this week, as a result of reporting related to the Epstein files, the president filed suit against the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| We want to hear your thoughts on President Trump's lawsuits against media companies. | ||
| Here's how to reach us. | ||
| Democrats 202748-8000, Republicans 202-748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can send a text to 202-748-8003, include your first name in your city-state, and you can post your comments on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Welcome to today's Washington Journal. | ||
| Start with the news of the merger from NBC News. | ||
| This is the headline, Trump administration greenlights Paramount's $8 billion merger with entertainment group SkyDance. | ||
| It says that the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday that it had approved the acquisition, with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr adding in a news release that the move would bring change to the company's news coverage. | ||
| Paramount owns CBS, which includes CBS News. | ||
| This is a quote by Brendan Carr: Americans no longer trust the legacy national news media to report fully, accurately, and fairly. | ||
| It is time for a change. | ||
| That is why I welcome Skydance's commitment to make significant changes at the once-storied CBS broadcast network. | ||
| In particular, Skydance has made written commitments to ensure that the new company's programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum. | ||
| He continues, Today's decision also marks another step forward in the FCC's efforts to eliminate invidious forms of DEI discrimination. | ||
| And regarding that lawsuit of the Washington, the Wall Street Journal, this is what President Trump put out on Truth Social last week. | ||
| He says this. | ||
| The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch personally were warned directly by President Donald J. Trump that the supposed letter they printed by President Trump to Epstein was a fake. | ||
| And if they print it, they will be sued. | ||
| Mr. Murdoch stated that he would take care of it, but obviously did not have the power to do so. | ||
| The editor of the Wall Street Journal, Emma Tucker, was told directly by Caroline Levitt and by President Trump that the letter was a fake. | ||
| But Emma Tucker didn't want to hear that. | ||
| Instead, they are going with a false, malicious, and defamatory story anyway. | ||
| President Trump will be suing the Wall Street Journal, News Corp, and Mr. Murdoch shortly. | ||
| The press has to learn to be truthful and not rely on sources that probably don't even exist. | ||
| President Trump has already beaten George Stephanopoulos, ABC, 60 Minutes, CBS, and others, and looks forward to suing and holding accountable the once great Wall Street Journal. | ||
| Let's take a look at what President Trump said in very brief comments earlier this week about the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| Street Journal is a lousy paper, very, very dishonest paper. | ||
| As you see, I'm suing them for a lot of money because they do things very badly. | ||
| It's a really, it's got a nice name, but it's really, in my opinion, it's a terrible paper, and it can be corrupt. | ||
| And just overnight, the New York Times published this. | ||
| Trump's name is on the contributor list for Epstein birthday book. | ||
| This is regarding that letter that the Wall Street Journal published that they're being sued over. | ||
| It says the Times also reviewed other records of the president's friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, including an inscription in which the future president called him the greatest. | ||
| We're getting your calls this morning on what you think about the president suing the media companies. | ||
| Are you in favor of it? | ||
| Are you against it? | ||
| Why? | ||
| Give us your thoughts about that. | ||
| We'll start with JJ in Hollister, California, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, JJ. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I support President Trump. | ||
| You know, all these news, different news going out, we finally, America realizes that it's all fake news, so we have to triple check it, double check it. | ||
| But the only way they'll stop is they have to pay out of the pocket. | ||
| That's where it hurts. | ||
| But the point is, all this money shows that they're guilty, but nobody's going to jail. | ||
| And then on the F-SCUN file, real quick, real quick, is that, don't you believe, I believe, and America thinks that if they had something on Trump, because that's what they're trying to do, drag it on to get something on Trump, that the Democrats would have done it prior to this investigation. | ||
| JJ, I want to ask you, you said that we should double check and triple check the news. | ||
| I'm assuming the news consumer, so the public. | ||
| How do you double check and triple check what you're hearing on the news? | ||
|
unidentified
|
First, I listen to fake news, CNN, then I go back to Fox, and finally I end up with C-SPAN. | |
| And somewhere in between, the truth is there. | ||
| But if when they go to court and people are paying money to say that they did wrong, we know they did wrong, and otherwise you wouldn't pay millions. | ||
| But the point is, nobody's going to jail. | ||
| They're paying the money where it hurts, but nobody's going to jail. | ||
| And I don't know how we're going to stop this fake news. | ||
| We have to cross-check all the numerous outlets. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Here's Woodrow, also a Republican in Hepzabah, Georgia. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How are you? | |
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good. | |
| Hey, listen, this ain't a race thing because I'm a black, retired military guy myself. | ||
| But it's so strange that anything with President Trump name on it, it's always got to be truth if it's coming from ABC, NBC, MSNBC, any of the other illegitimate people. | ||
| But every time something came up with Barack Obama's name, Joe Biden's son name, everything was fake. | ||
| I don't blame President Trump. | ||
| He ought to sue the Hades out of him. | ||
| And I'm going to tell you right now, just because your name shows up on something, does that really make you guilty? | ||
| That's what they're trying to do with President Trump on Epstein, but you'll never convince me. | ||
| They showed a thing on CNN last night where one of the Department of Justice people was interviewing the guy who got hung in prison, Epstein. | ||
| They were interviewing him and asking, was him and President Trump friends? | ||
| And then the guy asked him, did you ever see President Trump any girls under the age of 18? | ||
| What in the hell was that but a setup for later on down the line? | ||
| And so now the man got killed up on Joe Biden's watch, but they still want to blame President Trump. | ||
| Because I'm friends with you don't mean that don't you steal, I got to steal. | ||
| Wait, Epstein died, what year was that, Woodrow? | ||
| Do you remember? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you remember? | |
| I don't remember what it was, but I know President Trump wasn't the president when he died. | ||
| He, let me just check that. | ||
| So actually, 2019. | ||
| He was the date of his death, August 10th, 2019. | ||
| Jim Butler, Wisconsin, Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Hello. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for taking my call. | |
| No, I don't agree with President Trump attacking media. | ||
| I mean, the media has freedom in America. | ||
| This was put in by our founding fathers. | ||
| They understood papers, freedom of speech, and everything else. | ||
| It's a very complicated thing because you've got to watch out what you say. | ||
| You can't tell lies. | ||
| We got stations like Fox that's been fouled numerous times of lying and fighting for it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They had a reporter that lied about how the Iraq war started under George Bush Jr. | |
| I mean, what more do you need? | ||
| And these people that call in to keep saying about fake news and they want to listen to everything Fox says or these whack-a-doodle podcasters that just make money off of them, spreading lies. | ||
| All right, Jim. | ||
| And a tweet from Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat, Stephen Colver show, was canceled three days after he called out Paramount, CBS's parent company, for folding to Trump with a $16 million settlement for a lawsuit that even they called without merit. | ||
| People deserve to know if this is a politically motivated attack on free speech. | ||
| And this is what. | ||
| This is Elizabeth Warren, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat. | ||
| I've been investigating Paramount's deal with Trump. | ||
| Here's what we know. | ||
| Trump sued CBS. | ||
| CBS called the lawsuit meritless. | ||
| Paramount, the owner of CBS, still settled, handing $16 million plus to Trump's library. | ||
| Paramount has a billion-dollar deal that needs Trump's approval. | ||
| And here is Sam who sent us this on Facebook. | ||
| Of course, I guess you could say their bias is acceptable, but their constant lies are not. | ||
| No more broadcasting licenses for liars. | ||
| This is Scott on Facebook. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| They refuse to do any kind of actual research before they report it. | ||
| Someone gives them information and they run with it, especially if it has the possibility of making him look bad. | ||
| And this is Matt on Facebook. | ||
| I will never support any president from anywhere using his or her privilege of power to attack, restrict, or silence the media, a comedian or general free speech. | ||
| What's going on in the U.S. now should concern people regardless of what party they affiliate with. | ||
| Here's Dale, an Independent in North Carolina. | ||
| Good morning, Dale. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| The mainstream medias, journalism don't exist in them. | ||
| All they are is a mouthpiece for the Democrat Party. | ||
| It's obvious, and they compare it to Fox News. | ||
| There's no comparisons. | ||
| And another thing: why don't C-SPAN show Bill Clinton's picture in the blue dress on that steam done of it? | ||
| Everybody talks about Donald Trump. | ||
| Let's show a Democrat up there. | ||
| Let's take some of the emphasis off of Donald Trump and show Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates, some of these other people. | ||
| I mean, my God, man, y'all act like he's the only one that was there. | ||
| Trump is the only one on the island. | ||
| He doesn't get a fire shake even at C-SPAN. | ||
| Lillian in Maryland, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Lillian, are you there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
My thing is: the reason why to me that Donald Trump is suing all the companies and receiving money is because the FCC in charge is going to do what Donald Trump says to do. | |
| And they can't, these companies cannot conduct their business because Donald Trump got a breath on everything through FCC, through his commissioner. | ||
| And my issue is: what is he doing with all the money that he is receiving from these suits? | ||
| All right, Lillian, and this is Doug, Ohio Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Well, I see that the big green, the big orange monster is trying to destroy free speech again. | ||
| How come he can talk about other people all the time? | ||
| His sons ought to be sued when they talked about Pelosi's husband after he got almost got killed. | ||
| You know, Donald Trump is one big crybaby. | ||
| I mean, he is the biggest crybaby we've ever had in that White House, and he's a disgrace to the human race, not only the presidency, a disgrace to the human race. | ||
| And I'm going to tell, if I could tell him personally, I would. | ||
| And I hope that people get this message out because a man is incompetent, illiterate. | ||
| I mean, he's just an idiot, and he should not be in the White House at all. | ||
| And he shouldn't be able to sue people, and they can't sue him back when he calls them names and makes fun of them. | ||
| What did he do? | ||
| He called Elizabeth Fourn, Pocahontas and all that stuff. | ||
| Why didn't they sue him? | ||
| You know, let's get revenge and sue him back. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Here's what Axios is reporting: Trump's media and defamation lawsuits this year tie a record. | ||
| So, this is a visual that you can see. | ||
| This is going back to 1985. | ||
| At this point, he announces his presidency, his candidacy for the president in 2015, and you can see the number of media, this includes defamation lawsuits involving Mr. Trump. | ||
| It says President Trump is already embroiled in as many new media and defamation lawsuits halfway through 2025 as he was in lawsuits that were initiated by or against him during all of last year. | ||
| It says the record wave of litigation reflects how Trump's clashes with the media have escalated from public criticism to courtroom showdowns with major news organizations that are increasingly fighting back. | ||
| So far this year, Trump has been sued by the Associated Press, NPR, PBS, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. | ||
| He has also filed a lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch. | ||
| It says, on Monday, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said the White House had removed the journal, that's the Wall Street Journal, from the press pool covering the president's upcoming weekend trip to Scotland. | ||
| By the way, that trip is, he leaves this morning, and the Wall Street Journal will not be there with them. | ||
| Joe in Wilmington, North Carolina, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| More from an educated individual that's served in the military and around the world. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just a different perspective on this. | |
| When I studied journalism, we had to have three references to prove our case to our professor. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And then when I studied civics in college, we couldn't put a single poll out unless we had the numbers of calls and the location of the calls to ensure we didn't get those all in one city. | |
| If we're doing a national poll, it had to be nationwide. | ||
| If it was a city, it had to be listed. | ||
| That was to set aside any bias. | ||
| And Joe, do you think that that's happening now? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Of course not. | |
| Of course not. | ||
| You know, I've been listening to y'all since the 80s. | ||
| You know, our nation faces a precarious threat to the basic principles of democracy. | ||
| And it's vastly important to educate the people, the citizens of all ages, in dealing with that threat. | ||
| I think we need to go back to, you remember when you were, I'm not going to hit your age here now, but I'd say you're pretty close, a little younger than me. | ||
| But do you remember the early television NBC stuff that showed like what's your function, educational aspects of what a bill was like? | ||
| Remember that bill dancing around trying to get to Capitol Hill? | ||
| I'm just a bill and I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, why can't we have more stuff like that? | |
| That was targeted for 12-year-olds, 12-year-olds at the time. | ||
| Who put that out, Joe? | ||
| Was that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm sorry? | |
| Who put that out? | ||
| I mean, what organization did that little cartoon? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That would be a good one, but I'm afraid to. | |
| I never dug down in that, and I used to senior people in Washington. | ||
| I wish I had asked that question. | ||
| I'm trying to get a team of animators and specialist techs to produce a series of educational programs focused on that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're trying to get funding through some people in Texas right now. | |
| All right, Joe. | ||
| Here's Matt, a Republican, Prairie Hill, Texas. | ||
| Good morning, Matt. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am. | |
| I definitely support Donald Trump because most of all these liberal outlets, NPR and all of them, you know, the Democratic Party has a 19% approval rating. | ||
| They tried to cover up the Biden White House cover-up, the Russia-Russia cover-up, the border cover-up. | ||
| They vote in, they're doing everything they can to vote in a communist there in New York. | ||
| Obama, he sent $1.7 billion to the Iran butcher killers. | ||
| Iran Butcher Killer, he gave them $1.7 billion. | ||
| Matt, stay on the media, the lawsuits against the media. | ||
| So go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's just it, Mamie. | |
| They tried to cover that up, too. | ||
| Fox News broke the thing. | ||
| And, you know, the story on it. | ||
| Just like Fox News is the one that broke their story on the border. | ||
| The other media outlets wouldn't cover it. | ||
| The New York Times is liberal. | ||
| The Washington Post is liberal. | ||
| NPR is liberal. | ||
| They all, every one, just like when y'all read off articles, every one of them is liberal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Atlantic, all are liberal. | |
| They put out nothing but try. | ||
| That's the reason they have a 19% approval rating. | ||
| And the media probably. | ||
| So, Matt, let me ask you: you mentioned Fox News, so I assume that you watch Fox News. | ||
| Is there other places that you trust for getting your media? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Newsmax is another good one. | |
| The New York Post is a good newspaper. | ||
| It's more conservative. | ||
| The Federalist is a good newspaper, but y'all don't never read off of them, huh? | ||
| Yeah, I do. | ||
| Yeah, I do, Matt. | ||
| Sorry. | ||
| Sorry to disappoint you. | ||
| But here's my other question. | ||
| The Wall Street Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns Fox. | ||
| So you trust Fox, but not the Wall Street Journal? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, inside the Wall Street Journal. | |
| Everybody knows in Texas anyway that the Wall Street Journal has got liberal people inside of it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's like a cancer and grows inside of them. | |
| Look, they're trying to vote in communists right now. | ||
| We're going to talk about that later in the program, Matt. | ||
| So make sure you stay with us for that. | ||
| And this is what Politico said about this topic. | ||
| So take a look. | ||
| He says, this is Ankush Khadori, who says, quote, in all these cases where the president can claim immunity from suit or prosecution, yet is affirmatively going to court while he's president, it really is asymmetry in the extreme. | ||
| That's a quote from Ted Boutros, a well-regarded free speech and media lawyer, who said to the author, even the journal, that's the Wall Street Journal, might plausibly have claims against Trump for defamation and torturous interference, given the manner in which he has denied the veracity of the story, not just by denying that it was written by someone else, for instance, but by affirmatively declaring the letter was fake. | ||
| The journal may not assert its claims simply because the time and expense of litigating Trump's immunity would be too high, and because the paper has its own large and influential public platform to defend itself. | ||
| The upshot is that the law on civil immunity allows Trump to be a plaintiff and file lawsuits to advance both his personal and political interests. | ||
| But everyone else is constrained by Trump's immunity. | ||
| Anytime he can plausibly claim that his conduct has something to do with his role as president. | ||
| What do you think about that? | ||
| John, Granada Hills, California, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mimi, and good morning, America. | |
| Trump is wrong to go after the media, wrong to go after newspapers, wrong to go after politicians, wrong to go after universities, wrong to go after all of his perceived enemies. | ||
| It's a disgrace. | ||
| He is a disgrace to America. | ||
| So why does the suits against media companies bother you, John? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, because it's freedom of expression. | |
| I mean, Republicans apparently have just completely abrogated their constitutional oaths to think for themselves, and instead they put Cheryl before the country. | ||
| They lay down like slaves to Trump. | ||
| It's disgusting. | ||
| Donna, a Democrat in Palm Harbor, Florida. | ||
| Good morning, Donna. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Good. | ||
