Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
Source
Participants
Main
mike davis
24:13
m
mimi geerges
cspan37:08
Appearances
a
ankush khardori
00:36
benjamin netanyahu
isr00:45
chris van hollen
sen/d01:12
chuck schumer
sen/d02:09
dick durbin
sen/d01:33
donald j trump
admin04:07
lindsey graham
sen/r01:08
mike johnson
rep/r01:52
t
tammy bruce
01:54
Clips
barack obama
d00:02
bill clinton
d00:02
b
bob shell
00:08
george h w bush
r00:02
george w bush
r00:04
jimmy carter
d00:03
kristen welker
nbc00:09
patty murray
sen/d00:04
rachel maddow
msnow00:07
ronald reagan
r00:01
Callers
john in unknown
callers00:03
tim in michigan
callers00:11
william in canada
callers00:05
?
Voice
Speaker
Time
Text
UN Food Crisis00:14:00
unidentified
Progress.
Then Article 3 Project founder and president Mike Davis on the legal challenges facing President Trump's agenda and the administration's claim about the 2016 Russia probe.
And President Truman's eldest grandson, Clifton Truman Daniel, discusses the 60th anniversary of the signing of Medicare and Medicaid and President Truman's healthcare legacy.
And that was a bit hard to hear because of the sound of the jet.
Here is the Associated Press saying this: Trump says the U.S. will partner with Israel to run additional food centers in Gaza, but details are scant.
It says that President Trump said on Tuesday that the U.S. will partner with Israel to run new food centers in Gaza to address the worsening humanitarian crisis there, but he and U.S. officials offered few additional details about the plan or how it would differ from existing food distribution sites.
He said, quote, we're going to be dealing with Israel, and we think they can do a good job of it.
The opaque details come as the Trump administration is facing calls at home and abroad to do more to address the hunger crisis in Gaza.
The U.S.'s close ally Israel is at the center of an international outcry as more images of emaciated children continue to emerge.
It said Trump this week broke with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, disagreeing publicly with him about starvation in Gaza and citing the pictures of hungry people.
And we're taking your calls on the questions: do you support or oppose Israel's military action in Gaza?
We'll start with Paul, Plymouth, Connecticut, Independent Line.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning, ma'am.
A sad chapter in U.S. history, all the way from Biden.
And you remember when I called this program and I accused Biden of licking the boots of Netanyahu right after October 7th.
Very strong language.
However, what did Benjamin Netanyahu say recently about the starving?
So, Paul, sorry, I'm going to let you continue, but this is the front page of USA Today, Hunger in Gaza, one meal at a time, quoting Benjamin Netanyahu.
It says, there is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza.
Go ahead, Paul.
unidentified
This topic has been very hard to speak about for Americans, especially when you have the Jewish organizations coming out and accusing people of being anti-Semitic if they disagree with the policies of Israel.
This is something even our new Pope, the American Pope, Leo, has criticized as barbaric.
So, I mean, you know, you can prop up, I say you, the political operatives in the United States could prop up the positions of Israel, Smotrick, other leaders who have called for the extermination of the Gazans.
And then we have the West Bank, a thousand since October 7th, 1,000, where settlers come in, dispossess Palestinian land in the West Bank, and then, you know, kill and murder with impunity.
Give me actual policy prescriptions for how to solve this.
unidentified
Okay, I'll answer it.
Certainly, it's not Biden's type of response or Trump's response.
So it's up to grassroots people in this country.
What is the prescription to be done?
The United States has to team up.
And of course, we need a president that is going to talk straight instead of trying to push his personal interests above the interest of the American people.
So yes, we need to team up and we need to start respecting our closest ally, Canada, because Canada has been along with us in previous international relations.
We need to strengthen our relationships with our neighbors and our allies and ensure.
This is an independent problem with Israel and the Palestinian people, which I guarantee you probably 80% of them don't want to be involved with this already.
But get rid of your leadership like they did, like they like you do in all wars.
All right, Gary, and this is the New York Post with the headline, Families of Last Remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza fear that, quote, the world is forgetting.
That's two days ago.
It says, families of two of the last remaining Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip worried that the world is forgetting about them as Israel comes under more pressure to end the war over the desperate humanitarian conditions in the Palestinian territory.
There are still 20 living hostages, along with the remains of up to 50 others in Gaza, according to Israel.
William Castleberry, Florida, Republican.
Good morning, William.
unidentified
Good morning.
Yeah, excellent point by the prior caller about Hamas.
No mention of Hamas.
They're responsible for this tragedy, not Israel.
As you cannot do that, Hamas is responsible.
Go back 600 days.
There's your problem.
It's Hamas.
It's Iran.
And yes, we need to come together and help those folks over there, but you cannot point fingers at an administration.
Let's talk to Paul in Westport, Connecticut, Independent Line.
Good morning, Paul.
unidentified
Good morning.
I have my main question is: how come the mainstream media and all other social media has never put into context these pictures,
particularly the one in the New York Times, which they have removed or amended showing a child they're calling that there is extreme famine, but they do not direct any context in reference to that this child had significant medical problems and genetic problems.
And this the New York Times admitted, and yet his brother, right next to him, when he came into the picture, was very well fed.
I'm not denying that there are people that need humanitarian aid, but I blame the social media and all of it for taking out of context and putting into context and putting in their own agenda-driven propaganda about what is going on in this area.
I don't think that there is a fair distribution of objective evidence on either side.
I'm not saying that Israel is perhaps doing something wrong, but they are at fault in many respects.
But yet every Western country and everyone in the world only portrays Israel in an anti-Israel outlook.
There is famine.
No one talks about Sudan.
No one talks about all these other countries where there is significant famine that is never mentioned in the social media.
I blame a great deal of this on false and misinformation.
And we are taking your calls on whether or not you support or oppose Israel's military action in Gaza.
You can give us a call.
Here is State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce, who's asked whether President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu are on the same page when it comes to Gaza.
Here's that answer.
unidentified
President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have issued seemingly contradictory statements on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Is there a rift emerging between the two leaders and how is this impacting peace efforts, if at all?
Well, of course, what I won't comment on is the nature of a relationship.
What we've seen between the president and the prime minister has been a very good relationship.
Certainly, this is a fluid, dynamic situation.
That's an understatement when it comes to what's happening in Gaza, especially with the new efforts regarding the humanitarian assistance.
Certainly the president's point of view regarding what we need to do and continue to do, which we have been doing, which is facilitating the food assistance through GHF, but also, of course, the financial investment and the president's work and this government's work and Secretary Rubio's work to stop the carnage, to have a ceasefire, to get the hostages released, and to have the killing stopped.
I think that when we look at the nature of remarks by the president, there's one thing that's clear that everyone can agree on, is that it is his humanitarian nature to focus on diplomatic solutions, but he is a realist and he'll go and do what he needs to to realize what his goals are, which is peace and a ceasefire.
And also, I think the recognition that no one has denied, we have not denied it in this room, that the humanitarian assistance to this point has not been enough.
My argument has been is that it would never be enough in that obscene, unnatural environment.
And so we're proceeding in that regard, and of course, with President Trump's leadership, as he noted yesterday, to do even more to assist when it comes to food and other aid.
So that's, I think, without getting ahead of the president, as we'll learn more about what his plans are coming up.
We know the Secretary, of course, has led the way in this regard as well.
But the focus remains, certainly the humanitarian aid, and our focus remains also on a ceasefire and ending that carnage.
That was yesterday, and she did mention the GHF, which is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
And this is CBS News reporting this Senate Democrats urge the U.S. to stop funding GHF, resume support for UN food distribution in Gaza as more starve.
It says a group of Democratic senators led by Democratic Senator Chris Van Holland of Maryland is urging the Trump administration to suspend American financial support for the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
It's a private food distribution organization that has been heavily criticized for the way it delivers food aid to Gazans and because so many have been killed trying to reach its distribution sites.
The U.S. and Israel have advocated for the recently established GHF to replace the United Nations, which has built an extensive network of humanitarian workers inside Gaza over decades.
Israel accuses the UN of bias and collusion with Hamas.
Take a look at Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen.
Was talking about this and why he believes the U.S. should not back that organization.
And this is a bad investment because it's contributing to the starvation of people in Gaza.
As we speak, families are dying of starvation.
Kids are dying of starvation.
What happened was months ago, the Netanyahu government imposed a complete blockade on all food and humanitarian supplies getting into Gaza.
When they ended that blockade and allowed a trickle of aid in, they didn't allow the United Nations humanitarian organizations to resume that aid.
They replaced it with this private organization backed by mercenaries and the Israeli defense forces that has been used not really to deliver food, but to use food as a weapon of war.
So in our letter, we say U.S. taxpayers should not be complicit in what has become a death trap, those scenes of people swarming to get food only to be shot down.
And let the U.N. organizations resume what had been a very difficult situation, but at least people were not starving to death every day.
It's something I think we should talk about a lot more.
So first, I will say I strongly oppose Israel's actions in Gaza for the last 661 days.
I'm 29 years old.
Never in my life have I witnessed such brutality and devastation carried out on a civilian population.
Now, in regards to the GHF, I think it's important for people to look into a recent BBC interview by Anthony Aguilar.
Anthony Aguilar is a U.S. colonel, former U.S. Colonel in the Special Forces, Green Beret, and he went there and witnessed firsthand not only Israeli defense soldiers, occupation forces, but also U.S. contractors firing, live fire, on unarmed, starving civilians.
Not only they're being fired on, but they also have tank rounds being fired into crowds of people that are starving.
This is eyewitness evidence from a former U.S. Green Beret.
So that's one.
And two, for the last, however many people have been saying almost 50,000, 50,000, 50,000.
That's just what they're reporting.
I mean, there's about 700,000 that is unaccounted for from the population of Gaza.
And let's not forget the amount of bombs and TNT that's been dropped in Gaza is more than that's been dropped in World War I and World War II combined and Dresden.
I mean, this is, I am ashamed to call myself an American when my tax dollars and my government and military is not only supporting, enabling army and funding, but participating in an active genocide and ethnic cleansing of a civilian population.
