CSPAN - Washington Journal 08/10/2025

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

02:59:46

Washington Journal 08/10/2025

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kimberly adams

cspan 42:21

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donald j trump

admin 02:26

jb pritzker

d 01:09

jd vance

admin 03:51

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anthony aguilar

00:09

david spunt

fox 00:09

george fishman

00:07

larry nichols

00:04

peter doocy

fox 00:23

walter burien

00:06

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lewis in fema region 7

callers 00:04

rich in new jersey

callers 00:19

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Coming up on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live.
		Then we'll talk about the Trump administration and other political news of the day.
		First, with the nation's executive editor, John Nichols, then with Washington Examiner columnist Jeremiah Poff.
		Washington Journal starts now.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
		It's Sunday, August 10th, 2025.
		Vice President JD Vance spent hours meeting with European officials in the United Kingdom on Saturday, hearing from allies ahead of a planned meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin later this week in Alaska on ending the war in Ukraine.
		Last week, President Trump indicated Vance is likely the heir apparent of the MAGA movement, and that's our topic to start the show.
		Your thoughts on Vice President JD Vance's role in the Make America Great Again movement and the future of MAGA.
		Now our phone lines for Republicans are 202-748-8000 and 1.
		For Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		Independents can call in at 202-748-8002.
		And if you'd like to text us, that number is 202-748-8003.
		Please be sure to include your name and where you're writing in from.
		We're also on social media at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ.
		Now, President Trump made those comments about JD Vance at the White House last week.
		Here's some reporting on that in the New York Times with Trump suggests Vance is MAGA movement's heir apparent.
		President Trump said Vice President JD Vance was probably a favorite at this point to succeed him as leader of the hard-right political movement.
		The story goes on to say that this is what appeared to be his strongest public backing for Mr. Vance's political future.
		Though Mr. Trump has previously mused about running for a third presidential term in 2028, the Constitution does not allow it, and speculation has grown about who he would support as his eventual successor.
		At an event in the South Court Auditorium of the White House on Tuesday, Mr. Trump was asked by a reporter whether he agreed that the heir apparent to the MAGA movement was Mr. Vance.
		Now, here is some video from at an event earlier this month at the White House when the president was asked that question.
		Let's listen.
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.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		One of the jobs that JD Vance is working on this weekend is speaking with European officials about the upcoming negotiations that are happening in Alaska.
		Here's a reporting on that from Axios.
		Vance's UK talks yield significant progress ahead of the Trump-Putin summit, according to sources speaking to Axios.
		Vice President JD Vance's hours-long meetings on Saturday in the UK produced significant progress toward President Trump's goal of ending the war in Ukraine, a U.S. official told Axios.
		Ahead of Vance's meetings with Ukrainian and European senior officials, several NATO and Ukraine allies expressed private concerns that Trump might agree to Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposals for ending the war without taking their positions into consideration.
		Trump and Putin are set to meet in Alaska on August 15th.
		Now, last week, Vice President Vance met with British Foreign Secretary David Lamy in the UK to discuss both the situation in Ukraine as well as in Gaza.
		In this exchange, Vance is being asked by a reporter about President Trump's statement about Vance being a likely MAGA frontrunner in 2028.
unidentified		Mr. Vice President, what do you make of President Trump's comments last week about you the likely frontrunner?
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		I don't want to talk about lowly things like politics in this grand house.
		Come on.
		Look, I think my view on the politics of 2028 is I'm not really focused even on the election in 2026, much less one two years after that.
		And if we do a good job for the American people, the politics will take care of itself.
		So I'm going to try to do a good job for the American people, just as David's trying to do a good job for the people of the UK.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, there has been some recent polling on the popularity of Vice President JD Vance when it comes to that upcoming election in 2028.
		And it shows that he is the lead frontrunner in terms of Republicans and their preferences for a 2028 presidential candidate.
		And so this is GOP primary voters in an Emerson College poll showing that 46% of GOP primary voters would prefer JD Vance as the candidate in 2028, followed by Marco Rubio with 12%, Ron DeSantis with 9%, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with 5%, Christy Noam with 2%, Nikki Haley with 2%, others at 7%, and Undecided 17%.
		Now, let's get to your calls on Trump suggesting, President Trump suggesting that Vice President JD Vance is MAGA's heir apparent.
		First up is Kim in Bronx, New York on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Kim.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I think every last one of the Republicans, their participation in the Trump administration, that standing alone is enough to make them disqualified for being a contender for the next presidential election.
		None of them are any good.
		All of them voted for the quote-unquote big beautiful bill, the people in the Senate.
		And, you know, the people in his administration have gone along with his criminal activities.
		It's quite possible that Trump is a pedophile.
		The people who are closest to that, they've read the files, so they know.
		And they're going along with that.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Are there any Republicans at all outside of the administration or elsewhere that you think could make good presidential candidates in 2028?
unidentified		No, because they all voted for that big, that so-called big, beautiful bill.
		When the impact of that finally hits the public, you know, that's why Trump and all of his cronies, especially Vance, now he's going into his own home state to try and do what they're doing in Texas.
		Consider, I mean, Trump is the ultimate cheater.
		You know, if the rules don't favor him, he'll just change around the rules.
		That's what that whole reapportionment in Texas is about.
		We're likely to lose because of our policies.
		So let's just change up the voting map.
		And now Vance is going into his own home state to convince his governor to do the same.
		So he's disqualified too.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Jeff is in Hidden Knight, North Carolina on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Jeff.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I think Vance, he probably will.
		But see, it's what a lot of people don't realize or don't understand.
		It doesn't matter.
		When you're a Republican and you have common sense, you're so terrified of a Democrat president after Joe Biden.
		You just, you're terrified of them.
		People don't realize that.
		They don't understand that.
		They talk about redistricting and all this censoring stuff.
		They let 20 million people in here to cheat.
		How have they got a right to say anything about cheating?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, Jeff, do you like the idea of Vice President JD Vance as president in 2028, or are there other Republicans that you think would be better?
unidentified		Oh, sure.
		Sure.
		He'd be great, but the line is long.
		There is plenty, plenty.
		Because like I say, I wish we lived in a world to where if you got one or the other, it didn't matter.
		You still got a good one.
		But in this day and time, you get one of those left-wing lunatics, we're in trouble.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Next up is Delbra in Gary, Indiana on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Delbra.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yes, I'm calling regarding Trump's suggestion as JD Vance is the next era parent, the mega.
		I'm not sure if anyone recalls maybe three months ago, the same question was opposed to Donald Trump in sitting in the overall office.
		This is right before Ukraine president came in, and they mentioned JD Vance, and Trump said no.
		Then I noticed maybe a few weeks later when President Lezinski came in from Ukraine, JD Vance, that's when he started questioning about his wardrobe.
		So it was just mighty funny that a few weeks prior, Trump was asked the same question, and he said no.
		And then all of a sudden, JD Vance wants to step to the face and start presenting himself as being very tough on people.
		He was here yesterday in the state of Indiana trying to get the governor to do redistricting here.
		And I called in and up a message with the governor here of Indiana and suggested that that was not necessarily the case.
		It doesn't need, I mean, the Republicans are already, Indiana is already a red state as it is, so redistricting would not be fair.
		And I asked him that, you know, that he would take it into consideration not to do that.
		And that would be that we all can just get along because the state of the world is too divisive at this particular time.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		There is some reporting about this incident that a couple of folks have mentioned about JD Vance going to Indiana.
		Here's some reporting from CNN following that trip that Indiana's Republican leaders won't commit to redistricting after Vance visit, saying that Vice President JD Vance, this is a story from Thursday, that Vice President JD Vance met Thursday with Governor Mike Braun and state legislative leaders as the White House ramps up pressure on Republican-led states to redraw their congressional maps.
		But Indiana's GOP leaders didn't commit to giving President Donald Trump's administration what it wants, a mid-decade effort to turn the two Democratic-held House seats in the Hoosier states into right-leaning districts.
		Braun was noncommittal, telling reporters that we listened and describing the conversation as pretty good.
		Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston said in a statement they had had a meaningful discussion and will continue conversations.
		Senate President Pro Tem Roderick Bray said he appreciated the opportunity to hear from the Vice President on a variety of issues, which we will continue to talk through in the days ahead.
		The Indiana Republican leaders are likely to face immense pressure from the White House and Trump allies.
		Still, many Republican operatives in Indiana said they are skeptical that a redistricting effort will take place.
		Next up is Michael in Tyrone, New York on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Michael.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		I just want to say that as far as my support for JD Vance, I wouldn't do it.
		In fact, I wouldn't support this president right now.
		I'm going to change parties because of what's happened.
		I mean, we haven't seen those Epstein files, which would reveal so much.
		And I've been asking to see those, and I think a lot of my colleagues have been asking the same questions.
		And nothing seems to be happening.
		I mean, these guys are dancing around other unimportant issues.
		They've messed with our economy, I see.
		And I'm really disappointed.
		I mean, I've been a registered Republican for 45 years now.
		And now all I could see is disaster in their policy and their foreign policies and their domestic policy and financial matters.
