CSPAN - Washington Journal 08/06/2025

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Aug. 6, 2025 07:00-10:01 - CSPAN

03:00:19

Washington Journal 08/06/2025

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Main

pedro echevarria

cspan 41:40

Appearances

brian harrison

rep/r 01:36

donald j trump

admin 02:23

greg abbot

01:02

jb pritzker

d 01:09

ken martin

d 00:36

lee zeldin

admin 01:23

tammy bruce

01:21

Clips

donald j trump [ai]

admin 00:02

dr rebecca grant

fox 00:05

gen douglas macarthur

00:15

justice neil gorsuch

scotus 00:07

peter doocy

fox 00:18

willie nelson

00:06

Callers

rodney in arizona

callers 00:05

scott in seattle

callers 00:05

steven in florida

callers 00:12

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		And recent rollbacks of federal climate efforts.
		We'll also talk about the Voting Rights Act and the impact it's had since being signed into law 60 years ago with Case Western Reserve University School of Law professor Atiba Ellis and Spectrum News reporter Rina Diamante on the latest on the fight over efforts to change the congressional map in Texas.
		Washington Journal starts now.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is the Washington Journal for August 6th.
		Today marks the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, designed to ensure fairness for all people when it comes to casting a vote.
		The act has undergone various legal challenges, some of which affected original portions of the act.
		And some have argued fairness in voting still faces challenges today, pointing to the recent events in Texas over redistricting.
		To start the program on this anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, do you think voting is more fair today?
		Here's how you can let us know your thoughts.
		202-748-8001 for Republicans.
		202-748-8000 for Democrats.
		And Independents 202-748-8002.
		If you want to post your thoughts, and if you think voting is more fair today and you want to send us a text on that, you can do that at 202-748-8003.
		And as always, you can post your thoughts on this topic on our social media sites.
		That's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and on X.
		It's at C-SPANWJ.
		It's the National Archives that gives us a little bit of the history of the Voting Rights Act on this anniversary day.
		Signed on August the 6th, 1965 by President Johnson.
		It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting.
		Going on to say, this act to enforce the 15th Amendment to the Constitution was signed into law 95 years after the amendment was ratified.
		In those years, African Americans in the South faced tremendous obstacles to voting, including poll taxes, literary taxes, and other bureaucratic restrictions to deny them the right to vote.
		They also risked harassment, intimidation, economic reprisals, and physical violence when they tried to register to vote.
		As a result, African American voter registration was limited along with political power.
		That's from the Voting Rights Act, some of the elements of the original act.
		This also provided by the National Archives saying that it outlawed literary tests.
		For amongst other things, it provided for the appointment of federal examiners in jurisdictions that were covered under the act.
		That was according to a formula provided in the statute.
		It required those covered districts, jurisdictions to obtain pre-clearance for any new voting practices or procedures that were put into place.
		It applied a nationwide prohibition to the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on the account of race or color.
		And it directed the Attorney General at the time to challenge the use of poll taxes in state and local elections.
		That's just some of the elements there.
		To go back in history a little bit to the legal challenges of the Voting Rights Act, this is a story from the Associated Press in June of 2013, saying that a deeply divided Supreme Court threw out the most powerful part of the Voting Rights Act, a decision deplored by the White House but cheered by mostly southern states now free from nearly 50 years of intense federal oversight.
		Split along ideological and partisan lines, the justices voted 5-4 to strip the government of its most potent tool, stopping voting bias, a requirement in the Voting Rights Act that all or parts of 15 states with a history of discrimination and voting mainly in the South get Washington's approval before changing the way they hold elections.
		It was Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the majority of conservative Republican appointed justices, saying that the law's provision that determines which states are covered is unconstitutional because it relies on a 40-year-old data and does not account for racial progress and other changes to U.S. society.
		That was back in 2013 amongst the legal challenges that have faced the act since it was imposed and signed into law.
		To bring it up to today, when it comes to overall your thoughts on the fairness of voting, where do you think it stands as of today?
		Again, here's how you can let us know.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		And Independents 202-748-8002.
		You can always text us at 202-748-8003.
		Our social media sites available to you as well on Facebook and on X. Is voting more fair today, 60 years after the signing of the Voting Rights Act.
		Mike in Ohio, Democrats line, you start us off.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		How you doing today?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Fine, thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, please.
unidentified		I never had any problem voting, and really, it's the only tool that we have in this country.
		I'm very much in favor of it, and they make it very easy to do.
		And thank you for your time.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When you say easy to do, elaborate on that, especially as it goes to the idea of fairness 60 years later.
unidentified		Well, I mean, my precinct is right on the street where I live.
		I just walk down.
		I never had any problem voting.
		You just go in, give them your driver's license, and that's it.
		You know, it's and people there are nice, they're friendly.
		You know, like I said, I never had any problem.
		And I think that it's one great thing about our country.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		Also, also, I think the people, what I have seen, are very fair and honest.
unidentified		And the League of Woman Voters, I mean, they keep on top of everything.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		They're in Ohio, there, where you vote.
		It's the groups like that that keep it fair and honest.
		That's what you're saying.
unidentified		I mean, they want everybody that has the right to vote to vote.
		Like I said, it's the only voice that we have, really.
		And as long as it's on the up and up, then I think it's a great thing.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Mike there in Ohio, Democrats line when it comes to the topic.
		Dawn in Massachusetts, Republican line, is voting more fair today?
unidentified		Hello.
		I was around at that time.
		And I think it depends on where you live.
		At the time, I lived in New England, Springfield, Massachusetts area.
justice neil gorsuch ▲ ● ▼		And when I retired, I volunteered to work the polls.
unidentified		And it's not right where we are.
		I've been a sub.
		I never was trained, but I'm very aware of what the rules are.
		So I believe the South back in the 60s was very different.
		So I think it depends on your location.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that's still the case today, or geographically, even?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Or do you think there's fairness all the way around when it comes to the process?
unidentified		I don't think it's geographically even because if I look at neighboring towns and I follow those, I also follow Connecticut because I spent a lot of time, the majority of my life, in Connecticut.
		So I think it very much depends on which city or town you're in and which state.
		So yeah, there were never poll taxes up here.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Dawn in Massachusetts, Gregory in California.
		You're next.
		Is voting more fair today?
		Gregory in California.
		Hello.
unidentified		Go ahead.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Gregory and Sherman Oaks.
		Hello.
		One more time for Gregory.
		Okay.
		Folks that you're calling in, make sure that you're ready to get on the line when you are called upon.
		But again, this idea of fairness when it comes to the voting process.
		Do you think it's more fair today, 60 years after the signing of the Voting Rights Act?
		202748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, and 202-748-8002 for independents.
		And text us your thoughts too at 202-748-8003.
		The topic of the Voting Rights Act came up during a press conference in Chicago.
		Texas Democrats who have fled the state to keep that voting from redistricting happening within the state, convening with Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker.
		He talking about the Voting Rights Act, comparing it to the events of today.
		Here he is from yesterday.
jb pritzker ▲ ● ▼		They've decided that the only way to save themselves is to cheat, to change the rules in the middle of the game.
		And what do MAGA Republicans in Texas do when Donald Trump ignores, well, his oath of office and theirs, and when they're taking it upon themselves to thwart the will of the American people?
		Well, they say when Donald Trump calls, they say, yes, sir, right away, sir.
		Happy to lick your boot, sir.
		When Donald Trump says jump, Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton say, how high?
		They don't care that they're violating the Voting Rights Act and racially gerrymandering their state.
		Well, they're hoping they can rob the bank and get away before anyone notices.
		Texas Republicans are trying to diminish the voting power of their own constituents and in doing so, diminish the rights of Illinois and all Americans.
		Texas House Democrats are putting their lives on hold and their livelihoods at risk because they don't want to live in a country where the president rigs elections for his side.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Again, J.B. Pritzker from yesterday is voting more fair today.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Loretta in Ohio, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hey, Pedro, how are you?
		Good morning, America.
		Now, Pedro, you know doggone well that voting is not fair.
		And the point that I want to really make is that it is sad that here we are talking about the land of the free, the home of the brave, one person, one vote.
		You know, we got all of these colloquialisms that we supposed to be our mantra to describe America, but none of it is in practice.
		None of it.
		You don't want diversity.
		You don't want equity.
		And you don't want inclusion.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, Loretta, tell me if, Loretta, tell me if you think voting isn't fair.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Give me a specific how it's not fair.
unidentified		Because section two of the Voting Rights Act has been gutted.
		And the point of it is, is that, I mean, let's just face the fact, you got some people who don't want other people to have anything.
		And it's been like that forever.
		I mean, we, black people were brought here in chains, worked for 400 years, and got nothing.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, if I may ask, in your experience, have you always been able to vote?
unidentified		I've always been able to vote because I'm in Ohio and Ohio was not a part of the Confederacy, which it seems to be trying to lean into now, becoming a red state.
		But see, you got to keep up with the history.
		I mean, times do change, but the stuff that matters, it don't.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's Loretta in Ohio.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from John in D.C., Republican line.
unidentified		Hello.
		Good morning.
		Thank you so much.
		To answer your question, I have to say, no, I don't think it's fair.
		I think we go through these periods of it waning back and forth where it becomes fair, and then it's, you know, but it's a constant struggle.
		It's almost like trying to paddle upstream.
		You can make progress, but as soon as you stop rowing, you're going to go, you know, in the direction you don't want to go in.
		And I think you were correct at the beginning when you mentioned poll taxing.
		You mentioned literacy tests.
		And geez, he was the third one.
		I can't remember.
scott in seattle ▲ ● ▼		But I'm just looking at, you know, today there is this big discussion over gerrymandering.
unidentified		Well, I mean, it's one of the oldest plays in the book, and people are trying to do it.
		And it's obvious as to why.
		And, you know, I think everybody who has the right to vote should have that opportunity.
		But I know a couple of presidential elections ago, you know, I live in D.C.
		It only took me 20 minutes to vote, but there were some people in the surrounding counties, particularly Prince George's County, who were standing in line for hours.
		And so I've never had to go three hours by bus to get to a poll or any of that stuff.
		And I can't imagine what that's like for other people.
		But I have to say, to answer your question, I don't think it is fair.
		And it's obvious why.
		People want what they want when they want it.
		And if they have to gerrymander or purge names off the rolls, the last thing I'm going to say is.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, let me ask you this.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		As a Republican, what do you think about that Republican effort in Texas?
unidentified		I don't think it's, I don't think it's, it's not honest and it's not fair.
		And I would say it, I don't care what side of the aisle.
		If people have the right to vote, they should have it.
		But you trying to take it away from them, it's just not right.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		John in D.C., giving us his thoughts.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to Becky in Wisconsin, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I do think voting is somewhat more fair than it used to be, but I agree with your previous caller.
		There's an effort always to be making it harder.
		Currently, Wisconsin passed a referendum to require more identifications than it used to.
		The referendum was worded so that it seemed like, oh, why wouldn't you want to show ID?
		Well, we already had to show ID to vote.
		Now they're making it more stringent, and you have to have the real ID with more confirmation of who you are.
		So what I did, I have an ID, and I've never had a problem voting, but I went to get a passport anyhow just because this current climate made me like fearful that things would be a problem.
		I had to, because I was out of state, I had to send for an out-of-state birth certificate, which cost money, took about two weeks.
		And then I did that, and then the birth certificate itself took another two weeks and quite a bit more money.
		So people who are in more financial straits would have a hard time voting with that extra expense.
		Plus, when I got married, I did not change my last name.
		But I know somebody who did change their last name.
		She had to show her birth certificate.
		She had to get her marriage license, divorce.
		She was married, divorced, then widowed.
		She had to show ID for all of those name changes.
		So I think the move is to repress voting among women, particularly because we're the ones who've changed names when we got married.
		I didn't do that, so that made it easier, but I was from out of sport out of state.
		That made it much more difficult.
		So I think that there's always pressure to be changing it to harder.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Becky there in Wisconsin.
		Some of you posting on Facebook.
		Kevin James says that when it comes to voting, thinking that it's very fair, he says.
		Now it needs to be secure.
		Todd Kreveling saying not at all.
		Republicans have done all they could to keep people from voting.
		Our votes have been fair.
		The Republicans just hate the outcomes.
		Rather than present ideas to cooperate with the other side, these races impede voting.
		Crooked cowards, he adds.
		Stephen Hammond from Facebook as well saying voting for he's voted over for 40 years, always had to show his ID.
		Some of you mentioning that ID factor.
		You can bring that into the conversation or other elements you think when it comes to the overall idea of if voting is more fair today.
		It was Greg Abbott on Fox News yesterday talking about that redistricting effort, highlighting what he says would make the process more fair in Texas.
		Here's a portion of that from yesterday.
greg abbot ▲ ● ▼		What Texas is doing, actually, we're drawing districts to provide every voter in the state the opportunity to cast a vote for the party in Canada of their choice.
		For the five districts we're drawing, they're going to be Hispanic districts.
		They happen to be Hispanic Republican districts.
		One is going to restore the Barbara Jordan district in Harris County, Texas.
		And so what Democrats are really concerned about, if you look under the hood, is the fact that Hispanics and even black voters are voting more for Republicans than they have for Democrats in the past.
		The results of President Trump's electoral victory prove that.
		You have a map up and is a map of districts, but the fact of the matter is, if you look at the map of the presidential election, you'll see all across the border counties, President Trump won those counties, which are heavily Hispanic counties.
		Hispanics now vote Republican, and Democrats are losing it because of that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		60 years after the signing of the Voting Rights Act, is voting more fair today?
		Wesley in California, Democrats line.
		You're next up.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		I think the problem is that voting is unfair if you're like a third-party candidate or a fourth-party candidate.
		And that can be easily alleviated by simply using ranked choice voting.
		Are you familiar with ranked choice voting?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We've discussed it many times on this program, yes.
unidentified		Okay, so each state should allow ranked choice voting.
		And that way, for example, the people that voted for, let's say, Nader in 2000 or Ross Perot in 1992, they don't feel like they're throwing away their vote.
		Because once that the it allows a third or fourth party to eventually become powerful because people have more people are actually attracted to voting for it because they're not throwing away their vote.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And California doesn't adopt that system, if I understand it.
unidentified		That's right.
		We don't.
		Maine has it.
		Australia has it.
		Alaska has it.
		And it also allows, it means that in extreme positions will probably not make the grade.
		And it has a better chance than having an extreme position get enough votes that it was just a plurality.
		It wasn't a majority.
		You have to have a majority to win in ranked choice voting.
		For example, neither Trump nor Harris had a majority of the votes.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Wesley, they are talking about ranked choice voting.
		The RCV Resources website talks a little bit more about that, saying it's a proven voting method that's been used in major elections.
		It is adopted.
		It's already being used across the country in a wide range of jurisdictions.
		As of the 2022 election, it highlights adopted in 62 jurisdictions.
		And some prominent examples are Alaska, Maine, New York City, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Minneapolis, and San Francisco, California, among them.
		You can find out more from that website.
		When it comes to this idea of fairness, the process of voting up for grabs to Amy and Florida, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		No, I do not think that voting is more fair now.
		The 2020 election should have proved that when 15 to 18 percent of the people said they would not have voted for Biden had they known that the Biden Hunter Biden laptop was real.
		When you have 51 CIA agents prompted by Biden and Mark Zuckerberger saying the FBI told him not to publish anything about the Hunter Biden laptop, then how can you possibly say that election was fair?
		So no, I don't think that the elections now are fair.
		So, you know, that's my opinion.
		And, you know, 50 or 60 years ago, whatever, when people were on welfare or whatever, they had to have ID to cash their checks before they had all this automated stuff.
		So I don't know what's wrong with wanting people to have an ID.
		And that's all I have to say.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Amy in Florida, the Associated Press highlights actions of today by the Trump administration.
		A story from August the 3rd saying the requests have come in letters, emails, and phone calls.