So, this is, I mean, I know when we were talking about Joe Biden, it was genocide.
So, I think now Donald Trump is going to be called genocide done.
You know, so this is, you know, this is something that would be a bad staying on his presidency.
And I think this needs to be something done to not only stop the genocide, but to help save the people of Gaza and the innocent children that are starving.
Quote: The UN Human Rights Office said 1,054 people were killed while trying to obtain food since late May, and of those, 766 were killed while trying to reach sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
The others were killed when gunfire erupted around UN convoys or aid sites.
That's on CBS News.
Let's take a look at what Prime Minister Netanyahu said earlier this week, pushing back on claims of starvation in Gaza.
I think it's just a shame that the media has allowed to spin on this, that now Hamas is good, and we're starving these poor little children in Palestine, which I'd like to know exactly.
What is Palestine or the Palestinians ever done for the world?
What do they contribute to the world?
Not kindness, not love.
They don't teach their children to love humans.
They hate the Israelis and just want to destroy them.
It's ridiculous.
And now everybody's feeling bad because of these few pictures.
Here's Jersey Girl, who sent us this on X. How could anyone approve of the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians and the deliberate starvation of a population?
How could anyone approve of killing children, of ethnic cleansing?
Yet almost no one in elected office, this is what it is, a genocide.
Well, this is Kier Starmer.
This is the Guardian, UK to recognize Palestinian statehood in September unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire and a two-state solution.
That's according to the Prime Minister of the UK.
And he, that is, this also is politico.
Lindsey Graham sees Israel taking Gaza by force to wrap up the war.
The senator's comments come as the humanitarian situation in Gaza has reached crisis levels.
Israel's going to work with the UN, the World Food Program, to get some food into these people who need it.
But I think what the topic we're talking about today is a change in strategy.
I think President Trump has come to believe, and I certainly have come to believe, there's no way you're going to negotiate an end of this war with Hamas.
Hamas is a terrorist organization who is chartered to destroy the state of Israel.
I think Israel's come to conclude that they can't achieve a goal of ending the war with Hamas that would be satisfactory to the safety of Israel.
And if they're going to do in Gaza what we did in Tokyo and Berlin, take the place by force, then start over again, presenting a better future for the Palestinians, hopefully having the Arabs take over the West Bank and Gaza.
But I think going forward, Christian, you're going to see a change in tactics, a full military effort by Israel to take Gaza down like we did in Tokyo and Berlin.
I mean, you can obviously tell that most pro-Israel, and this isn't a Jewish problem, they should say.
This is an Israeli problem, okay, or a Palestinian problem.
It's a, you know, I fear for the Jews around the world because they're going to be facing the backlash of what we have failed to do.
And that is basically instead of involving ourselves in this, why don't we just jump out and let the chips fall where they may?
But oh no, I mean, you know, you're talking about a situation where I can remember from the mid-90s, didn't Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat really come close to a peace agreement and all of a sudden a radical Israeli assassinated, you know, so I mean, there was a peace process on the table.
Here's Jarrett in Woodbine, Maryland, at Republican.
Hi, Jarrett.
unidentified
Hi, how are we doing?
Look, I think it's sad to watch, you know, there's people dying every day everywhere, and that's terrible.
But it comes down to, you know, war is hell.
And after 9-11, when we watched the terrorist attacks in the United States, there weren't Americans that were afraid to go to war.
We were prepared to go defend our country and show that you don't mess with us, and we will protect our own people first.
And I think that unfortunately, Israel has been backed into a corner where after the October 7th attacks, they're at a point where they have to defend themselves and show Hamas that they're not going to continue to be bullied by terrorist organizations.
And as awful as it is that it has destroyed Palestine and Palestinian places of living the way it has, it's war, and war is hell.
And, you know, if we want to blame somebody, we blame the initial aggressors.
And in this case, that's Hamas.
I think the only way we see this conflict coming to an end is with the complete annihilation of that terrorist organization and the states that back it.
Correct, and they've existed since that and before that.
unidentified
Since the 70s.
Sure thing, but you know what we've managed to do each time is we've put them down and we've showed that if you attack the West and our allies, we will kill you.
And, you know, as terrible as it is, that's what you have to do.
Israel rejects a statement by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
The shift in the British government's position at this time, following the French move and internal political pressures, constitutes a reward for Hamas and harms efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and a framework for the release of hostages.
Let's take a look at President Trump's comments alongside British Prime Minister Kier Starmer in Scotland earlier this week about Gaza.
And I think before we get to phase two, which is, you know, what's going to happen afterwards, we want to get the children fed.
We made a contribution a week ago of $60 million all going into food.
We only hope the food goes to the people that need it because so much, as you know, when you do something there, it gets taken by Hamas or somebody, but it gets taken.
And we're prepared to help.
We want to help.
It's a terrible situation.
The whole thing is terrible.
It's been bad for many years.
But it's great to hear you feel the same way that I do.
We have to help on a humanitarian basis before we do anything.
We have to get the kids fed.
So we've been sending in a lot of food.
A lot of the food that's been going there has been sent by the United States.
I spoke yesterday with the President of the European Union, Ursula, who was terrific also on the subject, and she's going to play a big role also in helping us.
So we have a good group of countries that are going to help with the humanitarian needs, which is food, sanitation, and some other things.
It's very difficult to deal with Hamas, as I said.
You know, we got a tremendous amount of hostages out, but it would take place in drips and drabs.
You'd get 10, you'd get 5, you'd get 2, you'd get 10, 12, we get 12 one time.
Many of them would come to the White House, and they were so thankful.
But I always said when you get down to the final 10 or 20, you're not going to be able to make a deal with these people because they use them as a shield.
And when they give them up, they no longer have a shield.
And the people of Israel feel so strongly about the hostages.
Some people would take a different view, but they feel so strongly about the hostages.
So that's an ongoing process.
Hamas has become very difficult to deal with in the last couple of days because they don't want to give up these last 20 because they think as long as we have them, they have them, they have protection.
But I don't think it can work that way.
So I'm speaking to Bibi and Etanyahu, and we are coming up with various plans.
We're going to say it's a very difficult situation.
If they didn't have the hostages, things would go very quickly.
But they do, and we know where they have them in some cases.
And you don't want to go riding roughshod over that area because that means those hostages will be killed.
I'm going to be blunt, and I'm going to tell the truth and shame the devil today.
There is nothing holy, sacred, devout, divine, godly, or heavenly about killing, stealing, maiming, and lying to create a holy land.
No good will come of it.
As far as October 10th is concerned, I believe that was created by Netanyahu to start this war, to cleanse the land so they could take it over and steal it.
That's what we're talking about.
And for all our politicians who are supporting Israel like cheerleaders and cheering on this genocide, they're paid to do that.
Okay?
In their heart and soul, they know it's wrong.
And when they claim that, oh, it's religion, we have to do it.
Mark 12, 29 to 31, it's the only time God speaks to Jesus in the Bible.
And he says, here, O Israel, you are to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and body.
And the second is this, love thy neighbor.
There are no other commandments greater than this.
What they're doing now is against God and against everything that is humane as far as the genocide is concerned.
And that is what it is.
It's a genocide.
And what they're doing is what the Nazis did to them.
And most people don't know.
Just like the Nazis were recruited here in America to work on the paperclip and our space program, Nazis were allowed to go to Israel.
And as long as they got food from Germany, Nazis were allowed to settle there.
And regarding calling it a genocide, this is the New York Times.
Green calls Gaza crisis a genocide, hinting at a rift on the right over Israel.
Here's what the article says.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, an avatar of MAGA politics on Capitol Hill this week, became the first Republican in Congress to describe the situation in Gaza as a genocide, breaking sharply with her party in an indication of growing skepticism on the right about Israel's conduct of the war.
Quote, it's the most truthful and easiest thing to say that October 7 in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned.
But so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis and starvation happening in Gaza.
She put that on X on Monday evening.
And here is Louise in Mount Bethel, Pennsylvania, Democrat.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
Yes, I wrote down a few things that I wanted to say about the situation in the Middle East.
I was wondering if a solution could be reached by both sides agreeing to a ceasefire And Palestine returns the hostages to Israel, and in return, Israel returns land that they settled and agree to not open any more settlements in that land.
And also, humanitarian aid be given to the people of Gaza by a joint coalition of many countries that are able to contribute, including Russia and China.
Would such a solution, could it possibly be that simple?
No, I support America giving not bombs, but support for people around the world and the countries that are going against Israel at this time, like they have been in the past, they're losing the propaganda war.
What would have really made a difference is America and Israel had served eviction notices for all of Gaza Strip instead of tactfully taking teams of people in doing it by sectors and blocks and relocating those.
Like, I had kind of quasi-did the math on how many countries are surrounding, how many people are in Gaza and Palestinians.
And how do you actually, like, have this war cease and really not have the grip that it's taken hold right now?
The famine.
I mean, it's like the end of days, and that's really unfortunate.
There's been no eviction process.
There's just been a bombing and just demolishing all of Gaza Strip.
They could have been handled real tactfully because Gaza's only seven miles wide by 25 miles deep.
And they could have just literally went out by miles and took them all to different countries.
And they could have just had, I mean, we take refugees all the time until times had gotten better.
And there's been a lot of uncertainty.
And now that Iran and Iraq and Afghanistan and all these other conflicts are going to really start catching up with us, Vladimir Putin is supplying, getting supplies from them and supplying them.
So is China.
And all of our enemies are using these small conflicts and all these conflicts to absolutely undermine the dollar and bankrupt our country while they go bankrupt themselves and maim people, like in Ukraine.
First of all, you know, we had a chance, both the Biden administration and Trump worked out a deal with the Israelis and Hamas for a temporary ceasefire.
And then there were supposed to be negotiations after that working to a permanent peace.
The Israelis decided in March they didn't want to continue with that process.
They launched the war.
They kept most food supplies out of the area.
We backed them up in the Iranian thing and bombed the nuclear thing and gave Netanyahu everything he wanted.
Now they reached the logical situation that he just went too far and they have to back off.