| This is really hard. | ||
| No, I do not support Trump's lawsuits. | ||
| It seems to me that the only thing, the only thing that Donald Trump is good at is clogging up courts with his nonsense lawsuits. | ||
| So people, the everyday person is afraid to do anything. | ||
| I mean, in Congress, they don't do anything. | ||
| They're afraid of getting sued. | ||
| They give him money just to get him off their back. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| I've never seen anything like this in my life. | ||
| I don't even understand what the point is. | ||
| Every other word out of Donald Trump's mouth is a lie. | ||
| People are sticking up for Fox News when Fox News, along with Donald Trump, were the ones who incited an insurrection with all their lies about a stolen election that they have proven over and over and over again that the election was not stolen. | ||
| I am so sick of listening to that. | ||
| They cannot accept this. | ||
| And then, and then, so all he does is tie up the courts, distract, and does he do any actual work? | ||
| Does he do anything except create chaos every single solitary day with one stupid thing after another? | ||
| Now, I don't particularly like the South Park thing. | ||
| I thought it was like kind of rude and lewd. | ||
| But you know what? | ||
| If anyone deserves it, it would be him. | ||
| It would be him because he says the most nasty, horrific things. | ||
| And to have a president that you would, if I had a son, I would tell them, don't even look at this man because I don't want you to grow up to be anything like this man. | ||
| He's a horrible man. | ||
| He really and truly is. | ||
| And this is what Donna was talking about: South Park skewers Trump. | ||
| It says South Park has already begun making waves with a particularly raunchy season premiere Wednesday night. | ||
| The episode took aim at President Donald Trump and his administration as his administration faces pressure to release the Epstein files, and it featured jabs about his paramount settlement. | ||
| That's on the Washington Post style section. | ||
| And this is Guy in Stigler, Oklahoma, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning, Mimi. | |
| You look fantastic today in that jacket and the blouse. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, absolutely. | ||
| Hey, Donald Trump, from the moment he came down the golden escalator, 20 minutes later, the Democrats filed their first lawsuit against this man. | ||
| He's been the most sued person in the history of the world. | ||
| He has spent $500 million out of his own pocket defending himself over these lawsuits in the last nine years. | ||
| And yeah, it's about time that he goes on the offensive and fights back. | ||
| In his first presidency, he was on the defense with all these lawsuits. | ||
| It's about time he goes after the people that slander, defamate his character, and make up these outrageous lies. | ||
| I completely support Trump. | ||
| And Mimi, instead of talking about this, we should be talking about the greatest, biggest, largest trade deal that went through in the history of the world two days ago. | ||
| He signed Philippines, Japan, and Indonesia to the new fantastic trade agreements that the news media isn't even talking about. | ||
| It's the largest trade agreement in the history of the world. | ||
| Yeah, no, I understand that. | ||
| We can definitely talk about that during open forum. | ||
| But Guy, you said he spent $500 million on defending himself from lawsuits. | ||
| Where did you get that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
$500 million he spent defending himself over the last nine or ten years since he first started running. | |
| Do you remember where you got that information? | ||
| I was just trying to find it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't. | |
| I found that about a year ago. | ||
| I can't remember where. | ||
| And he's also the most sued person in the history of the world with a number of lawsuits against him. | ||
| Fight back, Trump. | ||
| Fight, fight, fight. | ||
| We love you. | ||
| And Crystal, Fargo, North Dakota, Republican, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, this is really an exciting time to talk to you, Mimi, because this is exactly what's happening. | |
| I'm an older person. | ||
| My birthday is tomorrow, in fact. | ||
| Happy birthday. | ||
| Yeah, and I've been following media most of all my life because I find it so fascinating that you have people from all these different places in the world that follow who, what, where, and when. | ||
| And that's what I learned in school. | ||
| Every story is based on who, what, where, and when. | ||
| So you're trying to tell a story. | ||
| Opinion, now that's different. | ||
| But there are some different newspapers that seem to have a little bit of a twist. | ||
| I enjoy reading the Washington Post. | ||
| Even though I live in North Dakota, I get it electronically. | ||
| It's faster coming in my mailbox than coming in my mailbox. | ||
| But the point is, if I've been at an event myself and the next day I see something written in the Washington Post or the New York Times, and it's not even based on the facts of what happened. | ||
| It's not even based on the facts of what somebody said. | ||
| That's where the distrust comes from. | ||
| Because we know for ourselves that something was different than the way it was reported. | ||
| Can you give an example, Crystal, of like an event that you went to and then it was reported completely different from what you experienced? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was at a convention in 2000 with candidate George W. Bush. | |
| And even when I came home to my own Fargo newspaper, then they had picked up the AP. | ||
| And it was in a way that I thought, wow, I was right there. | ||
| And for this writer, whoever that AP person was, to have said this or in this way, it just made it sound as though that President Bush wasn't very intelligent. | ||
| He's a very smart guy. | ||
| The same with President Trump. | ||
| They're very smart people. | ||
| They wouldn't be where they're at today if they weren't successful and smart. | ||
| All right, Crystal. | ||
| We've got 10 more minutes on this topic, and then we're going to go to open forum. | ||
| Here's Cheryl in Waterbury, Connecticut, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Cheryl. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I absolutely do not support Trump. | ||
| I think that he's a bully, and I think that there's something in the air, and some of us are susceptible to it, and some of us are not. | ||
| Like a bad movie. | ||
| These people that are supporting him, I think they walk through life with blinders on and their only point. | ||
| They only have eyes for him. | ||
| You know, with him being a president, he bullies all the media. | ||
| He bullies anyone. | ||
| And if you say anything, have any opinion at all, or if you speak out. you know, for your own opinion, he wants you removed from the face of the planet. | ||
| And I think, who are you to express yourself? | ||
| But if someone respectfully expresses himself, why do you want them removed? | ||
| What are you so afraid of? | ||
| He doesn't like a challenge. | ||
| And every morning he gets up and is business as usual for Donald Trump. | ||
| There's so many things he can be doing with all that money, but he's not doing it. | ||
| He can go down to history as the best president, but he's going to go down as the worst president ever. | ||
| He hasn't made America great. | ||
| He made America worse. | ||
| And media has a right to report on that. | ||
| Everyone else is thinking it. | ||
| Why can't they go ahead and report that? | ||
| All right, Cheryl. | ||
| And this is what Bronwyn sent us on Facebook. | ||
| Trump has every right to sue anyone he feels has slandered or libeled him. | ||
| However, he must show proof of the same. | ||
| At the same time, he is using the power of the presidency to extort money from media outlets. | ||
| In the case of CBS, he had abusively the power to stop their merger, and they decided that paying a bribe was a cost of doing business. | ||
| It's not a new level of corruption, just not one we've seen at the White House before. | ||
| And this is Imogene on Facebook. | ||
| I support. | ||
| They need to be taught a lesson. | ||
| They need to be unbiased and report the truth. | ||
| The good, bad, and ugly. | ||
| Media should also stop misleading their viewers. | ||
| Let's talk to Craig in New Gretna, New Jersey, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I just want to say first how important it is the work you're doing at C-SPAN. | ||
| So thank you to C-SPAN. | ||
| An important thing is that these news media industry, there's only three of them, big three, and that makes them vulnerable to things like Trump's attacks. | ||
| So the big problem there is bigger than Trump. | ||
| There's only three of them. | ||
| But what we do know is that Trump loses 93% of his lawsuits. | ||
| This is from Democracy Forward, which is run by the great Sky Perryman. | ||
| He loses 93%. | ||
| So what these industries should do is sue back. | ||
| They should counter-sue Donald Trump. | ||
| They should fight back against this assault on the press and the media. | ||
| And we should have more efforts to secure funding for new media institutions because we need more, not less. | ||
| So Craig, when you say counter-suit, he's got immunity, as you know, from the Supreme Court. | ||
| So wouldn't it be just kind of a waste of time and money to do that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, because he's acting as an officer of the United States government. | |
| So these people should sue the United States government, which they did before successfully. | ||
| And that's why he's lost 93% of his lawsuits, including the ones in which he is the acting officer of the United States of America. | ||
| So under his watch, not only does he lose in his private vocation, but he also loses as an officer of the government. | ||
| So people should not only sue him, but they should also sue the government. | ||
| And once he gets out of office, provided that he lasts that long, because you never know with his health issues, you can obviously tell that the man is not 100%, and he's sending out these bogus health reports from his doctor, provided that he lasts that long, people should sue him in his private vocation once he's out of office. | ||
| So the lawsuits are already piling up. | ||
| Carolyn Levitt, who's the press secretary, keeps saying we're the most sued administration in history. | ||
| They are the most sued administration in history, and they're going to be more, especially when he keeps filing bogus lawsuits against the press. | ||
| And here's Franklin, a Republican in St. Anne Slimo, California. | ||
| Good morning, Franklin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning, Amy. | |
| Yeah, just start things off on a bit of a lighter note based on the previous call. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm a Bill was episode season three, episode five, directed by Jack Sheldon, written by Dave Frischberg. | |
| Of what, Franklin? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What program are you talking about? | |
| Schoolhouse Rock. | ||
| Oh, okay, okay, yes. | ||
| So who paid for those? | ||
| Who paid for the schoolhouse rock things? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You kind of read my mind. | |
| We're on the same track there. | ||
| I was trying to find out what network it aired on. | ||
| I thought it was PBS, but maybe it was ABC. | ||
| Yeah, I didn't have enough time to do any digging. | ||
| It was definitely in between Saturday morning cartoons, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah. | |
| So I guess it would have been commercial television. | ||
| But original air date was March 27th, 1976. | ||
| Anyway, okay, back on topic. | ||
| Yes, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let's see. | |
| There's a huge schism in the Republican Party right now, needless to say. | ||
| I think the Republicans kind of dug a hole for themselves by wanting these Epstein files, you know, making a lot of hay out of wanting these Epstein files released prior to the election. | ||
| And now they're kind of having to eat their own dog food, so to speak, to mix metaphors. | ||
| In the press conference, where I think was the genesis of this event, where there was a reporter who asked Trump, hey, what about, I forget what she asked him, but she asked him about the Epstein files and goes, oh, are you guys still onto that? | ||
| Really? | ||
| Come on, let it go. | ||
| And I was cheering. | ||
| I was going, yeah, Trump, let's move on to things that really matter, like, you know, the border crisis, the war in Ukraine, Gaza, the debt. | ||
| We're going full-on Thelma and Louise crashing through bridge out signs right over the dead cliff, and nobody has any idea how we're going to fix this. | ||
| And yet we're focusing on this tawdry, salacious little scandal about, you know, a guy and his salacious doings on an island. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| It just seems like a misallocation of media resources. | ||
| One last point, and then I'll, I guess, the CBS interview with Kamala Harris, where they did the editing, that was really some nefarious wrongdoing on the part of the media. | ||
| I'm a big admirer of the Fourth Estate. | ||
| Don't get me wrong, but that was pure manipulation. | ||
| i don't know how else to say it so i think trump is yep Sorry? | ||
| Yep. | ||
| No, I was just saying, okay, we're going to move on to Toya in Clayton, Ohio, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Hi, how are you? | ||
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good. | |
| Well, no, I don't support Trump, you know, with the media kind of team. | ||
| People have to understand that Trump is not going to be, there's always going to be a different party in the administration. | ||
| It's going to be always in another election. | ||
| But voting has consequences. | ||
| And so people should have already knew that this was what he was going to do. | ||
| I mean, I don't see why everybody's shocked about it. | ||
| It's wrong, yes, because it's taken away freedom of speech. | ||
| And so many people out there talk about, you know, they are on to freedom of speech. | ||
| For a previous caller that stated about suing him, you can't sue him because he is under immunity. | ||
| So again, there's a different president, you know, hey, if their president does this, then you know what? | ||
| Everybody that has always believed in Trump, his whole, the whole administration, there's going to be a new administration. | ||
| And when they do this, then what everybody's going to say. | ||
| So I just feel that, you know, Trump just gone too far. | ||
| He just needs to take, just do his job. | ||
| You know, that's what he needs to do. | ||
| I mean, but he's petty. | ||
| That's Trump. | ||
| Trump's a petty person. | ||
| You know, and the thing about it is, Project 2025 said this: you know, everything that Project 2025 had, this is how we're going. | ||
| People didn't read. | ||
| People just listened to different media outlets, you know, especially with the other gentleman that was talking about fight, fight, fight. | ||
| You know, he got that information from Fox because I look at Fox. | ||
| I look at all media. | ||
| I look at social media, podcasters. | ||
| And the information he got from, that was from Fox. | ||
| And it was not, you know, everybody knows about Fox. | ||
| You know, Fox is half and half. | ||
| They tell the truth and they don't tell the truth. | ||
| That's why they got sued. | ||
| But, you know, for Trump, suing the media, you know, on every level is just childish, it's petty. | ||
| And that's what I'm saying. | ||
| We got that point. | ||
| And here's David Chadbourne, North Carolina Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I wanted to chime in. | |
| I go back and I support Trump 100% on what he's doing. | ||
| And I'm an independent. | ||
| And the reason I support him is I look back over the last eight years, Russia hoax. | ||
| I saw ABC, I saw NBC, MSNBC, CNN. | ||
| I saw all the major networks chiming in saying that it was a Russia collusion. | ||
| And I just, and it was all of them. | ||
| And I was like, man, I cannot believe now that it's come out that all the people that were in on this, the higher-ups, Coney, all these people that were involved with it, and found out that there's basically they were lying. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And the power that the media has is it can control elections. | |
| It can sway elections. | ||
| It can do anything. | ||
| Just the power of media. | ||
| So, David, and Oblik, go ahead. | ||
| I was going to say, we are going to be talking to Catherine Herridge about that topic coming up at 8 o'clock. | ||
| So make sure you stay with us for that. | ||
| So that's it for this question, but we've got a lot more time to take your calls. | ||
| We're going to take a quick break and then go to Open Forum. | ||
| So if there's other things you want to talk about, whatever's going on in the news, whatever's going on in Washington, you can discuss that. | ||
| Here are the numbers. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We'll be right back. | |
| As Mike said before, I happened to listen to him. | ||
| He was on C-SPAN 1. | ||
| That's a big upgrade, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
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 it on television a little while ago in between my watching my great friends on C-SPAN. | |
| C-SPAN is televising this right now live. | ||
| So we are not just speaking to Los Angeles. | ||
| We are speaking to the country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Washington Journal continues. | |
| Welcome back. | ||
| It is Washington Journal. | ||
| We've got about 20 minutes for more calls. | ||
| Here's thehill.com. | ||
| Powell pushes back on Trump's assertion about Fed renovations. | ||
| The president did visit the Federal Reserve yesterday, and here is a portion of their conversation from yesterday talking about the state of the renovations. | ||
| It looks like it's about 3.1 billion. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It went up a little bit or a lot. | |
| So the 2.7 is now 3.1. | ||
| I'm not aware of that. | ||
| Yeah, it just came out. | ||
| Yeah, I know. | ||
| I haven't heard that from anybody at the Fed. | ||
| It just came out. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I know it's got it about 3.1 as well. | |
| 3.1, 3.2. | ||
| Just came from us. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| I don't know who does that. | ||
| You're including the Martin renovation. | ||
| You just added in a third building, is what that is. | ||
| That's a third building. | ||
| It's a building that's being built. | ||
| No, it was built five years ago. | ||
| We finished Martin five years ago. | ||
| It's part of the overall work. | ||
| So we're going to take a look. | ||
| We're going to see what's happening. | ||
| And it's got a long way. | ||
| Do you expect any more additional post-elons? | ||
| Don't expect them. | ||
| We're ready for them. | ||
| But we have a little bit of a reserve that we may use, but no, we don't. | ||
| Expect to be finished in 2027. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're well along, as you can see. | |
| Nice to take these off every once in a while when we're not under too much danger. | ||
| So any questions? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, as a real estate developer, as a real estate developer, what would you do with a project manager who would be over budget? | |
| Generally speaking, what would I do? | ||
| I'd fire him. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you think this issue, Mr. President Guziko wants to do that? | |
| Well, I'm here just really with the chairman. | ||
| He's showing us around, showing us the work. | ||
| And so I don't want to get that. | ||
| I don't want to be personal. | ||
| I just would like to see it get finished. | ||
| And in many ways, it's too bad it started. | ||
| But it did start. | ||
| And it's been under construction for a long time. | ||
| It's going to be a real long time because it looks like it's got a long way to go. | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, are there things the chairman can say to you today that would make you back off some of the earlier criticism? | |
| Well, I'd love him to lower interest rates. | ||
| Other than that, what can I tell you? | ||
| And to your calls, Larry, Salisbury, North Carolina, Democrat, you're on Open Forum, Larry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I was listening to, you know, about him suing the media. | |