		The specifics vary, but the target is consistent.
		The U.S. Department of Justice is ramping up an effort to get voter data and other election information from the states.
		Over the past three months, the department's voting section has requested copies of voter registration lists from state election administrators in at least 15 states.
		According to an AP tally, of those, nine are Democrats, five are Republicans, and one is a bipartisan commission.
		In Colorado, the department demanded, quote, all records relating to the 2024 election and any records the state retained from the 2020 election.
		The story adding that department lawyers have contacted officials in at least seven states to propose a meeting about forging an information sharing agreement related to instances of voting or election fraud.
		The idea they say in emails is for states to help departments enforce the law.
		There's more there, and there's the story if you want to read more about that effort by the Justice Department.
		Add it to your thoughts when it comes to fairness in elections.
		60 years after the Voting Rights Act from Wisconsin, Roger is up next.
		Independent line.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Very interesting comments this morning.
		But I agree that to a certain extent, it is more fair, but it depends on the region that you live in in the United States, which tends to lean into this gerrymandering stuff in Texas.
		And I have to say, you Americans, you really have a simple answer in front of you that puts the kibbasha on all of this nationally.
		And that is, if you would allow the popular vote to be what should be counted and let the Electoral College break down the percentage of each state to award the appropriate electoral votes to each candidate, Gerrymandering would go away.
		It's that simple because it's the popular vote and it's verified by the Electoral College.
		And currently, that just isn't the way it is, but it could be.
		So I'd like to hear some thoughts about that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, Roger, let me ask you this.
		You're calling from Wisconsin.
		You said other Americans, are you not a citizen of a resident of the United States citizen?
unidentified		No, I am.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I just wanted to make sure.
unidentified		My heritage is French, and so I have a lot of, I have a lot of European friends and contacts and family.
		So from that perspective, it's interesting to listen to them on the other side commenting about where I live.
		Just like they call me Ed Kyles, and I comment about where they live in their politics.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		On the streets.
unidentified		It's an interesting exchange.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		On the street level, there in Milwaukee, would you say the process elections, when it comes time to cows to vote, what do you think of the process?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Is there a fairness there as well?
unidentified		Again, I would have to say regionally.
		I think Milwaukee does a very, very good job.
		But it's a more liberal county.
		You get into Waukesha, where it's very, very Republican.
		It gets sticky sometimes at some of the polling areas where they want certain IDs.
		And it just happens.
		And the other parts of the state, there's a rumor that I understand is true that the Republicans only need 47% of the Wisconsin vote or something.
		And they can win the state.
		Now, I don't know how true that is, but that was some of what was going around during voting last year.
		Right.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Gotcha.
		Roger there in Wisconsin giving us his thoughts.
		Let's go to Edna in Louisiana, Democrats line.
		Hello, you're next up.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		It seems like the voting is not fair.
		It's not fair.
		When we were able, when my mother was born in 1927 and they started having to go vote.
		And you're still on, Edna.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go right ahead.
unidentified		Yeah, they started telling us about voting and the things that they have had to go through.
		It seems like they're bringing us back into that era when you go to vote.
		They give you all kinds of things that you have to sign.
		It's just like, oh, you never get away from there.
		They look at you.
		You got to wait, wait, wait.
		And there's people back there working, but they don't acknowledge you.
		So it's like they're taking us back.
		Voting is not fair.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		There in Louisiana, there in New Iberia, when you have to vote, what's the wait time like for you?
unidentified		The wait time could be like 15, 20 minutes, all depend, you know, how many people they have before you.
unidentified		But, oh, it's not fair.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		There in Louisiana, this is Jean next in Maine, Maine and Waldboro.
		Hello.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Hello.
		I wanted to comment on a couple of things.
		I'm nervous, though.
		Number one, I think ranked choice voting, which we have here in Maine, is very wrong because we have a congressman, Jared Golden, who really didn't win.
		The majority shouldn't be 50%.
		It should be whoever got the most votes.
		And Bruce Poliquin got the most votes.
		But Jared Golden, to this day, is our representative.
		That's one thing.
		Another thing is, I don't know if I'm right about this, but I seem to remember when my husband and I registered to vote way, way back.
		We're in our 80s.
		I seem to remember going to the town hall and having to raise our right hand and take an oath.
		I don't know if I'm crazy or what, because I've never heard anybody talk about it, but it used to be a lot harder to register to vote.
		And when it comes to fairness, it seems like our voting should be regarded as much more of a privilege than Americans view it.
		So I don't think fairness has to do with every single person having ease to vote.
		It should be people who care enough to go through the process should be the ones that vote.
		And I think that motor voter that started with Obama should be done away with because that's how you get all this fraud.
		You get people who are not even citizens able to vote because they have a driver's license.
		And that's all I have to say.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		See, Mary in Maine giving us her thoughts.
		You can continue to do the same.
		202-748-8001 for Republicans.
		202-748-8000 for Democrats.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		Is voting more fair today on this anniversary day of the Voting Rights Act being signed into law?
		You can make your thoughts there.
		You can post on social media.
		You can send us a text too.
		This was a recent story from Politico, first of the month, saying that the Supreme Court back then said on that Friday that it will weigh the constitutionality of a common form of redistricting used to protect the voting power of black and Hispanic voters, the drawing of congressional districts where racial minorities make up at least half the population.
		Experts in election law said the move signals that the court may be poised to further narrow the Voting Rights Act.
		In a terse order Friday evening, the justices called for a briefing on whether, quote, the intentional creation of a second-majority minority congressional district violates the 14th or 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
		The order came in a case challenging Louisiana's congressional map, which contains two majority black districts out of the state's six House seats.
		The court heard arguments in the case in March, had been expected to rule by June.
		It was on June 27th the justices punted the case into their next term and ordered that it be reargued.
		So that was from the first of this month.
		You can follow along as that plays out at the high court.
		Give us your thoughts on the fairness of voting today on the phone lines.
		New Hampshire and our independent line.
		We'll hear from John.
		Hello.
unidentified		Thanks, Pedro.
		First thing I want to say is every time I hear your name, I think of my best friend as a child.
		His name was Pedro, and he was the best shotstop I ever played with.
		But yeah, I think voting today is much fairer than it used to be.
		But I also think it's a local issue.
		I can't even imagine what it was like to vote as a black person before 60 years ago in the South.
		That must have been totally insane.
		And so hopefully, hopefully it's a lot better.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When you say it's a lot better.
		Oh, go ahead.
		I'm sorry.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		No, I want to say ranked choice voting scares the heck out of me.
		I can't believe people would want to go to something like that.
		I enjoy the fact that I can vote for somebody and my vote is counted.
		I don't want to be forced to vote for a second and a third person that I don't even want and put those names on the ballot.
		So that's what I think about ranked choice voting.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If you think fairness is kind of local in a sense, if it ensures that, what's it like in Nashua there?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		How would you describe it as far as the local setup?
unidentified		Oh, I think it's great.
		I moved here from Massachusetts, and I was always a little concerned in Massachusetts when I voted.
		But in New Hampshire, it's quick.
		I get through the line quickly.
		I feel like the people who run the polls are totally honest.
		And you heard Trump yesterday.
		I know I bring up that name and people think negative right away, but it's true that 34% of people in Massachusetts vote Republican.
		How can they not have one representative?
		It seems a little ridiculous there, but I do.
		Overall, I think it's fair.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's John there in New Hampshire.
		Virginia is next.
		And Lynchburg, Democrats line.
		David, hello.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi, Pedro.
		I'm a Vietnam veteran.
		I've been voting for 50-some years.
rodney in arizona ▲ ● ▼		As long as you have your ID and the address, I don't see what the problem is.
unidentified		Sometimes people make their own problems.
		Our government, our government, the Congress and stuff, they don't respect the laws.
		Trump incited a riot on the Capitol that killed for murder for the deaths of the policeman.
		Voting right, the only time I didn't vote whenever I was in Vietnam fighting for this country.
		Voting should be the whoever gets the most votes instead of the Electoral College electing a lot of the presidents.
		And as far as the immigration, immigration, it started in 1980, and they've always been coming across the border.
		Not all of them are druggies and we got you David.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		David and Virginia, thank you for giving us your thoughts this morning.
		Online for Democrats.
		Let's go to Philip.
		Philip is on our line for, excuse me, Republicans from Minnesota.
unidentified		Hello.
		Hello.
		Very interesting comments, lively discussion.
		I think, you know, the voting system is fair and generally representative.
		I think we all need to tip our hats to the people who volunteered to work at the polling booth on Election Day.
		Enormous job they do.
		I think one of the most brilliant insights and creations of the Founding Fathers was the Electoral College.
		I hope it never goes away.
		And lastly, with regard to gerrymandering, I'm astounded, frankly, in this computer age that we can't build the algorithm to draw legislative districts in a way that's blind to party affiliation, to race, to gender, to age composition.
		It's very easy to do.
		Every voter in the district has an address.
		Every address can be reduced to a geocode.
		And it would be very possible in every state in the Union from the Capitol to build outward using geocodes alone to build maps for districts to where you wrap in the required portion of the total population.
		And that system could be done utterly blind and virtually without political influence whatsoever.
		And I think the fact that we haven't adopted something like that, given the sophistication of computers that we have, is just evidence that people aren't motivated to do so.
		And that's all I really got to say on the topic.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Philip and Minnesota, thank you.
		The Wall Street Journal this morning highlights the state where many Texas Democrats went when they left their state to avoid that vote on redistricting Illinois.
		The headline, Illinois highlights wide use of tilted maps.
		saying that just three of 17 Illinois congressional districts are represented by Republicans in a state where President Trump won 44% of the 2024 vote.
		The nonpartisan gerrymandering project at Princeton University awarded the congressional map approved in Illinois in 2021 with two F grades, one in the category of partisan fairness, the other for geographic features.
		Democrats and Republicans, the story says, alike, have for decades gerrymandered in states without a nonpartisan process.
		Current efforts by Republicans in Texas designed to help Mr. Trump hold on to congressional majorities have set off a nationwide arms race as Democrats pledge to offset GOP gains.
		It was in Chicago where the chair of the Democratic National Committee talked about the redistricting efforts in Texas, the actions of some Texas Democrats.
		Here he is.
		It's Ken Martin from yesterday.
unidentified		Texas Democrats are doing their damn jobs.
		They're standing up for the Constitution.
		They're standing up for the democracy.
		They're standing up for the voices of their constituents.
		There is nothing more American than calling out corruption, blasting bullies who seek to harm others, and defending democracy and the will of the voters.
		We are here on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act to once again stand up for fairness and justice.
ken martin ▲ ● ▼		Because just as the icons of the civil rights movement marched, protested, and got into good trouble, just as Dr. King and Fannie Lou Hamer and John Lewis fought to ensure that Americans could access the ballot regardless of the color of their skin, so too are these courageous Texas House Democrats standing up and fighting back against a racial gerrymandering scheme to disenfranchise black and Latino voters, all to desperately hold on to Congress in the midterms.
ken martin ▲ ● ▼		I am here because the DNC is standing shoulder to shoulder with them every single step of the way.
unidentified		And let me tell you something.
		We are supporting them not because it's a political fight, although it is.
		Not because it's a necessary fight, although it is.
		We are supporting them because this is a moral fight, a fight worth fighting with every tool at our disposal.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Is Voting Warfare Today in Pennsylvania?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Jim, Independent Line.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Thanks for having me.
		I hope they enjoy watching your show.
		And as far as what they're saying, I don't see a problem or much of a problem with the voting as it is.
		Although I do agree with a lot of people about it should be more the popular vote, but that's just my opinion.
		And as far as people getting upset with having to change things as they are and cost them money for the paperwork, it's not the president's fault.
		It's not the government's fault.
		It's the fault of all the people that are causing the problems.
		You know, people that come into the country or really don't have a voting right, but because they have an address or a license, they can zip right in and make their vote count.
		And they're not even possibly Americans.
		They're just people that came in over the border with open borders that the president did for a long time.
		And friends of mine used to tell me about it, that they're just letting them in because they want the vote.
		And I said, no, no, no, I don't think that's true.
		Well, after seeing things, I think maybe my friends are right.
		So I think the voting is fine.
		The only thing, like I said, I think the popular vote should take over where it's a little more important than the electoral.
		Anyway, I want to thank you for listening to my speech here, and hope to hear and talk to you again.
		Thank you, sir, for your time.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Jim.
		And you can call in 30 days if you want to give our program a call.
		We ask viewers to hold off on 30 days if they've called recently, pick the line that best represents them.
		Three lines to choose from that you can do that.
		If you are more comfortable typing out your thoughts, sending us a text, 202748-8003 is how you do that.
		Russell in South Carolina, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hello.
		Yeah, thank you for taking my call.
		If you take a good look and listen to Nathan Taylor of the Election Truth Alliance, he actually showed that down ballot, there was a lot of manipulation in the vote that brought Trump back to the White House.
		And Greg Palace of Voter Vigilante, he also showed the voter challenges have actually denied 3.5 million votes, primarily black people, and primarily in the South.
		Not only is the South already heavily gerrymandered, which also reduces the power of the black vote, but the voter challenges that took place in Georgia and a lot of other states actually reduced many, many people's vote to not even being counted in the 2024 election.
		So voting has become less fair.
		Once they took the Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act away, there's all kinds of games that are being played to deny the power of the black vote.
		And that seems like it's just going bonkers now with what's going on in Texas.
		And thank you for allowing me to bring that information.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Russell, before you leave, what do you think about the recent announcement by South Carolina Representative Nancy Mays about her interest in becoming governor of your state?
unidentified		Nancy Mace's Nancy Mace district was also heavily gerrymandered.
		It went all the way to the Supreme Court.
		We actually did well at the district level, and we won at the district level.
		But the Supreme Court said it's quite all right to gerrymander, even though her district, which is District 1, was heavily gerrymandered racially.
		The Supreme Court never even tackled the issue and just said, well, it's all right to do it.
		I actually think that she's not that great of a candidate for governor.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Russell there in South Carolina.
		If you're interested in South Carolina politics, we've been showing you various town halls during this congressional break.
		Today, Nancy Mays herself holding a town hall that you can see at 6 o'clock tonight, not only to talk about the work of Congress, possibly to talk about her interest becoming governor of the state.
		You can see that 6 o'clock tonight on our main channel, C-SPAN.
		Follow along on our app at C-SPANNOW.
		And you can always follow along at c-span.org, where we also keep an archive of congressional town halls you'll remember probably and heard about Representative Mike Flood in recent days.
		That you can still watch on our various platforms if you're interested in some of the exchanges that took place during that.
		Again, one of the things we offer you, especially during congressional breaks.
		Let's hear from Steve.
		Steve is in Florida, Independent Line.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Good morning.
		How are you doing this day?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I'm well.
unidentified		The issue of fairness is not really being stated here.
		Both sides can be wrong.
		And when we start saying in a democracy, as claim that it means the majority vote, when we start putting names in front of that vote, say black or Republican or Democrat districts, those districts are then, they're not about majority.
willie nelson ▲ ● ▼		They're about making votes of one specific group over other groups.
unidentified		That's what's wrong.
		These people are disingenuous in their assumptions about voting district lines.
		Line shouldn't matter.
		They shouldn't be.
		A majority means a majority.
		And these people are trying to make more value of a specific group.
		And it's disingenuous.
		They're not talking about fairness here.
		They're talking about advantages.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Steve there in Florida giving us his thoughts.
		We'll also hear from Joe.
		Joe is in North Carolina Democrats line.
unidentified		Yes.
		Good morning.
		I'm from North Carolina, where just the other year our state was heavily gerrymanded.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We hear you, Joe.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go keep going.