And this thing about this GHF business of us sending in for helping them with their distribution of food, there are war crimes all over the place with that, with a number of people getting killed just to go for food when they could have used crowd suppression things, rubber bullets and things like that.
Nobody was shooting from them from those people going to get the food.
So it's about time this thing ends.
Hostages are returned.
And I think the British position right now is pretty responsible and the Israelis may have to deal with it.
And in other news, just so you're aware, the Senate has confirmed Trump lawyer Emile Bovais for the appeals court pushing past whistleblower claims that's on the Associated Press.
That happened last night.
And here is Maryland, Marysville, Washington, Republican.
Maryland, do you support or oppose Israel's military action in Gaza?
unidentified
Good morning.
I support Israel's military action in Gaza.
And I believe that we should be helping Israel.
And I believe that we have done so many negotiations.
And each time it comes up that we're there, and then Hamas says, no, we will not.
They refuse to give up their hostages.
I believe that this war was started on October 7th by Hamas, and Hamas is the guilty party.
And earlier, there was a comment about can you eradicate the ideology of Hamas simply by defeating them in battle?
Well, I would say back in World War II, we did decisively, the Allies defeat Germany, but there are still Nazis in the world.
But the Nazis are not in power.
So, yes, I do not think we can totally eradicate the belief system of Hamas, which is every Jew should die, not just in Israel, in the world.
And they have said, we did October 7th, and we will do it again.
Just let us.
And when we sent, and also, there was a two-state solution.
Israel left back in 2006, and excuse me, and even with, they didn't even leave their dead.
They took up, dug up their dead bodies out of their cemeteries, and they said, okay, you want a state of your own.
We won't be there at all.
Elect your own leadership.
Do as you can.
Well, the people elected Hamas.
And then the next year, Hamas instituted horrific Gestapo-like policies over their own people.
Again, went to Gaza so they could build a new people there after 2006.
And they took that money, Hamas being the leadership, and they built tunnels and they bought arms and they began the starvation of their own people.
And Maryland, Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, agrees with you.
He says this on X, the suffering in Gaza is crushing and real.
We've all seen the same images.
Many people blame Israel, but Hamas is responsible for this hell on earth.
And they could end this today for peace in the region.
Where's the global outrage for Hamas to disarm and send the hostages home?
Here's Tom, Fresno, California, Independent Line.
Tom, you're on the air.
unidentified
Good morning, Mimi.
I oppose the actions that Israel is taking.
I'm a little confused.
Hamas is basically an organization of men.
Israel is a military might in that theater.
Why doesn't Israel, instead of bombing from 20,000 feet and starving innocent women and children, put boots on the ground, round up all the males of Gaza, and find out who's Hamas and who's not.
Free the women to raise their children, feed the children, make sure the children are being educated, make sure that they have adequate health care so that in the future, Israel doesn't have to worry about with the younger generation children that can be programmed to hate Israelis.
That would show them that Israel is a compassion, compassionate nation that seeks not to harm the innocent, but go after those that would try to win the state of Israel.
So, Tom, I wanted to, I got your point about that, but I wanted to ask you about the tsunami warning in California, Northern California, because you're there.
Have you gotten any alerts about tsunamis?
Is there a warning in effect?
What's happening right now?
unidentified
Well, not really.
I reside in the Central Valley.
There is the Rocky Mountains between me and the ocean.
But no, I haven't received any warnings.
No, and looking at the local news, it seems as if the thing that would endanger people would be the currents and the riptides, not so much a thousand-foot wall of water.
And this is NPR reporting that two Israeli human rights groups say their country is committing genocide in Gaza.
It says that the two prominent Israeli rights groups on Monday said their country is committing a genocide in Gaza, the first time that local Jewish-led organizations have made such accusations against Israel during nearly 22 months of war.
And that's at npr.org if you'd like to see that.
And Linda, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Republican, good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I have to ask the question: why are no other nearby countries helping Palestinians?
Why is Egypt not allowing them to come in and care for them?
Why is Jordan not helping?
Why are none of the other Arab countries in that area helping the Palestinians?
There is a reason.
It's because the Palestinians are not good people and they don't want the problems that the Palestinians bring into their countries.
And I don't understand why it's our job to give food to these people.
Hamas, when the food is brought in, Hamas steals the food.
There was a story a couple of weeks ago about how the Palestinian people found the cave where the food was kept, and the Palestinian Hamas people killed their own people.
They shot them because they found the food and they were afraid that the Palestinian people were going to take the food.
The children of the Palestinians, if you go on YouTube, you can watch how these kindergarten children in school are taught to hate and to kill the Jews.
And for their operetta, they hand out guns, play guns to the boys and knives to girls.
And they go around and talk about how they hate the Jews and they want to kill them.
I don't understand why we are involved.
And if Israel is the one who has pride portraits and accepts the LGBT people, and the Palestinians bomb Israel every single day, there is a guy named Masab, M-O-S-A-B, Hassan, H-A-S-S-A-N, Yussef, Y-O-U-S-E-F.
He is the son of the co-founder of the tribe of Hamas.
And he will tell you how awful it is because he changed and broke with the Hamas and now lived in Israel.
This is Robin Huntington, West Virginia, who says on text regarding Israel's military activities in Gaza, the U.S. and most other advanced countries try to limit civilian casualties.
Israel doesn't appear to be doing this.
I wonder how many Gazans will become terrorists as a result of Israel's actions.
What would you do if your innocent friends, family, et cetera, were killed indiscriminately?
And that's the last word for this segment.
Coming up later on the Washington Journal, we'll have Mike Davis, head of the legal group, the Article 3 Project, discussing what he calls judicial sabotage of President Trump's agenda.
But first, after the break, today marks the 60th anniversary of Medicaid and Medicare.
We'll speak with Andrea Dukas of the Center for American Progress Action Fund about the significance of this milestone and the impact on these programs with the recently signed One Big Beautiful bill.
We'll be right back.
unidentified
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So just first tell us a little bit about your background in health policy and about your organization, the Center for American Progress.
unidentified
Yeah, so I've worked in health policy my entire career.
Medicaid And Undocumented Immigrants00:15:22
unidentified
In addition to being a health policy expert, I also get the pleasure of being the phone of friend to everybody in my life as they're going through insurance milestones and have a brother on Medicaid, how to have parents on Medicare.
And the Center for American Progress, where Action Fund, where I have the pleasure of doing my work, is a nonpartisan, independent policy institute and advocacy organization that advances bold progressive ideas and leadership on behalf of all Americans.
All right, so let's talk about the 60th anniversary.
This marks the day that President Johnson signed the Medicare and Medicaid program into law.
What were these programs intended to do?
unidentified
Yeah, so Medicare and Medicaid were part of the big great society programs that were intended to make America a competitive and great country.
At the time, it wasn't a very radical notion to pass a law that would ensure that no American would go hungry, that no American would go without health care, that no American would go without access to a public education.
And the Medicare and Medicaid programs were intended to bring health insurance and health care to the most people possible.
The Medicare program is probably the program that most people are familiar with.
That is the program that is primarily for people who are older, for American seniors and people living with disabilities, some disabilities.
The Medicaid program is a program that originally was designed to support and still is designed to support very low-income people in this country.
In 1965, when it was established, it primarily served children and pregnant women.
Over time, it's been expanded to include low-income people generally.
And these are two dramatic policy successes that have just changed the face of health insurance in America.
But healthcare didn't cost as much as it does now.
unidentified
That is true.
And over time, we've made many scientific advances that we want to invest in because we care about people living longer and healthier lives.
You know, we care about curing cancer and making sure that people are able to spend time with their grandchildren.
But yeah, so if we go back to when these programs were established, right, and we reflect on what these past six years have been like, it has really been just decades of really exceptional progress on the healthcare front.
So we started with these two programs, Medicare and Medicaid.
In 1997, we expanded, the country expanded even more health insurance coverage to more poor children through the Children's Health Insurance Program.
The Affordable Care Act in 2010 was a sea change that offered an insurance pathway to now 24 million people, right, who didn't have insurance through their jobs or needed to buy it on their own.
And then the Inflation Reduction Act did a lot to actually lower the cost of prescription drugs, which I neglected to mention.
In 2003, the Medicare program began covering prescription drugs.
And now, thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, it is even cheaper to buy coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces.
I mean, it's been a tremendous, tremendous half-century of progress that the One Big Beautiful bill is really designed to destroy.
There's a public, like the original version of Medicare, which about half of people who are enrolled in the program are in.
And then in 2003, the Medicare Modernization Act opened a pathway for a real meaningful pathway, I should say, for private plans to compete and be an option for coverage.
That is the Medicare Part C program.
So, when you become eligible for the Medicare program, you can choose traditional Medicare or Medicare Advantage, the private alternative.
And it's about 50-50 in terms of what the enrollment split looks like.
Let's talk about Medicare and Medicaid spending because that's what the One Big Beautiful Bill proponents of that bill say that they are addressing.
So, Medicare grew 8.1% to 1, so over about a trillion dollars.
Medicaid grew 7.9% to $871 billion, and the national health expenditures grew 7.5% to $4.9 trillion.
That's total.
That's coming from CMS.gov.
Is that kind of growth sustainable?
unidentified
Yeah, so healthcare, it's not a secret.
Healthcare in America is expensive.
We spend a lot of money on health care in this country.
I think we tend to conflate what's driving the costs of the increased cost of health care with increased enrollment, which is not necessarily the case.
We spend a lot of money on this and healthcare in this country because health care prices are so high.
And there's a very, very, very large degree of market dominance and consolidation, which allows healthcare providers to charge high prices and doesn't really include incentives for insurance plans to lower those prices sufficiently.
That doesn't mean that we shouldn't make sure that people have access to care in this country.
I think it's a fundamental right that every American should have.
And I would not agree that the pretext of this bill was to cut spending.
seems like primarily the pretext of this bill was to finance tax cuts and to look at safety net programs as the primary vehicle for achieving those savings.
And we talked about this, Kristen, is that the problem is there's a high degree of fraud, waste, and abuse in that program.
I'm talking about tens of billions of dollars every year.