		I mean, our country is in dire straits now.
		He's cut so many jobs out of the federal government that I can't see how we're going to have a social security system that's going to sustain.
		I'm very concerned about it.
		And I stress that I was a Republican.
		The first time in 45 years, I'm going to change to being a Democrat.
		And I would advise everybody that feels the same way to do the same.
		And come this mid-election, maybe we can get rid of this guy, get him out of the White House.
		Because it's a disaster that's happened here.
		Ain't for the billionaires, ain't for you guys.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, Michael, are there other Republicans?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I know you just said that you want to switch to being a Democrat, but are there other Republicans that you think might be better candidates than JD Vance in 2028?
unidentified		Yes, there was one other Republican that I would have supported all the way through the political process, and that would have been John Kasich from Ohio.
		There's a man that's nonsensical.
		He's a very outspoken gentleman, and he speaks eloquently.
		You take these MAGAs and all these Republicans that are there now.
		They're speaking with hatred.
		They call the Democrats a bunch of haters.
		They're hating on everybody every day.
		You can hear it in their voices and the way they make their speeches.
		Even Trump, he says things that they do, like the Democrats are just nasty.
		And then he turns around and does all these terrible things with gerrymandering.
		I mean, I'm really disappointed in the Republican Party.
		It's not the same as what it used to be.
		I'll tell you, neither party is, really.
		And we've got to make changes happen for the American people because, folks, I don't think our country can go on like this.
		We have to take a stand and start switching parties if you have to get this guy out of the White House.
		He's a disaster, total disaster.
		It's being proven.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Michael mentioned the Epstein files, and there was reporting this past week that top Trump officials discussed Epstein at a White House meeting on Wednesday night, saying a much anticipated meeting between attorney CNN reporting that a much anticipated meeting between Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, Vice President JD Vance, and others was moved from Vance's residence to the White House Wednesday night after intense media coverage.
		A source familiar with the logistics told CNN they discussed a number of topics, including the Jeffrey Epstein case and potential next steps.
		The source said the meeting was originally planned to take place at Vance's D.C. home and was also supposed to include White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, CNN previously reported.
		The administration's handling of the Epstein case, as well as the need to craft a unified response, was expected to be a main focus of the dinner.
		Trump administration officials are weighing whether to publish an audio recording and transcript of Blanche's recent conversation with Epstein accomplice Jose Maxwell, CNN, previously reported.
		Let's go back to your calls on the idea of Vice President JD Vance as the heir apparent of the MAGA movement.
		We'll hear now from Joy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Joy.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning.
		I want to agree with Michael from New York, and I want to thank Michael because we all have to stick together to get rid of this Trump regime because they're dismantling the Constitution, and the Republicans are going along with them.
		Also, concerning Vance, we need to look into his association with Peter Thiel and the tech bros because they have a philosophy that the tech people should rule the country and they want to get rid of the Constitution.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Mark is in Laurel, Maryland, on our line for independence.
		Good morning, Mark.
unidentified		Good morning.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What do you think?
unidentified		I just want to remind the Republicans and the Democrats of something that Abraham Lincoln, probably one of the greatest Republicans of all time, said in a campaign speech in 1858, and that is, a house divided against itself cannot stand.
unidentified		And JD Vance definitely isn't somebody to bring the parties together.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		You think that JD Vance can unite the parties?
unidentified		No, I say he is not somebody who's going to bring them together because he's way out in right field.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Is there another Republican that you think might do a better job in 2028?
unidentified		Yeah, I think the man who would do the best job for the entire country is Adam Kissinger.
		But he's totally out of politics now because he's an honest man that votes his conscience to the conscience of the voters, and no one brings him up anymore.
		He's a non-player because he's not far right wing.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Joel is in Mountain Home, Arkansas on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Joel.
unidentified		Well, thank you very much, everybody.
		This is Sunday.
		Don't forget to go to church today.
		Now, I got three other little things, and please allow me to make my speech.
		I've waited 30 days.
		Now, I would just like to say if JD Vance or any other Republican or any other Republican will make a better president than we had the last four years that was hidden in his basement or tasting ice cream all the time.
		The second thing I would like to say, the caller from New York, he needs to call in on the proper line.
		That was a Democrat, and he called in on the Republican line.
		He should be barred.
		And the last thing I would like to say, we are blessed to have President Trump in the White House today.
		If that Kamala Harris, the laughing giraffe, we would be in big trouble today.
		Y'all have a good day today.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		We have a comment that we received via text from Joseph in Fayetteville, North Carolina, which says, J.D. has written in the documents for Project 2025.
		He is a member of the Heritage Foundation.
		The Heritage Foundation is running the United States already.
		Also regarding JD Vance, the DNC Rapid Response Director, Kendall Whitmer, made comments about JD Vance, a statement on August the 8th saying, JD Vance has spent more time vacationing than he has making life better and more affordable for working Americans.
		While Americans cut back on their summer plans to contend with skyrocketing prices and massive layoffs, Vance is making his Euro summer happen.
		It's clear as day, Vance's priority isn't America.
		He isn't even here.
		And that was back on August the 8th.
		Now, Carrie is in San Diego, California on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Carrie.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
unidentified		How are you doing?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Fine, thank you.
unidentified		That's good.
		First of all, the Republican name, Michael, that was really good what he said, because right now, it's not about Democrats or Republicans.
		And the other guy that just got off the phone, he was complaining about somebody calling in on a Republican line.
		Come on, y'all.
		That's what's going to kill America is the Democrats and Republicans' name.
		You don't have to be a Democrat or Republican.
		Right now, we're all Americans, and we all have to be Americans to take care of Americans.
		We have three branches of our government, and right now we got two of them acting in the wrong way.
		So, you know, that's a lot of people.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So, Carrie, Democrats and Americans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What do you think about President Trump suggesting that Vance is MAGA's heir apparent?
unidentified		Everything Trump has said and done already is really dumb, ignorant, and definitely always in the wrong direction of America.
		Right now, Trump wants a Republican to continue being an American because he wants to continue running America.
		That's what he wants.
		That's the reason he wanted a Republican in there.
		So when he get out, he still will be running America.
		He's going to tear it down, and that's all he's looking to do.
		But that's why he wanted a Republican to be in there because he did a lot of crazy stuff, and he wanted to continue to stay in America so he could stay in power even when he's out of power.
		But, you know, it's not about the Democrats and Republicans right now.
		We're all Americans.
		Let's be Americans.
		Right now, the Republican Party has really turned it back on America.
		We're not Democrats, we're not Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay, I think we have your idea, Carrie.
		Barb in Long Grove, Illinois, also sent us a text message saying President Trump's suggestion that V.P. Vance is the next MAGA heir apparent is understandable considering he was his running mate in 2024.
		He's also the forerunner in opinion and popularity polls as well.
		Another comment from Mary Allen in Fort Washington, Maryland says, the only thing JD Vance is going to inherit is unemployment.
		He apparently doesn't mind supporting a racist agenda, so I would deem him unemployed by 2028, maybe even before.
		Jim is in Mart, Texas on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Jim.
unidentified		Yeah.
		I'd just like to say a lot of these people that's calling in this morning are calling in on the Republican line or, you know, they're Democrats calling in on the Republican line.
		First of all, the Democrats, the last time I checked, they had a 19% approval rating.
		They're doing everything they can to vote in communist.
		You know, the great Democrats like JFK and Truman would turn over in their grave to see all the race and hate that the Democratic Party turned into.
		And as far as JD Vance, J.D. would make an excellent president, or him or Marco Rubio, either one.
		You know, you got so many.
		All you got is losers.
		They're just mad because they lost the election.
		You're approval rating, your Democratic Party is down to 19%.
		You're doing everything you can to elect communists.
		You're pushing.
		Look at old Pocahontas as they see the.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So there is a Newsweek article looking at how JD Vance's approval rating has changed since he became vice president.
		And it says here, since taking office as vice president in January, JD Vance's favorability has steadily declined according to tracking data from Civics.
		On January 20th, the day of Vance's inauguration, 43% of registered voters viewed him favorably, while 51% held an unfavorable view, giving him a net approval rating of negative 8.
		As of August 1st, those numbers have worsened.
		Just 42% now view Vance favorably, while 54% view him unfavorably, widening his net disapproval rate to negative 12 points.
		Other polls reflect the same trend.
		Atlas showed that Vance's favorability fell from 49% in January to 44% in July, with unfavorability rising to 55%.
		A YouGov Economist poll also reported a decline from 39% favorable and 45% unfavorable in January to 37% favorable and 51% unfavorable in July.
		I'll scroll down to get a chart that visualizes how JD Vance's popularity has changed since the inauguration with a shift for more negative as opposed to positive.
		Now, back to your calls.
		Tony is in Claypool, Indiana on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Tony.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		Thanks for letting me talk.
		I don't think JD Vance would be good.
		Originally, he was anti-Trump all the way.
		He had nothing good to say about him.
		Then Peter Field took him on.
		He had no experience whatsoever.
		But then he started throwing money his way and got him in election.
		Then he slowly started moving up.
		Trump took him on.
		I believe, wasn't it, three months ago that Trump was saying that Rubio would have made, he thought Rubio would be a really good next president.