unidentified		And yes, the Reverend William Barber had come to the conclusion that our state was so gerrymanded that it was called, the signs he used were that it was done with precision, with a precision cutting of the state.
		But on the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, this state right here, the state of North Carolina, has so many things in place to offset the vote.
		And we're continuously fighting to combat gerrymanding, and we agree with what the Democrat Party in Texas is doing.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If I may ask, when you say there are a variety of things to offset the vote, are you just talking about gerrymanding or are there other things?
unidentified		Yeah, there are other things there, like the IDs, the voter IDs.
		You know, it kind of works against the senior population because it's hard for them to get down and get some ID.
		And so that's just one of the other tools that the other side is using.
		And if I could say, this all comes down to the fact that the Anglo-Saxon race is using, they're losing their majority, and now they're coming up with other methods so that they can win this, when the souls of the people.
		They're coming up with ways like they're trying to allow the Hispanic race to come in and do the things that we, for 400 years, weren't allowed to do.
		And now so now they are used on their side.
		They're kind of turning towards the Republican side.
		So I just would like to head his, like to put that out.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Joe there in North Carolina, just to show you some recent data about the 2024 election, when it comes to turnout, in light of the discussion of voting, saying that in the 2020 and 24 presidential contests were among the highest turnout elections in the past century.
		The 66% turnout rate in 2020 was the highest since 1908.
		And 2024's rate of 64% was the second highest, tied with 1960.
		The last two midterm elections also featured unusually high turnout levels with rates not seen since the 1960s.
		Excuse me.
		The spike in voter turnout is at least partially attributable to intensifying political polarization during the past decade, a period in which growing partisan antipathy has raised the stakes of election outcomes in the minds of many voters.
		Jim joins us from Florida, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning.
		I'm calling because I'm listening to these people this morning, and it's just, it drives me crazy.
		Everybody starts talking about we should use popular vote rather than using the Electoral College as it was set up by our founders.
		And they were very smart, the founders.
		People that are calling in and saying not to use popular, to use popular vote are not using their own gray matter.
		Two cases in point.
		We're trying to talk today about whether it's fairer now than it was 60 years ago to vote.
		Well, if we go to popular vote, California has more population than 21 states in the United States combined.
		They have 31 times the amount of people population than Wisconsin.
		So if we go to popular vote, we really don't need an election day anymore.
		We just let the four or five big states vote, and the rest of the people can stay home and not vote.
		You don't need to worry about your license or any other piece of paperwork because your vote doesn't count.
		So come on, people, start paying attention to civics and understand what's going on.
		One other thing that bothered me this morning is that you have J.D. Pritzker come on and talk about how the Republicans are gerrymandering and it's bad and they're terrible people.
		Well, let's look at the gerrymandering that has been done in California, New York, and the filthy state of Illinois.
		Those states have gerrymandered for years.
		You look at Jerry Nadler's district in Manhattan, and it goes up and down roads rather than being a cube or a rectangle.
		It goes down one road and comes back up another road and eliminates the people in the middle because they want to put as many Democrats in his popular vote as possible.
		So stop the baloney of the Republicans being the only ones that are gerrymandering and are thieves and hypocrites.
		And that's all I have to say.
		Thank you for the time, Pedro.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Jim in Florida, he mentioned California.
		He mentioned New York, both states signaling they will move forward with plans to redraw their congressional lines as Democrats look to counter the Texas Republicans.
		California Governor Gavin Newsom said Monday that the Democrats are pursuing a plan to put mid-decade redistricting before voters, which could be triggered by what happened in Texas.
		In New York, the governor there, Kathy Hochle, appearing alongside Texas Democrats who fled to her state over the proposed maps Monday, embraced exploring, quote, every option to redraw those congressional lines.
		It was on, I believe it was Fox yesterday.
		It was Texas state Republican Brian Harrison.
		He called the fellow Republicans in his own state what their efforts when it comes to redistricting, described that versus the reaction from the Democrats.
		Here he is in an interview that took place on the Hill with the Hill yesterday.
unidentified		Is it accurate to say that the president wants you to gerrymander these maps?
greg abbot ▲ ● ▼		You're happy to gerrymander these maps.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And because the Democrats are doing it, we're going to do it too.
greg abbot ▲ ● ▼		So everybody's a gerrymanderer, and that makes it okay?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Is that the argument, or am I hearing it wrong?
brian harrison ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you're hearing it wrong.
		I represent 200,000 Texans.
		My constituents want us to do this.
		Texas is the line in the sand for the future of America.
		Okay, the line for the, I mean, the battle lines are drawn.
		Okay, as goes Texas, so goes the nation.
		If Democrats ever take over the state of Texas, Republicans will probably never have the White House again.
		Okay, that's the stakes we're talking about here.
		And this effort, given how razor-thin the margin is in Congress and might be after the next midterm, our efforts here in the lone star state may well impact who controls the United States Congress.
		You made this top-down comment.
		That's also a little bit not in line with reality.
		Yes, President Trump made the call to do it, but quite frankly, President Trump is echoing what grassroots patriots all across the country want.
		He's being a voice for the people.
		It's not top-down.
		It's the opposite of that.
		This is the bottom-up.
		This is what the people want.
		And the people's president is calling on the elected Republicans in the state of Texas to get with the program, stop being weak, stop being spineless, stop being feckless.
		And yes, I'm talking about the elected Republicans in the state of Texas.
		Get with the program.
		We've had new laws in the last four years.
		We've had massive demographic changes.
		We've had massive changes in voting trends, which, by the way, are all terrible for the Democrats.
		Okay, these Hispanics down in the Rio Grande Valley, they are leaving the Democrat Party and their failed policies behind in droves.
		It's past time we redraw these maps.
		These Democrats need to be punished.
		This is what the voters that I work for in Texas want.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From California, Dorothy, Independent Line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
dr rebecca grant ▲ ● ▼		Some of the people like Jim kind of took what I wanted to say.
unidentified		I do not want to have, well, I live in a state now where we have this new voting system and how we pick people.
		I don't like it.
		And I want the Electoral College to continue because it will disenfranchise so many states that have smaller populations.
		One state may want one presidential candidate.
		One might want another.
		Somebody else might want another, but you've got to be able to register your vote.
		I'm kind of some of my questions and comments have already been addressed, but I'm going to say this.
		When it comes to not being able to vote, I think for a long time, and I know what happened before in places in the South with the poll tax, we don't have that anymore.
		And on Election Day, I try to watch where, gee, sometimes there's long lines, other people go right in and come right out.
		I don't see where somebody's physically stopped from voting.
		And I'm a senior.
		I've had to fill out a lot of paperwork.
		I lost my husband about a year and a half ago.
		And the forms that I've filled out, you need to have documentation.
		California and you know I've got my real ID driver's license.
		It took me about half an hour at the DMV and they were all very nice.
		It was handled very smoothly.
		They were quite busy and I was impressed with how they did it.
		You know if you're not able to get out and get ID you need ID for everything if you're not able to get out and get ID then how can you go vote?
		Well I work with some seniors and I've taken people to the polls and I've watched other people who somebody moves or they need to change their records.
		You can get it done.
		I mean, what are we?
		A bunch of whips?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Dorothy there in California, another Californian calling in.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is John in Sacramento, Democrats line.
unidentified		Yes, I think that the voting has got good with technology, has good points and bad points.
		But the problem is that we're in a war of the classes and with people being homeless on the street and elderly people not being treated properly, there's too many percentage of people not being able to vote, so it's not going to be fair.
		And with this with the war of the classes, it's nothing but discrimination morphing into a class of people that are discriminative about their own culture, their own people.
		And what happens when there's a war of the classes because now you're saying it's okay to see a person on the street begging for food.
		I mean, when I came up, if a person begged on the street, it would be a whole army trying to help that person.
		But the dignity of caring about each other as we opposed to as Americans is doing away.
		And this is why the voting is getting outrageous and people are doing things that undermines the innocent.
		It's just discrimination and racism morphing into society.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		John in California, giving us his thoughts.
		We'll hear next from Mississippi.
		This is Willie.
		Hello.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning, C-SPAN.
		Good morning, America.
		No, I don't think I'm 58 years old.
		I've been voting since I was 18 years old.
		No, I don't think the voting system is right now because I think they need to do away with Electoral College.
		Back when they started Electoral College, yeah, Californians and states like that was a big drag on it, but California and New York did not hold the whole United States population.
		And with that said, not only is it not fair, if Texas want to do what they want to do, Garrett Newsom needs to go on and make it 52 to 0 in California.
		Now, how y'all feel about that?
		They can gerrymander districts in California to make it 52 to 0 where you won't have no Republican representative.
		So would you want that to happen?
		Would you want it to happen in New York and Michigan?
		And another thing, C-SPAN, some of you all, some of your hosts is pretty good.
		But when you allow people to call here and spew out misinformation, that's disingenuous.
		And that's why we have what we have.
		A legal alien cannot, you have a vote, you have a vetting process.
		Those of us that's above 50 years old, we know us men, we know we had to go down register for selected service.
		And that's normally when you get a chance to register to vote.
		You present your ID and all that stuff then.
		A person that's a legal alien is not going to risk their chance.
		They're not going to risk being deported or being reported to go out and vote to commit a federal crime.
		That's just nonsense.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Willie Bear, this is Lynn to finish us off in New York Democrats line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Good morning, Pedro.
		A few callers back, a gentleman said that the states were uneven because most of the population was in New York and California and the larger states.
		But what he's not considering is that a lot of people from all the other more conservative states moved to California and New York, so therefore it is even, where those states now have more power because they only have conservative people left in them.
		And the population that would vote differently happens to be in the other larger states.
		So California, for instance, has 48% of their people are from California.
		They're from everywhere else, the rest of them.
		So you do get a cross-section of people there.
		And that's my point.
		Thank you for listening.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Lynn in New York, finishing off this hour of calls on the fairness of voting, thanks to all of you who participated.
		In our next hour, we're going to hear from two guests to talk about the Trump administration's approach when it comes to energy and climate issues later on in the program.
		Hudson Institute's Brigham McCowan joining us to get his perspective on the topic.
		We'll be first joined by the League of Conservation Voters, President Pete Maysmith on Washington Journal after this.
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		Washington Journal continues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Our first guest of the morning is Pete Baismith.
		The president of the League of Conservation Voters here to talk about Trump administration policy, not only when it comes to energy, but issues of climate as well.
		Mr. Maismith, good morning.
unidentified		Hi, Pedro.
unidentified		Thanks for having me on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		A little bit about your organization, first and foremost.
		How do you describe it to people?
		How are you funded?
unidentified		Sure, we're a national organization.
		We work to stop the climate crisis and make sure that people have clean air and clean water to breathe.
		We work all over the country.
		We have 33 state affiliates, which are our great partners, and we work to elect pro-climate and pro-democracy champs.
		And then to turn those political victories into terrific policy outcomes for everybody in this country.
		We're funded by tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of supporters all over the country that support the work we do.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		On the issue of climate, Mr. Maismith, you've been following, as well as those that come from a similar perspective of yours, this recent decision on something called an endangerment finding when it comes to climate issues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Can you explain that to our guests, please?
unidentified		Sure, very simply.
		In 2007, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency has the obligation to regulate greenhouse gases unless they found that greenhouse gases didn't impact climate change, which, of course, we all know they obviously do.
		So they use that, and it's through that that there have been a variety of protections that have been put in place, you know, both to tackle climate change and just more broadly on pollution here in this country.
		So it's an important underpinning or the scaffolding that exists there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And so what did this administration do to that policy that you just described?
unidentified		Well, what's happening is the Trump administration is really turning its back on the people of this country.
		They're wanting to undo that finding, and the practical effect would make the cost of energy be more expensive and to make us less safe and less healthy.
		The EPA has a mandate to protect the environment and public health.
		This would go the exact opposite direction by working to undo this endangerment finding.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		They wrote in the announcement concerning the finding, the EPA wrote this.
		I want you to get your response to it saying, in an unprecedented move, the Obama EPA found that carbon dioxide emissions emitted from automobiles in combination with five other gases, some of which vehicles don't even emit, contributes some unspecified amount to climate change, which in turn creates some unspecified amount of endangerment to human health and welfare.
		These mental leaps were admittedly novel, but they were the only way the Obama-Biden administration could access EPA's authority to regulate under Section 202A.
		That's the statement in part from the EPA.
		How do you respond to that?
unidentified		Those are climate skeptics that are pretending and wanting us to believe because they say it that greenhouse gases don't cause climate change and are not warming our planet.
		All we have to do is look at our lived experience right now.
		Fires in LA, floods in Texas, floods in North Carolina and Georgia.
		I'm in Colorado right now, which is where I'm from, visiting family, and I'm up outside of Rocky Mountain National Park.
		And it's really inaccessible right now because of the wildfires that are happening in Colorado, Canada, and other parts of the West.
		The smoke is really, really bad.
		Fire seasons are much longer and more severe than they used to be when I grew up here.
		That's just one example of what's going on with climate change.
		It is impacting our lives in serious and significant ways, and it's impacting our health in serious and significant ways.
		Everybody knows this.
		It's established science.
		And so any language written preamble to the contrary is fanciful and inaccurate.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		It's probably long to explain, but at least can you explain how the Obama administration reached those things?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Because the EPA is questioning, I guess, the process of how they reach those conclusions.
unidentified		The EPA, the Obama EPA followed the science is what they did.
		After the court ruling, they looked at the science and said, yes, in fact, greenhouse gases, obviously some of which, not all of which clearly, but some of which come out of cars, we all know that.
		It contributes to global warming.
		It contributes to climate change.
		Climate change is bad for our health because of wildfire smoke, because of floods, because of, you know, so many examples.
		Extreme heat.
		You know, look at, say, the Southwest and Arizona and the kind of extreme heat that we've had, even beyond what they normally have, mind you, over 100 and then 110 degrees for days and days on end in the last couple of years.
		The Obama EPA did what the EPA should do.
		They followed the science and the law and they reached an obvious correct conclusion.
		And now the Trump EPA is trying to deny that and pretend that that doesn't exist and they're wrong.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Pete Maismith of the League of Conservation Voters with us.
		And if you want to ask him questions about these recent decisions on climate and other things related to environmental issues, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats and Independents, 202-748-8002.
		If you want to text us those thoughts, you can do that at 202-748-8003.
		Mr. Maismith, it was not long after this announcement that Lee Zeldon himself went before cameras.
		It was an interview on Fox, but he talked about some of the legal justifications he saw via the Supreme Court that give him the ability to take these actions.
		I want to play a little bit of what he had to say and get your response to it.
lee zeldin ▲ ● ▼		The Supreme Court ruled in Loperbright and overturned the Chevron Doctrine in West Virginia versus EPA, Michigan versus EPA, and other cases that an agency like EPA can't just decide on our own that we are going to get creative with law and where there's a vacuum and missing language.
		We're just going to make it up ourselves.
		We're not going to ignore the major policy doctrine.
		We're not going to go along with applying extreme economic pain on Americans who can least afford it.
		President Trump, when he first called me asking me to be the EPA administrator to his last phone call to me when we last spoke, has been focused on bringing back and protecting American auto jobs.
		We want the American auto industry to thrive.
		We want to apply common sense.
		The American public demanded it.
		We want to make sure that cars are affordable again.
		And after the endangerment finding came out, not only were there all sorts of mobile source emission standards, but they also came out with trying to regulate out of existence all sorts of stationary sources.
		They started applying it to airplanes and more.
		We're talking about many trillions of dollars.
		Where does the authority come from?