What we did is we went in to go in and fix that.
We introduced work requirements, which is a wildly popular notion in public opinion polling because it makes sense.
Medicaid is a safety net program.
It is intended for the elderly, the disabled, young single pregnant women, young mothers.
And those resources are being drained because you had able-bodied young men, for example, with no dependents who are riding the wagon.
That's not right.
It's morally wrong.
And it doesn't comport with the law.
So what we did in our Big Beautiful bill is we went in to carve those guys out of that program.
They have work requirements now, 20 hours a week.
They either have to be working, looking for a job in a work training program, or volunteering in their community, which is good for them and their surroundings.
We find dignity in our work.
We're proud of that reform.
And by the way, there was a Harris and Harvard poll that came out about two weeks ago.
And they looked at 17 of the 21 primary provisions in that big beautiful bill.
And 17 out of 21 are majority support in the public.
And that's after the onslaught of the mainstream media and Democrats lying about the bill.
So we're excited to go out into our districts in August and tell the truth.
Notably, I mean, as he has says, well, as he does not say, the bill absolutely cuts the Medicaid program.
It includes a trillion dollars in cuts to that program.
I don't really, I think this gets down to semantics a bit.
Like, do you believe that cutting somebody from the program is a cut or not?
I mean, the Congressional Budget Office finds that millions and millions and millions of people are going to lose coverage as a result of these work requirements in particular.
The vast majority of people who can work on the Medicaid program do.
There's only about 8% of people.
We know this through surveys, lots of data.
There's only about 8% of people who can work on the Medicaid program who don't.
And these are primarily older women who exited the workforce in the last five years to care for family members.
I think there's something very telling in Speaker Johnson's comments about how the program is not designed for able-bodied men without dependents.
I wonder if the majority of Americans in this country believe that young men should not have access to health insurance.
I would contend that that's not the case.
The Medicaid program, federal Medicaid dollars have never been eligible to be used for undocumented immigrants.
This is again a problem that is not real.
We expect Josh Hawley is, Senator Hawley is extremely worried correctly about what these cuts are going to mean for his state because as he knows, this is going to result in billions and billions and billions of dollars in uncompensated care costs that are going to have to be shouldered by hospitals.
We expect that there are going to be hospitals that close.
We expect that, again, millions of people are going to lose their coverage.
Let's talk about illegal immigrants because this Medicaid is administered by the states.
Correct.
And there are states that can determine that they will cover illegal people that are here illegally.
So how, I mean, in the sense he is true.
So the federal government is saying we will not pay you to the states if you continue to cover illegal immigrants.
unidentified
Well, the federal Medicaid dollars are not allowed to be used for undocumented immigrants.
States that choose to do that use their own money.
They use state money.
They do not draw down federal Medicaid dollars to provide that coverage.
States are free to spend money how they would like.
That's why that provision actually fell out of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act where there was a provision in there that would have punished states in other ways because they chose to spend their own money to cover undocumented immigrants.
Usually, I mean, there are states, the reason that many states do this is to make sure that there's not a chilling effect for anybody to access coverage who needs it.
So primarily, this might be like a, you know, we're going to provide coverage to all low-income children, regardless of immigration.
We're not going to ask you to tell us to prove what your immigration status is.
And again, that's just to make sure that people are able to get the care they need.
It's not like a pathway rolling out the red carpet to bring in to bring in undocumented immigrants.
But again, that is something that some states choose to do with their own money.
The federal government has never paid for those immigrants to receive Medicaid coverage.
I want to ask your guests, what are you guys doing?
I mean, it's great that you're on T-SPAN and You're putting out the message that this one big beautiful bill is really going to hurt millions and millions of people who rely on Medicaid.
So, what else are you guys doing to combat the lies, the blatant lies that are being told by the Republicans?
I mean, they're saying, they're telling you we're going to cut $1 trillion from Medicaid to Medicare.
And at the same time, they're telling you we're not cutting people off of Medicaid and Medicare.
So I'm not sure what we can do.
And what else can we do to help people to vote in their own best interest?
I mean, if you rely on Medicaid and Medicare for your health benefits and you vote Republican, you're literally voting against yourself.
And people who live in these southern and rural areas, they're going to lose these rural hospitals.
They're going to lose their health care.
And another tale in this One Big Beautiful bill is a lot of these provisions don't take place until after the midterm elections.
Why is that?
I mean, that should tell people something.
And you're going to have Republicans call after me, and they're going to defend Donald Trump.
Impacts Of One Big Beautiful Bill00:15:39
unidentified
They're going to defend this One Big Beautiful Bill.
And a lot of these people are going to rely on these benefits.
I mean, I think, as you just shared, the most important thing we can be doing is actually telling the truth about what's in this One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
I think something that we all need to remember is that this process, the process that Congressional Republicans used to pass this bill was intentionally fast, done mostly over the cover of darkness in the middle of the night and without any public input.
And the point was to make sure that nobody knew what was in this bill because once people know what's in it, they don't like it.
It's unpopular.
The provisions are unpopular.
And the fact of the matter is, this bill was actually passed without even knowing what the full impacts were going to be.
That was intentional.
And so now we're in a position, we're all in a position where we're trying to make sense of this in real time.
I talk to reporters all the time who ask, what does this provision mean?
And we have to work through it together to say, well, we don't really know, and neither does Congress.
And yet they voted on it anyway.
So we are in this very weird position where we're having to experience it and cut through a lot of misinformation.
It's very hard to tell accurate stories about a bill when the people who voted on it don't even know what's in it.
Diane in Morristown, New Jersey asks you this on text.
Unfortunately, during COVID, many ineligible people were put on Medicaid.
Now that COVID crisis is over, we have to address those people on the rolls.
It's unsustainable.
unidentified
Yeah, so what this person is referring to is during the COVID pandemic, states, there was a public health emergency, and states were not permitted to remove people from their Medicaid.
It doesn't mean that people were ineligible for the program, but they put a moratorium on doing, on redetermining eligibility for Medicaid.
That ended.
The public health emergency is over.
A process known as Medicaid unwinding happened and those folks were removed from the program.
People who were no longer eligible for the program were removed from it.
Luanna, Atlanta, Maryland, you are on Medicare, Luanna.
Go ahead.
unidentified
Yes, I started working at age 13, which at that time was legal and was paying into Social Security and Medicare from that time.
I didn't receive Medicare until 65, 66.
And since then, I've received four different identification numbers for it.
I just recently received a new one, maybe about two days ago.
And it seems to me that there's a rationale for why our numbers continue to change, as well as the fact that the supplementary insurance that I have is one of the best ones that you can pay for.
And I just want to know, why did I get a new card in this past week when I just got a new card half a year ago?
Well, I'm not sure about your individual circumstance or what sorts of cards you're getting.
My recommendation would be to call 1-800 Medicare to talk with one of their assisters about that.
But one thing to note, again, is as I shared before, the Medicare program usually has two coverage pathways.
You can go into original Medicare, you can go into Medicare Advantage, and people who, no matter which pathway you choose, there's open enrollment every year.
Folks make different decisions, so it could be something like that.
Andrea, you have an opinion piece in MarketWatch with the headline, if you thought Medicaid was a mess already, Trump's cuts only add to the chaos and the costs.
How is that?
unidentified
Yeah, so primarily this is going to happen in two ways.
One is through the paperwork, Medicaid work reporting requirements, which we know from state experience in places who, in places that have tried to implement work requirements in the past, are just a bureaucratic nightmare.
So take, for example, the state of Georgia.
The Medicaid program in Georgia rolled out a program called Pathways to Coverage, which included Medicaid work reporting requirements.
So far, according to ProPublica, the state of Georgia has spent $90 million implementing this program, and I think like 2,000 people have enrolled.
50 million of those dollars have gone to allegedly Deloitte to stand up a program that nobody's using, even though 250,000 people are eligible for it.
We also know from state experience that primarily work requirements just kick eligible people off of the program.
That's what's happened basically in every place that's tried it.
And I think, again, this gets at, like, I understand the cynicism around the timing of some of the provisions of the bill happening under the midterms.
I agree.
I share that cynicism.
But one thing that is plain as day that goes at the heart of like this lie that the bill does not cut Medicaid is that work reporting requirements, these elements of the bill only save money if they kick people off of coverage.
So if a magic switch is flipped and instead of a bureaucratic nightmare, work requirements magically work.
Everybody's working.
Everybody's qualifying for their exemption.
Nobody's having trouble with paperwork.
Nobody loses coverage and no money is saved.
And the only reason these are in this bill and associated with millions of coverage losses to produce coverage savings, again, is to finance tax cuts.
These aren't, if you were designing a bill to strengthen the Medicaid program to make sure that it was delivering the best possible insurance product that it could, serving Americans in the best way possible, this is not what you would do.
You would not just invoke a number of policies that are designed to kick people off of the program.
I mean, I think it's very clear that most of the people who vote on the bill don't know what's in it.
We continue to see representatives do interviews where they say things like work requirements don't apply to parents.
That's not true.
You see them say Medicaid cuts aren't going to touch my state for another 10 years.
That's not true.
I think, you know, we can agree to disagree on whether it's responsible to allow 10 million people to lose their coverage.
Of course, elections have consequences, but, you know, as a society, I think we owe it to the American public to make sure that they have basic needs being met.
Medicare Part A is the part of Medicare that is for hospital benefits.
The latest trustee report from CMS says that that is going to be depleted in 2033 instead of 2036, as was originally thought.
Why is that and what can be done about that?
unidentified
Yeah, so again, we spend a lot of money on health care in this country.
We spend a lot of money on prescription drugs.
We have exceptionally high health care prices.
There is a lot to do to bring down the cost of care.
One way to do that is to slash and burn and just cover no one, right?
We don't have health insurance programs at all.
We cut the rolls.
Another way to do that is to actually tackle why health care prices are high and why health care costs are so high in this country.
We have a lack of transparency.
Again, we have exceptionally high costs of drugs.
We have very, very, very high hospital prices.
Those are things that are tacklable.
And with respect to the Medicare program, one source of significant overspending is the Medicare Advantage program.