		J.D. just seems to flip whichever way the money is.
		And that's where he seems to follow.
		And I don't think any of the Republicans right now, they all, no one seems to be willing to stand up against Trump.
		The few that are willing to are all stepping down and stepping away from politics.
		And there aren't, honestly, there aren't that many Democrats that are that good either right now.
		But I wouldn't look at any of the Republicans and say that they're worth running for the office in 28.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Several folks have mentioned Marco Rubio, and there's a story in the Daily Mail about this that a surprising rival to JD Vance as a next presidential candidate emerges with Republicans prepping for 2028.
		That the surprising rival to Vice President JD Vance in the early race for 2028 Republican presidential nomination has emerged, according to a campaign expert.
		Vance has long been seen as the heir to Donald Trump's MAGA movement, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reportedly seen a groundswell of support among party activists and voting states, going on to say that the Florida senator is within a shot of cultivating the support he needs to lead the MA movement in life after Trump.
		I was a little surprised during a recent visit to Iowa how frequently the name of Secretary Marco Rubio came up, often in the same breath as JD Vance, the commentator said.
		Both of them, despite their own very public criticism of Trump in the past, now seem to be viewed as team players as closely aligned with Trump and with his current administration and obviously as leading members of it.
		Tom is in Manchester, Kentucky, on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Tom.
unidentified		Yes, ma'am.
		I just quirked briefly.
		I normally started my, what I still do, start my day with prayer.
		And my second after when I get my coffee, I begin to start watching your program just recently.
		And, you know, and, you know, listening to all you clowns calling in, you know, I want to be in JD Vance's shoes for his socks.
		You know, that man, they'll dig up every bit of dirt they can find on the man.
		And what little I did see and pay attention to him, he seemed to be like a pretty good young man.
		But now this, you know, like on the side of the Democrats and their philosophy and goals and their future of our country, I got two grandsons.
		I'm interested in that, nothing on it but that.
		But seriously, to be a Democrat today, I'd rather have a sister in a house of prostitution and have a brother working on the LGBT recommend thing for rather than be a rest for Democrat.
		I mean, I'm sick of the whole business.
		You guys are clowns, one of you.
		Thank you now.
		Have a good day.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Penny is in Central Islip, New York, on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Penny.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		My reasoning for calling is I just wanted to let other, I'm an independent, so let people know that there's always two sides of a story.
		Okay, there's the left wing and there's the right wing.
		It's always good to listen to different sides of the wing, but when you really look at it as a person coming from the middle, you have to question Christian evangelicals.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so Penny, I do want to let you finish your point.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Just make sure your volume on your TV is turned down, please.
unidentified		Down?
		Okay.
		I just, what I'm trying to say is that the Christian evangelicals that are claiming to be Christian, because there's two different Christian evangelicals.
		The Christian evangelicals that are MAGR If you look at the news, and this is real news because I Googled the truth, a lot of these people are pedophiles.
		They are pedophiles, but they claim to be Christian evangelicals.
		Christian evangelicals do not play with little kids.
		And this is what we're going through right now.
		But it's okay to be able to do that.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Vice President JD Vance, what do you think of him as a potential presidential candidate for 2028?
unidentified		He's no better than the rest of them.
		You can't have a country divided.
		Okay?
		If you're working with a country that you are dividing yourself, you should not be in office.
		Because being a president or a vice president, you're supposed to bring people together.
		And this is not what's happening in this country today.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Are there other Republicans you think might do a better job?
unidentified		Well, I don't know.
		I don't know who's out there.
		But if you're following the MAGA, they're not conservatives.
		Let me just say that.
		If you're following the MAGA regime, then you are not going to do, you're not going to be fair.
		You're not going to be fair.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Earl is in Indiana on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Earl.
unidentified		Ma'am, I've never heard such two peddardy.
walter burien ▲ ● ▼		We're deciding things next year, next 10 years, next 20 years.
unidentified		We don't even have a guarantee of tomorrow.
		If we don't get God back in this country, that's what the Democrats got: same-sex marriage.
		And that's all these people get these kids get operations.
		And Israel, it tells you, what do you think the Second World War was about?
		To kill the Jews, and that is God's people.
		Christ was a Jew, and he is our God.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, Earl, Vice President JD Vance, he's back to good one.
unidentified		I like Vance.
		Do you?
		I like the Republicans.
		They're trying to get the country straightened out.
		What's wrong with making America great again?
		Tell me.
larry nichols ▲ ● ▼		These Democrats don't vote for anything but money.
unidentified		That's all they want.
		You've got this air pollution and all that crap.
		It's God's encounter to that.
		You people, wake up.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Anthony is in Detroit on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Anthony.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I want to say that you guys at C-SPAN are by far the greatest, and y'all all deserve enemies because for these callers calling in, it's these two voices I hear every single day.
		One voice says, Donald Trump, it doesn't matter what he's doing, he's the greatest.
		And then there's this other voice that calls in and says, Donald Trump is the greatest thing America has since sliced cheese.
		And Anthony, do you have thoughts about Vice President?
		Yes, yes.
		I'm going to get there.
		You're going to betray this because you hear that every single day and y'all don't lie.
		I don't get it.
		You are so great.
		You're one of the best hosts on cable news in America.
		I'm telling you the truth.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Anthony.
unidentified		JD Vance.
		I'm sorry.
		JD Vance is terrible.
		He is terrible.
		And I say that because he's complacent with Donald Trump and pedophilia.
		All these people overlook pedophilia and say Donald Trump is good.
		It shows you the crazy of them.
		They're crazy.
		Anyway, have a blessed day and thank you for seats.
		Thanks.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Mark is in Poughkeepsie, New York on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Mark.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		The question is, is Vance a good choice?
		Yes, he's an absolute great choice for the Democrats.
		Why?
		Because the election flip-flops.
		Okay, first you have Democrats, a president elected, then you have a Republican, then you have a Democrat, then you have a Republican.
		So it's going to be a Democrat.
		And then they're going to have to undo everything that Trump has done, right, to wreck everything.
		All right.
		So it's a really great choice.
		Either Vance, Rubio, whoever submits to Trump, because they have their own, they don't have their own mind.
		You can't have your own mind when you work for Trump.
		So don't we want a president who has his own mind?
		And that will be a Democrat next.
		Thank you very much.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Before a factory tour in Canton, Ohio, Vice President Vance spoke about some of the Trump administration's accomplishments when it comes to American manufacturing as well as the Republican tax and spending cuts law.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Here, Vance is extolling the president's tariff policies as well as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		And I want to talk about the One Big Beautiful Bill because of the penalties, if the tariffs that we're charging foreign companies to access American markets, that was step one.
		Step one was to tell every foreign company that if you want to access to American markets, you ought to build in America.
		Otherwise, you're going to pay a big fat tariff.
		That was step number one.
		And step number two was just a couple of weeks ago where you saw the President of the United States sign the One Big Beautiful Bill.
		And here's what the One Big Beautiful Bill means for you in very concrete terms.
		Number one, we're going to see take-home pay go up in the United States of America in this district probably $7,000, $8,000 per family over the next three to four years.
		We're going to see your taxes cut.
		If that Big Beautiful bill hadn't passed, you all would have gotten a tax increase to the tune of thousands of dollars to each and every single one of you.
		And we happen to believe that you all work very hard for your money.
		You ought to keep it, not the federal government.
		that right that one big beautiful bill makes it easier to invest in American energy and American energy workers because if you want to build and manufacture great American steel we all know that it helps to have cheap reliable American energy to build that steel with.
		So we're going to invest in American energy workers.
		We're going to drill, baby, drill.
		We're going to stop buying oil and gas from foreign countries and we're going to buy it right here at home in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
		And for all the workers, it means a few very distinct things.
		We're going to cut taxes on overtime.
		You know what it means?
		25% of Ohio workers work at least one overtime shift a year.
		Raise your hand if you've worked an overtime shift in the past year.
		That's a lot of you.
		And every single one of you, when you work an overtime shift, the federal government is not going to take a dime at that overtime pay because if you're spending hard hours away from your family, the federal government ought to keep its hands the hell out of your pocket when you're doing it.
		And that's one thing the Big Beautiful Bill changed.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Our question again is your thoughts on Trump suggesting that Vance is MAGA's heir apparent.
		Again, our numbers for Republicans, 202-74748-8001.
		For Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		And for Independents, 202-748-8002.
		And you can text us at 202-748-8003.
		Another message we received via text from Bird in Reston Virginia says: JD Vance is truly a political outsider, was a great Trump selection for this position.
		Clearly, the MAGA movement captured the youth vote with this outstanding communicator promoting both traditional American values and the true possibility of the American dream.
		And we also heard from Daniel in Springfield, Illinois, who says, historically, vice presidents have not been elected president.
		Prior to George H.W. Bush, the last sitting vice president to be elected president was Martin Van Buren in 1836.
		Back to your calls.
		Ken is in St. Louis, Missouri on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Ken.
unidentified		Oh, yeah.
		Yes, ma'am.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		I've been a Republican my whole life, and the Propulsions have left me trying to be a Christian man, but I see what the Department of Justice is doing.
