| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| Hundreds of thousands of people watching. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I went home after the speech and I turned on C-SPAN. | |
| I was on C-SPAN just this week. | ||
| To the American people, now is the time to tune in to C-SPAN. | ||
| They had something $2.50 a gallon. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I saw on television a little while ago in between my watching my great friends on C-SPAN. | |
| C-SPAN is televising this right now live. | ||
| So we are not just speaking to Los Angeles. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We are speaking to the country. | |
| Here's where we are on Capitol Hill. | ||
| The House will be in for a brief pro forma session at 10 a.m. Eastern, and we will, of course, take you live for Gablo-Gavel coverage to the floor of the House. | ||
| The Senate is in for legislative business at 10 a.m. this morning. | ||
| At 11 a.m., we're going to be covering here on C-SPAN a Texas redistricting hearing. | ||
| House of Representatives, the Texas House of Representatives, holding its first hearing since the recent release of a newly proposed redistricting map for the state. | ||
| We're going to be covering it live from Austin, 11 a.m. Eastern here on C-SPAN, C-SPAN.org, and the free C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| In terms of the latest news out of Washington, it's the jobs report this morning. | ||
| It came out about an hour ago. | ||
| Here's the USA Today wrap-up. | ||
| U.S. employers added a disappointing, they note, 73,000 jobs in July as payroll growth slowed amid President Donald Trump's sweeping import tariffs, intensifying immigration crackdowns, and massive federal layoffs, they write. | ||
| Even more concerning, though, job gains for May and June were revised down in this report by a whopping 258,000, portraying a much weaker labor market, they say, than believed in the late spring and early summer and raising the odds that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in September. | ||
| The unemployment rate rose from 4.1% to 4.2%. | ||
| Before the report was released, economists had been estimating that about 105,000 jobs were added in the month of July. | ||
| That's to wrap up from USA Today. | ||
| We can talk about that in our open forum if you'd like, or any public policy that you want to talk about. | ||
| The phone lines are yours to do so. | ||
| It's 202-748-8001 for Republicans to call in. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| Bill, Mobile, Alabama's up first Republican line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Well, it looks like Trump was right again, but I did not call in for that. | ||
| What I called in for is that during all the different times that they've allowed pauses in student loan payments when we had the Gulf oil spill, when we've had hurricanes, when we've had COVID, I continued to make all of my payments. | ||
| If the interest was not to be accumulated on people who didn't pay, it would seem that my payments would apply toward the principal. | ||
| But when I have called, A, you can't get anybody that you can talk to about it. | ||
| They don't know anybody you can talk to about it. | ||
| And I can't find anybody who can answer the question of do I get credit. | ||
| But when I check on what I owe, it shows that I've got no additional credit for the payments that I've made. | ||
| I just wish that some way somebody would make it available where we can know that we got credit for that, or if we didn't, why we didn't. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Bill in the Yellowhammer State. | ||
| This is Angela in the Tar Hill State. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Fayetteville, good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I actually had a call for the previous guest. | ||
| However, in regards to the previous caller from Alabama, In terms of the student loan program, those pauses in paying back those student loans, if policy was such that individuals got a lower interest rate, perhaps many would be able to pay during that time frame. | ||
| But the other thing is the Consumer Protection Agency, which is now not resourced the way it needed to be, and the Department of Education that's responsible for administering student loans has been slashed in terms of funding. | ||
| That speaks to the reason that the caller has not been able to get the information that he's needing in regards to whether his payments throughout his repayment period have been applied. | ||
| And it just adds to the notion that those folks that have aspirations to be professionals should be funneled to community colleges, technical institutes, and things of that nature versus going ahead and going to university because the cost is too high. | ||
| So they need to address the interest rate, maybe a no-interest rate for those people that want to pursue professional jobs. | ||
| Because as a person that actually went through the Reagan years where they were saying you needed to go to a technical school, I did that. | ||