So we, again, have talked about how there's this private version of the Medicare program.
The Independent Advisory Commission that advises Congress about Medicare spending finds that that program is overpaid by at least $83 billion a year.
We think that number at CapAction is significantly higher, and that's because of all sorts of loopholes and games that private plans are able to pay to game the system and increase their reimbursement rates.
There are many, many, many ways to bring health care prices and costs down.
I just don't think that the way to do that is to exclude people from getting health care services.
Yeah, so Medicare, again, Medicare Part C, Medicare Advantage, is the private version of Medicare that folks can buy into.
Many people choose to do this because the Medicare program is pretty complex and it's complicated.
If you go into traditional Medicare, right, you have Medicare Part A, you have Part B where you're paying a premium, you buy a prescription drug plan, Part D. Many people who do that also buy supplementary coverage, Medigap coverage, to help pay for the costs of their deductibles, their out-of-pocket payments, and all of that together can be a complicated thing to do.
The alternative, Medicare Advantage, bundles all of that into one private product.
It's cheaper for most people, but that comes at a cost, right?
In some places, right, that might come at a cost of buying into a product that only has a network as big as one county.
That's true for many Medicare Advantage products in the state of Florida, for example.
So you have restricted networks.
You have rules about what you're able to access and what you're not.
But many people make that trade-off because the costs are a little bit more affordable and predictable.
Those plans can also offer supplemental benefits like dental vision and hearing.
But many people, again, who have serious health issues, who are very sick, find those types of plans too constraining and choose to go into the traditional Medicare program as an alternative.
And let's just put on the screen the people that are eligible for Medicaid, and then I'll give you a chance to respond.
So it is low-income families, pregnant women, children, individuals receiving supplemental security income, that's SSI, individuals with disabilities, low-income adults in states that expanded Medicaid.
unidentified
Yeah, so the requisite for being eligible for Medicaid for the vast majority of people is being very low-income.
So even, again, children, pregnant women, adults that are on this program are poor people.
I mean, this is a function of how many people are living in poverty or just above the poverty line in America.
Even with Medicaid expansion through the Affordable Care Act, which allowed childless adults to access the program for the first time, only goes up to 138% of the federal poverty level.
I think for a family of four, that's maybe living on like $33,000.
It's not a lot of money.
The program also includes eligibility pathways for people like my brother.
He's severely intellectually and developmentally disabled.
He lives in the state of Florida.
He qualifies because he has permanent disability that he's had since he was a child.
There are many people who are on the Medicaid program who are also seniors.
They're people who have Medicare as well.
These are called dual eligible people.
If you need nursing home care, if you need to live in a nursing home, that's not something that the Medicare program typically pays for.
You either have to pay for it privately or qualify for Medicaid coverage for that kind of care because you meet income eligibility.
Also worked in health and human services for a period of time and retired military as well as corporate and other areas.
But I did work in HHS.
And I would like to say that I watched the reading or a good portion of the reading of the bill in Congress and noticed that in the wall of Congress as it was being read, there was a substantial number of representatives who were not in attendance.
So the actual person that you're interviewing there is correct in that many of the congressmen are not aware of all of the bill's impacts.
Secondly, I'm working in HHS.
I do understand the problems that the funding is going through.
But I'd like to just make sure that folks are realizing that their congressmen are not actually participating on both sides.
So they're still here legally, but they have not reached a green card.
That's correct.
unidentified
That's correct.
So there will be categories of legal immigrants who have paid into the system and some folks who don't even have a green card pathway necessarily, but again, they are legal immigrants who will no longer be eligible for the program.
So that is one change that this bill made.
Another is there was a rule under the Biden administration to make it easier for very, very low-income people, very low-income seniors on Medicare to access savings programs that they're eligible for.
So if you're not fully dual eligible for the Medicaid program while you're on Medicare, if you're very low-income, you can also, you can qualify at least for savings programs that help cover the costs of your deductibles, your premiums, your out-of-pocket payments, especially for things like prescription drugs.
So for a couple on Medicare who's making like $33,000 a year, that program can help them save about over $8,000 a year in Medicare costs.
And there's a provision in this bill that gets rid of the rule or gets rid of implementation of the rule to make that streamlining easier, to make it easier for people to access programs for which they're eligible.
And we anticipate that as a result of that, over 1 million Medicare beneficiaries aren't going to be able to enroll in those savings programs.
So they're going to see very high costs that they otherwise shouldn't have to be paying for.
There's another change in this bill that we had a under the Biden administration there was a change to require minimum staffing ratios for nursing homes.
Things like, you know, at a minimum, you have to have a registered nurse at a nursing home 24 hours a day.
This bill would block that rule.
And as a result, we expect that there will unfortunately probably be thousands of Medicare beneficiaries or benefit people living in nursing homes who might die because they don't have safe facilities.
So there are a number of changes in this bill that will that will hit Medicare.
Democrats have been in control for 12 of the last 16 years.
What exactly have they done to reduce medical costs?
Andrea seems to be putting this all on Republicans.
unidentified
Well, that is certainly not my intent.
And I can outline what Democrats have done to reduce health care costs.
I guess probably going, well, we'll go back to 2010.
First was they introduced the Affordable Care Act.
As a result of that, Medicaid became a coverage pathway for people without children who are very, very low income in this country.
We now have an Affordable Care Act marketplace.
You are allowed to buy insurance without any thought about pre-existing conditions.
Young people are able to stay on their parents' insurance plan until they turn 26 years old.
There are a number of different preventive services every year that people can get for free without cost sharing, like mammograms, colonoscopies, vaccines.
Those were pretty significant successes that lowered the cost of health care for millions of Americans and allowed people to access insurance.
During the Biden administration, the Inflation Reduction Act was passed, which allowed Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices for the first time, drive down prescription drug costs.
It also instituted a $2,000 annual out-of-pocket cap on Medicare Part D expenses.
So now nobody on Medicare will pay more than $2,000 a year for their prescription drug coverage as a result of major legislation.
It also capped insulin costs at $35 a month for people on Medicare, introduced cost-sharing.
I mean, there's a lot.
But we have to remember that in spite of how President Trump is running his administration, right, the president is not a king.
There are multiple branches of government.
Congress, the executive branch, the courts all have to make, they all have a role to play.
Unless you have a supermajority, it's not like any one party can like do everything that it wants on its whims.
But I mean, I would say that the Democrats have done a lot to lower the costs of health care.
Let's talk to Mark in New York, Line for Democrats.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
The last time this young lady was online or on the show, she was a counterpart and somebody was on the phone.
You were both talking about health insurance.
And the last time you were on air, your counterpower, Jason Zhu, shut you out when you were about to make a comment on federal funding for corporate health insurance.
And I looked it up and it was like $500 a month per person, $1,000 per couple, and it goes up from there.
So, Mark, you said federal funding for private insurance.
Are you talking about Medicare Part C?
unidentified
I'm talking about the subsidies that the corporations get to help pay for their health insurance.
Oh, well, you're probably, so, okay.
Well, one, I'm flattered that you remembered my last appearance on this on the show.
But yeah, something that this gentleman was alluding to is the fact that I don't think many people appreciate that for folks who get insurance through their jobs, the federal government is subsidizing that, right?
That is tax-free to employers.
That is a huge amount of money that the federal government is spending to help offset the cost we pay as employees with job-based coverage for our insurance, right?
So we have all these debates, again, about who's deserving of Medicaid, who's deserving of Medicare, whether to increase the age of eligibility.
But we don't talk about whether the federal government should be subsidizing employer-sponsored insurance.
I mean, it is very funny what is viewed as a legitimate use of government dollars and what isn't.
This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.
unidentified
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Yeah, I started the Article III project after the Kavanaugh confirmation proceeding where I served as the chief counsel for nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee to Chairman Chuck Grassley, the all-star senator from Iowa, who is President Trump's biggest and most effective ally in Congress in both President Trump's first and second term.
I hope people remember that.
And so I started the Article III project in 2019 after I saw what the Democrats were capable of when they threw these bogus allegations against Justice Kavanaugh.
It continued their playbook that they used against Bork and Clarence Thomas and now Emel Bovey, a new judge on the Third Circuit, just confirmed last night.
My funding comes largely, well, it came largely from me.
I funded a lot of it through my own pocketbook, but we also take donations at article3project.org, article number3project.org.
We are very pleased to get small donations, but only what people can afford to give.
We've done websites on women and minority judicial nominees, how Democrats pretend they want diversity, and then they viciously attack and smear women and minority judicial nominees from Republican presidents.
We've had a judiciary tracker in the past, and I think we still have that up now that shows the pace of President Trump's judicial nominations in his first term and now his second term where Chairman Chuck Grassley helped President Trump confirm a record number of judges in his first term.
And we have this judicial sabotage tracker that shows how these activist judges around the country are ignoring the will of the American people, actually sabotaging the will of the American people through by unlawfully trying to strike down the president in his exercise of his core Article II powers.
Well, I think that, well, we have to step back and remember what our Constitution is.
Our Constitution is a loan agreement between we the people and our governments, federal, state, local, tribal governments.
And it's radically different from Great Britain, from which we escaped.
In Great Britain, the king or queen is sovereign.
They get their sovereign power from God, and then they lend power to their subjects through documents like the Magna Carta.
America is radically different.
We, the people, are the sovereign in America.
We get sovereign power from God, and we loan power to our governments, federal, state, and local, through the loan agreement called our U.S. Constitution.
And our Constitution is very clear.
The Congress has all legislative power under Article I.
The President has all executive power under Article II.
And our federal judiciary, the Supreme Court, and the lower federal courts have all judicial power under Article III.
And the federal government only has powers that we, the people, specifically give it in our Constitution.
Specific powers, enumerated powers, and then those powers are divided between Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court.
And all other power belongs to we, the people, the states, and we, the people, as confirmed by the 10th Amendment.
And so, what we are really focusing on at the Article III project during President Trump's first term, not only are we focusing on judges, we helped confirm Amel Bovey 50 to 49 last night in the Senate when a lot of people said he had no chance.