| I was wondering, can somebody call in and tell me why he didn't sue over the January 6th stuff, why he didn't sue over Egene Carroll, and why he didn't sue over the hush money stuff. | ||
| I mean, if, you know, he thought he was in the right den, why didn't he sue the media for all they said about that? | ||
| Can anybody call in and tell me, explain that? | ||
| You mean counter-suing Eugene Carroll for defamation? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| I believe he did. | ||
| Let me look that up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And hush money. | |
| The hush money, yeah, no. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And the January 6th. | |
| I mean, that is the worst thing he's ever done as far as I'm concerned is to January 6th, have, you know, Americans attack the capital to the United States. | ||
| That is the worst thing I ever heard of. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| So here it is. | ||
| Larry, on NPR, a judge tossed out Trump's countersuit to Eugene Carroll. | ||
| And that is, so he did countersue her, but that was tossed out. | ||
| Joe in Bedford, Maine, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call, Mimi. | ||
| The first time I called C-SPAN was the first year, a year into the first Trump administration, and he was lying about where his China ties were made. | ||
| So here we have, whatever, seven, six years later, I don't know how old, I don't remember. | ||
| I'm 66. | ||
| But I do remember when a man had nothing more than his word. | ||
| And a woman, too. | ||
| I'm sorry, but the expression was a man has nothing to live for except his word. | ||
| Today, it's the complete opposite. | ||
| Lie, deny, lie if you are rich. | ||
| So the only thing that's changed between today and when I was a little boy in Vietnam was going on, and the rich were supplying and making all kinds of money off of the weapons, and the congressmen were lying about how their sons were in the draft and all of that. | ||
| It's just the rich rule they keep. | ||
| Now, Trump is just rubbing it right in your face. | ||
| The Republican Party is rubbing it right in your face, telling you how Joe Biden was a mafioso, steal everything. | ||
| He is convicted of 34, is it 34 or 32 felonies? | ||
| And he accuses, he'd accuse you, Mimi, of a felony. | ||
| Because you, if you by chance, said Donald Trump is the worst president ever, he'd threaten to sue you, Mimi and C-SPAN. | ||
| And I would like to say one word about the media, please. | ||
| The media is doing this, Zuckerberg. | ||
| They lie about everything, Bezos, whoever owns your station. | ||
| They don't report on the Jewish incidents. | ||
| They don't report on. | ||
| So, Joe, just to clarify, nobody owns C-SPAN. | ||
| It's a nonprofit. | ||
| And here's Michael Louisville, Ohio, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| First of all, I love the program. | ||
| I try to get all my information from as many sources as I can before I make a judgment. | ||
| It seems to me that so many of the callers on here who are Democrat and downtrodden Trump, and I mean, they just trample him to death, they don't go back and look at themselves and they don't reflect on those comments that they make about, well, back in my day when a man gave his word, it was his word. | ||
| Well, they don't look at their own candidates. | ||
| I mean, Joe Biden has lied to us for four years. | ||
| Barack Obama lied to us for eight years. | ||
| Clinton lied to us for eight years. | ||
| Clinton is on the Epstein list. | ||
| Hillary Clinton is on the Epstein list. | ||
| There are so many candidates from both parties on the Epstein list, it makes my head spin. | ||
| I don't know who to believe on television anymore. | ||
| That's the reason why I don't listen to just one source. | ||
| I listen to everybody, and then I take what I know to be fact as facts. | ||
| I served in Vietnam. | ||
| I'm proud of my service. | ||
| But there are many Democrats out there who went to college and never did serve their country and still don't serve this country. | ||
| You have a great day. | ||
| Diane, Line for Democrats in Barberton, Ohio. | ||
| Good morning, Diane. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mimi. | |
| First of all, I'm wanting to say I too believe in facts. | ||
| And number one, do you talk about Russia-Russia? | ||
| Well, according to Bob Woolberg's book, Rage, Robert Mueller states: while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. | ||
| Also, when it comes to this thing with Epstein, I read a book, gosh, James Patterson's book. | ||
| And James Patterson was Epstein's neighbor. | ||
| Yes, Clinton was in the book, but this was because of the money that he was receiving in order to help another country. | ||
| Also, Trump's in there several times, pictures and all. | ||
| And the reason he had the downfall between them is because Epstein went to one of the young girls that was working there at Mar-a-Lago and asked her to come and do this, his thing. | ||
| And she got insulted, went back to her rich parents that worked, that was a member of Mar-a-Lago, and that's when they fell out. | ||
| You said that that was Jeffrey Epstein that did that at Mar-a-Lago? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| And where did you see this? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
James Patterson's book. | |
| All right. | ||
| Here's James, Florence, South Carolina, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mimi. | |
| How are you doing this morning? | ||
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
First of all, I want to thank C-SPAN because the other day John mentioned the death of Ozzy Osborne, and not many media outlets announced that. | |
| And I just want to, you know, say that Hulk Hogan died yesterday. | ||
| Now, I just recently turned independent. | ||
| I used to be a Republican. | ||
| I see good things on both sides, Democrats and Republicans, and I see bad things on both sides of the Democrats and Republicans. | ||
| Now, my thing about Epstein is that whoever is on that list that has done things with young girls, they need to go to prison. | ||
| So if Donald Trump's in there, when he gets out of office, he's to go to prison as well for, you know, however many years. | ||
| Because hurting those girls, they're scarred for the rest of their life. | ||
| That's all I really have to say. | ||
| You have a great day, Mimi, and it's great to see you on TV. | ||
| And in Memphis, Tennessee, Line for Republicans. | ||
| Bob, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I've called in Console. | |
| I am sort of conservative, but I don't care for Trump as a Republican. | ||
| But I think that you guys give him more attention than he deserves. | ||
| My neighbor's daughter did a master's thesis on what you call a content analysis. | ||
| And she showed that You give Trump more positive attention than the government. | ||
| He gets more time. | ||
| You show a Democrat one time, but you'll show Shot three times in the same places. | ||
| And he's saying nothing. | ||
| He's ignorant. | ||
| You guys get what you deserve. | ||
| Goodbye. | ||
| Chris in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Chris. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I wanted to mention something about the Epstein files. | ||
| I want to encourage everybody to sort of keep track of what the big important issue is, and that is, you know, it's not, you know, certainly there's important issues with Trump lying and holding people accountable, but the real folks that need to be held accountable is the government, because the government has failed. | ||
| They basically allowed Epstein to carry on with this behavior for tens of years. | ||
| And they gave him sweetheart deals, and it is a failing of government. | ||
| And folks need to focus on that. | ||
| And if this is investigated, it needs to be looking at how we can improve the government so that the government can protect the people like they're supposed to. | ||
| And regarding that story, we're getting reporting that the Department of Justice, so the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, will be interviewing Ghelaine Maxwell again for a second day today. | ||
| And here is Randall, Madison, Wisconsin, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This morning, I don't have a lot of things to say, except that public notice you were speaking about earlier, the bill to the hill and that kind of thing, those used to be publicly paid for from the government during the Kennedy era. | |
| I'm 70 years old, and they used to have a large variation of those kind of announcements. | ||
| It would just come across even during cartoons in the early mornings, they'd have them. | ||
| I went to Walmart a couple days ago and bought a Chuck Roast. | ||
| It cost me $22, where six months ago it cost me $14. | ||
| There's been some media price of meat in this country, but it's going through the roof more so than percentage-wise than eggs. | ||
| I don't know all the reasons why, but nobody's apparently addressing it at the government level. | ||
| I was very disappointed, and I don't know why, because it's not my money. | ||
| Columbia paid a $200 million settlement to Trump, and that just I'm from a different generation of there. | ||
| There was that so-called greatest generation from World War II. | ||
| My father was one of them. | ||
| And growing up as a baby boomer, we had a lot of these values and stuff instilled upon us. | ||
| And transitioning now into older age, but watching what's happening with this world, I just am having served in two different militaries myself. | ||
| I don't understand how people, 79 million people, could vote for Donald Trump. | ||
| And Steve in Mashpee, Massachusetts, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Steve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Hey, I just want to say that like the days of our reporters and Jimmy Olson and people getting stories correct have been long gone. | ||
| And I think it's because, you know, a lot of the reporters now are inside the bubble. | ||
| They're not outside the bubble. | ||
| And they're reporting from within Washington, which is their gravy train. | ||
| And they try to become the story rather than just report the story. | ||
| And some examples are like Jim Acosta, how he stood up in front of Donald Trump at the press conference or wherever they were that day, and he wouldn't sit down. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And he became the story. | ||
| And how like Caitlin Collins on CNN, you know, she has become a story rather than just a reporter. | ||
| And rather than just reporting the facts, they try to make themselves part of the facts. | ||
| And what amazes me are the talking points that go on like on day one, like every single news station has the exact same slogan or talking points of the Democrats. | ||
| And it's just incredible how it goes on rather than just reporting the news. | ||
| And that's how I feel. | ||
| All right, Steve. | ||
| And later on this morning on the Washington Journal, we'll speak with Ashik Sadiq, co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. | ||
| We'll talk about the group's growing influence in the wake of Zohran Mamdani's New York City mayoral primary win. | ||
| But first, after the break, a conversation with independent investigative journalist Catherine Haridge on her reporting on the Epstein files story and the Trump administration's claims that the Obama administration manufactured intel on Russia in 2016. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
American History TV, exploring the people and events that tell the American story. | |
| This weekend, as the nation prepares to celebrate its semi-quincentennial, American History TV begins a year-long series, America 250, on the American Revolution and its impact on the country. | ||
| On Lectures in History, Ithaca College professor Michael Trotty on the escalating tensions between colonists and the British government before the American Revolution. | ||
| We'll visit Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York for a Revolutionary War reenactment. | ||
| And later, historian Bruce Venter explores the significance of the May 1775 capture of Fort Ticonderoga by American Commander Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys. | ||
| The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum's annual book festival in Hyde Park, New York, where historians discuss the history of the U.S. Navy, American spy craft, and the role of breweries in the New Deal. | ||
| Exploring the American story, watch American History TV every weekend and find a full schedule in your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. | ||
| The haves and the have yachts, dispatches on the ultra-rich. | ||
| There are 10 essays which originally appeared in his home publication, The New Yorker. | ||
| The oldest one, Survival of the Richest, ran in 2017. | ||
| The newest title Land of Make-Believe was published in 2024. | ||
| In his introduction, Evan Osnos writes that, quote, reporting in the enclaves of the very rich, Monte Carlo, Palm Beach, Palo Alto, and Hollywood is complicated. | ||
| It's not a world that relishes scrutiny. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Author Evan Osnos with his book, The Haves and the Have Yachts, Dispatches on the Ultra-Rich. | |
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| Joining us is independent investigative journalist Catherine Herridge. | ||
| She puts out the Catherine Herridge Reports. | ||
| And Catherine, welcome to the program. | ||
| Thank you for having me. | ||
| First, tell us about your new site and how it's funded. | ||
| Well, a year ago, I made the decision to go independent and I set up the website and I started doing investigations on X. | ||
| And my goal was to tell the stories that I couldn't tell before because I really believe the facts have a power all their own. | ||
| And I had a number of stories that I had developed when I was at CBS News that they didn't want to proceed with. | ||
| In my view, they were somewhat risk-averse to some of the topics, so I picked those up first. | ||
| We did a COVID vaccine injury in the U.S. military. | ||
| We did Homeland Security whistleblowers who were retaliated against for calling out the department for being in violation of federal law. | ||
| And much to my surprise, we saw some real results, the kind of results that I might have seen at a larger corporate media outlet. | ||
| I definitely want to talk about your background and kind of some of the places you've worked and what's happened because it's a very interesting story. | ||
| But I want to start with the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabber, declassifying certain documents relating to the Russia investigation. | ||
| You've combed through those documents. | ||
| What's the general gist of what you found out? | ||
| Well, the simple explanation is that in December of 2016, the outgoing administration, the Obama administration, wanted to change the conversation. | ||
| There was a highly classified intelligence product called the President's Daily Brief. | ||
| And a key finding was that the Russian cyber activities had not affected the votes in the 2016 election. | ||
| And President Obama elected to do a new intelligence assessment that would be declassified and made public. | ||
| And that had a very different finding. | ||
| And it was that the Russian president had a clear preference for President Trump and that he aspired to help him in the 2016 campaign. | ||
| And that, in my view, really sort of set the foundation for these years-long investigations of President Trump and the special counsel, Robert Mueller-Probe. | ||
| Now, I want to show a portion of the Senate Intelligence Committee report. | ||
| This, as you know, is chaired by Marco Rubio at the time, who's a senator, and it says this. | ||
| The committee found that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak information damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign for president. | ||
| Moscow's intent was to harm the Clinton campaign, tarnish an expected Clinton presidential administration, help the Trump campaign after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and undermine the U.S. Democratic process. | ||
| Do you not believe that to be true? | ||
| No, I believe that to be true, but I don't think that we're necessarily talking about completely different things. | ||
| You can reach the conclusion that Russia attempted cyber activities throughout the 2016 election, but they failed to change the vote. | ||
| They failed to infiltrate the infrastructure. | ||
| You can also take the position that they wanted to denigrate Secretary Clinton. | ||
| I think that's pretty clear from the email leaks as well. | ||
| The issue the Director of National Intelligence is raising now is that this narrative that Putin wanted to help Trump and aspired to help Trump was based in what she says was faulty intelligence. | ||
| And does the information bear that out? | ||
| Well, I think this is a real opportunity for people to look at these declassified documents independently. | ||
| I would draw their attention to the specific section about Putin's intentions. | ||
| The Director of National Intelligence makes the argument that of all of the intelligence that was available on this point, they cherry-picked reporting that was the most flawed or the least consistent with proper handling of sources and information. | ||
| So what do you think would have been more proper for the Obama administration to do? | ||
| Boy, that's a tough call. | ||
| I think what I would have wanted to see is more transparency early in 2017 about the fact that the Steele dossier, the subsources for that dossier, were already starting to unravel. | ||
| And I'm sure your viewers will remember that the Steele dossier was one of the elements to obtain the FISA warrants for Trump campaign aide Carter Page. | ||
| And by January of 2017, the sources for the dossier were already unraveling, yet the FBI continued to use the Steele dossier as part of their applications to the FISA court, I believe it was at least two more times. | ||
| So as the information matured, I guess I would say, and they understood more about the reliability of the intelligence, I think there should have been more transparency about that. | ||
| The argument of the Trump administration is that there was not transparency, that there was a preferred political narrative, and that the intelligence community cherry-picked information to back that up. | ||
| Now, President Trump has accused former President Obama of a coup, of treasonous activity. | ||
| His administration has accused former President Obama. | ||
| Has there been anything that you've seen in these documents that would indicate either criminal behavior, treasonous behavior, or the attempt at a coup? | ||
| Well, treason is a very high standard, and the major obstacle with a former president is that they have immunity for the actions they take as commander-in-chief. | ||
| I mean, that's a very hard bar to cross. | ||
| I think including the other administration officials that don't have immunity. | ||
| Well, I think that there's a much lower bar for them, and I think there's probably a fair amount of heartburn in some circles over the release of these records, because sort of the low-hanging fruit in this is something called 18 U.S.C. 1001, which is lying to federal agents, can also be lying to Congress. | ||
| And I think there is evidence that some of these officials, specifically the CIA Director John Brennan, and the FBI Director James Comey, misled Congress about the use of the dossier and also the extent to which the Russian cyber activities had affected the vote in 2016. | ||
| I want to ask you, Senator John Warner on the Intelligence Committee put out a couple of posts on X accusing this release of and declassifying of these documents that they are putting sources and methods at risk and that this could impact our intelligence on Russia. | ||
| What do you think of that? | ||
| Wow, based on what I've read, I don't think there's really that strong an argument that it's going to violate or compromise sources and methods. | ||
| The documents in that respect, I think, are pretty generic, particularly when it comes to the issues of sort of the faulty, what Republicans see as the faulty intelligence. | ||
| I think we've had a full understanding of the steel dossier now that we didn't really have back in 2016 and 2017. | ||
| And just sort of anecdotally, from my own reporting at that time, because I was reporting through that entire period of 2016 and 2017 at Fox News as the chief intelligence correspondent, when that story broke about Russia collusion, I was asked to confirm it and then get our own reporting. | ||