		Trump's all over these Epstein files.
		The man's a pedophile, and it's just what it is.
		And these people that back him, I can't get behind them.
		I'm sorry to say I'm agreeing with the Democrats.
		We have a pedophile in the office.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Ken, are there other Republicans that you think might be a better fit for 2028 other than Vice President Vance?
unidentified		Well, there used to be, but they all left because they don't want to be a part of it no more.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Next up is Bert in Camp Hill, Alabama on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Bert.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for allowing me to.
		I hadn't called probably about three months, but I want to make a point, and I want everybody to hear what I got to say.
		There was a man called in a while ago from, I think he said, Arkansas, about going to church.
		I would like for that man to read Proverbs 28:15.
		I would like for him to read Matthew 12, 35.
		Now, listen to me good, Kimberly.
		I'm going to make my point good.
		The Bible tells you, out of a good heart, a man brings forth good treasure.
		Out of an evil heart, a man brings forth bad treasure.
		Do you, yeah, I'm not trying to throw no mud.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, Bert, do you have thoughts about Vice President Vance as MAGA's heir apparent?
unidentified		Listen at what I just said.
		The thought is, listen at that scripture what I just said.
		The scripture explained it all.
		Out of a good heart, a man brings forth good treasure.
		Out of an evil heart, you can see what the man is doing.
		And these are his own words.
		I don't have nothing to guess him.
		It's the thing that came out of his mouth.
		He called Trump a Hitler.
		You know, and people are going to say, well, there you are, throwing mud.
		I'm not throwing mud.
		I'm just telling the truth.
		We need to get the facts out there and we need to get the truth.
		That one man called a while ago talking about the Democrats was about the babies and stuff like that right there.
		Well, let's also go look at God hate a liar, too.
		He hates lying.
		Look, thank you, and I hope everybody have a good day.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Next up is Maxwell in Culpeper, Virginia on the line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Maxwell.
unidentified		Hey, Kimberly, how are you doing?
unidentified		You're looking beautiful.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		My thing is, I think JD Vance would be a great candidate for the Republic.
		He's a so-called Catholic.
		And other callers, that Republican callers that say that Republicans aren't Republicans that don't like the idea that Trump is a pedophile.
		And I think JD Vance would be a great candidate for the Democrats anyway, because he's a Catholic.
		And the same way they don't want to release the Epstein files is the same way that the Catholics covered up for the little boys that got raped by the priest.
		JD Vance is Donald Trump 2.0 is Project 2025 2.0.
		And if people can't see what's going on now, everything, Donald Trump ain't thinking for himself.
		They're putting that guy that's over the people, the ETA or EPO or whatever his name is, vote.
		They are putting Project 2025 in doing it every day, single day.
		They say, flood the zone.
		They have flooded the zone.
		It's so much stuff every day that you got the courts, you can't keep up with it.
		You got the news media can't keep up with it.
		But one thing he can't shake is this: release the Epstein files.
		We want to know what went.
		I don't care if Bill Clinton was in there.
		I want to know everybody because they even had the Supreme Court judge, him with Maxine or Maxwell, where her name is.
		They had a picture of him and her together.
		I want to see it all.
		I want to know it all.
		I want to know who are the pedophiles that's running this country.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		A previous caller referenced historical statements or past statements that JD Vance made about President Trump.
		And this is a story from back in 2024, shortly after President Trump won the election.
		This is from Reuters.
		JD Vance once compared Trump to Hitler.
		Now he is Trump's vice president-elect.
		Eight years ago, in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election, JD Vance was a bitter critic of Donald Trump.
		Publicly, he called the Republican businessman an idiot and said he was reprehensible.
		Privately, he compared him to Adolf Hitler.
		But by the time the former president tapped Vance to be his running mate in July, the Ohio native had become one of Trump's most ardent defenders.
		With Trump's decisive win in Tuesday's presidential election, Vance 40 also became the heir apparent to Trump's re-energized Make America Great Again movement.
		Again, this article was back from November of 2024.
		So in the comments we've received via social media on X, Redford Husky says of Vance, he's smart, quick, a Marine, and loyal to the Trump MAGA glorious victories.
		Yes, Vice President Vance is worthy, but let's see.
		2028 is a few years away.
		Ron DeSantis and Marco Rubio are awesome too.
		MLB says, we are going to see a lot of results from the current policies before the next presidential election.
		It's going to be a very contentious campaign for both parties before the next election.
		And then we have that one, which we have read before.
		Let's go to Christian in Phoenix, Arizona, on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Christian.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you so much for taking my call.
		So I have a little bit of a difference of opinion on this.
		And I am a very hardcore MAGA, by the way.
		I voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 and in 2024.
		And really, in my opinion, over the years.
		I mean, I would even say we have to go as far back as Lincoln to really see Republicans that are tough and willing to stand up for the people.
		And Lincoln gave us the Ohio Republicans that gave us the 13th, 14th, or 15th Amendments.
		And, you know, those are very, very important.
		And even beyond that, the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which is Section 1983 still today.
		But when I look at JD Vance, number one, he's a lawyer.
		Okay.
		So right there for me, I need to hear more from him.
		And because if you're going to be the president of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Senate has, in some shape or form or fashion, acted a little bit slow, a little sluggish.
		Some of the agenda that Trump wanted, they weakened part of his agenda while they were passing the big beautiful bill.
		So I don't hear that pushback from Vance that I want to hear.
		Now, I will give credit to Vance because he did come out and make it clear about the H-1B visas.
		So now I want to see some follow-up from JD Vance on H-1B visas and on work visas.
		I want to hear from Vance and hear from him say, we need to wind down giving out work visas.
		We have a lot of talented U.S. citizens who want to enter the workforce.
		Our citizens are, the paycheck income of our U.S. citizens is at great risk.
		And I want to hear that from Vance.
		There's other things that I want to hear from him as well.
		So when Steve Bannon says that he believes that Vance is weak or that the Democrats are not afraid of Vance, this is where I do tend to agree.
		And, you know, I want to see more.
		I want to see a lot more than what he's doing.
		And again, he's a lawyer.
		So if you're a lawyer, I mean, you should be able to articulate and not only articulate, you should be able to action changes.
		If Vance wants, here's another key issue Vance could step up on.
		How about the criminal justice issues?
		How about a second step act to address some of the criminal justice issues that we still have?
		You know, there's a lot there that could be addressed.
		You have the RICO Act that needs to be repealed.
		You have all these issues with prosecutors overcharging people still.
		There's a whole bunch of things.
		The 1994 Clinton crime bill, there's a large portion of that that still needs to be repealed.
		So I want to see more from Vance.
		I'm not sold on him yet.
		I'm watching him.
		We have a few more years.
		I want to see some action.
		I'm all about that action.
		Where's the action, Vance?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So Christian referenced the criminal justice issues.
		In a recent podcast interview, Vice President JD Vance was asked about making the United States safe on a citywide level.
		Here are some comments that he made.
unidentified		You guys have done so much to keep people safe around the country from a federal level.
unidentified		What more do you think cities can be doing to make sure that people stay safe in their cities in the coming months and years?
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		I think the biggest thing, and obviously we can help this at the federal level, but the most important thing that states and cities can do is to actually solve the law enforcement recruitment challenge that we have.
		So a big part of the story of what happened in Cincinnati, I assume you're talking about this terrible brawl that happened in southwestern Ohio.
		You had, I mean, basically a woman who was just an innocent bystander who got punched in the face by a grown man.
		That's being investigated.
		Hopefully those folks are brought to justice.
		Just a really disgusting act of violence.
		But part of the story there is that there weren't enough police officers at the Cincinnati Jazz Festival.
		Why aren't there enough police officers?
		Because there aren't enough police officers in Cincinnati.
		And if you talk to local law enforcement, they'll tell, you know, sometimes you hear heartbreaking stories of a fourth, fifth generation cop who says, I tell my son or daughter, do not go into law enforcement because it's so uncomfortable because they got attacked so much, especially back in 2020, 2021.
		And that's just left a really bad hangover.
		So we've got to get the best and the brightest into law enforcement.
		I think the most important thing is local governments.
		You know, you still got a lot of blue, you know, big city mayors, people who maybe have some memories of the Defund the Police moment.
		Maybe they themselves were actually advocating to fund the police.
		They've got to say, okay, this was a crazy moment.
		We got to support our local cops and we've got to get good people back into law enforcement.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Our previous caller also referenced Vice President JD Vance's statements regarding H-1B visas.
		Here's a story about that in Fox Business, saying that JD Vance, this is from July the 25th, JD Vance calls out big tech for firing Americans while hiring cheap foreign H-1B visa replacements.
		The vice president questions tech giants' labor shortage claims during his appearance at an AI summit, saying that Vice President JD Vance blasted big tech companies for firing American workers and then claiming they need visas for foreign labor.
		The H-1B visa program allows U.S. companies to hire foreign workers for specialty occupations and is overwhelmingly used by the tech industry.
		However, it has long been controversial for some conservatives who say it is abused by tech companies to bring in cheap, predominantly Indian labor to replace American workers.
		Vance spoke with the all-in podcast host on a panel at the Winning the AI race summit in Washington, D.C.
		The vice president noted that while some Silicon Valley technology firms claim they need overseas visa programs to find workers, the college-educated employment rate for STEM graduates in this country seems to be declining.
		And then Vance said, wait a second, explaining his thought process.
		If you're not hiring American workers coming out of colleges for these jobs, then how can you say that you have a massive shortage in these jobs?
		Back to your calls on Vance being the heir apparent of the MAGA movement.
		Phil is in Aberdeen, Maryland on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Phil.