We had 3,000 people make over 10,000 contacts with their home state senators and gave these senators an attitude adjustment.
unidentified
But what we're really focusing on explain that, Mike.
We have our people call these senators and say that Amel Bovey, Judge Amel Bovey, now circuit judge, federal circuit judge Amel Bovey on the Third Circuit in New Jersey, is very well qualified for this job.
Even the American Bar Association conceded that Amel Bovey was qualified for this job.
He's bold.
He's fearless.
He's going to fight for the Constitution like he fought for President Trump's constitutional rights as President Trump's defense attorney during the law affair, like Amel Bovey fought for Americans' constitutional rights when he served in a senior Justice Department official and fired the bad actors and the Justice Department who politicized,
weaponized, persecuted Americans when he dropped lawsuits where they were persecuting Americans and when he opened investigations and brought accountability, much needed accountability for people who persecuted Americans.
So those are the people who the Article III project are going to strongly recommend and defend.
It kind of reminded me, the Amel Bovey confirmation process kind of reminded me of the Justice Kavanaugh justice process that I ran as the chief counsel for nominations for then and now Chairman Chuck Grassley, where they brought six late, bogus, unsubstantiated allegations against Kavanaugh late in the process after the first hearing on the eve of the confirmation votes.
It seemed like a political drive-by shooting back then because there was no substantiation whatsoever.
And actually, we made criminal referrals against several of those accusers.
It feels the same way against Amel Bovey.
Amel Bovey clearly has the highest ethical standards because otherwise the American Bar Association, not exactly a conservative organization, a pretty Democrat organization, gave Amel Bovey its highest rating.
And so in order for the ABA to give Amel Bovey his highest rating, that means he has to have the highest ethical standards, which he does.
And so these allegations are bogus.
They're nonsense.
And now, fortunately, Amel Bovey will be a federal appellate judge for the rest of his life.
Maybe our producer can do that while we continue our conversation.
There have been in the last six months, the Washington Times reports that President Trump has lost 75% of federal cases challenging his executive orders, his executive actions, I should say.
Well, he has a very good streak at the Supreme Court of the United States where he's winning monumental cases before the Supreme Court on the president's core Article II powers.
And I want to congratulate Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Chief of Staff Chad Meisel, Solicitor General John Sauer, and so many others in the Trump 47 Justice Department, along with White House Counsel David Warrington and his team.
They are winning monumental wins at the Supreme Court, defining the president's core Article II power of the Constitution.
What we have is the American people elected President Trump with a broad electoral mandate, 312 electoral votes, all seven swing states, the popular vote.
President Trump kept the House.
He won a comfortable margin in the Senate and the American people gave President Trump a mandate to secure our border, to expel illegal aliens, particularly violent criminals and terrorists, and to cut waste, fraud, and abuse.
And President Trump is doing the unthinkable in Washington.
He's actually doing what he promised American voters he would do.
He is not stealing Congress's Article 1 power, legislative power under the Constitution.
He is not stealing the judiciary's Article III judicial power under the Constitution.
He is exercising core Article II power as the commander-in-chief to secure our border and repel an invasion, as the chief executive officer.
And he's taking care that our laws are faithfully executed, including rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse.
And these Democrat activist judges around the country, particularly in judicial hellholes like Washington, D.C., are sabotaging not just President Trump, but the American people, the will of the American people and our sovereignty.
And it's unacceptable.
And the Supreme Court is siding with President Trump in almost all of these cases.
It sounds like this guy's disgruntled because he got fired because he violated his ethical duties as an attorney and revealed internal client conversations to the court.
I want to ask you about the idea of flooding the zone.
We had Ankush Khadori on this program on Monday.
He's a senior Politico magazine writer, and he talked about the, he suggested that the Trump administration was essentially taking these controversial actions knowing that they would be challenged in court.
The Trump administration has taken a particular strategy upon entering office, which is to move very quickly and very expansively and aggressively on a host of fronts, violating quite a few laws that are on the books that were written by Congress.
I'll give you just very one example, which is he was supposed to provide notice to Congress before he dismissed any of the inspectors general.
unidentified
They deliberately did not do that.
That's a very low-hanging example of violating statutory law.
He was a former federal prosecutor in the Justice Department.
I would just say this, that the president has power under Article II of the Constitution, separate from what any statute tries to restrict.
The president can hire and fire any executive branch employee, particularly any officer.
He does not need permission from anyone to do it.
He does not need permission from Congress in particular.
And there is recourse for people who are fired.
If you're a fired employee, you can go to the Merit Systems Protection Board and file a claim.
If you're a fired federal contractor, you can go to the court of federal claims and get recourse there.
But this idea that activist judges can tell the president of the United States who he can hire and fire is a clear violation of Article II of the Constitution, no matter what statute that Congress passed.
Can you be more specific about what you believe he's lying about?
Judicial Bias and Persecution00:15:51
unidentified
Well, this gentleman, this judge, this guy is nothing but bad news.
He's got a tainted by his beliefs as opposed to following the law.
And I don't know how much worse you can get for a judge to be with that kind of that kind of he has that kind of power, and he'll be able to rule however he wants, but it'll be based on not law, but his beliefs.
And this is exactly why Democrats do what they do.
This is why they smear judicial nominees like Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who they falsely accused of running a serial gang rape ring as a teenager, completely bogus allegations.
This is why they smear good people like Judge Amel Bove, because these Democrats know that they have low-information voters like that woman who was just on your show.
And it's easy to convince them that something bad happened because they're ignorant.
I have one question about this fabulous wall that's being built on our southern border.
In 2018, there was over 300 tunnels found in California alone.
Recently, there was one found in Arizona.
I think there's been a couple here in Texas.
What does this wall do to prevent a Mexican citizen with a shovel digging under it or the cartel with all of their heavy equipment digging tunnels that are a mile long?
Why are we spending billions of dollars to build something that doesn't work?
It seems like the Republicans have no problem with January 6th, where they went in and ramsacked the Capitol.
And yet, President Trump comes along and pardons every one of them after the courts have convicted them, spent millions and millions of dollars convicting these people.
And now they're all out walking around doing whatever they're doing.
And it seems to me that you are one of the many Dutch uncles for President Trump.
You just can't say enough good about him.
On the Democrat side, which I don't care for either, is they don't have Dutch uncles speaking up for them.
They have to go out and fight individually to stop this would-be king, Trump, from taking over our Constitution and actually rewriting it along with all of the Republican elected officials behind him.
Yeah, I've never, I've always said that January 6th was a bad day.
It was a lawful protest that devolved into a riot.
It was not an insurrection because no one was charged with insurrection.
But what the Democrats did, what the Biden Justice Department did, is there were three categories of people there.
There were people who were there outside.
And even if you think they're wrong, even if you think they're crazy, they have a First Amendment right to express their views.
There were people who trespassed, who should have been charged with trespass.
And there were people who were violent who should have been charged more harshly.
But what the Biden Justice Department did is they lumped everyone together and they persecuted them under a post-Enron obstruction of justice statute that had nothing to do with January 6th, as the Supreme Court ruled in the Fisher ruling after the fact, many years after the facts, and they destroyed these people's lives for many, many years.
A lot of these people went to prison without pretrial release.
Many of these people lost their jobs, lost their families, went bankrupt, even killed themselves.
Family members killed themselves, all for a case where there was no insurrection, where the Supreme Court said that they were overcharged with that post-Enron obstruction of justice standard.
At the same time that the Biden Justice Department is going after January 6th defendants, Trump supporters, the Biden Justice Department turned a blind eye to the much more deadly and destructive BLM and Antifa writers who caused $2 billion in damage, who destroyed American cities, who killed a dozen people.
So when Democrats start crying about BLM and Antifa writers, I'll start crying about January 6th writers.
And so I very publicly advocated that President Trump should pardon almost all of those January 6th defendants, except for the worst ones.
He should commute those sentences because they have suffered enough.
I mean, Amel Bovey got rated as well qualified by the American Bar Association, which is a Democrat organization.
Amel Bove is clearly qualified to serve as a federal judge.
He was a clerk for two federal judges, including on a court of appeals.
He graduated from Georgetown Law School at the top of his class.
He was a federal prosecutor for many years, including terrorism cases in the Southern District of New York, which is a very high-profile district in the country, probably the most high-profile.
He's been a high-profile defense attorney.
He's been a high-profile, high-ranking Justice Department official.
He's the number two to the number two in the Justice Department.
So he's clearly qualified to serve as a federal judge, as the American Bar Association said.
And I would remind people that Justice Elena Kagan, who is a Supreme Court justice, was never a judge before she got put on the Supreme Court.
Mr. Bove's disdain for the rule of law has been a theme throughout his entire career.
As a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, he once admitted that prosecutors he supervised told the defense team, quote, flat lie regarding their disclosure obligations.
Flat-out lie.
Given that background, it appears that Mr. Bove's time in the Trump administration has been true to form.
Last month, Arez Raveni, a career DOJ attorney who defended the first Trump administration's administrative policies in court, filed a whistleblower complaint with my office.
According to Mr. Raveni, Mr. Bove told other department attorneys that they might need to say, quote, F you, close quote, to federal courts that issued orders which the Trump administration had disagreed with.
Remarkably, when he was under oath before the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Bovey would not deny that he had delivered such a message.
He merely said he did not recall whether he had used the epithet that I characterize, the explicit language.
So I asked Mr. Raveni, the whistleblower, to substantiate his claims.
And he did.
Mr. Raveni provided text messages, emails, and a trove of other documents corroborating his claim that Mr. Bovey had both suggested the possibility of violating court orders and had spearheaded efforts to mislead judges.
It's Judge Amel Bovey because the Senate considered these allegations.
They did not find them credible, and they voted to confirm him last night.
And I would also say this, remember this, with this Judge Jeb Bozberg.
This is what this case is all about.
This D.C. Obama judge, Jeb Bozberg.
Let me tell you what he did in this case.
President Trump was expelling the most dangerous terrorist in the Western Hemisphere.
And when those planes were in the air, Judge Bosberg opened up his courtroom on a Saturday when it was not even his duty weekend.