| That would be standard practice. | ||
| And at that point, I'd been in Washington over 15 years. | ||
| And I don't know everyone, but I know a lot of people here in Washington, current government people, former government people. | ||
| And I talked to everyone. | ||
| I was trying to figure out where this information about this alleged collusion was being briefed from. | ||
| And I just couldn't find it. | ||
| And I remember saying to one of my supervisors, I can't seem to get this. | ||
| I don't think it's real. | ||
| Those were my exact words. | ||
| And I think we understand now that it wasn't an intelligence report in that traditional sense. | ||
| It was something else. | ||
| It was opposition research, which initially was funded by Republicans, but then the lion's share of that work was funded by the Democrats. | ||
| If you'd like to join our conversation with Catherine Herridge, you can. | ||
| The lines are Democrats 202748-8000, Republicans 202748, 8001, and Independents 202748-8002. | ||
| I want to talk about your background. | ||
| This is a headline from the New York Post from last October, 2024. | ||
| CBS reporter Catherine Herridge, who was fired amid Hunter Biden laptop reporting, launches newsletter. | ||
| Can you take us through, you know, you mentioned you were at Fox News. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| Why did you leave? | ||
| And then what happened at CBS? | ||
| I left Fox News after, gosh, I was there 23 years. | ||
| I was one of the original hires there. | ||
| And I was just really sort of hungering to do more investigative reporting. | ||
| And when CBS approached me about a position in Washington doing investigations, I mean, that was something I could not turn down. | ||
| And frankly, I was offered that job at 55. | ||
| And for a 55-year-old woman to be offered an assignment like that in a major network told me how much the industry was changing. | ||
| When I started in this industry... | ||
| Wait, is 55 old? | ||
| Well, when I started in this industry, I didn't know a lot of women who were still working on camera and television who were 55. | ||
| So I'm 61 now. | ||
| So there you go. | ||
| But I just, to me, this was an incredible thing. | ||
| It just showed me that there was a real value for my experience in national security reporting. | ||
| We did some tremendous work at CBS News, especially impacting the lives of nearly a million veterans and their families through our reporting. | ||
| But it ended very dramatically and in a very disappointing fashion for me. | ||
| My job was eliminated. | ||
| CBS said it was for cost-cutting reasons. | ||
| My experience is that if a company doesn't want you to work for them, that's no problem. | ||
| It's totally their call. | ||
| But then CBS News crossed a terrible red line by seizing my reporting records and confidential source information that was contained in those files. | ||
| Is that typical behavior for somebody that is let go? | ||
| That is not my experience. | ||
| And CBS knows it was wrong because they ultimately returned the files after there was a public outcry. | ||
| And my union, SAG AFTRA, got involved. | ||
| And thank goodness that they were willing to stand up for the First Amendment. | ||
| I testified about this to Congress. | ||
| When the network of Walter Cronkite seizes your investigative reporting files, that is an attack on investigative journalism. | ||
| And I called it a journalistic rape, and I stand by that statement. | ||
| There is this on the Washington Post. | ||
| Journalist Catherine Herridge held in contempt for not revealing source. | ||
| It says the veteran correspondent for CBS and Fox News was ordered to pay $800 a day in a case that had triggered alarm for press advocates. | ||
| First, tell us about this court case and what sources you were asked to reveal. | ||
| Well, I'm limited in what I can say because this is ongoing litigation. | ||
| I'm not a party in this litigation. | ||
| I'm simply a witness in this litigation. | ||
| There's no allegation that my reporting was false or defamatory. | ||
| We briefed our case to the appellate court here in Washington, D.C., last fall. | ||
| We're waiting for a decision. | ||
| More recently, the Justice Department filed a letter with the court asking for, in my view, critical evidence to be unsealed so that the public can understand the basis upon which the plaintiff lost their national security funding through the Defense Department on a national security basis. | ||
| And what's, you said it's ongoing. | ||
| Is this $800 a day being paid? | ||
| I'm very grateful that the district court has paused the fines pending the appeal, but I feel so strongly about this because nobody can really withstand fines of this nature, especially escalating over time. | ||
| And I really did a lot of advocacy for the Press Act last year because I understand that smaller independent outfits cannot withstand this kind of legal and financial pressure. | ||
| I have the benefit of Fox News standing behind me in this litigation. | ||
| It's very expensive defense to mount, and I'm grateful for that, but not every reporter will have the back. | ||
| Their old employer will have their back. | ||
| We have a lot of people that want to talk to you about before we do. | ||
| One more thing. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| New York Times, the Attorney General, that's Pam Bondi, lifts a ban on subpoenaing reporters' notes in leak investigations. | ||
| So former Attorney General Garland had placed a ban on trying to subpoena the notes of reporters when they're going after leak investigations. | ||
| That has been lifted. | ||
| Your reaction to that. | ||
| I just think there was a tremendous missed opportunity last year with the Press Act. | ||
| It passed on a bipartisan basis in the House, and then it died on the vine in the Senate. | ||
| And the Press Act would have done what? | ||
| The Press Act would have offered the broadest possible protections for working journalists and for the protection of their confidential sources. | ||
| There are what I would call common sense exceptions, like the threat of imminent violence, but for the most part, it was just an all-encompassing protection. | ||
| I feel that's so important right now with the explosion in independent media. | ||
| When you're an independent journalist or you're in a small digital newsroom, you're not going to be able to withstand a court case to defend your confidential sources. | ||
| And if you're an investigative journalist like myself, you understand that if you don't have a credible assurance of confidentiality to your sources, then your investigative toolbox is empty. | ||
| And that act passed the House unanimously in 2024, but President Trump came out against it and the Senate GOP died in the Senate. | ||
| And I think that that was really a disservice because so many of these smaller digital newsrooms are what I'll call center or center right. | ||
| So these are the voices that the GOP says they want to get out, but they didn't find the way to offer those protections. | ||
| Is there any chance it could come back? | ||
| I haven't seen a lot of movement on it in this session. | ||
| And actually, your testimony is in our archives. | ||
| It is. | ||
| So if anybody wants to go back and watch you, they can on our website. | ||
| Let's talk to Howard. | ||
| Carmel, Indiana, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Howard. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just want to be clear, if I can ask your guest, is her just assessment, professional assessment, that she thinks this accusation against Obama is at all credible. | ||
| I'm sorry, repeat the question one more time, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you think the accusation against Obama from the Trump administration is at all credible? | |
| I get your question. | ||
| I get your question. | ||
| I would really encourage you to do your own assessment and read these now declassified documents that are available. | ||
| It's highly unusual for such high-level intelligence to be declassified. | ||
| The timeline, I don't think, can be in dispute. | ||
| In December of 2016, the President's Daily Brief concluded that Russian cyber activities had not changed the vote outcome. | ||
| They had not hacked election infrastructure. | ||
| The following day, there was a White House meeting. | ||
| There was a decision and ordered by President Obama for a new intelligence assessment. | ||
| The allegation from President Trump and the Director of National Intelligence is that President Obama overstepped the line, that this process, the new intelligence assessment, was highly irregular and it relied on intelligence that was not supportable. | ||
| You, Howard, can go and read these documents for yourself. | ||
| Where you can find them on the DNI.gov website. | ||
| You can find them all over X as well. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Here's David in Swainsboro, Georgia, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, C-SPAN. | |
| Hello, Catherine. | ||
| Hi there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just want to point out something that's being covered up by all this headsteam thing. | |
| That's George Joannitis, the CIA agent that was the handler for Lee Harvey Oswald in the assassination of Kennedy, who went on to lie to the Warren Commission and lie to Congress. | ||
| Well, now, the CIA has done this for a long time. | ||
| They have constantly interfered in American politics for the Republicans. | ||
| Now, they just did it. | ||
| You mentioned it, brushed over it with the Russia report. | ||
| So there is a continued pattern of the CIA involvement in American politics that has gone on for almost 75 years. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Now, I could take you back to where they destroyed Iran's democracy to install the Shaw. | |
| That was Richard Nixon, and it caused Eisenhower to have a heart attack when he heard about it from Adelaide State. | ||
| Not Adelaide, but I think Adelaide. | ||
| Anyway, the CIA has been involved in a lot of things. | ||
| And I appreciate an independent reporter because I'm a true independent. | ||
| As you can tell, I'm here. | ||
| I'm talking about something else. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, he seems to know a lot of history, that's for sure. | ||
| And I don't want to give people bad information, but certainly the role of the CIA is really under the microscope now. | ||
| And I think the question I have consistently is whether we're doing what I would call traditional intelligence gathering, where we're finding the facts on the ground, and that's informing the assessments that are provided for policymakers, or whether there has been a politicization within the CIA. | ||
| So you have a kind of a preferred outcome, and then you work backwards from that, and you start cherry-picking intelligence. | ||
| And whatever your feelings about these newly released documents and the Russia collusion case, I think this is a great exercise in transparency to look at the records that are available and to independently assess whether you think any red lines were crossed. | ||
| Now, you see it as transparency. | ||
| Going back to Senator Mark Warner on the Intel Committee does not. | ||
| One of his tweets said, in doing so in declassifying, Director Gabbard is sending a chilling message to our allies and assets around the world. | ||
| The United States can no longer be trusted to protect the intelligence you share with us. | ||
| What do you make of that? | ||
| Well, I don't know specifically what intelligence he's referring to, so it's hard to respond to it. | ||
| And I'm not here to be a defender of the administration. | ||
| I totally applaud the declassification of records. | ||
| And at this point, we have to trust it was done in a responsible way that would not jeopardize ongoing sources of information or confidential human sources. | ||
| Time's going to tell whether it was done in a responsible way, but I think that's a legitimate question. | ||
| Julie, a Republican in Fort Wayne, Indiana. | ||
| Good morning, Julie. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, good morning. | |
| I hope I can be articulate, but I may have been watching Catherine Heritage since she was on Fox. | ||
| Then she went to CBS. | ||
| Of course, now she's independent. | ||
| I understand. | ||
| But here's, I'm old, and my husband and I would watch the meetings, you know, before the Senate and before the House of Representatives. | ||
| We'd turn on the evening news, be it CBS or usually ABC, and we would get a totally different take on what we had just witnessed. | ||
| They pick out the most horrible part of it, especially if Trump was involved. | ||
| They hate him for whatever reason. | ||
| I'm not going to be able to understand the exact hatred for him. | ||
| But that's how we see it. | ||
| And I've been following politics since I was in high school in the 60s. | ||
| So I'm a very old woman. | ||
| But I do understand what's going on, and I see the discrepancy between reality and what they present and show us. | ||
| And they try very hard to discredit anything Trump or anything he has to say. | ||
| So. | ||
| Okay, Julie. | ||
| All right. | ||
| I think what our listener is getting to is this loss of public trust in larger corporate media. | ||
| And we've got this sort of intersection now with that loss of trust. | ||
| And the technology has advanced, and we have these new platforms. | ||
| So there are many, many options for people now. | ||
| There are more exit ramps to get their information. | ||
| And when I decided to go independent a year ago, one of the things that has been so striking to me is the reach of these platforms. | ||
| We did an interview recently with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and that had over 9.5 million engagements. | ||
| And it was picked up by major media outlets. | ||
| So the depth and the breadth and the reach is really extraordinary. | ||
| And what you see is these audience numbers growing. | ||
| I think it's very hard to argue with the data as we see the numbers for traditional media continue to shrink. | ||
| And I think what our listener is talking about is that, in her view, a lack of public trust or disconnect in the coverage. | ||
| Did you go back and ask Secretary Rubio what he thought about the release, the declassification of these documents, given that he was the chair? | ||
| I don't have an answer. | ||
| That would be a very interesting question, how he would essentially square the issues. | ||
| Here's Terrell in Owings Mills, Maryland. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Catherine. | |
| I used to watch you all the time on Fox News, and I thought you was a straight shooter. | ||
| Well, thank you. | ||
| I don't know what happened to you, but I mean, you know what I'm saying? | ||
| I mean, because I thought that you were a very straight shooter, and I'd love to see you on Fox News. | ||
| But, Catherine, I remember early on, John McCain going over to talk to the CIA about the P-TAP. | ||
| That's what I remember when it first started out. | ||
| Then all of a sudden Hillary Clinton comes in. | ||
| But what I want to ask you, Catherine, what do you think Putin has on Donald Trump if it's not the PK? | ||
| Because if this PCAP comes out. | ||
| All right, all right, all right. | ||
| We got a question. | ||
| Listen, what's pretty clear from these documents is that the Russians are actively collecting whatever information, negative information they can about presidential candidates, the eventual winner. | ||
| And one of the interesting elements of the declassified documents is it makes the argument that in fact Vladimir Putin had a lot more damaging information about Hillary Clinton that they held back, that they could have released prior to the 2016 election, but they were holding back because their goal was once she was elected, they could then further damage her and undermine her credibility. | ||
| What is that, Compromise? | ||
| What do they have on her? | ||
| Well, according to these records, and I would encourage you to take a deep dive on them, is it had to do with her health situation. | ||
| It makes a number of allegations about the medications that she was on, just her illnesses that she may have. | ||
| And the goal would be to release this information and then sort of disable her as president if she was elected. | ||
| And a lot of analysts will say that Russia's ultimate goal is to weaken our democracy and to make the American public not trust elections. | ||
| So whether we end up thinking that they helped Trump or they helped Clinton, the end goal is the same for them. | ||
| Yeah, I think that I think that is the larger point that most people miss. | ||
| They get sort of caught up in the politics, which is understandable. | ||
| But really, the goal of our adversaries is to undermine our, you know, pardon me, to undermine our confidence in our democratic institutions, whether it's the electoral process, whether it's Congress, whether it's the office of the presidency or the courts. | ||
| You know, the expression is that you can't defeat America from the outside. | ||
| You can only defeat it from the inside. | ||
| And you do that by dividing people. | ||
| I think you can make an argument in the last 10 years, they've been pretty successful at dividing us. | ||
| Here's Stephen in Hagerstown, Maryland, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, folks. | |
| Just wanted to ask a question. | ||
| I thought under circumstances as far as this question of Obama being brought up in treason, it was my understanding that Flynn was being investigated way before Trump even put him up for the office that he wanted to put him up for. | ||
| It was my understanding that that would have had more of an impression as to what was going on at the time. | ||
| And it just seems to me that this whole thing comes down to being a show to try to keep other things from coming to the surface or other things he doesn't want to deal with because the Supreme Court basically said, as president, you do what you do, you're immune. | ||
| And I think it's all pretty much a mobile point. | ||
| I mean, but the president would have still had a reason to go in and say, hey, we have to investigate this. | ||
| We have to look at this because Flynn was known to have these associations with Russians, plus the fact of Trump Jr. having meetings in supposedly hotels in New York and things. | ||
| Usually when these things are done and an administration is trying to find a way to get in, you would think that those type of contacts would be more on the public domain because they're trying to prove that, hey, we're interested in this job. | ||
| I understand talking to different people from different countries, but wouldn't you want that to be out front and not be in the back alley? | ||
| All right, Stephen. | ||
| Well, I think one of the greatest legacies of the first administration is the case involving General Flynn. | ||
| President Trump very quickly dispatched with Flynn, fired him as a national security advisor. | ||
| And remind us that was for lying to the vice president. | ||
| Right. | ||
| So the leading, during that transition period, Michael Flynn had conversations with the Russian ambassador about what? | ||
| Well, they were talking. | ||
| Well, I think, I don't think they were, I don't want to give you bad information. | ||
| It's been like nine years since I looked at this. | ||
| But they were, I don't, the issue is whether he was talking about sanctions or not. | ||
| And at the end of the day, Flynn was fired. | ||
| And ultimately, he withdrew his plea and Attorney General Bill Barr, you know, sort of dismissed the case. | ||
| What I was going to say is I think the legacy of that is that in this second term, President Trump has been reluctant to fire people. | ||
| When there was the controversy over SignalGate, he moved Mike Waltz sideways. | ||
| When there's been sort of an outcry against Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, he's held the course with her. | ||
| I think, you know. | ||
| Why do you think that is? | ||
| Because I think he learned the lesson that when you fire people, when there's a big public outcry, there's blood in the water, and it makes it worse for you. | ||
| I think that was a lesson. | ||
| Here's Steve in Lebanon Junction, Kentucky, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I'm so grateful. | ||
| Catherine, it's a pleasure and an honor to speak with you. | ||
| Big fan for a long time. | ||
| I wish more journalists would take your lead and just concentrate on the facts and not bloviating on whose ox is being gored over different things. | ||
| You are just a breath of fresh air to journalism. | ||