		It came from the Obama EPA deciding very creatively with a whole bunch of mental leaps that they were going to just claim an authority that we believe after a very plain reading of the Supreme Court cases, we don't have.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So Mr. Maismith, that was Mr. Zeldon's justification.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of the take he makes?
unidentified		Well, Mr. Zeldon left out the key United States Supreme Court.
		He conveniently didn't talk about the court, Massachusetts v. EPA in 2007 that created the basis that said if greenhouse gases cause climate change, then the EPA needs to address them.
		So he just skirted right past that because it's very inconvenient to his argument.
		Here's the other thing that he said, though, that is a fundamental misrepresentation of where things are in this country right now.
		This will cost people more money.
		This is an anti-people, pro-corporate, big oil CEO polluter measure.
		And here's what I mean by that specifically.
		The cheapest and fastest energy to bring on the grid, the way to bring prices down in this country when it comes to energy, is wind, solar, and storage, batteries.
		93% of all the energy that was brought onto the grid last year was wind, solar, or batteries.
		Demand is surging.
		We know that.
		AI, data centers, extreme weather is causing that.
		We're electrifying things, which of course we have to be doing.
		All of that is surging demand.
		The cheapest and fastest supply to help people address spiking utility bills is wind, solar, and batteries.
		So by ripping that away, which is exactly what Administrator Zeldon is working to do, it will jack prices up for everybody in this country, for big businesses, small businesses, and families just in their homes.
		And so to somehow pretend that this is bad economics, you know, to bring clean energy onto the grid is a fallacy and just completely misrepresents really what's happening here in this country right now.
		Cheapest and fastest energy, clean energy.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Our first call for you, sir, comes from Merrill.
		And this is Mike Republican Line.
		You're on with Pete Maismith of the League of Conservation Voters.
unidentified		Hello.
		Hi, sir.
		You said science was out on greenhouse gases being damaging.
		And I'm just curious, if a greenhouse is an enclosed structure that slowly builds up this gas that you're talking about, would that mean that our system is enclosed and it doesn't vapor gas out into the universe?
		Hi, Mike.
		Thanks for your question.
		In essence, yes, obviously we know that greenhouse gases trap are trapped here in our atmosphere.
		That raises temperatures.
		Again, the science on this is abundantly clear, whether it's scientists in this country, scientists in Europe, scientists in Asia, scientists in India, Africa, it doesn't matter, right?
		There's a global consensus that greenhouse gases are warming, causing the warming in the atmosphere.
		The consequences for us are severe and significant, whether it's extreme weather events, prolonged extreme heat, worse health outcomes.
		They affect us in our day-to-day lives.
		And the way to tackle it saves us money because clean energy saves us money.
		So that's where this really falls apart, the whole notion of taking away the endangerment finding.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Independent Lyme from Bill.
		Bill is in New York State.
		Hello.
unidentified		Yes, thank you for taking my call.
		Let's set the record straight on greenhouse gases.
		The Siberian tundra is thawing.
		The deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, both of those are releasing more methane than the U.S. could ever counter through its own actions.
		Nothing we can do is going to offset this global phenomenon.
		So your speaker is misinterpreting the facts, giving hashtags about the phenomenon of greenhouse gases and global warming.
		The U.S. is not the tip of the spear on this.
		The changes have to occur elsewhere.
		Thank you.
		Thanks for your call, Bill.
		Really appreciate it.
		You're undoubtedly right that greenhouse gases, methane, and other gases, you know, we shouldn't be logging in old growth areas or the Amazon.
		We should be protecting places like the tundra, the Siberian tundra, and many other places to make sure that they don't melt.
		You're entirely right about that.
		But let's just stop for a second about the fact that the United States can't do anything about it.
		That, of course, is entirely inaccurate.
		One, we're a very large emitter.
		We pollute a lot, but it's not just what we put into the atmosphere.
		We are a country of leaders.
		To say that the United States doesn't have a role in leading on tackling climate change so we can all be safer, so we can all be healthier, and so we can all have a more affordable future.
		That's abdicating leadership that I think is very unlike who we are as a people and as a society.
		We're going to lead.
		That's what we've always done.
		And we will continue to do it in the future when it comes to tackling climate change.
		We have to.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		On that front, Mr. Maismith, you've probably then heard the arguments from Republicans about leadership in the sense to say, look at China, look at India, look at the concerns about pollution and production they have.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Why should we take all the effort when you have countries like that still dealing with theirs?
unidentified		Well, again, I think we're going to inspire and prod and push other countries to take strong action.
		And I should say that in many ways, China is really dominating the race for the future with the clean energy transition, whether it's production of solar components, wind components, and certainly electric vehicles.
		China is in that race and in many ways winning that race and winning that race by a lot.
		I can't believe we would cede the future to China.
		Again, that seems so un-American.
		It is so unlike us that we want to say, no, we want to make sure that we own the future in this transition to cheaper, faster energy to bring on the grid, which is renewable energy.
		That's exactly what we were starting to do.
		And this administration is attempting to pull that back.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		In a realistic sense, with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, what happens to the future of that renewable energy effort when it comes to subsidies and other helps from the federal government to make that happen?
unidentified		Yeah, the budget reconciliation bill was an abomination.
		It's going to raise costs for people across the board.
		Even if we step outside for a second of the energy space, it's going to raise costs on health care.
		It's going to raise costs on groceries.
		I mean, it's just, I mean, it's just bad for people in this country.
		And we're starting to see that already, and we'll certainly see that in the coming months.
		But speaking specifically around energy, there's good news there in a couple of ways in the sense that in the states, they are continuing to push and lead and take action to bring solar and wind and other forms of renewable energy online.
		We need to keep doing that.
		We need to ramp that up.
		And there will still be activity even at the federal level, not nearly as much as we would like, and frankly, as there needs to be.
		But we can't stop.
		We're not going to cede leadership.
		And we're not going to allow people in this country to have to deal with further spikes in their utility bills, which is exactly what's going to happen if we really don't put more wind and solar and storage on the grid.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And as part of that, there's a viewer on X who asked the question of you this morning, if wind, solar, and storage are, quote, the cheapest and fastest supply, won't they prevail without government subsidy or promotion?
unidentified		Well, that's a good point.
		In the long run, the answer is absolutely yes, they will.
		Now, the problem is that we're still continuing to subsidize oil and gas and coal.
		And I mean, there's some crazy provisions in the budget reconciliation bill that would help coal that we don't even use here in this country, that we ship abroad to wait, guess for it, China, right?
		So, I mean, there's just subsidies in there that make no economic sense that are, again, bad for us as a country, whether you're looking at it from an environmental or climate perspective or from an economic perspective.
		So, in the long run, undoubtedly, wind, solar, other forms of renewable and storage are going to win the day.
		The question is how quickly we get there.
		And that's what we need to push just as fast as we can.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Our discussions with Pete Maismith of the League of Conservation Voters.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Johnny in Kentucky, Republican line.
unidentified		Yeah.
unidentified		Am I talking to Pete Meismat?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on with him?
unidentified		Yes.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, please.
unidentified		Hi, Johnny.
		Yeah.
		What does climatologist say about climate change?
		Have you heard anything from climatologists?
		From climatologists, like climate experts?
		Yes, we've heard a lot from them, Johnny.
		And they very much, I mean, the evidence is overwhelming.
		It's clear.
		It's convincing that we know greenhouse gases are leading cause, the leading cause of climate change.
		They are warming the planet.
		And as that happens, the consequences for us are bad.
		That's what I want to keep coming back to, right?
		When we see longer fire seasons, more intense rainstorms, more intense storms, much more severe flooding, all of that and more, it makes us, it puts us at risk.
		It is more dangerous for us.
		And it makes us less healthy.
		Our society, our friends, our family, our communities, where we live, all these places are more at risk and will increasingly become so.
		And again, remember, the answer to it is the cheapest and fastest energy that we've got, which is wind, solar, other renewables, and batteries.
		So it's both good for people's pocketbooks, right?
		When prices are just too expensive in this country, and it makes us healthier and safer, you know, in the years to come.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If this endangerment finding is rolled back, could states step in, particularly blue states, I would imagine, to set up their own frameworks for environmental at least ways to help reduce the damage to climate.
unidentified		Yeah.
		Well, yes, Pedro, I appreciate you saying that.
		I mean, states have been leaders in 2017.
		So right as President Trump took office the first time, less than 1% of people in this country lived in a state with a commitment to 100% wind and solar energy, renewable energy.
		Now over 40% of people in this country live in states with that commitment.
		So the point is states have started to lead.
		They've been leading now for quite a while and they're going to continue to, whether it's around the endangerment finding, whether it's around tackling pollution, whether it's around bringing more renewable energy online.
		They are going to continue to lead, but we need a federal government who is a partner in that.
		And that's what we see with this EPA that is working to really just be open season, you know, kind of an open door for polluters and big oil CEOs to do whatever they want.
		And then, you know, that it comes at our expense, both our health and our pocketbooks.
		It's both those things, our health and our pocketbooks.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And I said blue states, that's an assumption.
		Are red states willing to do that as well?
		Is it primarily blue states, or is it a bipartisan approach when it comes to these issues?
unidentified		Well, there's definitely some bipartisanship.
		I think a lot of the strong leadership comes out of the bluer states.
		But you look at some of the redder states, you look at a state like South Carolina, for example, where there is good progress on exactly these energy issues.
		Again, because they see the economics around it, I think that's the thing that's so important, because I think that's not typically how people think about these issues, Pedro, is that this is an economic argument.
		If you want to tackle these spikes bills, the way to do that is with clean energy.
		It's the cheapest and the fastest to bring online.
		So, and so the point is to your question: yes, it's their bipartisan understanding of that.
		The other thing is jobs and projects, right?
		We saw some members of Congress who ultimately voted for the budget reconciliation bill, which was something they absolutely should not have done.
		But they talked about all the jobs and projects, manufacturing facilities in their districts that are helping people, you know, put money on the or bring money home, put food on the table, roof over their families' heads.
		That is another way that we're going to win the future economic race as we bring more manufacturing here to the United States.
		That's exactly what we were doing in the clean energy industry.
		And we need to get back to doing that just as fast as we can.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Anthony.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Anthony joins us from New Jersey, Independent Line.
unidentified		Yay, guys.
		Thanks for C-SPAN.
		Yeah, I agree totally with Bill from New York.
		Yes, there is greenhouse gases and it's overcoming the planet and that's happening.
		I have never seen a plan, especially with the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, which is really another name for the Green New Deal.
		You know, okay, let's give subsidies for more electric cars.
		That's not really a plan.
		That's just Washington at work.
		What we need is really a plan.
		I don't see a plan where we say, like, if we had so many electric cars, this is how much the greenhouse gases would decrease because no plan exists.
		And, you know, by having people from in the Washington community, you know, just, okay, we have science and facts, but we don't never see a plan that lays it all out.
		So, and I live in New Jersey and I object, and I will say you're wrong when you say that wind or solar is the cheapest.
		We tried to have winds here in New Jersey offshore.
		It was a European company they brought in.
		They backed out because they said they couldn't meet their budget and costs overrides.
		And in fact, because of that, our electric bills have gone up 25%.
		So I just want to point that out.
		And I know if we keep saying the words science and, you know, reckless and dangerous and people will die.
		Yeah, that's good.
		Maybe Canada needs to hire more firemen.
		That's what I think.
		Thank you guys.
		Have a great day.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Anthony, New Jersey.
unidentified		Anthony, thanks for your comments.
		So appreciate that you're on.
		Appreciate your New Jersey perspective.
		You know, just a quick interesting way to think about that.
		In that gubernatorial race, two states in the year after the presidential election elect their governors, Virginia and of course, your state, as you obviously know, Anthony, New Jersey is the other one.
		One of the candidates in that race, Mikey Sherrill, she's a former member of Congress, is talking about this issue from an affordability perspective.
		She's really very compelling on it.
		She's done some good papers on it.
		She's done some good advertising on it.
		Maybe you've seen it.
		I'd encourage you to go look at it.
		You and lots of folks, everybody who lives in New Jersey, to check it out, because she really is talking about how bringing, say, take, for example, community solar on top of an old dump that's been covered over, but isn't suitable for, you know, humans for people to go play on or live on, right?
		Turn it into a community solar array.
		That energy then feeds back into the grid.
		And again, it's the cheapest and fastest we can bring on the grid.
		So there's really, there's great examples out there.
		There is a plan.
		A lot of people have plans that they've been putting into action.
		We were in the middle of putting a plan into action when Trump and Zeldon decided to try to undo it in part through the budget reconciliation bill.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Mason, he did bring up Canada wildfires there, the effects of smog and smoke here in the United States.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Isn't this an example of a natural phenomenon causing issues of concern and ways that we can't control it because wildfires do happen?
unidentified		Wildfires happen.
		I mentioned that I'm in Estes Park, Colorado.
		And yesterday we wanted to go outside and do some hiking and explore and poke around.
		And we couldn't because of the terrible wildfire smoke that's blanketing this part of Colorado right now.
		Those are from wildfires.
		I think some in Canada, some in Colorado, some in other parts of the mountain west.
		It's been a story that's been, you know, is all too common now for a number of years.
		I grew up here in Colorado and that was not nearly the case, you know, for years and years and years when I was growing up here.
		So this is a global problem.
		That is undoubtedly true.
		We all need to take action.
		And that's not to say that, you know, everything is going to be made perfect.
		We all know that's not the way the world works.
		But we can make things better.
		We can arrest the worst of these disasters.
		And we can make sure that the disasters don't keep getting more and more extreme, more and more intense, which hurt our health.
		So again, by taking action, we can be a global leader.
		I think of the United States as a leader, not a laggard.
		We can protect our health and we can protect our bottom line because it's a pro-affordability.
		It's a low-cost way to help everybody in this country.
		So the win-win-win that happens is significant, but we've got to be willing to take it on, which we were doing.
		And then this action by the EPA is and the budget reconciliation bill both are attempting to walk backwards.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's end there then, since we started with that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If this goes forward, are there legal recourses, other ways to keep this from happening?
unidentified		Well, absolutely.
		I mean, certainly we can't stop fighting and working to tackle climate change.
		So this is, it's a little bit like Pedro, maybe, you know, when the bad guy in the movie is running away and he darts through the doors and stuff and he tries to slam doors behind him and pull, you know, furniture down to obstruct the, you know, the people that are trying to stop the bad guy from getting away.
		It's to slow him down, right?
		So what the EPA is trying to do is to slow down future attempts to make sure that we are smartly tackling the climate crisis.
		We're not going to let that happen.
		Whatever we need to do to respond to this, whether it's in the legal venue, and that certainly will be one way, there's a political venue and making sure that people who believe in climate change and have plans and want to lower costs for everybody in this country and make sure we're healthier are in office.
		So there's a variety of ways moving forward that we'll be seeking to address this.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		LCV.org is the website of the League of Conservation Voters, their president, Pete Maismith, joining us for this discussion.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Maismith, thank you so much for your time.
unidentified		Pedro, thanks so much for having me.
unidentified		Take good care.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We'll continue on on our discussion, taking a look at efforts by the Trump administration when it comes to energy and climate issues.
		Joining us to continue is Brigham McCown.
		He's with the Hudson Institute.
		He serves as their initiative on American Energy Security Director.
		Mr. McCowan, thanks for joining us.
		Welcome to Washington Journal.
unidentified		Absolutely.
		Pedro, thanks for having me back on the program.
		It's good to see you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We started our discussion with our last guest taking a look at this recent EPA decision on the rollback.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What did you think of the decision overall and what do you think are the impacts from it?
unidentified		Well, thanks very much.
		Yeah, on the endangerment finding itself, the EPA's 2009 endangerment finding found that six greenhouse gases were important for public health.
		But when you actually look at them and we strip CO2 away, we're talking about nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocardines, hydrogen hexafluoride, things that affect public health on a day-to-day basis.
		The endangerment finding itself means it endangers public health and welfare.
		And, you know, while the previous guest is correct, the Supreme Court decision didn't say the EPA couldn't consider them.
		It didn't say the EPA had to regulate them.