So I don't know how he thought that he could do that.
He opened up his courtroom in Washington, D.C.
He did not have jurisdiction to do this.
The jurisdiction would be in the Southern District of Texas, but that didn't stop Jeb Bozberg. ordered the President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief, to turn around planes during an ongoing military operation, right?
You can't do that as a federal judge, right?
The recourse for these deported terrorists would be to file a habeas petition.
It's not to have an activist judge open up his courtroom, expose an ongoing military operation, and turn around military planes during the operation.
That is very illegal by this judge, and it's very dangerous to our national security.
This Jeb Bozberg did not know the fuel levels of these planes when they were over the Gulf of America.
Jeb Bozberg did not know the security footprints in America if we turned around these planes with the most dangerous terrorists.
We saw the security footprints in El Salvador when we saw hundreds of law enforcement, intel, and military officials ready to accept these dangerous terrorists.
And whether you agree or disagree with whether President Trump should have put those terrorists on those planes, I absolutely agree.
He had the constitutional duty to do it as commander-in-chief.
But regardless of that, a judge does not get to go sabotage a military operation, especially when he has no jurisdiction, no power to do it.
And so, yes, I have very publicly said when you have an order like this that is so lawless and so dangerous to our national security that puts American and allied lives in danger, the President of the United States has a constitutional duty to ignore these lawless orders and dangerous orders like this.
So Jeb Bozberg, I have never said this about any other judge.
He deserves to be impeached for this because what he did was so lawless and so dangerous to our national security, and he refused to back down even when he was reversed on appeal.
She said, today at my direction, the Justice Department filed a misconduct complaint against U.S. District Court Judge James Bozberg for making improper public comments about President Trump and his administration.
These comments have undermined the integrity of the judiciary, and we will not stand for that.
Apparently, she believes that the misconduct was about comments and not about endangering U.S. national security, as you have stated.
Well, that's a separate, that's a separate misconduct allegation that the Attorney General has made, and she's absolutely right.
Jeb Bosberg was at a judicial conference of the judicial leaders around the country, and he essentially plotted that there was going to be a constitutional crisis with President Trump, and these judges need to step up and stop this constitutional crisis.
That is highly inappropriate for judges to have those conversations like that.
Do you not consider it a constitutional crisis for, as you just outlined, the president or the Justice Department to essentially say to a judge's order, quote, F you?
So it's remarkable that Jeb Bozberg talked about that constitutional crisis that had not yet happened.
And then Jeb Bosberg made sure that that constitutional crisis happened when he ran into his courtroom on a Saturday when it was not his duty docket, when he did not have jurisdiction, when the D.C. federal court did not have jurisdiction.
And somehow Jeb Bozberg got tipped off by these plaintiffs that this was happening, that these flights were leaving.
And Jeb Bozberg threw, you know, judges normally wear robes, not capes, but Jeb Boseberg was a narcissistic superhero that day and threw on his cape and ran into his courtroom and thought he was going to save terrorists from President Trump, from being deported from President Trump.
You have to ask yourself, that sounds pretty premeditated to me, especially when he forecasts what he's doing among his fellow judges at a judicial conference.
So maybe the Attorney General Pam Bondi is right that this Jeb Bozberg committed misconduct.
One has to do with the Supreme Court when it was all Democrats, because the Democrats keep calling in, criticizing Trump.
But when the Supreme Court was all Democrats, they passed all these laws that were Democratic policies.
And I remember saying to my husband, why do we have policies in our country, the Democratic policy?
She said, well, that's because the Democrats are in charge of the Supreme Court.
Doesn't the Supreme Court, isn't this the purpose of the Supreme Court to see whether or not the laws are lawful, but not to make, I remember Steve Scale says, we're going to do it the right way now.
Our job is not to make laws.
Our job is to see whether or not the laws are okay.
But up until then, we had, you know, same-sex marriage was a law.
This was a law.
This was a law by the Democrats.
And it was all their liberal policies.
My other question had to do with the Russian collusion between Clinton, Obama, and Russia.
When Trump was in office, how they tried to conspire to say that he was being influenced by Russia.
And, you know, everything, they tried to impeach him with this.
And Clinton was the mastermind of this whole thing, even though Obama followed along.
I'm just happy a Republican finally got through on the Republican line.
Let me say this.
Diane's exactly right.
So judges have a modest but crucial role, and that is to decide cases and controversies of the parties properly before the court with redressable claims.
That is their Article III standing under the Constitution for judges.
That's their Article III power.
So nothing more, nothing less.
When judges think that they write the laws, like these activist judges have done for so many years before Trump transformed the Supreme Court to the first constitutionalist majority in 90 years, the Democrats cheered this on.
Now that the Supreme Court actually follows the law, the Democrats want to dox the justices, go outside of their homes and protest, obstruct justice by protesting them and even try to get them killed with 1 a.m. assassination attempts after other justices go to safe houses.
So yeah, I think Republicans and Democrats treat the judicial system a little bit differently.
Let's go to Crossfire Hurricane.
I've been saying this for three years since the Mar-a-Lago raid.
This is the biggest scandal in American history.
President Obama, Vice President Biden, the Attorney General, FBI Director Comey, the CIA Director Brennan, the DNI Director Clapper, so many others in the Obama administration politicized and weaponized law enforcement and intel agencies to help Hillary's campaign and to hurt President Trump's campaign.
And they continue to hurt President Trump's presidency.
They hobbled his presidency.
And the whole point of the Mar-a-Lago raid was to go get back those damning cross-fire hurricane records that President Trump declassified and may have took when he left office.
And so, as I've been saying for three years, I hope these lawfare Democrats lawyer up because justice is definitely coming under Attorney General Pam Bondi.
She has a backbone of steel along with Todd Blanche and Chad Meisel and Stanley Woodward and Cash Battelle and Dan Bongino and Harmeet Dillon and so many other good Trump officials in the Justice Department.
I would say, why did they go into the nation's capital unarmed?
And when they got to the Senate floor of the nation's capital, they walked through velvet ropes and followed police direction.
I say January 6th, again, was a lawful protest that devolved into a riot.
And the Biden administration, President Biden and his Justice Department politicized and weaponized that against Trump and his supporters.
And that is very clear by the Supreme Court's ruling in the Fisher decision when the Supreme Court held that the Biden Justice Department persecuted these defendants with a post-Enron obstruction of justice charge 1512 that does not apply to them.
And Mike, we're running out of time, but I wanted to ask you about this Time magazine article where you're quoted in it about preparations for the next Supreme Court nominee.
You have a list put together.
I'm not going to ask you who's on that list, but I will ask you: how is that list different than the ones that were on the first list?
So, Kavanaugh, Amy Comey-Barrett, Justice Gorshitz, how is this list going to be fundamentally different from President Trump's first term?
I'm definitely going to add federal appellate judge Amel Bovey to President Trump's Supreme Court list because he is exactly the type of judge I want on the federal bench.
Someone who is bold, someone who is fearless, someone who is willing to fight for the Constitution no matter what it means for them personally.
And so, I think that's exactly the type of judge we need.
People, that's why they have lifetime tenure, that's why they have pay protection because they're supposed to stand up for the Constitution.
President Trump's biggest and most consequential accomplishment of his first term was the transformation of the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts.
President Trump is going to build on that accomplishment in his second term with even more bold and fearless judges like Amel Bovey.
Coming up after the break, more of your phone calls for open forum.
You can start calling in now: Democrats 202748-8000, Republicans 202-748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002.
Stay with us.
unidentified
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Want to let you know about a program coming up live today at 2:30 p.m. here on C-SPAN, and that is the Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will be giving an update on interest rates and the U.S. economy.
That will be after meeting with other Federal Reserve officials.
This happens as President Trump has encouraged the central bank to lower interest rates.
You can watch it on our app, C-SPAN Now, or online at c-span.org.
Also, this story in Politico, it says this.
Trump says, Epstein stole young women from his Mar-a-Lago club spa.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Jeffrey Epstein, quote, stole young women from his Mar-a-Lago Beach Club spa decades ago.
Quote, people were taken out of the spa hired by him.
In other words, gone.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, when I heard about it, I told him, I said, listen, we don't want you taking our people, whether it's spa or not spa.
And he was fine.
And not too long after, he did it again.
And I said, out of here.
I have a great spa, Trump added.
And we'll go to your calls now to Debbie Pasadena, Maryland, Republican.
Good morning, Debbie.
unidentified
Good morning.
The man that you just had on talking about January 6th, when they had the commission, wasn't there a lot of footage that was lost?
Because when it first happened, they were showing people behind bushes and stuff changing into Trump clothing.
And I know there was a police chief around us that told us that they were told to stand down.
This is nothing against the Hebrew faith or the Jewish religion at all.
unidentified
What I see is the Israeli government becoming such a right-wing, extreme government that they're turning into the very monsters that the UN created Israel for, for these people and they're suffering in World War II.
They're becoming the very monsters that the world helped bring back their homeland to.
I just don't see the justification.
I don't think there's a future peace.
These young children in Palestine, you think they're going to be their friends.
All they're doing is just creating future animosities for generations to come.
U.S. economy grew at a 3% rate in the second quarter, a better than expected pace, even as Trump's tariffs hit.
It says the GDP jumped 3% for the second quarter, better than the 2.3% estimate, and reversing a 0.5% decline in the prior period.
Consumer spending rose 1.4% in the second quarter, better than the 0.5% in the prior period.
Exports declined 1.8% during the period.
Imports fell 30.3%, reversing a 37.9% surge in the first quarter.
Jay in Capitol Heights, Maryland, Republican.
Good morning, Jay.
unidentified
Yes, Mimi.
There's a small group of growing avid watchers of C-SPAN Washington Journal, the crazy 88s.
Good news, Mimi.
You were not, I know you've been losing sleep over this.
You were not voted as a controversial host this time.
You were voted on.
Thank goodness for that.
Yes, yes, yes.
So you can sleep well tonight.
You were voted as the deep dive host, meaning that when somebody brings up an issue, you bring the article up, whether they're on the air or not, and you read it, and that's a good thing.