unidentified		Good morning.
		How can you support a person that lies, that blatantly said openly that they were eating cats and dogs in Ohio?
		How can you vote for a person like that?
		JD Vance is a liar.
		He's always been a liar.
		You know, he's done all kinds of things.
		He's said all kinds of things about these people down in Ohio, Springfield, Ohio.
		And nobody, not one person has come to the defense of these people except for the townspeople in Springfield.
		I just can't, I could never vote for a person like that.
		And I don't see how anybody else could.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		We received a text from Joan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who says, I'm a Republican and want the party to purge itself of all Trump influence for 2028.
		And let's hear now from Jerry in Richmond, Indiana on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Jerry.
unidentified		Morning.
		I think JD Vance will probably be the next president of the United States.
		And I just can't believe some of the, you know, you quote stories from CNN, which nobody believes anymore, and you show polls of what his approval rating is.
		You know, why don't you put up some of the numbers that the Democratic nominees may have in it, what people feel about them now, see where they like.
		And, you know, like last call or Democrat.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Actually, Jerry, if you'll give me a moment, I can pull that up.
		It's in the same poll as the one about JD Vance's ranking amongst Republicans.
		Just a moment, I'll bring that up.
		So here are the numbers for Democrats.
		Looking ahead to the 2028 Democratic presidential race among the following candidates, who would you support for the Democratic nomination?
		Pete Buttigej comes in first at 16%, Kamala Harris second at 13%, Gavin Newsom at 12%, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez down at 7% along with Josh Shapiro.
		And then going back again to the numbers on the Republican side when they polled potential GOP primary voters, that's where JD Vance comes out on top with 46% of likely GOP primary voters saying that they would support JD Vance, followed by Marco Rubio and Ron DeSantis.
		So the Emerson poll did look at both sides of that.
		But please continue, Jerry.
unidentified		Oh, well, that was great because it shows right there.
unidentified		You got 46% for JD Vance, the highest, and 16% for Budigevsk.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Sorry, Jerry, I just want to clarify, in each group, they've asked people who were going to vote Democratic of the Democrats who they would like, and then of the Republican, likely Republican voters, who among the Republicans they would vote for.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So those were two different groups in this poll.
unidentified		Right.
		But I mean, so their own party's only got a 16% of a guy they would vote for or support.
		So, you know, that's pretty bad looking right there.
		You know, it sounds like nobody in the Democratic Party is going to be widely supported.
		And, you know, then you got the last call.
		I can't believe somebody lies.
		Well, you know, like the border was closed and Biden was sharp as attack.
		Yeah, those were all truths.
		We believe those.
		Thank you.
		Have a great day.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Barry is in Green Bay, Wisconsin on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Barry.
unidentified		Good morning.
		First, let me say thank you so much to C-SPAN.
		As long as you folks continue to do these wonderful programs, I think we're going to be okay.
		If they start to close you all down, which I know you're not funded by the government directly, but the way things are going, any examples of free speech, including the 50% of your coverage that allows Democrats to speak freely, is at risk.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Well, C-SPAN is a nonprofit and does accept donations that you can get on donate.c-span.org.
unidentified		Well, I should get busy on that.
		Thank you.
		I just wanted to say one of the big problems with understanding today's politics was basically played out here at the last phone call where that gentleman just didn't understand the 16% versus the 46%.
		I know you tried to set him straight on that, but percentages are very misleading.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		No, he clarified that he was saying that because one of the Democratic candidates, excuse me, only had 16% support amongst Democrats versus Vance having 46% among Republicans was revealing that there's more support on the Republican side for Vance.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I think he did understand.
unidentified		I don't think you did, but anyway, thank you.
		Keep up the good work.
		Good day.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Eric is in Tucson, Arizona on our line for independence.
		Good morning, Eric.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm going to go off kilter for a minute.
		You always have beautiful earrings on.
		Nice earrings today.
		Thank you.
		Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Vance is the same as Trump, birds of a feather that flock together.
		So Trump has always been a loser.
		JD Vance is a loser.
		Trump is a loser playing war.
		And now he's on the big stage playing that.
		War was a game.
		I'm a few years younger than Trump, but I ran with kids a little bit older than myself, and we played war, that game.
		And he was a loser at that.
		He's a loser at everything he does.
		And bankruptcy, you know, he's just a horrible individual.
		And JD Vance is just the same.
		We have the same ilk in the White House, and they have no clue.
		All he wants to do is revenge and go after people who he thinks beat him up.
		But now he's going to beat up the whole country.
		That's all I have to say.
		Thank you, and have a nice day.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Rocky is in Tennessee on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Rocky.
unidentified		Good morning, man.
unidentified		Thank you for taking my call.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Could you please turn down the volume on your TV and then continue?
unidentified		Yes, ma'am.
		I've voted Republican since Ronald Reagan.
		I'm retired now.
		I hear a lot of stuff, Honor.
		I just don't want to really put no people down.
		They are what they are.
		And I wouldn't vote for JD Vance or Donald Trump again.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Why is that, Rocky?
unidentified		Because they are taking the country the wrong way.
		And I live in East Tennessee.
		I wouldn't vote for none of the other Republicans you named on there.
		I got two in mind I would vote for that I like and I see what they talk about, their actions.
		Joe from West Virginia, Joe Mancini.
		Was that his name?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Joe Manchin.
unidentified		Joe Manchin.
		Thank you.
		And the Democrat senator from Pennsylvania that had the stroke.
		John him.
		That's the only two I see I'd vote for.
		Now, I go with all this crap people talk about.
		The Bible says man's heart is weakly of all things.
		So I'm looking at what their actions are, not what they're really saying or talking about.
		I mean, I vote Republican because my daddy used to be a strong Democrat.
		And they had moral rights.
		They love people.
		But it's even the Republican.
		They're not the party either.
		So I'm looking for somebody that loves the country, their heart towards people.
		And it don't matter whether they're Democrat or Republican, they better have a heart.
		And I'm not going to vote for none of them because I see what's going on in this nation.
		I love you, and I thank you for taking my call.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Thank you to everyone who called in this hour on our topic.
		Coming up later on Washington Journal, the Washington Examiners, Jeremiah Poff, is going to be joining us to explore conservatism and the Trump administration, as well as some of the political news of the day.
		But up next, John Nichols, executive editor of the nation, will join us to talk about progressives and the Trump administration, as well as politics in the United States.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		Past president.
peter doocy ▲ ● ▼		Why are you doing this?
unidentified		This is outrageous.
		This is a kangaroo card.
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		Washington Journal continues.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We're joined now by John Nichols, who's executive editor of The Nation magazine, here to talk about the progressive movement and the politics of the day.
		Welcome to Washington Journal.
unidentified		It's great to be with you.
unidentified		Thanks for having me.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, you've just been named the new executive editor of The Nation, which celebrates its 160th anniversary this summer.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Can you tell us a little bit about the magazine and its history?
unidentified		Sure.
		The magazine was founded right after the end of the Civil War by abolitionists.
		And their goal was to provide a new journal of opinion and news in the country.
		In its first issue, amazingly, they said that not a lot had happened the week that they came out.
		They might have been wrong about that.
		But over the last 160 years, the nation has sought to cover domestic and international affairs in a very intensive way, to look around the world and hear at home at what's going on.
		It's also offered a great deal of opinion over the years.
		Books like the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. have written for the nation, many presidents, and in this contemporary area, in this contemporary era, we continue.
		And it's certainly a tumultuous time, but when you're 160 years old, you've seen plenty of tumultuous times.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, you recently joined the nation's Katrina Vandenhoe for an exclusive interview with Zorhan Mamdani, the Democrats nominee for the mayor of New York City and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
		If elected, he will become the first Muslim and the first millennial mayor of the nation's most populous city.
		We have there the cover of that story, which is going to be coming out later this week.
		What did you learn in this interview?
unidentified		A lot, I think.
		It was an interesting interview.
		We tried to ask a number of questions that don't usually get asked and many forward-looking questions.
		We interviewed him not that long after he won the primary by a pretty resounding margin.
		And so in that context, we began to ask him some real questions about governing.
		How would he govern as a very progressive candidate, a very progressive potential mayor in the era of Donald Trump, but also at a time when many Democrats are very cautious and he obviously is less cautious.
		We asked him a lot about how he would relate to people that didn't agree with him on particular issues, but yet who are residents of New York City and he'd have to work with him.
		We asked him a lot about his social media, which he's quite well recognized for as being somebody sort of something of a master of social media.
		But we also asked him about how he would relate to legacy media, newspapers, magazines, and that that had been around for a long time.
		And what we found through the whole thing was that he's a very nuanced thinker.
		It was intriguing.
		I've interviewed presidents and candidates and lots of folks in lots of different settings.
david spunt ▲ ● ▼		What was striking about him was that with each question, he would pause and think at least for a moment about what he was going to say.
unidentified		And then when he said it, there were often many layers to it.
		And so I think that's one of the interesting things about this particular candidate is he's been caricatured a lot.