| And I ended up going part-time to college and then finishing, matriculating through a four-year university in order to get a good paying professional job for which I have now retired after 30 years. | ||
| What was that job, Angela? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was human resources, labor management, employee relations, dealing with unions, managers, employees for the Department of Defense. | |
| So this recommendation that people start looking at jobs that are technically geared is disingenuous because everybody does not have those types of aspirations. | ||
| And we always need professionals like doctors, nurses, and you don't get that type of experience and expertise at technical institutes for the most part. | ||
| That's Angela in North Carolina. | ||
| This is Brittany out of Wilmer, Texas. | ||
| It's open forum. | ||
| Brittany, what's on your mind? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let me tell you one of the stories of humanity. | |
| You have two people from two different cities. | ||
| As you know, everywhere you go, the people have a unique nuance that you can see in their thoroughbred population, no matter the race, no matter the masculine, the feminine, from city to city, colony to colony. | ||
| It's a unique accent, culture, and vibration. | ||
| Jesus Christ created us to be the salt of the earth. | ||
| The people see one another and their different types of beauty, and eventually one thing is going to happen. | ||
| Everyone is going to believe that one tribe is more beautiful and one is more average, and one will be looked up to, and then one will be idolized. | ||
| One will be looked up to and idolized, and their population will double the size of the other. | ||
| Okay, that's Brittany, Matt, Florida, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, yeah, I'm a first-time caller, and I'll have to try in many months. | |
| And I try to avoid rhetoric during political intercourses. | ||
| So instead of that, I'd like to speak about an essay, John, by the political theorist, Hannah Aaron, in which she gives contrasting images of a certain type of politician who takes facts and lies about and distorts them, and a certain type of historian who takes facts as being the result of some necessary development. | ||
| So this historian is under the false impression that we're all basically just pawns of nature or world spirit-driven history or et cetera. | ||
| But she goes on to convey that while this historian type denies, implicitly denies freedom of action in the political sphere, this historian, I mean, | ||
| this politician, they overestimate the possibilities of their actions and implicitly condone without reservations, lying images, distortion of facts. | ||
| So, Matt, what is this applying to today? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, this is not a policy. | |
| I just thought maybe something a little different to do with a more general than specific policy. | ||
| Got it. | ||
| If you want people to read it, what's the name of your historian or your writer that you're talking about? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, Hannah Aaron. | |
| She's a political theorist. | ||
| It's called Truth and Politics. | ||
| There you go. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| Thanks for bringing it up. | ||
| That's Matt in Florida Lewis in Colorado, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, John. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Let me start with Washington is the problem. | ||
| It is so corrupt, it makes Sodom and Gomorrah look like Shangri-La. | ||
| And it's not the buildings. | ||
| It's not even the institutions. | ||
| It's the people. | ||
| There's something in the water. | ||
| I don't know what it is, but it's frightening. | ||
| Does it matter what administration is in power, Lewis? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I don't know. | |
| I don't think it matters. | ||
| I think the system is can't be beat. | ||
| If anybody could do it, Donald Trump could do it. | ||
| But it cannot be. | ||
| When did it get that way, Lewis? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know what? | |
| I don't know, John. | ||
| Probably, you know, maybe before the big war, you know, before there's been a couple of big ones. | ||
| World War II? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, maybe even before World War I. | |
| But, you know, when the intelligence community started to realize that they can control using manipulation, you know, using information as a weapon and weaponizing the system. | ||
| So, you know, the Hoover building, the J. Edgar Hoover building, that could be the beginning of the real solidification of the true center of power. | ||
| Lewis, on the intelligence community, there's actually an op-ed in the opinion page of the New York Times today that you might be interested in reading. | ||
| It's by John Brennan and James Clapper, both senior intelligence officials during the Obama administration, both very much back in the spotlight since allegations that President Trump has made about their involvement in the 2016 election. | ||
| Here's what they write in their joint column. | ||