		And I think that's where we're really getting into a difference of policy.
		This is Congress's turf.
		Congress can mandate what should be regulated.
		And we have a policy difference between two administrations.
		That's all.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If the rollback does happen and there's a reversal, what do you think overall then is the impact on climate overall?
		That's a big question, I know, but the previous guest seemed to think removing those actions would contribute more to what's happening with climate.
		What do you think?
unidentified		I don't think it will at all.
		Let's step back a second.
		Despite the rhetoric, despite the doom and gloom, if we look at China and India together, that's 40% of global GHG emissions.
		The rest, far more.
		China pollutes more than the Western world combined.
		Is it important that we all do our part?
		Yes.
		Is it important that we all want clean air, clean water?
		Absolutely.
		Do we want to roll back the clock where you can't have air conditioning as one European parliamentarian from France suggested a couple of weeks ago?
		Absolutely not.
		And I think the issue is we have to be rational.
		We have to look at this from a realistic perspective.
		United Kingdom got rid of coal.
		Congratulations.
		They have the highest energy prices in the entire area of Europe.
		We have to be smart about this.
		We need a longer lead time, a longer glide slope to net zero.
		And if we really think this is such a big deal, well, then all these folks should be over in China.
		They should be over in India.
		They should be in the global south talking about people who are the real polluters.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You probably heard the previous guests talking about the U.S., how the U.S. should take leadership, say, when it comes to China, but he also said China's making its own strides on clean energy.
unidentified		Yeah, well, China's building a new coal-powered plant every other week.
		Here's the deal with China.
		The previous administration said, well, we agree on climate policy and we can work with them.
		I think that was naive at best.
		China is concerned about global energy dominance.
		China is concerned about traditional notions of energy security.
		China wants every molecule of energy they can get and they don't care where it comes from.
		China isn't serious about Paris climate change accords, or they wouldn't have an unlimited pass to pollute as much as they want through the end of the decade.
		That's just not realistic.
		And I think we have to understand that we're in a great power competition with China.
		Yes, we want energy security.
		That means we have to have affordable, available, and resilient forms of energy that we can use on a day-to-day basis.
		And yeah, that energy mix is going to change over time.
		But let's not be fooled.
		China is not a leader in renewable energy.
		It's a leader in pollution.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		A little bit about the Hudson Institute and particularly its stance when it comes on these environmental climate issues.
		Can you describe that for our guest?
		Also, how are you funded?
unidentified		Yeah, thank you very much.
		Well, I lead the initiative as a senior fellow and director of the Initiative on American Energy Security.
		That's the program I lead.
		And so my research and scholarly work is focused on ensuring American security through its energy mix.
		Hudson is a nonprofit.
		It gets funding from a variety of sources.
		And from that perspective, we look at all options.
		And, you know, one of the things I like about Hudson is we can have two senior fellows sitting alongside us here today.
		And we could all disagree with ourselves.
		There's not one institutional position.
		It's very collegial, very more like a university setting where each senior fellow can write whatever they want to write about.
		And from Brigham's perspective, we have to make sure that we don't revisit the 1970s ever again.
		We have to make sure that we are never dependent upon another country for our energy resources.
		Because when we have energy abundance, we have economic security, we have national security.
		When we have energy scarcity, which quite frankly is what the other side is talking about, we have energy poverty.
		We have high energy prices, not low energy prices.
		So that's where we're fundamentally coming from.
		And if I may, Pedro, you know, China controls 80 plus percent of the renewable supply chain, whether it's extraction of minerals to processing to renewables to wind or solar.
		All of that stuff comes from China.
		Not a great place to be.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Is it your personal belief, or maybe Hudson's, or you can explain that and parse that as you wish?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Is it a petroleum first perspective and then all other forms of energy should be considered or is it an all of the above kind of take on it?
unidentified		Yeah, from my perspective, thank you, Pedro.
		I'm an all the above kind of guy.
		And my view is that the energy mix that this country uses has changed over time and will continue to change over time.
		But viewed through a perspective of realism, cost is an important component.
		EPA regulations are certainly important too.
		There is no better place in the world than to extract energy resources, all of them, no matter what they are, from here in the United States.
		China doesn't have an EPA.
		Russia doesn't have an EPA.
		And we've learned over and over again when we rely upon others for our energy mix, we are captive, we are weak, and we're going to be disappointed.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Mo.
		Mo joins us from Washington.
		He's on our line for Democrats.
		Mo, you're on with Brigham McCowan of the Hudson Institute.
		Mo, good morning.
unidentified		Hi, I'm a lady.
		Apologies.
		Go ahead.
		I just want to thank you.
		I just want to say that I have solar panels.
		And that was the best thing that I could have ever, ever, ever done.
		Oh my God, my heart is literally pounding saying it.
		My electric bill went from $300 a month to $300 a year.
		And I get a check twice a year for the amount of energy that my solar panels produce.
		So it behooves me, whenever I hear somebody keep saying cost-effective, cost-effective, cost-efficiency, but want to break down the solar panel industry, let alone the subsidies.
		I am behooved.
		And when I think about West Virginia, my daughter went to college in West Virginia.
		They have all of the natural resources that could literally take, they could literally put solar panels on each house and use wind farms and everything.
		And none of their people would have to pay another electric bill a day in their life.
		I could run my air conditioning all day long.
		You know how much my electric bill was this month?
		$12.14.
		So be real with the people.
		Let them know that solar panels work and they are efficient.
		Okay.
		Just stop.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mo in Washington.
unidentified		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And we'll let our guests respond.
unidentified		Yeah, no, Mo, I think that's great.
		And when I talk about all the abrupt, all the above approach to our energy mix, renewables, solar are definitely a part of that.
		But the issue is the subsidies that come in, they do cost.
		They cost a lot of money.
		It's just somebody else's money right now.
		That's paid for by all of us as taxpayers.
		The playing field's not level.
		When we talk about subsidies, the renewable industry has received trillions of dollars.
		And if we look at wanting to build out a solar backbone infrastructure, solar and wind, the battery power that's required for intermittency backups, it is so cost-prohibitive.
		Spain just figured that out about six weeks ago when they lost the entire grid because their projections for wind and sun were off.
		So I encourage you to put solar panels on.
		That's great.
		We need it all, but the transition is going to take longer than we think.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You may have heard our previous guest talk about this idea of alternative means of storage and energy production.
		Elise, he makes the case for it.
		I want to replay a little bit of what he had to say specifically on that and get your thoughts.
unidentified		This will cost people more money.
		This is an anti-people, pro-corporate, big oil CEO polluter measure.
		And here's what I mean by that specifically.
		The cheapest and fastest energy to bring on the grid, the way to bring prices down in this country when it comes to energy is wind, solar, and storage, batteries.
		93% of all the energy that was brought onto the grid last year was wind, solar, or batteries.
		Demand is surging.
		We know that.
		AI, data centers, extreme weather is causing that.
		We're electrifying things, which of course we have to be doing.
		All of that is surging demand.
		The cheapest and fastest supply to help people address spiking utility bills is wind, solar, and batteries.
		So, by ripping that away, which is exactly what Administrator Zeldon is working to do, it will jack prices up for everybody in this country, for big businesses, small businesses, and families just in their homes.
		And so, to somehow pretend that this is bad economics, you know, to bring clean energy onto the grid is a fallacy and just completely misrepresents really what's happening here in this country.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From our last half hour, Mr. McCoa, McCowan, go respond to that.
unidentified		Yeah, well, I fundamentally disagree with that.
		First of all, it's easy to talk in terms of we and they and we need to do this.
		Well, what he's saying is the government needs to do this.
		The government needs to be in charge of the power sector.
		The government needs to tell you what kind of car to buy.
		The government needs to tell you what kind of energy to use and when you can charge your car.
		That is a terrible idea.
		It has never worked.
		Anything that the government has tried to mandate, if you look at economies around the world where government mandates equate to energy policy, mostly socialist countries, they're doing horribly.
		So, if that were actually true, none of these subsidies would be needed.
		We'd be all out flocking, Pedro, to throw rooftop solar on today.
		That's simply not credible.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Jerry joins us from Virginia, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Yes, good morning, everybody.
		First, I would like to say that no one is denying that our Earth's climate is changing.
		It has been changing for hundreds of billions of years.
		To suggest that mankind can control the climate, that is just ridiculous.
		Did the dinosaurs burn fossil fuels ever cause their extinction?
		Did the worldly mammals burn coal to stay warm?
		Did that cause their extinctions?
		And to go out and cut down trees, which are the greatest asset the atmosphere has, and put solar panels that when the rainwater lands on them, it runs straight off to the ocean.
		Doesn't that replenish our groundwater?
		Is that good for the environment?
		I think not.
		Jerry in Virginia.
		Yeah, Jerry, thanks so much for calling in today, and I really do appreciate your thoughts on it.
		I think, you know, here's part of the issue: is, yeah, we have, we're talking about carbon dioxide more than we're talking about, quite frankly, other more harmful GHG emissions, because there is a larger scale at play here, and it really has to do with how economy should be run.
		And if we look at CO2, it's basically around 400 parts per million in the atmosphere.
		That's less than one half of 1% of the atmospheric conditions.
		Has it been rising?
		Yes.
		Is some of it man-made?
		Yes.
		Is three-quarters, two-thirds to 70% of it caused by natural events?
		Yes.
		Is it a long-term issue?
		Yes.
		Is it a crisis today?
		No.
		Is it something where we need to cast off the most reliable energy-dominant country in the world for things that are still intermittent?
		And by the way, Trump's energy strategy emphasizes natural gas and nuclear energy as core components because you must have baseload backup power and dispatchable power when things don't work.
		So when anybody says it's A or B, I think we should take a closer look because most of the time it's not an either or, it's an and.
		And we need to be an and because the world's never used less energy.
		And with the AI and data centers, we need more.
		And Pedro, if I may, final comment on this point is: yes, a lot of the new energy we're putting on the grid is in renewable, but we're not removing fossil fuel.
		We're not removing traditional sources of energy.
		It's additive, not a replacement.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is a conversation with Brigham McCowen of the Hudson Institute.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I hope I'm saying your last name right.
unidentified		You are.
		You are.
		You've got it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Gaylord in California Democrats line.
unidentified		Yes, your first person that was on talking about global warming.
		Basically, he's 100% right.
		The Hudson Institute gets funding from big oil and other things.
		Back during Nixon's time, what is now Mobile Exxon Today did a study on global warming, and they found out that it was caused by mankind's use of fossil fuel.
		And what happened then?
		They hid the study.
		The guy passed away in the early 2000s, and his daughter found a copy of the study because Mobile Exxon hid the study.
		He published it.
		She published it.
		A group of people went to federal court and sued Mobile Exon for crimes against humanity.
		Also, back in the early 2000s, around 2004, I used to work as a surf instructor for Caltech.
		I studied engineering at a school that used to be part of Caltech next door.
		They invited me to a lecture by Nate Lewis, the nation's top chemical engineer.
		He gave the planet till 2052, then game over.
		Then, at the time back then, Bush had a gag order on all scientists from using the terms global warming.
		So they started using climate change.
		Then, what?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Collar, before we go too far into it, what would you like our guests to address?
unidentified		Well, for one, the Siberian Arctic region melted down because of mankind's fossil fuel use.
		And that's shown through the ice core samples that have been taken where it shows when man started using fossil fuels during the Industrial Revolution.
		So it is.
		And the last time the planet melted down like that and the methane started leaking was when the planet was hit by a big asteroid and which caused the money.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Gaylord in California, thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mr. McCowan, if you wanted to respond to any of that.
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, look, the bottom line is: first of all, Hudson Institute was founded by Herman Kahn of the Rand Corporation, who's well, who's one signature piece to American society is the Monte Carlo wargaming theory of nuclear escalation ladders.
		We're futurists.
		We think about everything that's possible.
		I'm certainly not opposed to renewable energy in the least, but I think there has to be, I keep coming back to realism, I keep coming back to, we don't want to go back to the pre-industrial revolution.
		We don't want to go back to no air conditioning, no medicines, no things that have advanced our society.
		That should not be the question.
		The question should be: how can we continue to grow the economy, make what we purchase affordable, and respect the environment as good stewards?
		I think we can do both.
		Some people don't.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		It may be a little outside of what we're talking about.
		You described yourself as a futurist.
		The transportation secretary says he wants to see a nuclear reactor on the moon.
		What do you think about that prospect?
unidentified		Well, I am a member of the USDOT Advisory Board.
		You know, that's in his capacity as the acting administrator of NASA.
		You know, if you look at space, it's certainly the next frontier.
		It holds a lot of promises for many different regions for both exploration, for scientific discovery, for research.
		It is the next logical step to create a permanent manned station on the moon.
		I think that was in response to China and Russia indicating they wanted to place permanent stations, permanently powered stations on the moon as well.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		David joins us from California Independent Line.
		You're on with the guests.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		How you doing?
		I just want to make a comment and see what your guest has to say.
		I work in an industry that contributes to emissions here in California.
		And here in California, they changed over anything over 9 ppm emissions.
		They use what's called an anhydrous ammonia and they inject it into catalyst.
		Basically, what it does is it neutralizes the emissions and turns it into water vapor.
		They're doing it in diesel engines now, tractors.
		And it's not costly whatsoever.
		And that's just one thing that we're doing to reduce emissions.
		It reduces it by 90%.
		It's proven.
		There's no doubt about it.
		And to suggest that because China's using coal, that we should use coal is just, that's laughable.
		The guest is making some pretty ridiculous statements.
		Secondly, solar panels, it's not just about solar panels putting on roofs as saving energy.
		It's also about storing that energy, putting it back to the grid.
		And I think the fight against it is because some of the corporations, instead of making hundreds of billions, they'll only be making hundreds of millions.
		And I think this gentleman is being paid by some of those corporations to come out and speak out against renewable energy.
		Renewable energy is here.
		It's not going anywhere.
		It's ubiquitous now throughout the country.
		Cars are going 420 miles on one charge.
		So fighting against this, the fight is over, sir.
		I'm sorry.
		You're wrong.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mr. McCowan.
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, thank you so much.
		And I'm really sorry.
		And I believe that's what he feels in his heart.
		First of all, I'm not being paid by energy companies.
		Second, I own an EV.
		And I can tell you, and I've been an early adopter of EV technology.
		I've driven it across the country.
		I've driven it in Alaska.
		I've driven it everywhere.
		It's great for certain things.
		It's terrible in other aspects.
		Those ranges are not real.
		They're not true.
		And we could do a whole nother segment on why the world is not just ready for EV vehicles today.
		But, you know, yeah, some of this is hard to hear.
		And if we're actually serious about pieces, I'm a fan of hydrogen, for example.
		We have to look at the end goal and not be prescriptive on what the answer is.
		If the previous administrations were serious about climate change, they would say, hey, best and brightest, come up with a way to get from point A to B instead of mandating the exact technology, the exact uses that will be leveraged.
		So, anhydrous ammonia is great.
		And if we're really serious about it, unleash the innovation that is out there.
		I guarantee if any company could make money and create a product that consumers want to purchase, don't you think they'd do that?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		To what degree do you think the Trump administration is interested in other energies you mentioned, like hydrogen, like natural gas, and the like?
unidentified		Well, natural gas is a great bridge fuel.
		In fact, climate change advocates were for natural gas and then they became against natural gas because they realized that natural gas or some form of backup is absolutely necessary as we start to transition.
		That's another great impact of nuclear power.
		It provides stable, reliable power, and both nuclear and even more so natural gas pairs quite nicely with renewables.
		So, you know, it's not an either or.
		If you are a carpenter, you've got more than a hammer in your toolbox, yet we have people telling us that a hammer will do everything we need, and that's just not true.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Danny is from South Carolina and is on our line for Republicans for our guests.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Danny, hello.
unidentified		Yes, sir.
		Thank you, Pedro.
		Mr. McCowell, thank you for all your facts and your knowledge of the climate change situation.
		The caller from California was just talking about the diesel engines.
		And I went through about six trucks in about seven years now.
		Two of them had the exhaust systems on them.
		They were new trucks.
		Neither one of them would run correctly.
		They would say Tor all the time.
		One of them's in the shop Myrtle and up there next Conway now next Myrtle Beach.
		But and the solar panels, they talked about Mr. Pete, the earlier guest, talked about the red states.