		But what we, I hope, had a little success in was giving a picture of him as somebody who thinks a lot, not just about the issues, but about how he might serve in what is arguably one of the most prominent, one of the most well-recognized offices in the United States.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Speaking of how he's being represented across different platforms, he has been the focus of pretty intense criticism from Republicans who are calling him a communist for his views on taxes, the economy, on wealth redistribution.
		His pro-Gaza views have also alienated some voters.
		What did he say about that in particular?
		I mean, for example, last month, Mom Dhani told a group of New York business leaders that he was not going to use the phrase globalize the intifada, which had been controversial during the campaign, that he would discourage others from doing so.
		How is he framing his views on Israel and Gaza in particular?
unidentified		Well, he has answered a lot of questions about this in broadcast and print interviews over the last few months.
		We asked him about how he would relate to people who really disagreed with him on that issue and a host of others as mayor, because that's the real challenge, isn't it?
		If you come to a position of power, how will you relate to, connect with, interact with people who really do not agree with you, who may think you're wrong?
		And what was striking about the conversation was the emphasis he put on maintaining a kind of a deep dialogue, a willingness to learn and to evolve, if you will, but also a clarity.
		It's very clear that on the issues where he has taken stands, he's thought a lot about them.
		He believes what he is saying.
		That doesn't mean that he says, well, I'll never shift on something, but it does mean that I think he sees the relationship with people who disagree with him as one of dialogue and real discussion, and also a search for places where even if they disagree on a particular issue, they might find common ground on other issues.
		And one of the striking things was that he spoke at some length about his desire to make sure that everyone in New York is safe, no matter what their ethnicity, no matter what their religion, no matter what their beliefs.
		And that's actually a pretty important thing at a time when our discourse can sometimes become very intense.
		And I think it's fair to say that in many instances, he sounded as if he was hoping to dial down some of that intensity so that you could actually have dialogue, so that you could actually have a real discourse.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, moving on to other topics, also in the nation, you've written that representative democracy will live or die in Texas.
		A gerrymandering fight reveals how far Trump will go to avoid electoral accountability.
		So you've written about this effort to try to get, as the Trump administration has asked Texas Republicans to do, five more seats in the House of Representatives by doing redistricting mid-census halfway through when it would normally be done.
		And I wonder if you can talk about why you think this is so crucial as a topic in terms of whether or not representative democracy will live or die.
unidentified		Yeah, it isn't just about Texas.
		One of the things to recognize is that gerrymandering is the national issue.
		It has happened going back to the founding days of the Republic, a name literally taken from a former governor who drew favorable lines for himself and his party, or at least I think a former congressman.
		I hope I get that right.
		But the interesting thing about gerrymandering is that it's now been weaponized.
		It's become such a tool of contemporary politics, winner-take-all politics, that what's happening in Texas becomes a very, very big deal.
		And the idea that the president of the United States, who has just gone through a fight over a very challenging issue, his big, beautiful bill, and one that has some pretty rough poll numbers.
		And the president who himself is experiencing some reasonably rough poll numbers would say to allied officials in a particular state, hey, we need to swing five seats in the middle of the period, right?
		You know, we have a 10-year period.
		We redistrict initially, and then in the middle of that period to upend that and to draw new lines that would benefit his party, that's a big deal.
		And it's, well, I say it's not just about Texas.
		Obviously, there are concerns about the Voting Rights Act and their cases heading toward the Supreme Court in that regard.
		What Texas is doing has raised real additional concerns there.
		Then there is this reality that we're looking at, which is if Texas acts, other states are saying they will act.
		And we end up in a situation as a country where we could see our lines all over the U.S. altered, perhaps radically altered, with the purpose of producing political results, i.e. with the purpose of making sure that districts will vote a particular way.
		And so, yes, I wrote about what's happening in Texas, but I have deep concerns about where we're headed in the broader sense.
		As a country, if we're going to have representative democracy, we have to figure out a way to get beyond not just gerrymandering, but beyond systems and structures that can be abused or upended in the midst of a term or on the eve of an election.
		Those are the things that really concern me.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		At the White House last week, President Trump spoke about that redistricting effort in Texas and said the FBI may need to be involved to arrest some of the Texas Democrats that have fled the state to avoid quorum so that the vote could not happen.
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.
		Trump got 40%.
		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.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		John Nichols, executive editor of The Nation.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of the president's comments and how different this is from any other redistricting fight, and especially given that states like California and New York are talking about doing something similar?
unidentified		Well, I think the president's comments illustrate how intense this fight has become and how it will very probably be central to a lot of our political discourse, not just this week, but perhaps for many weeks and months going forward.
		There's talk of all sorts of interventions.
		A couple of things that I would put in the mix here.
		First, the core message that the president brought there, although I happen to disagree with him on an awful lot of issues, the core message that the president brought there was an accurate one.
		We have many states in this country where supporters of one party can win 35, 40, 45% of the vote and yet be dramatically underrepresented in the Congress of the United States.
		He used the example of Massachusetts, but you can also use the example of many states in this country, smaller states especially, where the Democrats may get a third or even roughly 40% of the vote and yet not have any representation.
		So you've got cases where Democrats and Republicans go to the polls in November, cast their ballots, definitely have candidates they support, have values, ideals that they support, and yet from their own state, they have little or no representation.
anthony aguilar ▲ ● ▼		Now, there's ways to deal with this, and one of these is proportional representation, where you simply say to voters, you vote for the party you like.
unidentified		If it's Democrat, check that.
		If it's Republican, check that.
		And then the representatives from the state will be assigned proportionally.
		In that case, in a state like Massachusetts, you might get several Republican representatives.
		In some of the Western states, you probably, you might well get another Democratic representative as well as a Republican, depending on the state and depending on its size.
george fishman ▲ ● ▼		But where it really becomes consequential and where this becomes a bigger deal is in a state like Texas.
unidentified		Texas is a very competitive state.
		The Republicans dominate.
		And President Trump, as he said, did very well there.
		But we have had recent elections in Texas, when Beto O'Rourke ran for the Senate as an example, where the Democrats got 48% of the vote.
		They don't have 48% of the House delegation now.
		And if this radical gerrymandering occurs there, they will have dramatically less representation.
		And so as a country, when we go into these gerrymandering fights, we really need to look at models that might assure that we have a deeper representation of where people are at.
		And it's complicated.
		We can go into many, many different models here.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I do want to get to our callers pretty quickly.
		So, folks who have questions for John Nichols can call in Republicans at 202-748-8001, Democrats at 202-748-8000, and Independents at 202-748-8002.
		Before we get to the callers, I want to ask just one more thing about the fact that last month, President Trump unveiled his new initiative aimed at artificial intelligence, particularly accelerating the development and adoption of AI in the U.S.
		He called it Winning the AI Race, America's AI Action Plan.
		What are your thoughts on this initiative?
unidentified		I was disappointed.
		And I've written a lot about AI over the years.
		A number of years ago, now it seems ancient history.
		A colleague of mine and I, colleague Bob McChesney, wrote a book called People Get Ready.
		And it was a forward-looking book on automation, robotification, machine learning, AI, all of these things that were coming at us.
		And one of the things that we came to believe, and that I still believe very strongly, is that AI, especially, will change everything about how we work, how we live, so many things about our lives.
		And I found in the president's speech too much of a willingness, and this is, by the way, I see this in both parties and by a lot of political figures, but too much of a willingness to cede the direction of AI to a small number of corporations, to very, very powerful tech corporations, to investors, to people who want to make a lot of money off AI.
		What worries me is that that sort of decision-making can often work the development of a new technology.
		And where that's a big deal is it's just priorities.
		I mean, is AI used for the most nefarious purposes or to help scientists cure diseases?
		Does it become very aligned with our military?
		Do other militaries develop their own AI?
		Do we have kind of a global AI arms rush?
		Or do we use AI as a tool to try and address the challenges of climate, the challenges of hunger and other issues around the world?
		I would like to see from all of our leaders a much deeper and much more thoughtful approach to artificial intelligence because it's coming at us very fast.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Let's get to some questions from our audience.
		Jimbo in Bakersfield, California, who's an independent voter, asks, can Mr. Nichols speak to the current polls on the popularity of the Democratic Party among registered voters?
		How can they win in the midterms, even without redistricting, when Democrats are as unpopular as Republicans?
unidentified		That is a very, very profound and appropriate question.
		Democratic Party is getting very, very low approval numbers.
		I think those approval numbers are particularly for Democratic leadership and folks in Congress.
		And I think it is an expression of a twofold concern.
		One, there are many Republicans who disagree with the Democrats, of course, and many independents.
		But there are also many Democrats who are deeply frustrated with their own party's approach to the Trump administration and to the issues that are in play right now.
		What I would suggest to the caller is that if you look at generic ballot polls, these are polls that ask, which party are you likely to vote for in 2026?
		The Democrats actually do quite well.
		In many of those polls, they are leading the Republicans and showing some growth in areas where they had been weak.
		So the Democrats have strength in a generic ballot, i.e., that people say, yeah, on balance, I would tend to vote for a Democrat.