| I think whenever you're finished with your career, I think you should teach somewhere that a university, if there's one left, that is straight down the line and that gives it the way it is and the facts the way they are. | ||
| I appreciate the things that you bring to light, things that we don't hear in the normal media, if you can call it normal. | ||
| I know people today seem like they all listen to their own echo chambers. | ||
| We get the Democrats listening to just what they want to hear. | ||
| And Hait said as Republicans, we kind of do the same thing. | ||
| I try to listen to all points of view myself and come up with a what's the truth? | ||
| You know, everybody's got a story, and there's always more than one side to the story, but there's only one truth. | ||
| And I appreciate you getting at that. | ||
| And you just, honestly, I'm so grateful. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| You know, he makes a very valid point that it's so easy now to consume news information that keeps you comfortable, that reinforces your own point of view. | ||
| And we've especially seen that in the last two decades with cable, because you've seen on cable the outlets go more and more to sort of the left or to or to the right. | ||
| And people have choices now. | ||
| And I would really encourage them to try and read information from different outlets, different points of view, and to the extent they can, you know, watch the hearings on the hill, watch C-SPAN, be your kind of own reporter on the spot and make your own decisions. | ||
| The information has never been more available. | ||
| The technology has never been, you know, better. | ||
| But sometimes I feel like the journalism has never been worse in some respects. | ||
| Wanted to get your opinion of the CBS settlement regarding the suit over the 60 minutes editing of the interview. | ||
| Sorry, it's a disease. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I gave it to you today. | |
| Go ahead. | ||
| Yes, I just wanted to get your reaction to that. | ||
| $16 million. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Well, the FCC has now cleared the way for the merger with Skydance. | ||
| David Ellison and his team have had to make a number of written commitments to unbiased journalism. | ||
| And I say this with respect, but I don't think the Skydance team understands how unbending the culture is at CBS News. | ||
| And if he wants to give me a call, I could tell him about my experience because I've been very public. | ||
| I was asked by the head of CBS, George Cheeks, to do the Hunter Biden case. | ||
| He said this was a priority for his boss, Shari Redstone. | ||
| They wanted to be able to do that. | ||
| The Hunter Biden investigation, the laptop, all of that. | ||
| And that it was a priority for them, but I'd never worked at a place where you could have a directive from the top and it was dismissed by executives and anchors. | ||
| So there wasn't, in my sense, sort of good order and discipline within the organization. | ||
| I think the settlement is very disappointing. | ||
| I think it's done tremendous damage to 60 Minutes, which is very sad to see. | ||
| And I think it was avoidable. | ||
| There were a lot of self-inflicted wounds here. | ||
| And you don't think CBS should have settled or? | ||
| I think it could have been avoided. | ||
| Well, I think once there was a question over the Kamala Harris interview and the edit, they should have fully released the transcript and the full video, if that's what it was going to take. | ||
| When I was at CBS News, I interviewed President Trump and I insisted that the full transcript of the interview be made available. | ||
| I mean, that's my training. | ||
| When you have a major newsmaker, you want to make the whole transcript. | ||
| My understanding was the whole interview was aired on CBS. | ||
| Not the whole Kamala Harris interview. | ||
| And that the issue was that they had taken a portion to kind of promo it in one of their other... | ||
| There was a disconnect in the promos on Face the Nation and then what aired later on the CBS network. | ||
| You know, my training is that when you're doing a major newsmaker, you have to edit for clarity. | ||
| There's no question about that. | ||
| But the final product should reflect the quality of the interview. | ||
| I may be in the minority. | ||
| I felt the 60 Minutes edit was problematic. | ||
| I think 60 Minutes could have done themselves a big favor by using one of the vice president's sort of awkward answers. | ||
| And then they could have just had a line of track saying, if you found that answer confusing, so did we. | ||
| And that would have been a nod to the audience that it just wasn't smooth sailing throughout. | ||
| So when I look at the settlement and the lawsuit, I think there were a lot of self-inflicted wounds by CBS News, and they could have done themselves a lot of favors. | ||
| It's Dr. Katrina, Democrat, Fayetteville, Georgia. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Oh, I have so much to say. | ||
| Good. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So you stated that you felt like journalism, rape, and I think that was the first choice of words of individuals who actually have endured that act. | ||
| So I think that was very insensitive to even associate rape with what happened to you. | ||
| In addition, you say that Russia did not answer or didn't think that, you know, they didn't favor Trump. | ||
| But it's only two candidates that run at a time, okay? | ||
| Final candidates anyway. | ||
| And if they're trying to hurt Hillary Clinton's candidacy, who else would they be favoring? | ||
| It would be the other candidate. | ||
| So the information that came out after the research is basically what it was saying, that the Russian favored the other candidate. | ||
| Now, as you know, Obama is a very intelligent individual, more intelligent than the guy that's in the White House now. | ||
| When you have people within Trump's camp meeting with the Russians, those are red flags, okay? | ||
| So he did exactly what he's supposed to do, which is do some additional research to make sure if it's going to be, if it's clean, it's clean. | ||
| If it's not, it's not, okay? | ||
| So in meeting with them, and he got fired by the Trump administration because we don't know exactly what they were talking about. | ||
| Trump had people come to the White House. | ||
| His son was meeting with the Russians. | ||
| So if it's smoke there, you definitely need to go and investigate. | ||
| All right, Katrina. | ||
| What I would say to Katrina is I would look at these newly declassified records, and I would also go back to the special counsel Robert Mueller investigation and read the conclusions. | ||
| That's really right at the beginning. | ||
| It's a handful of pages. | ||
| And what it found is that there was not sufficient evidence of collusion. | ||
| And we can argue over sort of the legal semantics of that, but I would encourage you to go back and read it. | ||
| And I use the term journalistic rape. | ||
| I felt that I was very violated as a journalist. | ||
| It was not meant to be insensitive to anyone. | ||
| So if I offended you, I apologize. | ||
| Here is Frank in Silver Creek, Georgia. | ||
| Republican, you're on the air with Catherine Herridge. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, nice to meet you. | |
| Ma'am, question, you're spot on about the media dividing America. | ||
| They do it every day on the news. | ||
| And my question is foreign ownership in our media outlets. | ||
| Now, a lot of Americans don't believe that foreigners own some of our media, but they can own up to 20% of ABC, CBS, and NBC. | ||
| And ABC is in bed with Saudi Arabia. | ||
| NBC is in bed with China. | ||
| And I don't know who CBS is in bed with, but it's probably Britain. | ||
| What's your opinion on foreign ownership in our media outlets? | ||
| Well, that's a tough question for me because I'm not really an expert in that. | ||
| But what I would say is that we're seeing a revolution, really, almost like a mini-industrial revolution in this media marketplace. | ||
| And, you know, for years, large corporate media had a monopoly. | ||
| They were the gatekeepers of information. | ||
| But in this era now, especially with platforms like X, you can't keep anything hidden anymore. | ||
| I mean, I would argue that the Epstein story has had tremendous impact and legs because of platforms like X. You just can't hide information. | ||
| And I think one of the challenges for this administration is on the Epstein files, they over-promised, and I think you can argue so far, have under-delivered. | ||
| Loretta, Cleveland, Ohio, Democrat, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Catherine. | |
| My question is, what exactly is Tulsi Gabbard up to? | ||
| Because if the Supreme Court gave immunity to presidents, this is a nothing burger. | ||
| You can't bring up nothing on any present president, past president, or future president. | ||
| So what is this? | ||
| It is a distraction from the Epstein files. | ||
| And regarding the Epstein files, I'm wondering what exactly the list, the list is compiled of rich white men. | ||
| And that's the reason why they don't want to put it out. | ||
| Those people do not want to be known. | ||
| And the point of it is, is that they have committed crimes. | ||
| And I don't think that there should be any daylight between them and going to jail. | ||
| I don't care who it is. | ||
| I really don't. | ||
| I don't care who it is. | ||
| All right, Loretta, let's get her responsible. | ||
| All right, thank you. | ||
| Listen, I think we can all agree that when there are crimes against children, people have to be held accountable to the full extent of the law. | ||
| That should not be a political question. | ||
| The extent to which these records can be released, they should be. | ||
| I mean, I think the transparency is important here. | ||
| And if people's names appear on the list, that's not a crime, but it may beg further explanation from the parties. | ||
| The list. | ||
| Do you believe that there's a conversation? | ||
| I think that that's kind of shorthand for records or videos that were recovered from Epstein's home, maybe his contact list. | ||
| But I think the fullest degree of transparency would be helpful, mindful of the victims, and then also mindful that there should be evidence of a crime. | ||
| You know from covering courts, I'm sure, that grand jury testimony is not necessarily testimony that leads to a criminal charge. | ||
| So I think we have to be mindful of that. | ||
| And just on the director of national intelligence, Loretta makes a great point. | ||
| She's totally read in on this issue of immunity. | ||
| I completely applaud that, Loretta. | ||
| I think that's great. | ||
| One of the issues here, based on the formation of this sort of strike task force at the Justice Department, is whether there are individuals who cross the line in terms of criminal activity. | ||
| We talked about violations of 18 U.S.C. 1001. | ||
| That's lying to federal agents or lying to Congress. | ||
| And that would implicate people who don't have immunity like a former president. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And here's Scott, Port St. Lucie, Florida, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Scott. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, C-SPAN. | |
| And Catherine, it's a privilege. | ||
| Thank you for your professionalism. | ||
| Thank you for your professionalism. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And your experience. | |
| I'm grateful to be talking. | ||
| Let me just get down right to the point. | ||
| Get right to it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| It looks like Brandon, Clapper, Comey, Hillary. | ||
| Yep, they're going to get charged with probably seditious conspiracy. | ||
| And when you get a chance, maybe you could speak a little bit more about grand conspiracy with some kind of charge they're charging like the coup. | ||
| But my question is, to get down to the point, Obama, as president, has immune while he's in office. | ||
| The two questions is, does he still have immunity if he was found to commit treason? | ||
| And the other one is, after he stepped out of office, did he do anything? | ||
| Did he make a phone call to somebody or somebody else after he stepped out of office that would tie him back to the coup? | ||
| And do you think he will be charged? | ||
| Okay, we got it, Scott. | ||
| Well, coup is a very powerful word. | ||
| It's a very loaded word. | ||
| And I think if we all just kind of sit back and cool our jets a little bit, I think people need to understand how serious any kind of criminal charge would be against a former president. | ||
| The test here is whether there will be criminal charges, right? | ||
| I mean, I think people put out declassified documents all the time. | ||
| I think that's good to inform the public, no question. | ||
| But the threshold here is whether it will ultimately result in criminal charges. | ||
| And I don't even want to hazard a guess on that. | ||
| I just think it would be irresponsible. | ||
| Catherine, what news stories, what initiatives are you looking forward to? | ||
| What's on your agenda? | ||
| Well, one of the great things in the last year is I wondered heading into this whether the reporting would have the same impact. | ||
| And what I'm seeing is that actually results happen faster than they used to, even at the big companies. | ||
| Just this week, I did some reporting on an Army veteran who was wrongly denied his prostate cancer for benefits at the VA. | ||
| And that's what they call a presumptive service connection. | ||
| It means the VA presumes it's related to your military service. | ||
| This is for the PACT Act. | ||
| That's correct. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And within 48 hours, we've had outreach from the VA and his prostate cancer denial was reversed and it was approved. | ||
| I mean, 48 hours. | ||
| I mean, that's a pretty incredible thing. | ||
| And I love journalism. | ||
| It's like one of the great love affairs of my life. | ||
| And even those stories, you know, they're consequential for a person and their family. | ||
| And it's that sense of injustice, right? | ||
| Speaking up this is a very traditional view of journalism. | ||
| So I continue to go down that path. | ||
| I've done a new partnership for a Sunday current affairs show. | ||
| I'm not going to make the announcement now, but that's coming soon. | ||
| And that's very encouraging because we're able to broaden this brand. | ||
| And I think that in this sort of new universe of independent journalism, I think it's really long time that people had a fresh choice when it came to these current affairs shows. | ||
| That's Catherine Herridge, investigative, independent investigative journalist. | ||
| You can find her work at KatherineHerridgeReports.com. | ||
| Thanks so much for joining us. | ||
| I really enjoyed it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| In about 30 minutes on the Washington Journal, we'll talk to Ashik Sadiq. | ||
| He's co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, and we'll talk about the group's growing influence in the wake of Zorhan Mamdani's New York City mayoral primary win. | ||
| But first, it's open forum. | ||
| You can start calling in now: Democrats 202-748-8000, Republicans 202-748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
|
unidentified
|
American History TV Saturday is 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. | |
| At 8 a.m. Eastern on Lectures in History, Ithaca College professor Michael Trotty on the escalating tensions between colonists and the British government before the American Revolution. | ||
| Then at 11 a.m. Eastern, we'll visit Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York for a Revolutionary War reenactment. | ||
| And later, historian Bruce Venter explores the significance of the May 1775 capture of Fort Ticonderoga by American Commander Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys. | ||
| And at 12:45 p.m. Eastern, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum's annual book festival in Hyde Park, New York, where historians discuss the history of the U.S. Navy, American spy craft, and the role of breweries in the New Deal. | ||
| 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. | ||
| Book TV, every Sunday on C-SPAN 2, features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. | ||
| Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend. | ||
| Book TV continues the celebration of America's 250th with author conversations on the American Revolution. | ||
| At 2 p.m. Eastern, contributors to the book Waging War in America, 1775 to 1783, discuss the operational challenges that American, British, French, and German military forces face during the conflict. | ||
| And at 6.45 p.m., U.S. Marine Corps Major General Jason Bohm explores the origins of the Marine Corps, including the formation of the Continental Marines during the American Revolution, in his book, Washington's Marines. | ||
| Then at 8 Eastern, Rick Atkinson shares his book, The Fate of the Day, examining the middle years of the Revolutionary War, from the 1777 capture of Fort Ticonderoga to the 1780 siege of Charleston. | ||
| Also this weekend, at 5.30 p.m., how did the like button become so ubiquitous? | ||
| Author Martin Reeves explores the origins of the thumbs up symbol and how it changed the internet with his book, Like, The Button That Changed the World. | ||
| And at 10, Martha Blanding broke a color barrier at California's Disneyland, becoming the park's first black official tour guide in 1971. | ||
| She tells the story of her 50-year career with the Walt Disney Company and of social and cultural change in her book, Groundbreaking Magic. | ||
| 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. | ||
| C-SPANSHOP.org is C-SPAN's online store. | ||
| Browse through our latest collection of C-SPAN products, apparel, books, home decor, and accessories. | ||
| There's something for every C-SPAN fan, and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations. | ||
| Shop now or anytime at cspanshop.org. | ||
| In a word, Evan Osnos' latest book focuses on the subject of money. | ||
| His book is titled The Haves and the Have Yachts, Dispatches on the Ultra-Rich. | ||
| There are 10 essays which originally appeared in his home publication, The New Yorker. | ||
| The oldest one, Survival of the Richest, ran in 2017. | ||
| The newest, titled Land of Make-Believe, was published in 2024. | ||
| In his introduction, Evan Osnos writes that, quote, reporting in the enclaves of the very rich, Monte Carlo, Palm Beach, Palo Alto, and Hollywood is complicated. | ||
| It's not a world that relishes scrutiny. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Author Evan Osnos, with his book, The Haves and the Have-Yachs, Dispatches on the Ultra-Rich. | |
| on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb. | ||
| BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| We're in open forum. | ||
| Whatever you'd like to talk about for about 25 minutes, you can give us a call. | ||
| The numbers are on your screen. | ||
| While you're doing that, here is Senator Chuck Schumer. | ||
| He's a minority leader in the Senate. | ||
| He was on the floor yesterday slamming the GOP's response to the Epstein files. | ||
| Take a look. | ||
| Today marks the first day of the House embarking on their Epstein recess. | ||
| And already, the story Republicans hoped would quietly fade is growing louder by the hour. | ||
| Just yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice informed President Trump back in May that his name appears multiple times in the Epstein files. | ||
| Let me remind my colleagues, only last week, Donald Trump told a reporter that Attorney General Bondi never told him his name was in those files. | ||
| Now we know that this was a lie, plain and simple, a red-faced lie. | ||
| And this revelation raises not just serious questions about President Trump, but about Attorney General Bondi herself. | ||
| Bondi has proven to do all of Trump's bidding. | ||
| No matter what, no matter what way you slice it, General Bondi lied to the American people. | ||
| She told us we'd see the report. | ||
| She told us it's on her desk. | ||
| Then we're told there's no report. | ||
| So you can understand the deep skepticism Americans have when they hear that today Bondi's personal prosecutors, yes, the very ones under her direction, are preparing to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's longtime accomplished accomplice behind closed doors in Florida. | ||
| Let me repeat: under no circumstances should anyone from Donald Trump's Department of Justice be allowed to privately interview Ghislaine Maxwell. | ||
| The conflict of interest just stares you in the face, and it's unacceptable. | ||