		Yeah, we got solar panels all over South Carolina now.
		They took away a bunch of pine trees.
		I prefer the pine trees over the solar panels.
		And the lady in one city called by her electric bill only being $12.
		But that's great.
		If I had to pump out your setup tank, I can't because the truck won't run.
		And that just, to me, that's not right.
		You know, if you're going to put out this technology, get it right before you sell it to the people.
		Because me and my wife, we went through our whole life savings just to try to stay in business because trucks wouldn't run.
		They wouldn't run.
steven in florida ▲ ● ▼		And this is in reality, this is an Obama-Trump deal going on right now with this climate change.
unidentified		Florida is supposed to be underwater.
		AOC said the world would be gone in 13 years.
		Come on, people, wake up.
		Ain't nothing changed in the last 60 years that I've been on this earth.
		Have a nice day.
steven in florida ▲ ● ▼		And I don't like hurricanes, but anything to get rid of these solar panels in South Carolina.
unidentified		I prefer my pine trees.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's Danny in South Carolina.
unidentified		Thanks.
		Yeah, thanks, Danny.
		I think, you know, part of the debate, honestly, if we could get everybody in the room and remove the rhetoric and the finger pointing and the name calling and get down to what are we actually trying to get to.
		I think most Americans, 70% or so, would agree that we want to be environmentally responsible.
		We want electricity that's available.
		We flip the light switch on.
		And we want our energy costs to be lower than they are today.
		If we start with that as our premise, you know, I think there's strong bipartisan support for energy reform.
		What we most hear from are people on the fringes that have the loudest voices, unfortunately.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mr. McCohen, you have a background in pipelines, not only with the Trans-Alaska pipeline, but within government itself.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to oil production and transportation through pipelines, to what grade would you put the level of safety as far as the delivery system?
unidentified		Yeah, thanks for that question, Pedro.
		Pipelines are by far the safest form of transportation that we have for two reasons.
		One, they're underground and out of the way from us.
		And two, they're one way, which makes them extremely efficient.
		Everything else requires a return trip, which can lower safety and add to cost.
		Pipelines are not just important for fossil fuels, however.
		They're important for carbon capture and sequestration.
		They're important for our emerging hydrogen network.
		Yes, we have thousands of miles of hydrogen lines already.
		So I think they are here to stay for the foreseeable future.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Homer is in Louisiana.
		Democrats line.
		Go ahead.
		You're next.
unidentified		Yeah, green is one of our biggest problems.
		It's everybody else's fault.
		Nobody.
		First of all, we sent all the work to China and we make it kind of super rich and yet we're grabbing about it.
		And I'm just setting up the key of the unions back then.
		And so now it's just catching up with us.
		As far as the solar and stuff, I got me a generator and a solar.
		And so I'm prep.
		I'm 83 years old.
		And y'all have a nice day.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mary, if you wanted to respond to anything, we go on to the next call, sir.
unidentified		Yeah, Homer, thanks for calling in.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Appreciate it.
		New York, Republican line, Mary.
		Hello.
unidentified		Hello.
		Good morning.
		I had a comment, but the record has changed.
		And I want to talk about changing, car changing or charging stations.
		And in the northern, I come from New York, upstate New York, where it gets really cold.
		Now, my son works in a factory, and there's at least 100 or more cars.
		They work 12-hour days and nights, 12-hour shifts.
		And sometimes you're driving 20, 30 miles to work.
		There won't be enough changing stations for all these people.
		Okay.
		Okay.
		And my next comment is: I live in this city, and the guy that talked about pine trees that he liked from North Carolina, we had pine trees that were a whole hedge roll, and they cut them down a couple years ago to put a parking lot in.
		Well, since then, I've had to use air conditioners.
		I didn't have to use them when the pine trees were there.
		So this global warming in the city is outrageous.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's Mary in New York.
		Mr. McCowan, let me take the first part.
		We saw the Biden administration start by putting in infrastructure for electrocharging.
		How do you, what was the end result in your mind?
		And where does the private industry take that?
unidentified		Well, the end result is, and I don't remember the exact statistics, but the DOT put very few charging stations in for the massive amount of money they were given to do so.
		There are private sectors that are putting transportation in, Electrify America, which is VW-backed, obviously the Tesla charging stations.
		And they're good, but it really just proves the point that if we're going to electrify more over time, we have to modernize the grid.
		It's not ready.
		And we have to dramatically increase the amount of electricity production.
		We are way off of those marks, and that's before we even factor in AI.
		We're going to have an electricity crunch coming up in a few years if we're not careful already.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And do you think coal is the best way to do that?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Or is it all like you talked about all the above to approach that?
unidentified		Yeah, I think it's all the above.
		And I think one of the readers or one of the listeners may have misunderstood my comments.
		The comment was that that's great.
		We can get off of coal.
		But until the rest of the world does, it's not really going to make that much of a difference.
		There are some emerging technologies where coal gasification can recycle itself and basically burn all the emissions off.
		I'm agnostic on that.
		I think our best path forward is probably a combination of nuclear and natural gas that is then paired with other technologies, including renewables.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hudson.org is the website for the Hudson Institute.
		Brigham McCowen is the director of the Initiative of American Energy Security.
		Thanks for your time, sir.
unidentified		Thank you so much for having me on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		For the next hour, it's Open Forum.
		You can comment on the segments you've seen.
		You can comment on other things of politics as well.
		202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, and Independents, 202-748-8002.
		Go ahead and start calling in.
		We'll take those calls in Open Forum in just a few minutes.
gen douglas macarthur ▲ ● ▼		Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.
unidentified		Saturday, American History TV marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
		And throughout the day, we'll highlight the final stages of the war in the Pacific Theater and Japan's surrender on September 2nd, 1945.
		Starting at 10 a.m. Eastern with live coverage from the National World War II Museum's End of War Symposium, then Michael Bell, Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of War and Democracy at the Museum, will take your calls live on the final engagements of World War II and Japan's surrender.
		Then, former U.S. Navy Gunnery Officer Stephen Ellis and former U.S. Army Air Force B-24 navigator Rolf Slan talk about their wartime experiences in the Pacific.
		And historian Garrett Graff on his book, The Devil Reach Toward the Sky, on the development and use of the atomic bomb.
		Watch American History TV's special on the end of World War II, 80th anniversary, Saturday, starting at 10 a.m. Eastern on American History TV on C-SPAN 2.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		...and past president...
		Why are you doing this?
		This is outrageous.
unidentified		This is a kangaroo class.
		This fall, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity, ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins.
		Join Political Playbook Chief Correspondent and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns as host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the aisle into a dialogue to find common ground.
		Ceasefire, this fall, on the network that doesn't take sides, only on C-SPAN.
		Washington Journal continues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Again, the phone lines is how you can reach us when it comes to Open Forum.
		You can continue posting your thoughts on various topics on our social media sites on Facebook and on X. John in Massachusetts, Republican Line, you're first up on Open Forum.
		Go ahead.
		John in Massachusetts.
		Hello.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Yeah.
		I got two comments.
		As far as the solar panels go, it was all subsidized.
		And everybody's electric though went up when it's subsidized.
		So they ran out of the money in Massachusetts.
		And the other thing was the windstorm up now in Nantucket, they still haven't cleaned it up right.
		They haven't been paid back for it or anything.
		And all kinds of pollution from the hydraulics ruined the beaches.
		They couldn't use the beaches.
		So you guys got a long way to go.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		From Frank, Frank, who joins us from Staten Island, New York, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi, how are you doing?
		Good morning.
		Well, today is Hiroshima Day, 80 years old.
		I don't see it trending much on the news for some reason.
		Of course, three days from now will be the Nagasaki bombing.
		Very interesting stories.
		You know, they're going through the history and the B-29s, the dropping of the bombs.
		Did we need them?
		We all saw the Oppenheimer movie and stuff like that.
		I believe in nuclear power.
		I'm very happy that someone like Corey Booker believes in nuclear power and he wants it.
		You know, I live in Staten Island and we used to have a nuclear power plant called Indian Point.
		And then it got shut down and then suddenly some of our electric bills were going up.
		We need nuclear power.
		The idea of a nuclear reactor or something being on the moon, of course, it's an interesting idea.
		It's a science fiction idea, but it can be a reality.
		There needs to be a good reason for it.
		I mean, what are we really going to be powering?
		Nuclear power is a very good source of energy to try to combat climate change and things like that.
		It's very clean.
		It works.
		Of course, fusion would be better than fission.
		We need more research for that.
		And also, have you ever heard of the work of Alex Epstein?
		He does very well in defending things that when he's talking against climate change and things like that.
		His talking points are very good.
		Okay, okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Frank there in New York, he mentions the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.
		Again, it's the 80th anniversary.
		The Associated Press and others putting out stories like the one that I'm showing you the headline of: Hiroshima Survivors Fear Rising Nuclear Threat on the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing.
		If you go to our C-SPAN site, particularly where we archive history and other related materials, a whole section there taking a look at the bombing today and other contexts towards the end of World War II.
		You can read, see interviews, see other information and resources there as well, especially on this anniversary day.
		You can find that in our C-SPAN archives at c-span.org.
		Mark in Illinois, Democrats line.
		Hello.
		Mark in Illinois, hello.
unidentified		Hello.
		It seems to me that if you had a plate of food and it were only one kind of food, it would be very unsatisfying.
		And at the same time, we look at the energy needs that our country has and will have in the future.
		We need to make sure that we utilize all of the opportunities.
		And the United States and North America is wildly blessed with opportunities.
		I live in southern Illinois.
		We have many holes in the ground where coal was mined and mined and mined and mined again.
		It's an environmental problem when we have at the same time lots of flowing water.
		And so I think a combination of using our water resources, using our timber resources, and using nuclear as part of that menu is certainly the way to go.
		And we should not put all our eggs in one basket to be finally tried.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mark there in Illinois, Democrats line again on this open forum.
		Continue calling in 2027 for eight eight thousand one for Republicans, 202748, 8000 for Democrats and Independents.
		202748-8002.
		If you're on the line, just hold a few minutes.
		If you're calling in, keep doing so.
		We talked about one anniversary, taking a look at the events of World War of World War II, but also another anniversary today, the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act by President Lyndon Johnson.
		We talked about it earlier on the program.
		Here to talk about it more.
		Atiba Ellis of Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
		He's a professor there to talk about this anniversary.
		Professor, thanks for giving us your time.
unidentified		My pleasure to be here.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Remind viewers where the United States was at the signing of the act and why it was needed.
unidentified		Well, at the signing of the act in 1965, the United States was in the midst of strife and trouble.
		Certainly some of your viewers might remember that at that time, there was rampant protest, and the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King and John Lewis and others had been advocating for over a decade at that time.
		At the top of their list of concerns was the ability to participate in American elections, a full and unfettered right to vote.
		Indeed, King's first speech in D.C., and I love to mention this fact, wasn't I Have a Dream in 1963.
		It was an address he gave in the late 50s called Give Us the Ballot.
		That symbolizes how important voting rights was during the 50s and 60s civil rights movement.
		And the problem they faced was rampant voter suppression in the South.
		Now, it's ironic that the Constitution was amended during Reconstruction, but there was a problem with the constitutional amendments.
		Even though the 15th Amendment itself made clear that there would be no discrimination on the basis of race in voting, the Southern legislatures that came after Reconstruction found a loophole.
		If their laws were facially neutral, i.e. they didn't mention race, they could create literacy tests, poll taxes, and other devices designed to disenfranchise African Americans who were only a generation or two out of slavery.
		And that had tremendous effect for over the first half of the 20th century.
		It drove voting participation by African Americans in the South to, in some states like Mississippi, into the single digits in terms of their registration.
		So the Voting Rights Act was needed to counter those devices and to create a national standard that gave teeth to what by 1965 was an almost meaningless 15th Amendment.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When you take a look at the signing in 1965, there have been various legal challenges to the act over the years.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What's been the end result of those legal challenges?
unidentified		Well, certainly challenges came almost immediately after the signing of the act.
		But it's worth saying first that the act was successful.
		Voting rights scholars often refer to the Voting Rights Act as the most successful piece of civil rights legislation in American history.
		Those teens and single-digit numbers of African American participation jumped to 50 or 60 percent just by preventing barriers to registration.
		And certainly, Section 2 of the Act encoded in statute what the 15th Amendment was out to do, which was to give a cause of action for any election barrier that disenfranchised people on the basis of race.
		And then, of course, there was the most controversial provision, Section 5 of the Act, which basically put on lockdown states that had a history of discrimination and low levels of participation from the minorities in that group.
		And so over the decades, you saw numbers of challenges, first to the validity of the Act in 1966 in a case called South Carolina v. Kotzenbach.
		And then later, there were amendments to the act in 1982 in response to a Supreme Court ruling that basically said that the 15th Amendment could only be used in voting rights cases if there was evidence of purposeful discrimination.
		That is, someone had to pass a voting rights measure and be on the record that they meant to discriminate against people of color.
		But of course, The biggest challenge and the biggest change to the act was when the Supreme Court decided Shelby County v. Holder in 2013.
		And that referred to that same Section 5.
		And in particular, the court there held that the formula for figuring out which states ought to be covered by Section 5 and then be subject to what was called pre-clearance, i.e. a state passes a law and then they had to submit it to the Department of Justice or a court in Washington, D.C. for approval before they could put that law into effect.
		That pre-clearance regime was basically nullified in the Shelby County decision because the court said the formula had not been effectively updated since the 70s and that it was Congress's responsibility to make such updates and it hadn't done so.
		Indeed, the Voting Rights Act had been re-ratified again and again between the 70s and 2006 by Republicans and Democrats.
		And indeed, the last major amendments to the act were signed by Ronald Reagan and then George W. Bush.
		But the court said the act and its formula needed to keep up with modern times and Congress hadn't done that.
		So they struck down the formula in 2013, which meant that the preclearance provision is no longer operative.
		And that created a space for states to pass more stringent rules around voting.
		Certainly with the rise of voter identification laws and in the face of redistricting challenges that we see today, the loss of the pre-clearance regime meant a new era of deregulated voting rights, defaulting to states and their changes.
		And some states, as we all know, want to be more progressive when it comes to ensuring that voters can participate and have more progressive-minded notions of redistricting.
		And other states want more regressive in the sense of they are worried about security as opposed to access and want more stringent voter regulation.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We have about a minute.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If you see it as of today, for all the challenges to the Voting Rights Acts that you described, are there still challenges today towards it?
unidentified		There are indeed.
		There are cases working their way through the courts concerning whether private citizens can bring action under the Voting Rights Act.
		And certainly Section 2, the operative provision, it's based on this thing called the effects test, which means we don't look at intent.
		We look at what the provision does and how it affects voters.
		Now, certainly the court has recently reaffirmed the test, but in doing so, it left the door open to more challenges.
		And certainly more challenges are going to come to the act in the weeks and months and years to come.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Atiba Ellis, a professor at the School of Law at Case Western Reserve University, talking about this Voting Rights Act 60th anniversary.
		Professor, thanks for your time.
		We do appreciate it.
unidentified		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Back to your calls.
		Thank you for waiting.
		We'll start back up with David in Texas, Republican line.
		Good morning.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, this is open forum.
unidentified		Am I correct?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Correct.
unidentified		Yes.
		Speaking of Texas, where all these radical Democrats had to flee the state, and now they're making comments.
		You had one radical politician say, we will fight knives with knives.
		Now, is that inciting violence?
		You had a hocum in New York.
		The gloves come off.
		Is that inciting violence?
		This is the radical party Democrats have become too radicalized.
		They need to be charged with felonies for the offense they committed by fleeing the state.
		That's all I have.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Robert is in Maryland, Democrats line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, please.
unidentified		Yeah, I just wanted to bring up that last week, or was it a week before last, President Trump said that he had never been invited or went to Epstein Island, but his name is on flight logs more than once.