		But they're not impressed with what the Democratic Party is doing right now.
		And I think this is one of the important things to understand about where the 2026 election is likely to frame out.
		And that is that you're going to have people voting against one party or the other, not necessarily in favor of it.
		And so, yes, the Democrats could do reasonably well.
		In fact, they could win a lot of elections in 2026, not necessarily because people love them, but because people don't like what Trump and the Republicans are doing.
		At the end of the day, though, as a country, we ought to be struggling toward a point where people actually go and vote for what they want.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Just to get some numbers on that polling that Jimbo was referencing, here's a story in Newsweek.
		Democrat net favorability plunges to near three decade low, a poll shows.
		And this is a survey from CNBC on Thursday that showed the Democratic Party's net favorability that low.
		And that if you go down here in the new poll, the Democratic Party carries a negative 32 net favorability rating among registered voters.
		The party has a 24% positive rating and a 56% negative rating.
		Trump's approval in the same poll is 46% versus a 51% disapproval rating.
		The president had a negative net approval rating on key policy issues like tariffs, inflation, taxes, and federal spending.
		Now, to your calls, John is in Coming Georgia on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, John.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		Good morning.
		I believe our representation or our republic as a representation of the people basically has already died because we've become a country of party affiliation.
		And let me explain that.
		Okay, so Trump carried Georgia.
		And when his bill comes up in the Senate, neither Georgia senators voted for it.
		Yet if they're supposed to represent the people, how is it that they cannot vote?
		And this happens across all lines.
		No Democrat senator in any of the states that Trump carried voted for that bill.
		Why is it that, you know, if the representations or the representative in the state is supposed to represent the people, shouldn't they consider voting for something that even though they may not agree with, but yet the people have voted for?
		Same thing in the House.
		What happens if Trump carries a district and yet those people in the district elect a Democrat representative?
		What should that representative do?
		The people have voted for Trump's policies.
		Should he vote for them as well or does he vote for his party?
		Overwhelmingly, the representatives vote for their party.
		They don't vote for the people.
		And we have gotten so far away from the ideals of which the founding fathers set forth for our country that basically our representative government has died.
		Thank you for your consideration.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Mr. Nichols, your response?
unidentified		That is a very thoughtful commentary.
		I may disagree with some of it, but at a fundamental level, this is one of the great challenges of the American experiment.
		Remember that at the founding of this country, many of the authors of the Constitution, as well as initial leaders of the country, no matter what their ideological or political bent was, warned about parties.
		They warned that political parties could become incredibly powerful and, frankly, corrupt.
		And so you end up in a situation where today we have very, very powerful political parties which take an immense amount of money from very powerful interests in this country.
		So much of what the founders warned about has become a reality.
		And then we get into this very difficult other aspect of the founding of the Constitution, which is that it imagined separated powers, i.e., that you would have a strong Congress, that you would have an executive, that you would have the courts.
		And by the nature of that, there was clearly an understanding that there would be disagreements between these separated powers.
		One of the concepts was that they would check and balance one another.
		Now, that does become a real complexity in representative democracy because we have Republicans from states that voted for Kamala Harris voting with Donald Trump.
		We have Democrats from states that voted for Donald Trump voting against Donald Trump's position.
		And so as a country, we are, in fact, divided, not just at a national level or on particular issues, but we're divided within our own states.
		And I think that the great power of the parties right now, that it's become so immense and that people have gotten so much into their camp that one of the traditional aspects of the American experiment that I've always found exciting and interesting was the ability of citizens to lobby for what they want, to say, look, maybe we thought one way at election time, but we've come to realize something else.
		Or maybe this issue wasn't addressed in the election, but it should be.
		Or maybe a president has gone a direction that we didn't expect him to go.
		And so we do want to check and balance him.
		Or frankly, a Congress is going a direction where we don't want to go, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
		And I think that as a country, one of the things that concerns me the most is that when citizens do lobby on an issue, be it Gaza, be it taxes, be it Medicaid and SNAP benefits and things like that, I'm not sure that our members of Congress are listening to what they're hearing from people as much as they should.
		If they did, I think, yeah, we would have points where the Congress disagreed with presidents more and where people crossed party lines and didn't always vote as sort of a block, which is what we usually see.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Jeff is in Indianapolis, Indiana on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Jeff.
unidentified		Good morning, everybody.
		How are you doing, Mr. Nichols?
		Hello, I'm glad you're calling.
		And Mr. Nichols, I just let you know I'm a huge fan of yours and I do consider myself a progressive.
		And I think part of the problem is that Democrats need to grow a backbone and address some serious issues.
		You know, in this last election, we had a woman well-qualified, a U.S. Senator, vice president, as well as an attorney general for the state of California.
		And yet she lost to a convicted felon, a sex offender, and a racist and a bigot.
		I mean, let's just be honest about it.
		And people overwhelmingly chose him.
		Hispanics, labor unions, white women.
		This was an election where so many people voted against their best interests, and now they're finding out that, yes, we did vote against our best interests.
		I'm going to ask you, Mr. Nichols, is it culture or is it policy?
		Because I think it's more culture.
		Until people get over their inner demons, their bigotry, their misogyny, Democrats are going to continue to lose because right now, the Democrats are the Keystone cops and the Republicans are the Manson family.
		Yes.
		We're dealing with fascism.
		We are at risk.
		Until we dress, you know, LBJ once said, if you could convince the lowest white man that he's better than the highest black man, you could take him to the bank.
		That's MAGA right there.
		So we got to address our cultural differences.
		Well, that's a detailed call with a lot of elements to it.
		First and foremost, I will say to you, as somebody who's covered a lot of Republicans, that I have met many Republicans who are humane and who really do care about a nuanced and thoughtful approach to our politics, just as I've met many Democrats who are the same.
		And this is one of the real complexities of this time.
		We've gotten so deeply divided into our corners that this possibility of reasoning with people and reasoning beyond their biases, their whatever is going on with them on both sides becomes complicated.
		And I want to go to one of the core things, though, that the caller mentioned, because I think this is a really important aspect of it.
		He mentioned that people vote against their own interests.
		And we see a tremendous amount of this in America.
		That's not necessarily wrong, right?
		You may have many interests.
		And so you may have a particular issue that drives you and makes you go one way or the other.
		But as a country, what we've ended up with is in a system where there is massive campaign funding by very wealthy and very powerful interests.
		And frankly, where we've seen a collapse of a lot of media as it historically existed, we've ended up in a situation where campaigns are often focused on issues that aren't central to our economics, aren't central to kind of the core question of can you afford where you live?
		Can you afford transportation?
		Can you afford all the things that you need?
		And a deeper, more thoughtful conversation about that.
		And I think that's a real challenge in America.
		I do think it brings us back, by the way, to the conversation we had with Zaran Mamdani, the candidate for mayor of New York.
		Because one of the things that he did as a candidate early in his candidacy when his poll numbers were very, very low, was he went to neighborhoods in New York that had voted more for Donald Trump than in the past.
		And he asked people directly, you know, what's up?
		Why are you shifting your voting patterns?
		What's going on with you here?
		And what he found, what he heard from people again and again and again, was a sense that the issue of affordability, whether you can literally afford to live in a place like New York City, was very pressing for them.
		And they felt the Democrats, to their view, had not done enough.
		And so they took a try on Trump there.
		Polling suggests that many of those folks are not as excited now.
		But what Momdani did off that was to frame his campaign around the issues of affordability, really laser-focused on that.
		And I think that's in many ways an answer, or at least a suggestion as regards the caller's question.
		If people are, in his words, and I think in mine, voting often against their own interest, how do you get them to focus on what may be, at least economically, their interest?
		Well, one of the answers is to speak much more directly, much more firmly about the issues that are at stake.
		And again, I think in Mondani, you see an example of that.
		In Bernie Sanders, you see an example of that.
		Sanders was just in West Virginia yesterday, drawing huge crowds in a state that voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So I want to get to a couple more callers before we run out of time.
		Let's hear from Frank in New Ipswich, New Hampshire on our line for independence.
		Good morning, Frank.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you very much for taking my call.
		I'd just like to get your thoughts on this.
		Texas might not be so deep Republican as people believe.
		And if they redistrict to add five more seats, potentially they're diluting those districts.
		And maybe there could be a Democratic surprise.
		I'd just like to hear your thoughts on that.
		Thank you.
		Our caller from Ipswich is very wise.
		I had a friend named Fred Kessler.
		He was a longtime legislator and judge in Wisconsin, my native state.
		And Fred Kessler always reminded folks that when you redistrict, you redistrict in a moment.
		But people move.
		Districts change.
		And so there are assumptions made by politicians based often on old information or even on information of the moment that's going to shift.
		And so I do think that there is a real possibility in this flurry to redistrict, not just in Texas, but in states around the country, that you could end up with an unexpected circumstance.
		That is, that you weaken incumbents who are in now gerrymandered or very safe seats and create a circumstance where they might be more vulnerable.
		If we have in 2026 a wave election, i.e., if the pattern goes in a particular direction, that could see some incumbents get beat who otherwise would have won, but the redistricting, the gerrymandering might have made them vulnerable.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		There are two questions we've received via text that kind of relate to the same topic.