| If you've been following this saga and given how the White House and Speaker Johnson have so mishandled it, and who hasn't been following it, you know exactly why this moment is so dangerous. | ||
| There is every reason to fear that Donald Trump could offer Ghislaine Maxwell a pardon in exchange for silence or even worse, phony exoneration. | ||
| Let me be clear. | ||
| Trump is sending his personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, to try and execute a corrupt cover-up, potentially offering leniency to a woman who also abused the victims. | ||
| And to your calls now, Matthew Staunton, Virginia, Democrat, good morning, Matthew. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Hello, everybody. | ||
| This is my first time calling to C-SPAN. | ||
| Great program. | ||
| Always loved it. | ||
| I was calling to speak with the previous guest, who is an independent journalist known for her appearances on Fox News. | ||
| In regards to the confidentiality of the report that Tulsa Gabbard released, I enjoyed an interview by Senator Mark Warner of Virginia with a group called Todd Save America, who are known in the podcasting state as being retired Obama staffers. | ||
| So, you know, you can take that into account. | ||
| But Mark Warner is still part of the gang of eight known for having the most access to sensitive intelligence. | ||
| And I recommend everyone who's interested in the story of the research material being released to look up that interview with Senator Mark Warner and Pod Save America, and that Tulsa Gabbard did not go through the proper channels before she just dumped it on. | ||
| the public. | ||
| So the IC, as they call it, the intelligence community did not know that she was going to release this report. | ||
| And there was sensitive information in it that could jeopardize our intelligence community staffer. | ||
| So, in the spirit of independent journalism, I recommend everybody go check that out. | ||
| And thank you, C-SPAN. | ||
| I hope that the reporter who was just a guest on your show will also watch that interview with Senator Mark Warner because the confidentiality of the report is suspect. | ||
| It is important, and it seems to be a politically motivated release. | ||
| All right, Matthew, on the Republican line, Woodbridge, Virginia. | ||
| Bill, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, thanks for taking my call. | |
| It was refreshing to hear Miss Harridge on your program. | ||
| She's joined a, unfortunately, a long list of female journalists who have been ousted for various offenses according to their network. | ||
| Cheryl Atkinson, I'm sure you'll remember, left her job at CBS News. | ||
| And when she left, she found out her computers had been bugged because she had the audacity to report on some things about Hillary Clinton and various other Democrats. | ||
| Amy Roebach, I don't know if anybody remembers her from ABC, but she had an interview with Virginia Roberts, who was a victim of Jeffrey Epstein, and her report was not aired, and she left in disgust with ABC. | ||
| So this goes on and on. | ||
| I mean, if you go across the established hierarchy of people and you badmouth some people in the media or the politics, you're going to get ousted. | ||
| You're going to get, or at the very least, you're just going to get ignored. | ||
| These leaks go on all the time, but they never get reported because that's the major sin of the media is omission. | ||
| They will not report what they need to report, and the public never knows about it. | ||
| Thanks a lot for everything you do, C-SPAN. | ||
| Charlie, Independent Line, Sarasota, Florida, you're on. | ||
| Charlie, are you there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'm here. | |
| Go right ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for accepting my call. | |
| First time caller, independent. | ||
| Anyway, I wanted to say: collusion is not a crime. | ||
| Collusion is talking is not a crime. | ||
| Conspiracy is the crime that Muller talked about that he couldn't find. | ||
| So it's a confusing conspiracy and collusion, Americans. | ||
| Read the Muller report. | ||
| He was very specific on that. | ||
| He couldn't find a conspiracy, not collusion. | ||
| There was plenty of talking between parties. | ||
| You're allowed to do that. | ||
| Thank you for accepting my call. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| Charles, a Democrat in Hawkinson, Delaware. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hocus in Delaware. | |
| Hocus in Delaware. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you very much. | |
| I'm a proud Democrat for life. | ||
| My concern is a question that has never been answered or even asked. | ||
| What would have happened if the bipartisan border bill would have been signed and Trump had not stopped it because he wanted that for the election? | ||
| How much money would we be spending today if they had signed the border bill? | ||
| How much money has Trump really cost us now? | ||
| Why are we spending all this money? | ||
| It's a travesty. | ||
| I love you, C-SPAN. | ||
| I'm speaking to the United States. | ||
| That's the only way I could do it. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Van, Paris, Ohio, Independent Line, you're on Open Forum. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| I would like to make a statement about Donald Trump and his righteousness that the American people saw firsthand on January 6th, what we had for a president. | ||
| And they saw in Helsinki with Putin what we had for a president. | ||
| He went against seven or eight intelligence agencies that have the facts and believe Putin instead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It was a disgrace. | |
| And I think that we should all look at that and understand what Putin might have on Donald Trump. | ||
| I never thought about it until this Jeffrey Epstein situation resurfaced. | ||
| Trump made a statement when he was head of the Miss Universe pageant, how he walked into the dressing room and was like a kid in a candy store looking at all these teams. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And he made statements to the fact in various forms of undress. | |
| And I think Putin, when he was in Moscow for that pageant, Putin provided him with what he needs. | ||
| And I don't want to call the former president a pedophile, but the facts really look good that he's a pedophile. | ||
| And he is. | ||
| All right, Van, and some news for you. | ||
| Politico reporting that the U.S. leaves Gaza ceasefire talks says Hamas doesn't want to end the fighting. | ||
| Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said, quote, Hamas does not appear to be coordinated or acting in good faith. | ||
| Also wanted to show you the front pages of both the New York Times and the Washington Post. | ||
| Here's the New York Times with this picture of an 18-month-old and his mother. | ||
| She said he was born healthy but has been recently diagnosed with severe malnutrition. | ||
| A doctor said the number of children dying of malnutrition in Gaza has risen sharply. | ||
| That's the picture on the front page. | ||
| And this is on the front page of the Washington Post, a very similar picture, a woman holding her son who has cerebral palsy, and they are at a Gaza City school where they are sheltering. | ||
| Front page headline on the Washington Post, Deaths Rise as Gazans Face Starvation. | ||
| It's on the Washington Post. | ||
| Gary in Bowie, Texas, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Gary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, thanks for the program. | |
| I just wanted to say it's hilarious listening to Democrats cutting down Trump when they voted for Biden. | ||
| And then earlier you put on Chuck Schumer. | ||
| Oh, my God. | ||
| Everything he said was a lie. | ||
| Nothing he said had any substance whatsoever. | ||
| And he's talking about you cannot have somebody talking to Maxwell. | ||
| Guess what? | ||
| Unless a Democrat. | ||
| Listen, these Democrats had this file for four years. | ||
| So what's the problem? | ||
| I mean, are they all on it and say why they didn't release it? | ||
| I mean, this is just ridiculous stuff. | ||
| Anyways, the whole deal is we need to get the appointments put through. | ||
| The heck with the dang Epstein files. | ||
| I mean, I really don't care about it either way. | ||
| Don't know that much about it. | ||
| Don't really care about it. | ||
| The way I see it, that's not important to the country. | ||
| But I know a lot of people are upset. | ||
| And it's anytime anything happens to children, it's not good. | ||
| And this was happening for, what, 20, 30 years? | ||
| And all of a sudden, America's outraged on this stuff. | ||
| And of course, Who was covering, who sealed the files? | ||
| All right, Gary. | ||
| Tony, Southfield, Michigan, Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, good morning. | |
| I really wanted to talk to your former guest, but didn't President Trump just have a bill go through the judicial system and Supreme Court said that a president could not be prosecuted. | ||
| And now his administration is trying to prosecute President Trump, meaning President Obama. | ||
| I mean, what did he think that the law was just written for him? | ||
| But I'm sure this will exempt President Obama if he did anything, which I think he didn't. | ||
| And to the last caller, what he said, Chuck Schumer had a lot of substance. | ||
| He's just not educated on what's really going on. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Johnny, a Republican in San Antonio, Texas, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, this is for all retirement people. | |
| And I just want to say this: that there's marijuana out there, and it's not to be foolish about it, but to be real about it. | ||
| And there's all colors out there, and not to be dumb about it or stupid, but there's pink and dark pink, and I want this stuff legal. | ||
| And it's very exciting. | ||
| And here's Jimmy, a Republican in East Palatka, Florida. | ||
| Good morning, Jimmy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, America. | |
| And what I have to say about what Chuck Schumer said, you know, the simple fact is, is for two and a half years, especially before the election, you know, they tried to throw everything at Donald Trump, including, you know, raiding, you know, baiting Mar-a-Lago, you know, going and, you know, going into his house, you know, you know, sending the FBI agents into his house and the deputies and marshals and all that, you know, | ||
| and then putting all kinds of charges against him and throwing everything that they could against him. | ||
| You know, if they didn't have something in the Epstein files that was, you know, there for years and years and years that they could use against him, don't you think that they would have used it against him already? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Linda in Ogden, Utah, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Linda. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I'm just kind of confused on the matter. | ||
| Maybe someone can help me understand. | ||
| If I'm in a food line trying to get food and someone shoots at me and starts killing me, and then they say to me, you don't want peace, I'm just confused. | ||
| Of course I want peace, but do I want to trust someone who's shooting at me and killing me for getting food? | ||
| I'm really confused. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And this news caller mentioned it earlier in the program from Fox News, pro-wrestling icon Hulk Hogan is dead at 71. | ||
| He died in his Florida home. | ||
| Again, Hulk Hogan, wrestling, pro-wrestling icon, has died. | ||
| Frank in Aberdeen, Maryland, Democrat, good morning, Frank. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am. | |
| Project 2025 has become an experiment in unitary control of the United States government by the executive with no oversight by Congress and with no timely review by the courts allowed. | ||
| Trump is now able to create laws by executive order unilaterally by his royal fiat. | ||
| We are now governed by a monarch. | ||
| And God, I'm sad. | ||
| And as for the Epstein files, we had a real FBI and real DOJ will not release those files until the Maxwell trial and appeals are over because it would be against her interest. | ||
| And it is just the way the rules are written. | ||
| The rules are being broken by Trump. | ||
| Have a blessed day. | ||
| And Axios reporting this exclusive Massey leans into Trump Defiance and First TV ad. | ||
| This is Congressman Massey's for his reelection campaign. | ||
| Take a look at a new ad. | ||
| This is 30 seconds. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure, you've seen the attack ads by now. | |
| Look, it's simple. | ||
| They're attacking me because I'm holding the Washington machine accountable. | ||
| Whether it was being the lone no vote against Pelosi's $2 trillion COVID bailout or just this month voting against adding $4 trillion more to the national debt. | ||
| And now, I'm leading the charge to force a vote to release the complete Epstein files. | ||
| I'm Thomas Massey, and I prove this message because I'm not folding. | ||
| I'm fighting, and I'm just getting started. | ||
| And here is Thomas in Huntington Valley, Pennsylvania, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Thomas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, how are you doing? | |
| It's a very good program you had this morning. | ||
| The Democratic woman that called earlier, if we don't talk to our enemies, we won't know how to deal with them. | ||
| And when she brought the fact that Trump went over to talk to Putin, well, he has to deal with everyone in the world because we're the policemen of the world. | ||
| I got a relative who's an admiral in the Navy. | ||
| And, you know, I worry about him all the time. | ||
| And, you know, he did a very good job this morning. | ||
| I appreciate your program. | ||
| And with Kathleen Heritage? | ||
| Catherine, yes. | ||
| Heritage. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| I had a stroke, so please bear with me. | ||
| And I really enjoy this program this morning. | ||
| I wish they'd understand. | ||
| He has to talk to our enemies, no matter who they are. | ||
| Alexander in White Plains, Maryland, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Just wanted to say a couple of things. | ||
| It's interesting that when these Republicans call in, they always talk about why they didn't release the files when Biden was in office. | ||
| We're not talking about that. | ||
| We're talking about right now what's going on with the Epstein files and why they won't release them now. | ||
| We don't know why they didn't release them. | ||
| I believe the reason they didn't release them then is because they have a lot of donors and a lot of people on the Democratic side is as guilty as the people on the Republican side. | ||
| And it's a shame the way this government is going. | ||
| The gentleman just called a few minutes ago talked about how we're going to have a Unitarian government, which is what we have already. | ||
| I can't see how these so-called proud patriotic Americans can sit back and see all the struggle that their forefathers and our forefathers went through to create somewhat of an equal system where we could all have the access to our rights and the freedom of speech and all those wonderful things that we call ourselves a democracy for. | ||
| But it's the doggone shame. | ||
| And now the other thing on top of that is we have two branches of government, not branches, but two Democrats and Republicans both supporting an ongoing genocide where they're killing babies constantly every day. | ||
| What is wrong with these people? | ||
| Don't come to my face telling me you're a Christian, you're Muslim, you're this, you're that. | ||
| I don't care what you call yourself. | ||
| You need some humanity. | ||
| You need to understand that if this can happen to the people in Gaza and it can happen to the people in the Sudan and around the world, and you have these people in positions of power, and all they care about is money, come on, people, wake up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't care if you're a Democrat or Republican. | |
| The guy is an evil dictator, and whether or not you think it's going to affect you just because you have lighter skin, oh, it's going to come to you, too. | ||
| Look at Daphne in Mountain View, Arkansas, Republican. | ||
| Did I pronounce your name right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Go right ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I am very surprised about all the entertaining charade in the news now. | |
| They are onto Trump and how many others has done the same thing when they were younger. | ||
| And instead of talking about other important things, they just put on everyday soap stories, soap operas. | ||
| Now then, you don't hear about the targeting of American citizens by EMFs, microwave frequencies. | ||
| How come they want to talk about that? | ||
| Who's pointing microwaves at American citizens, Daphne? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're coming from drones, satellites, cell towers. | |
| You study up on cell towers and see what they do. | ||
| And you tell me what they do. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They send microwave frequencies to certain individuals that's on targeted list, and it's very damaging to them. | |
| And this is on USA Today with the headline: Trump Signs Order Pushing Cities and States to Remove Homeless People from the Streets. | ||
| Amid record high homelessness, Trump wants to move homeless people from the streets and into treatment centers. | ||
| You could read that at USA Today. | ||
| And this is Thelma in Bronx, New York. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Democrat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| This is Democrat from New York City. | ||
| I have a question for Republicans. | ||
| What else can Donald Trump do for them to say enough? | ||
| He's a 34-felon. | ||
| He is a 34-felon. | ||
| He assaulted a woman. | ||
| He was fined for rape. | ||
| And now he's in the file with a pedophile about children. | ||
| Children, I'm a mother. | ||
| Children, what can Donald Trump do for a Republican to say, I had enough? | ||
| God help us. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And that's it for today's Open Forum. | ||
| Coming up next, A Conversation with Ashik Sadiq, co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. | ||
| We'll talk about that group and the mayoral primary win of Zaran Mamdani in New York City. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| We're joined now by Ashik Sadiq, Democratic Socialists of America co-chair. | ||
| Ashik, welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks so much for having me. | |
| Can you explain what is democratic socialism and what are the most important issues to the party? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so Democratic Socialists of America is an organization of over 80,000 members all over the country in the United States. | |
| We believe that in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, we should all have a say in how that wealth is distributed. | ||
| We think all of us deserve to have a healthy quality of life for ourselves, our families, our communities. | ||
| And our mission is to build the movement of everyday people who can organize together in all parts of our lives and build a movement that's strong enough to win the role that we all deserve. | ||
| So is it part of the Democratic Party or is it a separate party completely? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So we are an independent organization. | |
| We run people for elected office all over the country, mostly running as Democrats in primaries. | ||
| So Zorhan Mamdani in New York City is a great example. | ||
| He just won the Democratic primary for mayor and electoral work is one part of what we do. | ||
| We also help people organize in their workplaces as tenants in their communities. | ||
| And we're building the kind of independent working class organization that hasn't really existed in the United States in many years. | ||
| We have formally a two-party system with Republicans and Democrats, but there aren't really many opportunities for people to shape how those parties operate. | ||
| So in other countries, political parties mean you can participate, you can make decisions together and shape what the political system looks like. | ||
| We don't really have that in the United States. | ||
| So this is something we're trying to expand democracy in all parts of people's lives. | ||
| Well, let's talk about Zoran Momdani. | ||
| He made big news. | ||