		So what was, I mean, I mean, did he go there or not?
		It seems like he must have went there, but it wasn't mentioned in the news media.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Several stories about that.
		The Washington Times has their story this morning saying that a House committee Tuesday has issued subpoenas to former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that compel them to answer questions from investigators and expanding congressional investigation seeking to undercover who was involved in Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring.
		The former president and Mrs. Clinton were among 10 former administration officials summoned to give closed-door congressional depositions about Epstein, who was accused of running a sex trafficking operation for a decade with associate Gelaine Maxwell that allegedly provided girls to wealthy and influential clients.
		That's from the Washington Times.
		Roll call also follows up the House Oversight Committee's taking a look and asking the Justice Department, subpoenaing them yesterday for files tied to the sex trafficking case against disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, a controversy that the White House has sought to move from.
		The chairman, Jim Comer, gave the Attorney General Pam Bondi a two-week deadline to produce the document saying it's critical that Congress conduct oversight of the government's efforts to investigate Epstein and his former girlfriend.
		Speaking of which, ABC News with a story out today saying that during her nine hours speaking with the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last month, Delaney Maxwell said nothing during the interview that would be harmful to the president, telling Blanche that Trump never did anything in her presence that would have caused concern.
		According to sources, Familiar, that what Maxwell said, the Trump administration, meanwhile, has considered publicly releasing the transcripts from the interview.
		That's ABC reporting that.
		Let's go to Donald Donald in Nebraska, Independent Line.
unidentified		Yes, sir.
		Good morning.
		I have a statement.
		It's quite evident Trump and Netanyahu want to eliminate the Palestinians in Gaza so Trump can build his new resort.
		And I have a question.
		We've had several American citizens murdered in the West Bank by Israelis, but we never hear anything about that.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Robin from Texas, Republican line, you're next up.
unidentified		Hi.
		I just wanted to talk about the gentleman that were on from the administration environmental agenda thing.
		They never mentioned that they are temporal spraying our skies, and nobody voted.
		Nobody voted for the spraying of barium and cerium and all these heavy metals that are in our sky that they're spraying.
		They can't say this is a conspiracy because it's been verified and documented.
		That's what's causing the forest fires and the cancers and people getting sick.
		They're not doing that, but I believe HARP is microwaving our skies also.
		But he never mentioned anything about it.
		That's all I got to say.
		I don't know if these people are in by AI or who's running this program, but it needs to end.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		In North Carolina, Chad, Democrats line.
unidentified		All right, good morning.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Next in Richmond, Virginia, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hello.
		Hey, hello.
		How are you doing?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Fine, thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Why don't Congress just go ahead and subpoena those papers of Jeffrey Artepstein?
		And we can get over this once we get a little bit more familiar with what the situation really is.
		And I'm just concerned that it's going to drag us down a little bit.
		And the only thing I can say is that if we bring these papers up to the forefront now, hello, how are you doing?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We already got up to what you said.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Just go ahead and finish your thought, please.
unidentified		Okay, yes.
		And that we can somehow bring this Jesse Emstein thing to the forefront.
		And that's all I got to say about it.
		So that way we can get clarity and move on from there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		James there in Richmond Reuters reporting that the U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff held, quote, useful and constructive close quote talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, according to a Kremlin aide.
		It was two days before the expiry of a deadline set by the president for Russia to agree to peace in Ukraine or face new sanctions.
		He met with Mr. Putin around the President Putin around three hours and a last-minute mission to seek a breakthrough in the three and a half year war that began with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
		Kremlin Foreign Policy Aide Yuri Yukashov said the two sides had exchanged signals on the Ukraine issue and discussed the possibility of developing strategic cooperation between Moscow and Washington, but declined to give more details until Wycoff reported back to President Trump.
		Again, you can comment on all these things and more during this open forum.
		If you want to participate, 2027 8-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats and Independents, 202-748-8002.
		If you want to post your thoughts on our social media sites, it's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN.
		And you can also do that on X at C-SPANWJ.
		Let's hear from Scott.
		Scott in New York State, Independent Line.
unidentified		Good morning, Pedro.
		Good morning, all the humans out there.
		I'm Scott, the human, because I'm human like the rest of you.
		But I got a bunch of things to say because I got to wait 30 days, not like a lot of your callers are frequent callers.
		I don't know how they get on here every couple days, but I wish they'd quit because they're liars when they lie to get on the telephone within 30 days.
		Anyways, we have a president who morals were so corrupt.
		He talked about grabbing a girl's coochie on a bus, I think, before she got elected or before he got elected.
		Our morals are shot.
		All these people who are saying God put Trump in office, well, maybe God did put Trump in office, but not to do what you think for peace and love and tranquility, but for it to bring the end of our government in times.
		Now about the energy thing, I've been pushing this.
		Why don't we go back to the hemp seed fuel, which was run in cars a long time ago?
		We could go to the hemp seed fuel and actually run it in a decent motor today without doing any modification to that motor.
		Let's start thinking things.
		We got a guy who's a heroin addict who's in charge of the health department.
		Pedro, where did this country go to?
		In God, I trust the rest of you humans.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Rick in Oklahoma, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hello.
		Yes, this is Rick in Oklahoma.
		I just had one question about this whole Epstein deal and the interview with Epstein's girlfriend.
		You were just saying on there a little bit ago about how this lawyer talked to her for all this time and not once did she mention anything about Trump.
		Well, of course she's not because he is Trump's lawyer and he's protecting Trump.
		That's all I've got to say about it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Cindy on our line for Democrats in Indiana.
		Go ahead.
		You're next.
unidentified		Hello.
		This is Rick Rumbo.
		Hi, Your Honor.
		My comment is this.
		Cindy, my comment is that if they vote for the person, the Democratic person for mayor in New York, the women are going to be wearing those black dresses, black top, and a black thing over the mouth for the rest of their lives.
		That's what the women will be voting for, because that's Sharon Lowell.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Cindy there.
		Axio is reporting that the Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. said Tuesday that the government is pulling $500 million in funding to develop new mRNA vaccines in order to focus on, quote, safer, broader vaccine platforms.
		Among 22 contracts that the Trump administration said it is winding down is a Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority award to Moderna to develop a new line of defense against H5N1 bird flu.
		The administration said it's also rejecting and canceling proposals from Pfizer and Sanfoy Pasteur that were part of the BARTA Rapid Response Partnership.
		Mr. Secretary Kennedy is saying data showing the vaccines in question, quote, fail to protectively fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu.
		Axio is reporting that this morning.
		Mark joins us next from Virginia and Chester, Virginia.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning, Pedro.
		Good morning, America.
		I'd like to address my comment to Pam Bondi and President Trump about the Epstein issue.
		I know that man also ran a business, and there were plenty of people who were on that list and on that island who probably had nothing to do with anything.
		But if we can get about a dozen hardcore investigators to actually watch the videos and anybody identifiable in the video, watches it before we can identify them and then move to the next video and post all of those names.
		I think that would put the whole issue to rest.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		One of the people commenting on that was out of the State Department.
		The spokesperson, Tammy Bruce, asked about the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, sorry, investigation into the Obama administration.
		Forgive me for their handling when it comes to topics of the steel dossier.
		This is Tammy Bruce talking about those issues at the State Department yesterday.
tammy bruce ▲ ● ▼		This in some ways explains, of course, the vehemence in the effort to try to keep President Trump from winning the last election because of the nature now of what investigations are occurring or may occur.
		And this is what the American people voted for.
		We saw a great deal going on that was improper.
		And so we look forward, of course, to what these investigations reveal.
		Regarding Secretary Rubio as then Senator Rubio, my statement was this, oh gosh, I think maybe over a week ago.
		If the legacy media were at all curious about the facts of the matter, they would have found from then Senator Rubio's own statement from 2020 concurrence with DNI Gabbard's consequential findings.
		Then Senator Rubio determined that the use of the steel dossier was, quote, very troubling, but even more so.
		He was alarmed by the behavior and the actions of the FBI in pursuit of what has now been confirmed as a dangerous hoax.
		His statement revealed serious wrongdoing, leading to one of the most infamous political scandals in American history.
		And of course, I think that at that time was appropriate.
		And as all of us who are here and grateful to be here and blessed to be here, we are also grateful for the American people seeing through that and putting President Trump back in office.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		The Washington Post reporting this morning that the Justice Department moved forward with its investigation into whether the Obama administration broke federal laws while investigating Russia's involvement in the 2016 presidential election, demanding archived intelligent assessments from the nearly decade-old race.
		According to a letter obtained by the Washington Post, Attorney General Bondi also separately ordered a grand jury to potentially hear evidence in the case, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing probe.
		Together, the developments mark an escalation of the investigation into one of President Donald Trump's long-standing grievances.
		President Barack Obama and his top official tried to connect Trump with Russian efforts to influence the first run for the White House.
		They also suggest that the Justice Department plans to at least attempt to move the investigation from a nascent probe to one that has sufficient evidence to present to the courts.
		Liz is in Marlton, New Jersey.
		Democrats line.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Hello.
		Good morning.
		I'm just picking up a little bit on the F-Sting situation.
		People are trying to make all excuses for the president's so-called friendship with the child rapist and our first lady in that picture standing next to the child rapist.
		It's not going to look good in the history book.
		Look, the guy had 25 or 26 people come out and accuse him of some form of sexual assault before his first election.
		He talked about grabbing women on that access Hollywood bus tape and how he got away with it.
		He was quite proud of it.
		He lost two cases against a woman for sexual assault, E.G. and Carroll.
		He also seemed to like hanging around with this child rapist.
		Now, we could weigh it on one hand or the other.
		Would a person who has a tendency for sexual abuse of women and children be put off by abusing a child?
		I don't think so.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		And I think you have to give that some weight.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		That's Liz in New Jersey.
		President Trump addressing after an announcement made about the next upcoming Olympics.
		He also took a few minutes during that presser to talk about his views on what was going on in Texas concerning redistricting.
		Here's some of those comments from yesterday.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		If you look at what's going on with the redistricting or whatever you want to call it, the Democrats have done it long before we started.
		They've done it all over the place.
		They did it in New York.
		They did it in a lot of different states.
		But in Massachusetts, so somebody used this as an example today.
		I was interviewed this morning and they said, you know, it's pretty unfair.
donald j trump [ai] ▲ ● ▼		Trump got 40%.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I'm not proud of that, but I think I probably got more, but that's okay.
		I got 40% in Massachusetts, and yet they have 100% of the vote in terms of Congress.
		So there's no Republican, there's no anything.
		So we should have 40%.
		You know why they redistricted, and they've done it all over the place.
		And they've done it in California, by the way.
		Before this, they've done it in California.
		So we'll see what happens.
		We have a wonderful governor in Texas.
		He feels strongly about it.
		It's going to be up to him.
		I think there's tremendous support for it.
		And, you know, we've watched the Democrats destroy our country in four years.
		They've destroyed between their open borders that we talked about.
		transgender for everybody, all of the horrible things that they've done, high taxes, horrible medical provision for people.
		We've watched them destroy our country for four years, and people don't want that.
		And people in Texas, as you saw, I got the highest vote in the history of Texas.
		I love Texas.
		Texas likes me, obviously.
		But I got the highest vote, and that was checked out on the show.
		Did you see that where they checked it out?
		They said he actually did get the highest vote in the history of Texas, which disappointed them.
		They were very disappointed to hear that.
		But Texas is a place that's done very well with a free enterprise kind of an attitude, with the exact opposite of what's happening in New York with a communist mayor.
		And they know what they're doing, and they're doing the right thing.
unidentified		Yeah.
		Two questions for you.
		Mr. President, thank you.
		Texas Senator John Cornyn.
		Texas Senator John Cornyn is asking for your help to force Democrats back to the state and hold them accountable.
		Do you want the federal government and the FBI to help locate and arrest these Texas Democrats who have left the state?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think they've abandoned the state.
		Nobody's seen anything like it, even though they've done it twice before.
		And in a certain way, it almost looks like they've abandoned the state.
		It looks very bad.
		Yeah, go ahead, please.
		Well, they may have to.
		They may have to.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		President Trump from yesterday talking about those efforts to do redistricting in Texas, legislators leaving the state, and to tell us more about the latest concerning that Rina Diamante of Spectrum News One, Texas.
		She's a Washington reporter.
		Thanks for giving us your time.
unidentified		Thank you so much for having me.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So we saw Governor Abbott make action yesterday.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Describe what happened and what are the next steps when it comes to this effort for redistricting.
unidentified		So these Texas Democrats fled the state.
		They broke quorum over the redistricting proposal by the Texas Republicans.
		And Governor Greg Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton essentially think that these Democrats abandoned their office and they believe that that is grounds to essentially vacate their seats.
		And so both of them took the steps to go to the Texas Supreme Court and get an emergency ruling to get that court to say that these Democrats have vacated their office, they've expelled their office, and he can move forward and try to call a special election and replace them.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What was the response of the court there in Texas to the request?
unidentified		Well, it's something that's certainly going to happen.
		It's going to kind of take some time.
		I've spoken to legal experts who say this is not going to be resolved necessarily overnight per se, but they certainly have to make their argument in front of a judge.
		The Texas Supreme Court is an all-Republican court, so that's something that the Attorney General and the governor have on their side.
		But they still have to, you know, this is pretty unprecedented.
		The Texas Democrats say they didn't abandon their office.
		They're actually still fulfilling their duty by breaking quorum, by essentially trying to stop what they believe is, you know, the president rigging the election.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When we saw Democrats talking in Chicago, they were talking with Governor Pritzker and others.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Do we know how they're being supported while they're in Chicago or in other places across the United States?
unidentified		Right.
		So they fled to these states where they essentially have the backing of these Democratic governors.
		They're totally on their side.
		We hear those Democratic governors say that they support them fully.
		We knew that this was happening probably in June.
		So I think that there was time for the Texas Democrats to prepare.
		And they say that they've been doing everything legally speaking.
		Governor Abbott thinks otherwise.
		He has called on the state rangers to investigate whether they're accepting bribery in terms of trying to stay in these other states.
		But they say they're doing everything legal and there may be some groups that are helping them out.
		They are facing $500 a day in fines each day that they're not on the Texas House floor.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We saw the Texas House try to hold a quorum.
		That failed.
		What are the next steps of continuing that if they don't see Democrats show up back to work?
unidentified		Well, it sounds like they're going to keep opening up the chamber every day to see if they do have the quorum, the 100 members that they need on the floor.
		They're going to open up the chamber again today, but it's doubtful that enough Texas Democrats will return.
		The last time that they broke quorum was back in 2021 over election rules, and that really took five or six weeks for them to come back, just the pressure, I think, to come back.
		And there were some fractures with the Democratic Party there.
		But it's something that's going to take a long time.
		And I think what Texas Democrats are trying to do right now is run the clock and try to get the special session to end.
		But Governor Abbott could, of course, call another special session.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When is the current session set to end?
unidentified		It's set to end in mid-August.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If they don't go back and they don't have a quorum, is there a point where it just goes away entirely when it comes to the redistricting effort?
unidentified		I don't necessarily think so because this is something that President Trump wants.
		And you heard from him.
		He said that it's possible that the FBI may get involved.
		Senator John Cornyn of Texas has asked the federal authorities to step in.
		That hasn't happened yet, but we'll see if it has to come down to that.