| Tulsi Gabbert, the director of the National Intelligence, and John Ratcliffe, the Central Intelligence Agency Director, have over the past month claimed that senior officials in the Obama administration manufactured politicized intelligence, silenced intelligence professionals, and engaged in a broad treasonous conspiracy to undermine the presidency of Donald Trump. | ||
| That is patently false, they say. | ||
| In making those allegations, they seek to rewrite history, and we want to set the record straight and, in so doing, sound a warning. | ||
| They say every serious review has substantiated the intelligence community's fundamental conclusion that Russia conducted an influence campaign intended to help Donald Trump to win in the 2016 election. | ||
| They say the real politicization is the calculated distortion of intelligence by administration officials, notably Mr. Trump's directors of the National Intelligence and CIA, positions that should be apolitical. | ||
| They write: We find it deeply regrettable that the administration continues to perpetuate the fictitious narrative that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election. | ||
| It should instead acknowledge that a foreign nation state, a mortal enemy of the United States, routinely meddles in our national elections and will continue to do so unless we take appropriate bipartisan action to stop it. | ||
| There's much more in that column, if you want to read it in today's New York Times. | ||
| This is Jeff in Kansas City, Missouri, Democrat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Hello? | ||
| What's on your mind, Jeff? | ||
| Open forum. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so I want to make three quick points based on the last couple of callers. | |
| Number one, for the student loans, you got to look at the profits. | ||
| Profits take money out of the system, just like healthcare and all these other big deals that we have, you know, that are causing a lot of lack of funding. | ||
| Number two, it's the people send these people to Washington. | ||
| So if you think corruption is corrupt, well, we're sending them there. | ||
| So that's on the people. | ||
| Number three, mega really needs to understand that once you make a king, then you just as well sit down at the little kitty table and shut up because you no longer have any power. | ||
| So, I mean, that's on them. | ||
| So, you know, if you speak against him, it's up to him what he wants to do. | ||
| I mean, he can just blow you off or just say off with your head and, you know, go on about your business. | ||
| Jeff, on your second point, what do you make of the old adage that everybody hates politicians except for their politician that kick out the bums, but not my elected official. | ||
| He or she is just fine. | ||
|
unidentified
|
True. | |
| I mean, you know, when it comes to your politician, you know, you basically close your eyes and your ears and don't hear nothing what they're saying, which, you know, even when they're in bed with the, you know, with the person that's, you know, causing all the strife and grief and, you know, and pain in this country. | ||
| I get things need to change, but you're affecting people's lives when you're throwing them out of jobs just because of some political craziness that you're making up. | ||
| People need to understand that lies will tear a country apart, you know, and that's what it's doing. | ||
| Look at Russia. | ||
| That's how they've got the war to think. | ||
| They got into that war over a lie. | ||
| And look at what it's doing to the Russian people. | ||
| Those are sons and fathers and whatever that are dying in a war that started by a lie. | ||
| That is the same thing that can happen in America. | ||
| If you got a king or whoever, you know, that's starting stuff over in lies, I mean, it will rip your country apart and do things that you did not want it to do. | ||
| That's Jeff in Missouri. | ||
| Let me go to the garden state of New Jersey, Joan Independent. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi, good morning. | ||
| So there's just so much. | ||
| I have anxiety because I think we're just so overwhelmed and I feel this administration is overwhelming us to consistently distract us from what's really happening. | ||
| One thing I believe, I don't believe President Trump is running the country. | ||
| I think Stephen Miller and the Heritage Foundation and all those folks who, you know, orchestrated this whole presidency. | ||
| The presidency to me now looks like a TV show with Donald Trump as the star actor because that's how he behaves. | ||
| He constantly has no idea of what's going on, so it's clear he's not running the country. | ||
| Another way you could tell he's not running the country is in his last presidency. | ||
| We'll leave this here to take you live to the nation's capital for the final day of investigative hearings into the January 29th deadly mid-air collision near Reagan National Airport. | ||
| Live coverage here on C-SPAN. | ||
| I've got space for a couple of member questions, so we'll do that now. | ||
| I think I want to go back over drug and alcohol testing, and it's not because I think it was a factor here. | ||
| It was not. |