| He's one of your candidates, as you mentioned, when he won the mayoral primary in New York City for the Democratic Party. | ||
| What do you think propelled him to victory? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Zoron's win in New York City, and there are so many other examples too. | |
| Like just in the past week, Omar Fateh in Minneapolis is on track to be the Democratic candidate for mayor of Minneapolis. | ||
| So we are helping run people all over the country who stand for working class people who have clear platforms. | ||
| Zoron communicated very effectively on just a very simple set of core demands to address cost of living in New York City, the wealthiest city in the world, one of the largest cities in the world. | ||
| And it's also one of the most unequal cities in the country. | ||
| So he campaigned very clearly on demands like fast and free buses, on a rent freeze to control the cost of housing, on municipal grocery stores to help manage the cost of food that's going up all over the city. | ||
| So these are very simple demands. | ||
| They're addressing needs that people haven't been hearing from people in the political system for years. | ||
| And people see Eric Adams, who's been mayor of New York City for years now. | ||
| They see somebody like Andrew Cuomo, who's been tarred by all sorts of scandal. | ||
| They see the corruption of people in government who are just not meeting people's needs and who are complicit in just making people's lives worse. | ||
| So the federal government under the Trump administration has just been enacting things like the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill. | ||
| That's the largest upward transfer of wealth in one law in American history. | ||
| So people saw Zoron campaigning on clear cost of living needs. | ||
| They saw his record in state government with a block of people who are socialists in office in New York State who've been building a record of credibility from the ground up. | ||
| And they're not just legislators in office, they're also organizers. | ||
| They're working directly with labor unions, with workers organizing for their rights. | ||
| They're showing up on the streets in protests. | ||
| And people can see that they're with the people. | ||
| People like Zoron hear directly from us when they're in office. | ||
| They're able to stand on principle inside the halls of power because they're following the lead of so many people organizing on the outside. | ||
| You said your party said in a statement after Mamdani's win that his victory was, quote, a rejection of the Democratic Party political establishment. | ||
| What part of that was a rejection? | ||
| Are you rejecting the corruption that you mentioned, or are there specific policies that you reject from the Democratic establishment? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, we really see it as the Democratic Party establishment for many years has been rejecting a lot of what millions of people in this country have been voting for, have been counting on them to, you know, do things like raise the minimum wage. | |
| DSA has been standing up for actually organizing to win a minimum wage. | ||
| We just helped win the highest minimum wage in the country outside Seattle. | ||
| Meanwhile, in the first few months of the Biden administration, they gave up on raising the minimum wage just to $15 an hour. | ||
| So Democrats often, when they're in government, like Andrew Cuomo, when he was governor of New York State, blocked climate action. | ||
| And DSA, with the block of socialists in office, including Zoron, helped win the Build Public Renewables Act that used the power of the Public Energy Commission to expand renewable energy and get hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to create more green jobs, good union jobs that helps clean our air and lower our bills. | ||
| We have helped win protection for tenants from exorbitant rent hikes and evictions. | ||
| We helped win universal preschool in Portland, Oregon that's free and public for all children, paid for by taxing the rich a bit more. | ||
| These are things that the Democratic Party, you know, historically has stood for. | ||
| There have been champions of it in the Democratic Party. | ||
| But in recent years, people just haven't felt that. | ||
| And this is a reason that Kamala Harris in the presidential election last year lost millions of people who had been loyal Democratic voters. | ||
| And this is why Zoran resonated so much. | ||
| Right after the election in November last year, he talked to people on the streets of New York in working class immigrant and black neighborhoods and Queens and the Bronx. | ||
| He talked to people who either didn't vote for president or even voted for Trump. | ||
| In a city like New York City, which has a reputation for being liberal or progressive, many people actually swung toward Trump or just didn't vote at all. | ||
| Well, Ashik, let's go ahead and play a portion of what President Trump said about Mr. Mamdani earlier this month, and then I'll get your response. | ||
| I think he's terrible. | ||
| He's a communist. | ||
| The last thing we need is a communist. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I said there will never be socialism in the United States. | |
| Shall we have a communist? | ||
| I think he's bad news. | ||
| And I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with him watching him because he has to come right through this building to get his money. | ||
| And don't worry, he's not going to run away with anything. | ||
| I think he's, frankly, I've heard he's a total nutjob. | ||
| I think the people of New York are crazy. | ||
| If they go this route, I think they're crazy. | ||
| We will have a communist in the for the first time, really, a pure, true communist. | ||
| He wants to operate the grocery stores, the department stores. | ||
| What about the people that are there? | ||
| I think it's crazy. | ||
| Ashik, what do you make of his characterization of Mr. Mamdani as a communist? | ||
| And how would you delineate the difference between the Democratic Socialist Party and communism? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, Trump, I think, should feel threatened by what Zorana presents. | |
| Zorana presents, you know, millions of people in this country. | ||
| Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers voted for him in one of the highest turnout primaries in New York history. | ||
| I think Zorana won more total votes in a primary in New York than any other mayoral candidate in New York history. | ||
| And that's because people are so motivated. | ||
| Hundreds of thousands of people showed up to vote in that primary across differences of race and ethnicity. | ||
| He has a strong base of young people, but also diverse working class immigrant communities that have lived in New York for generations. | ||
| And socialist politicians in the U.S. are popular. | ||
| Bernie Sanders, when he ran for president twice, activated so many people. | ||
| Many of them joined DSA. | ||
| DSA grew very quickly over the past decade, in part inspired by Bernie's presidential runs. | ||
| But what we represent, like the socialism we're talking about, is democratic. | ||
| It has a deep history in the United States. | ||
| People like Martin Luther King Jr. talked about the distribution of wealth in this country is so unequal and so it promotes a lot of evil in our society. | ||
| People like Donald Trump being a billionaire who's exploited the wealth and labor of so many workers in New York City. | ||
| There are so many stories about workers who were stiffed by him for decades before he became a politician. | ||
| And that base of people, working class New Yorkers, like want an alternative. | ||
| So Martin Luther King, like I mentioned, he had a quote, call it democracy or call it democratic socialism, but there has to be a better distribution of wealth within this country. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And if you'd like to join our conversation with Ashik Sadiq, you can go ahead and call in now. | ||
| He is co-chair of Democratic Socialists of America. | ||
| The lines are Democrats 202748-8000, Republicans 202748, 8001, and Independents 202748-8002. | ||
| Ashik, I want to play a portion of Mr. Bomadani's interview on Meet the Press last month when he was asked to condemn the phrase, globalize the intifada. | ||
| Take a look. | ||
| Do you condemn that phrase, globalize the intifada? | ||
| That's not language that I use. | ||
| The language that I use and the language that I will continue to use to lead this city is that which speaks clearly to my intent, which is an intent grounded in a belief in universal human rights. | ||
| And ultimately, that's what is the foundation of so much of my politics, the belief that freedom and justice and safety are things that to have meaning have to be applied to all people. | ||
| And that includes Israelis and Palestinians as lives. | ||
| But do you actually condemn it? | ||
| I think that's the question and the outstanding issue that a number of people, both of the Jewish faith and beyond, have. | ||
| Do you condemn that phase, globalize the intifada, which a lot of people hear is a call to violence against Jews? | ||
| I've heard from many Jewish New Yorkers who have shared their concerns with me, especially in light of the horrific attacks that we've saw in Washington, D.C. and in Colder Baller, in Boulder, Colorado, about this moment of anti-Semitism in our country and in our city. | ||
| And I've heard those fears and I've had those conversations and ultimately they are part and parcel of why in my campaign I've put forward a commitment to increase funding for anti-hate crime programming by 800%. | ||
| I don't believe that the role of the mayor is to police speech in the manner especially of that of Donald Trump, who has put one New Yorker in jail who's just returned to his family, Mahmoud Khalil, for that very supposed crime of speech. | ||
| Ultimately, what I think I need to show is the ability to not only talk about something, but to tackle it and to make clear that there's no room for anti-Semitism in this city. | ||
| We have to root out that bigotry. | ||
| And ultimately, we do that through the actions. | ||
| And that is the mayor I will be, one that protects Jewish New Yorkers and lives up to that commitment through the work that I do. | ||
| Ashik, before you respond to that, just show you New York Times from today. | ||
| Josh Shapiro and Rah Emmanuel fault Zorhan Mamdani over Intifada line. | ||
| It says two top Jewish Democrats, Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and former Mayor Rah Emmanuel of Chicago, criticized Mr. Mamdani for not condemning those who use the slogan, globalize the intifada. | ||
| Your response to that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I would really reiterate a lot of what Zoran said. | |
| DSA, our members, have been unapologetically organizing for a free Palestine, and we believe that a core part of that is based on the belief that all people are equal. | ||
| All people have the right to live in dignity and just, you know, have the right to live. | ||
| And when we see, you know, the starvation, the horrors happening in Gaza right now that our government is supporting from the United States, this is, you know, it's really horrific. | ||
| And, you know, we condemn violence, but that has to come from seeing how deeply unequal what the situation is. | ||
| So, you know, we're calling for an end to the U.S.-funded violence that scholars have widely called a genocide in Gaza. | ||
| But Ashik, beyond Gaza, because this is globalize the intifada, which means not just in the Palestinian territories and in Gaza. | ||
| So are you also not condemning that phrase? | ||
| Do you support that? | ||
| Because many Jews see that as a call to violence against them wherever they are. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I would really echo what organizations like Jewish Voices for Peace are saying. | |
| They're calling, you know, it's a movement for peace. | ||
| And we are talking about peace for all people that is based on equal rights for all people. | ||
| So, you know, this is what many Jews in America have been, you know, saying it security for Jews cannot come at the expense of, you know, enacting horrors on a whole population. | ||
| Like children are starving. | ||
| And this is something like we are organizing for a democratic and equal society for all people in the United States and everywhere. | ||
| And we are representing the aspirations of all people to be free and equal. | ||
| So this is, you know, DSA has been helping organize for ending military funding from U.S. to Israel. | ||
| We are organizing for an end to war that our government has been enacting for decades now. | ||
| And this is even before the past two years, the never-ending wars in the Middle East. | ||
| A whole generation of Americans has grown up after 9-11 with our government spending trillions of dollars to promote violence all over the world that has not made anybody safer. | ||
| $8 trillion has been spent in U.S. funding in wars on the Middle East since 2001. | ||
| And, you know, this is something that people are seeing, how it's making the whole world less safe. | ||
| So, you know, we let's talk to callers. | ||
| And we want equality for all people. | ||
| Let's talk to Cindy in Austin, Texas, Independent Line. | ||
| Cindy, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Morning. | |
| Yeah, he just explained what the problem is with DSAs. | ||
| I believe the name of the organization is Democratic Socialist of America. | ||
| And I used to want to join the DSA group because I have highly studied the Scandinavian models of government since they implemented democratic socialism back in the 60s. | ||
| And I believe in having a great social welfare program, safety net programs. | ||
| However, I would never join DSA or support a DSA candidate. | ||
| I worked for Bernie, by the way, when he ran in 16, because of your immigration stance. | ||
| Your immigration stance is against American-born workers. | ||
| And number two, your foreign policy stance. | ||
| If you're for Gazans and you're for workers in Mexico and South America and China, you're not for American workers. | ||
| All right, let's get a response, Cindy. | ||
| Go ahead, Ashik. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, you know, we believe that all people do have the right to move freely in the hopes of seeking better lives. | |
| I think about, you know, going back to World War II, like Jews who fled the fascist extermination of the Holocaust. | ||
| I think about my own family who left the country of Bangladesh during a military dictatorship. | ||
| I think about millions of people displaced from their homes across the Middle East since 2001. | ||
| I think something like 38 million people were displaced as a result of the U.S. war on terror. | ||
| That's like the entire population of California, the most densely populated state in the country. | ||
| Mexicans who sought jobs after unfair trade deals like NAFTA decimated their local economies. | ||
| So immigration is something that, you know, is just a fact of the world that we live in. | ||
| But, you know, I want to echo what the president of United Auto Workers, one of the largest unions in the country said, Sean Fane, argued that migrants crossing the border are scapegoats for the real threat to the working class in the United States, which are billionaires who profit from a divided labor force. | ||
| So it's not, we stand in solidarity with all workers. | ||
| And migrant workers are part of this society just like anybody. | ||
| And their jobs don't come at the expense of American workers. | ||
| We want to raise the floor for all workers in the United States to have better, you know, to have better conditions in the workplaces, to be safe at the job as they should be at home. | ||
| And all workers deserve a bigger share of the profits that they help make, which right now are just going to the billionaires, to the owners. | ||
| But all workers deserve better wages, better conditions. | ||
| And we don't think it has to come at the expense of each other at all. | ||
| Here's Mike in Orlando Park, Illinois, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Mike. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| You know, this guy is a communist. | ||
| And that's not even what I wanted to talk about. | ||
| I wanted to talk about paying for these government-run shops and all this. | ||
| You know, hardworking people pay taxes. | ||
| They pay a lot of taxes. | ||
| We don't pay as much in volume as the big corporations do. | ||
| All we're all, they pay the lion's share of the taxes in the country. | ||
| But I worked very hard. | ||
| I'm 70 years old. | ||
| I worked very hard at labor jobs. | ||
| I'm not college education. | ||
| I barely made high school. | ||
| But I saved my money. | ||
| It's how you save your money. | ||
| There's no such thing as a democratic socialist. | ||
| Socialism takes away all your power for jobs, for voting. | ||
| Back in the 70s in Chicago, they had so many illegal aliens in that they destroyed the carpenters' union. | ||
| You could buy a journeyman's carpenter union faster, and you would never even have to go through the process, all because of these illegals that come in and they artificially lower the wages of working people in America. | ||
| There's no way you can justify socialism and communism in America. | ||
| And people traveling the world over freely, we have nations for a reason. | ||
| We fought wars for a reason because his way does not work. | ||
| All right, Mike. | ||
| Go ahead, Ashik. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, there's a lot that I want to respond to there. | |
| And I think that, first of all, all workers deserve a union. | ||
| And unions have been the backbone of so many things that we take for granted in the United States today. | ||
| Things like a 40-hour workweek or an eight-hour workday are things that unions fought for workers across differences. | ||
| And hardworking people in this country, I think, pay much more in taxes compared to the wealthiest people in this country who pay next to nothing with even more tax cuts incoming now as a result of the Big Beautiful bill, which is the largest upward transfer of wealth in one law in U.S. history. | ||
| So I think that working people in the United States don't get to keep enough of the wages they get. | ||
| And, you know, everybody deserves to keep a bigger share of the work that they put in. | ||
| But so many people today are working multiple jobs. | ||
| More, you know, gig work is increasing. | ||
| People don't have basic job protections that everybody deserves. | ||
| So, you know, working Americans are working harder than they have in decades. | ||
| Productivity is going up, but that productivity going up used to mean that workers could benefit from that, like have more time off from work, more, you know, more wages. | ||
| That's not happening because billionaires are running our government right now and they keep getting more tax cuts. | ||
| You know, trillions of dollars in tax cuts are going to the already richest people in the country. | ||
| So, you know, the gentleman who just spoke, you know, like you're not getting to see what you're earning versus people like Donald Trump, like Elon Musk, like Jeff Bezos, they are getting to keep all the profits. | ||
| Ashik, we've got a question for you from Barb in Illinois who asked you this on text. | ||
| Does Mr. Sadiq have information regarding funding for the Democratic Socialist Platform in New York City that proposes a, quote, everything-free agenda? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, funding? | |
| You mean how to pay for it or how my organization is funded? | ||
| Because I can answer both. | ||
| Sure, you can answer both. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so DSA is an organization that does not take funding from very wealthy people. | |
| Like there are a lot of organizations like all these think tanks that are getting millions and even billions of dollars from very wealthy people. | ||
| Democratic Socialists of America is funded entirely based on member dues by people giving what they can, you know, just a few dollars a month. | ||
| And that adds up to working class power. | ||
| Like we have 80,000 members all over the country just giving a little bit of what they can. | ||
| And that's, you know, that's we're funded by and for our own members, like everyday working class people. | ||
| And, you know, as far as how we pay for things at the level of government, like the free buses that Zoran is talking about, free childcare, these are things that, you know, we're just talking about fair taxes, which means like the people who are currently getting away with barely paying anything, that's a very basic way to pay for things. | ||