		And I don't think that this is something that Texas Republicans are going to back down from.
		So it's really just a pressure campaign.
		It's really just a waiting game.
		It's really seeing who is going to be able to hold out.
		And I think during this time, Texas Democrats are trying to get the country on their side and we'll see what ends up shaking out.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		It's also having a fallout effect.
		How much is this influencing decision, say, by Governor Newsome in California or Governor Hochul in New York?
		How much is this influencing it?
unidentified		Well, it's clear that these Democrats of these other states are essentially saying that, you know, there's a new set of rules.
		We're going to play the President Donald Trump playbook.
		And if he's going to do a rare mid-district, a rare mid-decade redistricting effort, our states should too, too, to try to negate whatever gains that Texas will get from these maps.
		They're trying to get five more Republicans to the House.
		And so they're going to say, we're going to try to redraw our maps to get five more Democrats to the House and negate what Texas does.
		And so I hear a lot of discussions about a redistricting arms race across the whole country.
		And so it's really just kind of trickling this effort to redraw the maps kind of in favor for a certain party or one or the other.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You cover the Texas delegation here in Washington.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What comments or input have they had on this whole thing going on?
unidentified		You know, when the New York Times broke this story, I want to say it was back in June, we chased them down all across the Texas House asking, what do you know about this?
		What do you think about this?
		And they were just saying, we don't know anything about it.
		And, you know, there's been reporting that they did know a lot.
		And they've essentially said publicly, you know, a lot of them don't want to talk about this.
		They say, you know, this is the will of Governor Abbott and the state legislature.
		I think that they are comfortable with the seats that they have.
		They're pretty safe seats.
		You know, a lot of them have won by double digits in the last election.
		And so I think maybe perhaps not publicly, they're saying that they're not comfortable with this.
		But the ones who have spoken about it publicly, I want to say Senators John Cornyn, Senators Ted Cruz, you know, of course, this doesn't necessarily affect them, but Congressman Tony Gonzalez, a Republican who represents a district from San Antonio to El Paso, he says, you know, this is, he thinks that President Donald Trump has a good idea to redraw these maps.
		He says that they point to the gains that President Trump has made among Hispanic voters, especially, especially those voters down in the border.
		So they think that it's a good idea, and that's really something that they're falling back on, that this is legal because of partisan political performance that Trump has made.
		You know, in his comments yesterday, President Trump talked about how he won the most votes in Texas history.
		He's won the most number of votes in Texas history.
		That just is consistent with the growth in the great state of Texas.
		But it's something that they are pointing to to say that this is legal and we can move forward.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What are the next steps to watch for?
unidentified		That's a really good question.
		We'll see if there will be a quorum.
		I think that's something that's going to take weeks.
		And a lot of legal experts say that it will be difficult for Governor Abbott and Attorney General Paxton to say that this is an example of abandoning office, but they're going to make their case.
		And the question is, is that going to bring some of these Texas Democrats back to defend themselves in the post-COVID era?
		I think maybe people can do these things virtually.
		But if they do come back to Texas, it's a matter of will then the state law enforcement be able to compel and return them back to the state capitol.
		Governor Abbott has issued arrests warrants.
		They're civil arrest warrants for these Texas Democrats.
		Most of them are out of the state, so it'll be hard to kind of impose that authority.
		But maybe there are some stragglers in Texas that are waiting around hiding out.
		We'll see if the state law enforcement will be able to track them down and find them.
		But that's something that we'll be watching out for.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Where can people find your work on this topic?
unidentified		SpectrumLocalnews.com.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And you can also follow me on social media, Reena Jade on X. Rina Diamanti is the Washington reporter for Spectrum News One, Texas.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for the update and your time.
unidentified		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Back to your calls.
		We'll start with Patrick.
		Patrick is in Michigan, Independent Line.
		You're next up.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Pedro.
		Thank you very much for taking my call, and good morning to the rest of the world.
		Good day.
		I think that almost everybody is looking for solutions to some kind of problems.
		And I think the problems have been created by the two parties and the corporate leaders they've given our government to.
		And I don't think that anything will change as long as people continue to support them.
		I am begging everybody, please immediately stop supporting the two parties and the corporate leaders that are driving the rest of us to ruin.
		And I guess that's all I have to say today.
		Oh, one more thing, please, Pedro.
		I keep hearing this talk about third parties.
		I've been hearing about it for decades.
		There are a lot of political parties out there, and I do not think that moving your support from one of the current two controlling parties to a third party made up of Washington and Sidon and corporate leaders will change a thing.
		Please choose somebody else and start in 2026.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Patrick Baron.
		Patrick in Michigan.
		We'll go to Teresa in Illinois, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Yes, I would like to make a comment on that Epstein in the state of Illinois.
		I've looked here, lived here for a lot of years, born here and raised.
		We have the most corrupt politicians.
		Everyone has went to prison somehow, some way.
		Their little country club prison, sorry, country club.
		And in two years, this is why we are moving out of the state of Illinois.
		They have taxed us, robbed us, and we can't wait for Fritzer to put his hat in the ring because he is the main supporter of them hanging out in Illinois.
		Because they wouldn't be able to do it.
		And if what they're going to get left with in Illinois isn't what the class is going to like.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Where are you planning on moving to?
unidentified		Florida.
		Back to my, where I was born and brought back here.
		And we're going back to Panama City Beach, Florida.
		My daughter moved to Fort Myers 10 years ago and said she wouldn't pay a drop of dime to Illinois, never come back.
		My husband's too late to retire.
		I'm a housewife, and we're leaving.
		We're leaving.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Teresa there in Illinois.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is from Leon Leones, Iowa, Independent Line.
unidentified		Oh, I'd like to commend you and the rest of your hosts for your ability to sit there with a straight face and endure some of the comments that some of the callers make when they call you.
		The flat absurdity of some of the lies that are told.
		Second, I'm wondering if C-SPAN would be willing to share some of the clips from some of these callers on another show, air those calls and debunk them and show them.
		And maybe the Department of Education would be interested in using them for a commercial to promote education among our American populace.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And Iowa there, that's Leon.
		He brings up the Education Department.
		Linda McMahon, the Education Secretary, set to appear at the National Conservative Student Conference today.
		She'll talk about a discussion, taking a look at issues among students.
		It's hosted by Young America's Foundation.
		You can watch that at 10.15 on a variety of our platforms.
		That's C-SPAN, our app at C-SPANNOW, and C-SPAN.org is where you can find that.
		When it comes to the redistricting effort in Texas, also you can see the Texas Senate redistricting hearing.
		That's set for 3 o'clock this afternoon.
		Now, if you want to watch particularly what's going on and what you've heard about what's going on with redistricting, C-SPAN2 is how you follow it, as well as the app and the .org.
		The former House Speaker Paul Ryan plans to, and alongside the former Council of Economic Advisors, Jason Furman, will talk about American economic prosperity at an event at the Aspen Institute.
		3.30 p.m. Eastern is where you can see that on the platforms.
		And then, as we told you earlier this evening, 6 o'clock, Representative Nancy Mace, a Republican of South Carolina, holding a congressional town hall in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, talk about events of Congress, talk about her interest in becoming governor of the state.
		See all that play out at 6 o'clock.
		Johnny is in Kentucky, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Yeah, I got a great idea.
		I think we, you know, as far as abortion goes, I think we should have a first ever pro-choice versus pro-life national election.
		And I think I'll let the women decide it, and the men can step aside and stay out of it.
		See, President, we got too far, you know, our politicians are either too far left or too far right, and we don't have enough moderates.
		It would be a good moderate approach to have an experiment to see, you know, how women will vote in a national pro-choice versus pro-life national election, you know, just to see how the women would vote.
		You know, there's a moderate approach to their shit, you know, instead of too far left and too far right.
		You know, you know, a moderate approach.
		What do you think about that?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		It's Johnny there in Kentucky, Stephanie in New Jersey, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning.
		I just I'm confused about if they have saved so much money in this administration, why do we need to break the debt ceiling?
		That just blows my mind.
		The other thing is President Obama did not investigate Donald Trump.
		The investigation was about the Russians that were in and around his campaign.
		And secondly, before Obama left office, what he wanted was there was talk about the Russians manipulating the voting machines, and he wanted that investigated.
		And he said himself there was no tampering with the machines.
		Have a good day.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Next up is Bill in Florida, Republican line.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just like to say I think that Trump is doing a really great job.
		He's cut a lot of the waste of spending out of the government.
		Democrats need to wake up.
		They lost by 75% of the public voted for Republicans because they're tired of the Democratic B.S.
		There's so much more we could be doing if we could get rid of these judges that stop Trump from doing anything that needs to be done.
		And we need to vote Republican in the midterms and get rid of the rest of these Democrats that slow everything up.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		On an average day, President Trump is in the White House.
		It was yesterday he was on the White House.
		This reported by the New York Times and others saying that President Trump was on the roof.
		As a confused group of reporters assembled below him on Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump strolled around on the top of the White House stopping somewhere above the James S. Brady press briefing room, now only occasionally a venue for taking questions, to tell his audience that he was, quote, taking a little walk in the service of his latest home improvement project, a large ballroom.
		Quote, it's just another way to spend my money for the country, he shouted.
		He was getting a bird's eye view of where the $200 million White House ballroom he has proposed building would go, according to the White House.
		The president ignored follow-up questions, one reporter shouting, what does that mean?
		After the president appeared to be making a circular gesture with his arms and hand saying something beautiful.
		Mr. Trump did not answer before continuing a 20-minute walkabout that included standing on the roof near the Oval Office to survey the newly paved Rose Garden.
		You see more of that on our website at c-span.org.
		Let's go to Scott Scott in Pennsylvania, Independent line.
unidentified		Hello.
		I just should say a couple short things.
		I understand people have different opinions about politics, but they don't have the right to lie about facts of stuff that actually happened.
		There's two quick things.
		Trump said he was, Epstein stole his 16-year-old girl from his spa.
		Case closed.
		Another thing: if somebody killed my kids, I'm not going to go kill their kids to get to the guy.
		The world says Israel is committing war crimes.
		They've been saying it.
		You can't starve kids.
		If you're a Christian, that's the worst thing in the world, is chilling kids.
		They're killing and starving kids and just playing games with people's minds.
		And I just, there's politics, and then there's stuff that are facts that have nothing to do with politics.
		It's just, people are trying to wonder what's going on.
		What's going on?
		How's this happening?
		How's this happening?
		Well, people are being brainwashed.
		When you're brainwashed, you can't have a different opinion on Donald Trump.
		You cannot.
		Donald Trump is a complete goofball.
		That's a fact.
		He's got mental problems.
		He needs help.
		He doesn't.
		He shouldn't be president.
		Anybody that was friends with a foreign adversary shouldn't get security clearances, shouldn't be president.
		Anybody that's committed, had seven bankruptcies, shouldn't be president.
		Come on, common sense stuff.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, let's go to Tom.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Tom and Maryland, Democrats line.
gen douglas macarthur ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Good morning, to all my fellow residents of our good country.
		I think that there's several schools of thought on how the possible downfall and decline in the United States could occur.
		One school is it's an external threat, like a war that we lose, or communism taking over, or immigrants coming in.
		But there's another internal thing, too, that we have to look out for, and it's right in front of our faces right now: is a threat of tyranny and people with a lot of wealth rolling over people that don't have so much wealth.
		And this is what the downfall is.
		What's the downfall of America?
		It's not the downfall of the wealthy.
		They don't care.
		They're going to be fine.
		If there's a downfall in this country, it's going to be the working class people that suffer from it.
		So we have to look out for tyranny.
		And I don't want to mention any names that Donald Trump and his friends are online.
		Thank you, sir.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Larry is in California, also on our line for Democrats.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
gen douglas macarthur ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		I just want to remind everybody that Donald Trump is a domestic terrorist.
unidentified		So if you're like me, you serve in the military, it's time for us to take this guy out.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Excuse me, call her, call her, call her.
		I will stop you right there only for the suggestion of your tone and the content thereof.
		And I would also serve that as a warning to the other callers that call in this program.
		We will try Roberta, Roberta in Republican line in San Diego.
		Hello.
		Roberta in San Diego.
unidentified		Hello.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		One more time for Roberta.
unidentified		Trying to call you.
unidentified		I'm here.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
unidentified		Okay.
		I looked up in my congressional handbook.
		19 of 26 of New York are Democrats.
		And California, 43 of 52 are Democrat representatives.
		So I don't want to hear anything about redistricting from anybody.
		Okay?
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		It was the Washington Post.
		I'm sorry, the Washington Post that takes a look at this other effort and other states might consider when it comes to redistricting.
		It's Karen Tomulty writing it today saying about the possible backfires that could happen.
		She writes, there are practical obstacles and time constraints in states where mid-decade redistricting would require a special election, as California Governor Gavin Newsom is considering or amending the state constitution, as New York might have to do.
		And then there is the fact that Republicans have full legislative control of 23 states compared with only 15 for the Democrats, giving them more places to squeeze out a congressional seat here and there.
		Should there be a call to the barricades, Ohio is expecting to quickly follow Texas's lead, and so might Missouri and Florida for starters.
		Meanwhile, past gerrymandering has left Democrats with fewer opportunities left to counter these moves.
		There's more analysis there from Karen Tolmonti in the Washington Post if you want to check it out for yourself.
		It was yesterday at the White House as well that the president talked and was asked about, in light of his last term in office, who the future heirs of MAGA might be was the question as it was posed.
		Here's some of that exchange from yesterday.
peter doocy ▲ ● ▼		You said this morning that you probably won't be running for a third term.
		This weekend, Secretary of State Rubio said that he thought JD Vance would be a great nominee.
		You could clear the entire Republican field right now.
		Do you agree that the heir apparent to MAGA is JD Vance?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think most likely, in all fairness, he's the vice president.
		I think Marco is also somebody that maybe would get together with J.D. in some form.
		I also think we have incredible people, some of the people on the stage right here.
		So it's too early, obviously, to talk about it, but certainly he's doing a great job, and he would be probably favored at this point.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That was from yesterday.
		Jim in West Virginia Democrats line.
		Hello.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi, Pedro.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hello, go ahead.
unidentified		Yeah, a few callers back, some guy called in on the Republican line.
		He said that Donald Trump won 75% of America's vote.
		And that's completely untrue.
		I'd appreciate if you could maybe have one of your staff there fact check that real quickly and let the American public know that Donald Trump didn't win 75% of America's vote.
		Tell the actual percentage.
		And the other thing I would like it I haven't heard much discussed recently about this a woman named Reality Winner.
		She used to work in intelligence and she was put in prison during the first Trump administration early on for releasing a classified document.
		I think it was an NSA study that found an investigation that found that Russian hackers had hacked into like over 20 different states in America their voter registration systems and perhaps messed with the voting registration systems not into voting machines,
		but into like 20 different states voter registration systems to alter that, to cause problems.
		And uh, one of your callers earlier was referring to down in Georgia, I think he said A bunch of, it's called, a ballot gets considered provisional if there's some kind of error or some difference between a person's voter ID or their driver's license they have on their person when they come to vote and what's on their ballot that's in each state's voting registration.
		So when votes are considered provisional, they frequently aren't counted if it's not corrected within three days.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Jim in West Virginia finishing off this round of calls to the previous callers.
		It wasn't too long ago that we had the Pew Research Center on to talk about their analysis of the results of the 2024 election.
		And one of the things they found out when it comes to voters, it was 48.83% voting for Kamala Harris, 49.8% voting for President Trump.
		That's it for our program today.
		Another edition of Washington Journal comes your way tomorrow at 7 a.m.
		We'll see you then.

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