Medicaid And Its Legacy00:07:51
unidentified
On Gaza, I wish that when you mention a congressperson and their comments, I wish you would bring up how much money they accept at the bottom, how much of the money they get from AIPAC, because it makes a world of a difference.
Last comment On October the 7th, I know people always bring it up.
The IDF killed some of their own citizens.
The commercial media here, they don't like it.
They'll never bring it.
I've never seen it, but I've only seen it in the independent media.
So President Lyndon Johnson was the one that signed this into law, but he did it at the Harry S. Truman Library.
Tell us about your grandfather's involvement with Medicare and Medicaid.
unidentified
Grandpa had tried for most of his two administrations to pass, excuse me, to pass universal health care legislation, along with other legislation designed to protect and support most working Americans.
It was health care, housing, civil rights, a lot of different things in the fair deal.
But he could never get that passed a Republican Congress and the AMA, frankly, lobbied hard against it.
Do you know why the American Medical Association would be against it?
unidentified
They called it socialized medicine, but my grandfather said that when people throw the word socialism or socialized about it, it just means that they're against something that benefits people who would otherwise not be able to afford it or people who have fewer resources than others.
He could never, and he wrote it in his memoirs, he could never really understand opposition to health care for Americans.
And he said that that opposition mostly came for the people who could afford it and couldn't understand why people who had less money than they do should be able to afford it as well.
I'm going to show a quick portion of President Lyndon Johnson back then, 60 years ago, making remarks.
Former President Truman was there with him, and then I'll get you to comment on it.
unidentified
It was a generation ago that Harry Truman said, and I quote him: millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and to enjoy good health.
Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness.
And the time has now arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and to help them get that protection.
Unquote.
Well, today, Mr. President and my fellow Americans, we're taking such action 20 years later.
You can see from the pictures from the video and from the still pictures taken that he was in a very good mood about that because LBJ had been able to do what he hadn't.
The political climate had shifted, attitudes had shifted a bit, and Lyndon Johnson was able to get Medicare over the line.
You can see that grandpa was smiling off and on throughout that ceremony.
But he always thought that that was a basic underpinning of this country, that everybody in the country should be able to enjoy affordable health care.
A healthy population is the basis of a strong country.
He did, back in 1945, advocate for universal health care.
What do you think he would say today about where we are today with health care in the United States?
unidentified
Well, I think that he would sadly probably not be surprised, but saddened by the fact that we're trying to roll back some of the protections.
We don't know where it's going to end, but certainly some of the protections right now that Americans have enjoyed in the last 60 years.
It would be disheartening to him to see that, as he called it in the day, I think that, again, the people with the most, the people who don't need that, preventing people who do need it from having it.
You will be marking the anniversary tonight with a conversation at the Truman Library with Lucy Baines-Johnson, the daughter of LBJ.
Can you tell us about what's going to happen at that event and if people want to watch it, how they can do that?
unidentified
They can do that by going online through the Truman Library Institute.
There's a link to sign up for the online presentation.
I think Lucy's going to be doing it from Texas and I'm going to be doing it from here in Chicago.
Lucy and I have known each other for decades.
She's a great speaker and we're going to talk about not only the legislation itself, my grandfather's struggles to get it done, LBJ's finally getting it done, and also some of the personal asides.
It was a good friendship between my grandparents and the Johnsons.
And when Lucy and her sister Linda and I and their families maintain that friendship to this day.
Finally, Clifton, what do you think is the legacy of these two programs and how they have played out over these past 60 years and the impact that they have had?
unidentified
Well, just I'll tell you personally, I'm 68 years old.
I'm on Medicare.
I had health insurance through work for years, for decades.
I'm two years older than my wife, and when I rolled off, when I went on Medicare, the insurance that I had to pay for still through my employer to keep her insured for a year and a half cost me nearly $30,000 a year, cost me a big chunk of my pension.
It's much more affordable now.
I don't want to, I'm not going to run out and buy a yacht, but I sleep better at night knowing that my wife and I are covered.
And I think that all Americans should have that same ability to sleep at night and enjoy their lives.
IDF ordered Hannibal Directive on October 7th to prevent Hamas taking soldiers captive.
It says that there was crazy hysteria.
Decisions started being made without verified information.
Documents and testimonies obtained by Haaretz reveal the Hannibal Operational Order, which directs the use of force to prevent soldiers being taken into captivity, was employed at three Army facilities infiltrated by Hamas, potentially endangering civilians as well.
That's at haaritz.com if you'd like to read that.
Here's Marie, New York City, Independent Line.
Good morning, Marie, you're on Open Forum.
unidentified
Good morning, Mimi.
And I just want to start by saying this very clearly.
I love C-STAN.
It protects the voice of the people.
And I just want to say thank you for giving citizens like me a platform when too many others remain silent.
My name is Mari.
I'm a Native American sovereign and long-life civic advocate in my community since I was a little girl, since my mother was taking me to Board of Education meetings and she was a teacher.
And I've met and worked with nearly every elected official, even from President Donald Trump.
I've met him before as well.
And down to the local district leaders in Harlem, some of my mentors are like C. Virginia Phil, Dr. Hazel Dukes, the late Congressman Charlie B. Wrangel.
So I know who holds power and who has the authority to act.
But when the gentleman that was on about the Judicial Sabotage Committee, you know, for the last, for the past eight years, I've endured judicial sabotage in a domestic violence case that unjustly separated me from my three daughters, my three little Harlem girls, without due process and without a single criminal charge.
And what I'm calling, this isn't just a personal tragedy, it's a constitutional crisis.
And as a sovereign Native American woman and U.S. citizen, I've been denied protections guaranteed under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3, the Commerce Clause, which empowers Congress to prevent state interference when fundamental rights are at risk.
And as Dr. King said, a threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
So I ask that gentleman, and I wish I was able to ask this question when he was on, but why hasn't his group, the judicial sabotage group that they started, acted?
Or President Trump, why haven't they acted when survivors should not have to fight this hard for justice?
It's time for accountability and real federal intervention.
The only thing I wanted to say about the person that you had on there earlier talking about January 6th, and it was no weapons there, and he was a Republican.
And the whole thing with health care in this country, it's not provided for the people of this country is these manufacturers that have left this country.
One of the reasons is because of health care not being provided by this country.
They go to these countries where people in their country they're in, the health care is provided by the country.
These manufacturers are not going to come back here and have to deal with being sued for billions of dollars by somebody that's, you know, been neglected.
You understand what I'm trying to say?
I'm poorly educated here in the South, but I can understand what's going on with these manufacturers.
They're not going to come back here.
No way with the way this health care is in this country.
It's not going to happen.
I said this the last time I called when they were talking about health care.
So now I'm going to have to say it again.
They're not coming here because of the health care that's not provided by our government for everybody.
Here's Anthony, Independent in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Good morning, Anthony.
unidentified
Good morning.
My only issue is you had a caller come in and congratulate you on, I don't know what he was trying to prove, that you're not biased anymore, that you're leaning towards these fascist Republicans, where they control free speech everywhere.
I mean, is that what they're insinuating with C-SPAN?
Like they're grading you and that intimidates you?
I don't appreciate that because I've enjoyed C-SPAN for a long time.
Well, I have so many issues worldwide and nationally.
First of all, Mr. Trump, God forget I use the word Mr. is so out of touch with the rest of reality that should be in operation here and the terribleness of what's happening.
For some reason, nations can't get together and feed those people in Palestine.
That is unbelievable for a country that if we get air airpares, if we airdrop a few, we can just continue day after day after day to feed those people with those starving babies.
That just breaks my heart.
I'm real concerned about the Supreme Court.
God forbid I should sit down and list the number of problems that they are having created by themselves.
Ghillene Maxwell seeks immunity in exchange for congressional testimony.
She said she has agreed to participate in congressional deposition only if a series of demands, including immunity, are met.
She is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking and has been seeking to overturn her conviction as the Trump administration faces mounting pressure to release more information about the Epstein case.
Here is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Tuesday, yesterday, calling on the FBI to look into whether foreign governments are trying to use the Epstein files against President Trump.
The FBI must identify any vulnerabilities that could be exploited by foreign intelligence agencies with access to non-public information in the Epstein files, including being able to gain leverage over Donald Trump, his family, or other senior government officials.
And third, I'm calling on the FBI to publicly show they're developing mitigation strategies to counter these threats and safeguard our national security.
The idea of foreign adversaries hacking into agency files to collect information that could be leveraged against our government is not at all a remote possibility.
Just last Thursday, it was reported that DHS and HHS were among several government agencies hacked as part of a breach to Microsoft's SharePoint service.
This hack, Microsoft confirmed, was carried out by Chinese actors.
Hacks like this could very well be an attempt to exploit federal systems to get access to Epstein files and potentially use it to influence those names in the files, those named in the files.
Whatever is in the Epstein files is concerning enough.
Donald Trump's running scared.
If that is in fact the case, our adversaries could certainly be interested in trying to use this information to hurt America and Americans.
We must ensure that that can never happen.
The FBI must and that the F and that the FBI must immediately conduct a risk assessment so we're not caught flat-footed if our adversaries have already seen these files.
National security, Mr. President, is not, should never be a partisan issue.
We need to do everything we can to make sure we're protecting the U.S. and American families every single day.
This report is imperative to do just that.
And there is one more thing Donald Trump could do to quell people's anger, confusion, frustration, and fears over the national security ramifications.
Stop running away from this issue.
Tell the truth.
And if there's clearly no national security risk, release the Epstein files, President Trump.
Yeah, I just wanted to say it's a shame that we have to talk about January 6th again and the lady call after the fanatic Republican who was a Trump.
You know, we look at the guys at FU2, you know, and this is the type of people we put in government that are not looking for the best interests of the country that is going, I mean, Marxist also, you know, all these things.
And then we are talking about the Democrat there that a president that is taking the country to hell on a handbasket and the image of America is getting destroyed.
Kicking It Sensibly00:00:18
unidentified
And I hope that we could kick this in a way that we don't look like crazy American because anybody would think January 6th was a walk in the park.