| Zoran talks about how in New York City, if they just raise taxes to match what New Jersey is doing right across the river, that's what would pay for his programs. | ||
| This is pretty well sourced. | ||
| And at the level of the federal government, look, we're talking about, like, I'm talking about all the tax cuts that should be revenue for the federal government, but just look at the military budget. | ||
| That's now on track to reach $1 trillion per year. | ||
| And meanwhile, all these services are being cut that millions of people depend on. | ||
| Things like Medicare, things like Medicaid, education, all these things that are things that all people can benefit from and depend on are being slashed. | ||
| Meanwhile, what is this war budget going for? | ||
| People see what's happening in places like Gaza. | ||
| People see these never-ending wars all over the world. | ||
| And they don't make us safe. | ||
| They're making the whole world less safe. | ||
| And people see their own, the infrastructure falling apart in their own communities, like bridges collapsing. | ||
| These are things that our government should be paying for. | ||
| All right, let's take a call. | ||
| Ann Lynn in Bar Harbor, Maine. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, thank you. | |
| So I am a Democrat, and I am also an American Jew and Zionist. | ||
| And I would like to speak from both those perspectives. | ||
| As a Democrat, I campaign and vote for Jared Golden here in Maine, who's probably the most conservative Democrat in Congress. | ||
| If I still lived in New York, I would totally be from Amdami. | ||
| We need a big tent, and Democrats should be embracing him as the personification of a platform that Democrats used to run on and Democrats' best achievements, such as the New Deal and the Great Society programs. | ||
| That's what he's talking about, and that's what he would want to do. | ||
| Now, as an American Jew and a Zionist, I totally agree that without justice for Palestinians, there is no justice or security for Israelis. | ||
| And many Israelis believe that too. | ||
| I have been opposed to the Netanyahu regime, AIPAC, and KUFI forever. | ||
| And it absolutely breaks my heart to say this. | ||
| But the Netanyahu regime, my people with my country are committing genocide in Gaza. | ||
| And the slip of the tongue suicide, really committing genocide, this idea that instead of saying never again, many Jews are saying this time my turn, it is suicide for the Jewish nation. | ||
| And it breaks my heart to say it, but I think the cries of anti-Semitism used as a political cuisine is just deplorable. | ||
| So thank you. | ||
| Go ahead, Ashik Sandik. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for saying that. | |
| I really appreciate that kind of reflection. | ||
| And it's really important. | ||
| This is an awakening for so many, especially Jewish Americans. | ||
| like people I'm close to have have really struggled to have very frank conversations in their own families. | ||
| Like I have many Jewish friends who grew up with their parents just being really raised with a strong sense of identification with Israel. | ||
| And it's been really heartbreaking for a lot of people to see what the state of Israel has been doing. | ||
| And I think about like my own experience growing up in public schools. | ||
| I grew up in New York City. | ||
| I learned about the Holocaust at a very early age and really identified with what Jews went through because my family came from Bangladesh, which experienced a genocide in my parents' lifetime. | ||
| So when I grew up hearing, you know, never again about the Holocaust, like I really understood that in my own family's experience. | ||
| So I think many people are really waking up now to understanding that genocide is horrific anywhere, anywhere it happens in any society. | ||
| And we need to prevent anything like that from nobody should have to live through atrocities like this. | ||
| And this is something that applies to all people. | ||
| So this is something that many Americans are reckoning with. | ||
| And we have to reckon with it, like creating the kind of society that does not tolerate mass atrocities like what's happening right now. | ||
| Malik in Missouri City, Texas, Independent, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How are you doing this morning? | |
| First of all, I can say I support some of the Democratic socialist platform and as far as going after corporate landlords to improve the cost of housing because the real cost of housing increase is the rise of corporate landlords. | ||
| Secondly, I also believe that Mandani in New York is trying to create a public supermarket or public grocery store based on the funds that were given for subsidies to private grocery stores. | ||
| And thirdly, I'd just like to say that this platform is not going to go anywhere if you continue to insult American-born workers, if you continue to insist of having an open border policy. | ||
| Every nation has a border policy and immigration policy. | ||
| And I myself, I have noticed a rise of Hispanic and Latino workers in this country who do the job that any basic American can do. | ||
| In fact, at my job now, as an English-speaking person, I am in the vast minority, never mind, as an African-American. | ||
| And yet you're here as almost as a platform for a replacement of American workers, as if this country hasn't been surviving and producing and creating things for themselves for the past 400 years without immigration. | ||
| And I cringe when people say immigrants built this country. | ||
| Immigrants didn't build this country. | ||
| Whatever they built in this country, they built for themselves as far as a housing or a family or a better life for themselves. | ||
| They didn't build Wall Street. | ||
| They didn't build the infrastructure. | ||
| They weren't even here during the Civil War. | ||
| The overwhelming majority of immigrants, that's including white Europeans as well, came here well after the Civil War. | ||
| And what gets lost in that argument is that the plight of African American people, foundational black American people, who actually built this country, everything from tobacco to ships, gets lost in this sort of politically correct phrase of immigrants built this country. | ||
| All right, Malik, let's go ahead and get a response. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, there's a lot there that I would have loved to spend more time talking about. | |
| First of all, thank you for studying what Zoran is talking about in New York. | ||
| I agree with you. | ||
| The policies he's talking about are well established. | ||
| It's clear how we can pay for them. | ||
| There are models for all of them. | ||
| So we've seen examples of how they can work. | ||
| And I, you know, like in looking at American history and what built this country, I don't believe we need to pit people against each other. | ||
| This is America was built. | ||
| I mean, immigrants helped build it. | ||
| Slave labor helped build it. | ||
| And, you know, immigrants have been coming to the United States for many years. | ||
| And, you know, from the foundation, this is not what threatens American workers. | ||
| It's corporations. | ||
| It's people who control how that labor is enacted, whether it was slaveholders for a lot of America's history, like forcing people to do labor without wages, without any kind of freedoms or protections at all. | ||
| Lots of immigrants came as indentured servants from the foundation, you know, before the Civil War, from before America even became a country. | ||
| The United States was founded based on the labor of people who came from other places. | ||
| There were, you know, indigenous people in the country. | ||
| So we have to reckon with the history of the United States and the very unequal work conditions that helped build it. | ||
| And we want protections for everybody. | ||
| We want unions for everybody. | ||
| It's corporations, CEOs who benefit from underpaying workers, sometimes not even paying workers, and taking jobs across borders. | ||
| So it's billionaires, not migrants, who are the real threat to the working class. | ||
| Ashika, I just wanted to ask about something on your website that your party supports defunding the police slash refunding communities. | ||
| Can you explain that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think the way that Dora Mamdani has been talking about it in New York City after a whole term of Eric Adams being mayor, increasing police budgets, but it's not clear at all that it's made people safer. | |
| You know, people see things like the heavy police presence on the trains, you know, going after people for jumping a turnstile, like attacking kids who skipped a fare. | ||
| Meanwhile, there are types of violent crime that are not really being addressed. | ||
| So there are real things that we can do for public safety. | ||
| And that starts with just making sure that the floor of the economy is helping working class people. | ||
| So a lot of the causes of crime are from people not being able to make enough at work or just the things that make communities really safe. | ||
| Like Zoran is talking about, for example, expanding services like mental health or just making it so that first response doesn't have to be the police. | ||
| Like he's addressing what many police officers say in cities like New York City, that they don't want to be the first responders for everything. | ||
| Like there are all sorts of mental health situations or just things where why isn't there more funding for emergency health services or mental health especially. | ||
| So by addressing those kinds of needs, we think that the police can't be a solution for everything. | ||
| And right now, that's just the first resort to fund increasingly militarized police especially. | ||
| So we think that weapons of war should not be on the streets of our cities. | ||
| And that's something that's been happening for many years where the surplus from wars, like all these weapons from former wars in the Middle East, are now coming back to communities in the United States. | ||
| And we think that's not necessary and it's actually harmful and makes people less safe. | ||
| Let's talk to Joe in Manahawkin, New Jersey, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I just want to say that I feel like one of the only things that Democrats and Republicans have in common right now is our distrust of the government, regardless of what administration is in power. | ||
| It sounds like the DSA's platform is exclusively the expansion of government services, and I think it's concerning given how well things like Medicaid and Social Security have been administered. | ||
| I don't think that anyone wants to be more dependent on the government than we already are, and lowering the cost of food and housing is possible without an explicitly authoritarian third party. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I appreciate the ideas and everything, but I don't think that system is compatible with the way Americans want to live. | |
| Thanks. | ||
| A shake your response. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, I'll say, you know, our political system is presented to us as Republicans versus Democrats, but actually, you know, a huge portion of our society doesn't even vote. | |
| You know, people who are not registered voters or just, you know, I forget it, something like a quarter to a third just don't vote, who are eligible because they don't identify with either party in power. | ||
| I think, you know, Democratic Socialists, we don't simply want the government to do more things. | ||
| We don't want a big top-down government. | ||
| We want more democracy in all parts of our society. | ||
| We, like right now, our government, you know, led by both parties, is really serving the wealthiest few versus the rest of us. | ||
| So, you know, whatever you identify as, whether it's left or right or middle, everyone deserves a living wage. | ||
| Everyone deserves affordable housing. | ||
| Everyone deserves good health care, good schools, safe neighborhoods. | ||
| And we think a society, you know, should have resources for children to grow up in free of hunger or, you know, like unclean water. | ||
| These are things that everybody deserves. | ||
| So we're not talking about just the government doing things or controlling you. | ||
| We actually want a government that serves just very basic needs for everybody and that actually expands freedom for all of us to just have more free time to just hang out and not having to work more than 40 hours a week. | ||
| We think it's possible to have good universal public goods to meet everyone's basic needs and then everybody has the ability to live and thrive on top of that. | ||
| On the independent line in Philadelphia, this is Fred. | ||
| Good morning, Fred. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning, Sadiq. | ||
| The first two callers had questions that he already answered, but my question is this. | ||
| First of all, I want to ask him, what do you think about our constitutional republic? | ||
| And can you work with that? | ||
| And the other thing is nobody really talks about teaching, especially the generations that's coming up, how to be productive citizens. | ||
| We all talk about all these, you know, keeping people divided and all the things that's going on. | ||
| And that was my two questions. | ||
| And the other one is that I grew up, I've been around since the late 50s. | ||
| That's how old I am. | ||
| And even through high school there, my high school history teacher always talked about our government and just to keep an eye on the government and just watch what's going on. | ||
| For me, during the 50s and the 60s, the Democrats and the Republicans, we saw where they actually talked together and they crossed the aisle and the whole bit. | ||
| As I was growing up, it was a gentleman a little bit older than I was, and he wound up, I didn't know at the time, that he was a communist. | ||
| And they mentioned it, and he was on the Communist Party ticket with Gus Hall. | ||
| His name is Jarvis Tyner. | ||
| Look him up. | ||
| And we kind of talked about things even back there then. | ||
| And the other issue is, like the one lady said, you've given us a lot to work with there. | ||
| Ashiki response. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I. | |
| So he talked about like the Constitutional Republic and he talked about encouraging people to be productive citizens. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, thank you. | |
| So you know that there's we believe you know rules need to apply equally to all people and we think there are really important things in the Constitution that we all should benefit from. | ||
| Just basic things about freedom of speech and expression. | ||
| Let's start there with the First Amendment. | ||
| These are things that our rights in many ways have been rolled back on this front. | ||
| The Trump administration has been going after students just for protesting, for exercising the right for free speech. | ||
| Mahmoud Khalil was just released after being illegally detained by ICE just for standing up against war and genocide. | ||
| So there are things that we think are really important constitutional protections that need to be really protected and expanded. | ||
| And there are a lot of basic rights that Franklin Delano Roosevelt talked about during the New Deal. | ||
| The four freedoms, like freedom of speech and expression was one, freedom from want, freedom from fear. | ||
| We think these are things that our rights need to keep expanding and keep, you know, we need to be vigilant, like I think you said, against government overreach, against, you know, infringement of our rights and our freedoms. | ||
| We want expansion of freedoms for individuals, not just for the wealthiest people to keep profiting and limit what the rest of us can do. | ||
| We want people to really be equal, to really be able to just live their best lives. | ||
| Like that's what it's about for us. | ||
| All right, and here is Jill, Columbia, Maryland, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Jill, you're on with Ashik Sadiq. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I vigorously object to the word democratic as the beginning of the title of his organization. | |
| It inappropriately implies that what he's saying is adopted by the Democratic Party, no matter what they intend, to have it written like that, that's what it sounds like. | ||
| And it's hurtful because controversial, the socialism idea is controversial. | ||
| If the Democratic Party wants to adopt some of the things he's saying, let them do that. | ||
| Find another name for that. | ||
| Because what it's going to do is send people running to the Republican Party and they're not going to do any of that. | ||
| So it is a misappropriation. | ||
| It's not appropriate. | ||
| And it's misleading to have Democratic as a beginning of the title of his organization. | ||
| It implies something that doesn't exist that is not a plank necessarily of what the Democratic Party is promoting. | ||
| If they want to adopt some of that, they can. | ||
| All right. | ||
| We got that point. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Jill. | |
| Go ahead, Ashik. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The word democratic, small D democracy, is so important to us. | |
| It's something that's a core value. | ||
| It's not copyrighted by anybody. | ||
| And unfortunately, the Democratic Party, Big D Democrat, has not really been expanding democracy in the ways that we need. | ||
| We need to talk about how, you know, democracy is something that needs to apply to all parts of our lives. | ||
| In our government, we don't have nearly enough democracy in this country right now. | ||
| It's actually been diminishing in some important ways. | ||
| Voting rights are being rolled back. | ||
| And this is something that, you know, we need to help people enact democracy in all parts of our lives. | ||
| And that means more democratic participation from our population in government. | ||
| We need more democracy in our own workplaces. | ||
| You know, like unions are so important because they help workers wherever they work, you know, have more say in what happens at work. | ||
| So democracy is something that, you know, it's about people making decisions together and talking through things and deciding how things happen, whether it's at work, in our government. | ||
| And these are things that have been really rolled back in our country. | ||
| And, you know, the big D Democratic party should be standing up for it more. | ||
| But, you know, ultimately, this is something, democracy is something that has to be put into practice by everyday people. | ||
| So this is something that DSA as an organization is, you know, we make decisions in our organization based on what our members want to do, but we also want it to expand to all parts of our society. | ||
| We are the Democratic socialists. | ||
| We're not the Democrat socialists. | ||
| All right, let's fit in one more call, Rob, in Philadelphia, Independent Line. | ||
| Go ahead, Rob. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Thank you, C-Sman, for giving voice to, you know, real independent leaders. | ||
| Mr. Zudik, I'm just wondering, during Democratic primaries, oftentimes DSA-backed candidates, they're tarnished with this idea that, oh, DSA socialism, that's just for white people. | ||
| And now, if they win a primary, then it becomes, oh, DSA is, you know, for immigrants and people of color. | ||
| So you have this Schrödinger socialist kind of situation. | ||
| I was just wondering what kind of work DSA has planned to demonstrate the universality of some of the ideas and principles that the organization is about. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's a great question. | |
| I mean, I think people should really look at the coalition that Zoron organized to, you know, to now be on track to become mayor of New York City. | ||
| It's such a diverse group of people, hundreds of thousands of people who've turned out to vote for Zoron across differences of race and identity. | ||
| And, you know, lots of young people. | ||
| That includes like, you know, white people. | ||
| It includes plenty of immigrants. | ||
| You know, my own family being from Bangladesh, there's a really large Bangladeshi immigrant community in New York City. | ||
| And, you know, they're part of the working class of New York City. | ||
| It's a very diverse, it's one of the most diverse cities in the world. | ||
| And what Zoran is talking about, like the message that he's been promoting, deeply resonates because it's about meeting people's needs across all kinds of differences. |