		I'll read them both.
		So the first says, this is from Mark in Linfield, Massachusetts.
		I think if the 90 million people who never vote actually voted, it would nullify gerrymandering.
		What say you?
		And then Dave in Shiloh, Illinois says, what about expanding the size of the House?
		Your thoughts on those two points.
unidentified		Great questions.
		It's one of the reasons I love C-SPAN.
		First and foremost, if we had dramatically higher turnout, yes, would that affect our results?
		Of course, because we know that a lot of people who don't vote are often folks who have historically felt disenfranchised or disconnected from the system.
		Many of them might vote differently than those who are currently participating.
		The second part, if you could remind me of that, just.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		That was about expanding the size of the House of Representatives.
unidentified		Expanding the size of the House.
		I've actually written about this.
		You may have one of the few journalists who has explored this issue.
		Remember, at the founding of the American Experiment, the concept was that with each new census, you would have a greater population.
		And in addition to drawing districts, you would expand the size of the House.
		We stopped doing that a little over 100 years ago.
		And the impact is that now our congressional districts are huge with 700,000, 800,000 people living in them.
		It's very hard to have representative democracy when you have that many people in a district.
		You end up using TV and a lot of campaign spending.
		And so, yes, is there a model where you might expand the House?
		It's notable that one of our previous callers came from New Hampshire.
		New Hampshire has one of the largest legislatures in the United States.
		Very small districts, a lot of legislators.
		And one of the things that we've found in New Hampshire is that it will flip control.
		It will go back and forth quite often.
		The other thing that's interesting is that often, not always, in New Hampshire, you've seen instances where people have crossed party lines because they really do come from smaller districts where they are more connected to their neighbors, the people that elected them.
		And so at the end of the day, I think that some expansion of the House makes sense.
		And it might be one way to make democracy more representative, but also to address some of these issues that we're wrestling with.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Thomas is in Springhill, Florida on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Thomas.
unidentified		My question is with the situation in New York City with this Mandani.
		We know that he's the face of the Democrat Party.
		He wants to follow Democrat policies, taxing the rich.
		He wants to reduce law enforcement.
		He can't backpedal this.
		He's already made these statements.
		He even wants to take grocery stores and make them government grocery stores.
		My question is this.
		Mayors like Mandani.
		And if you remember in the 70s in New York, the city went bankrupt when you had that mayor being with all the funding.
		And I'm sure a lot of rich have left that city and went to other states like Florida.
		At the time, California was a red state.
		My question is, once these people that he chooses to tax, the so-called rich businesses and people that own homes, especially certain areas of New York City, once they start leaving and the city loses funds and it goes bankrupt, will the unions be able to bail him out?
		Does he come crawling to Trump and ask for help?
		Same with that.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So really quickly before you respond to Thomas's point, there was a similar question from Jay N. Shaw in Wichita, Kansas, who asked, is Mr. Momdani a communist?
		If selected New York City mayor, what in practical terms would that mean for the future of New York City and nationally for the Democratic Party?
		So very similar to Thomas's question.
unidentified		You're both both good questions to answer.
		Zara Mamdani is not a communist.
		He's a Democratic socialist.
		The United States has had Democratic Socialist mayors throughout its modern history.
		Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which I grew up near, had three Democratic socialist mayors in the 20th century.
		They served most of that century as mayors.
		And Milwaukee did not collapse into Lake Michigan.
		In fact, under one of the great Democratic Socialist mayors in American history, Daniel Hung, Milwaukee was frequently rated as the best governed or one of the best governed cities in the country.
		And so when you talk about the ideology of someone who is coming to power, the important thing to look at is can they do what they seek to do with the best of intentions, i.e., can you make New York City more affordable so that working class people can remain there?
		And frankly, also so that wealthy people who may be paying more taxes will continue to want to live there because it's a great place to live.
		It is an exciting, interesting city.
		Mamdani thinks he can do this.
		Obviously, the voters in the Democratic Party thought that he could do this.
		Polling suggests he is doing quite well as a candidate.
		So, I mean, I think that for the callers, the question is whether a candidate who seeks to make affordability, i.e. the ability for working class people to remain in the city, seeks to make that central to his or her governance, can that work?
		Can that function?
		We have seen it function in the past in many cities.
		And it's also, that becomes the great test for Momdani.
		He will be before the voters over the next few months.
		And part of his job is to convince the voters of New York City that he can govern as a Democratic socialist in a way that is effective and, frankly, that serves the great mass of people in the city.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		DNC Chair Ken Martin was speaking about Mamdani's candidacy and left-wing candidates more broadly and said, at the end of the day, the difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party is that we're a big tent.
		We have lots of people in that tent from all different ideological wings, from conservative Democrats to centrists to progressives to these new leftists.
		And the reality is, I've always said that you win through addition, not subtraction.
		You don't win by putting people out of your coalition.
		You win by bringing people into your coalition, and that includes people from all different ideological wings.
		And your thoughts on Momdani's sort of being brought into that tent?
unidentified		Sure.
		I mean, look, Mamdani, as a candidate, has proven to be very, very popular with young voters and with a lot of voters who have historically not necessarily had the highest level of participation.
		So he is bringing people into the political process.
		Now, if you're talking about the tent of the Democratic Party, yes, in the primary, they did come in and they voted, a lot of them voted for him.
		The question will be in the November election.
		I expect that New York City is likely to have a very, very high turnout.
		And obviously, for any political party, your goal is to have a high turnout and especially a high turnout of voters who are attracted to you.
		I think that one of the challenges for the Democratic Party for a long time has been that it has tended to operate as a managerial party.
		It hasn't been that exciting, quite often.
		And as a result, it's hard to generate that high level of turnout.
		We'll see what Momdani does as a Democratic nominee.
		Can he draw more people out?
		But I will tell you that when I look across the country, and I've written big stories recently on races for governorships in Virginia and New Jersey and contests in Omaha, Nebraska, and places like that, the Democratic Party is different in different places.
		And frankly, although we're in a period where Donald Trump is a very dominant figure in the Republican Party, there's a lot of difference in the Republican Party as well.
		And so I'm always interested in how parties make themselves more popular, i.e. drawing more people in.
		And it's, in my opinion, it's rarely by being managerial or cautious.
		It is often by taking bold stands that point to the future.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Well, thank you so much for your time.
		John Nichols is the new executive editor of The Nation magazine.
		I appreciate your time this morning.
unidentified		I'm honored.
		And thanks for having me on.
		And thanks to all the calls and all the really interesting issues they brought up.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And thanks to all of our callers as well.
		Later on on Washington Journal, we'll be taking more of your calls in open forum.
		But up next, the Washington Examiners, Jeremiah Poff, is going to join us to look at conservatism and the Trump administration, as well as political news of the day.
		We'll be right back.
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		Thank you.
		And pass president nomination.
peter doocy ▲ ● ▼		Why are you doing this?
unidentified		This is outrageous.
		This is a kangaroo clause.
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		Washington Journal continues.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We're joined now by Jeremiah Poff, who is the Restoring America editor for the Washington Examiner.
		Welcome to Washington Journal.
unidentified		Thank you for having me.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Can you talk a little bit about this, your background, and the Washington Examiner's Restoring America project?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		You're the editor of that.
unidentified		Yeah, so I'm the editor of the Washington Examiner's Restoring America project, which is something we launched about four years ago or so, with a broader look at what the animating principles we believe should be the things that make our policy and good governance.
		So we have a general sense of certain virtues that we want to inculcate in our policymaking.
		So, you know, we want to see a foreign policy that is courageous and strong.
		We want to see an America that is built on communities and families.
		And we want to see a country that puts fairness before it does in terms of its treatment of its citizens.
		We want our country to be patriotic.
		We want equality.
		We don't want a sense of you get treated differently because of your skin color.
		So that's generally the sense of, broadly speaking, what the project is.
		And in that, we don't necessarily have one particular voice, but we do represent, broadly speaking, a conservative perspective.
		And we want our conservative principle, those are conservative principles that animate our perspectives on that.
		This is a commentary project, by and large.
		And so what we mostly do is we run op-eds and columns from various people across the conservative movement that really use those principles to animate their perspectives.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I'd like to read a bit more about the project from the Washington Examiner.
		It says, because America embodies universal truth, restoring it, like restoring great art, would refresh and renew something valuable, not only to the citizens of this country, but to everyone around the world.
		America and its founding ideals are scarred with the depredations of hostile ideologies and encrusted with the dust of long neglect.
		But this nation can again be a shining city on the hill, a repository of high ideals and a cause of hope for all the people of Earth.
		It is in this spirit that the Washington Examiner has launched a campaign, Restoring America, that will draw attention in news reporting, commentary, and video to debate over the direction of the country.
		Can you talk about some of the people that you've brought into this project and what sorts of ideas they're pushing?
unidentified		Yeah, so broadly speaking, we do have a range of perspectives that come through our commentary page.
		We've published columns by Hugh Hewitt, most recently talking about the war in Gaza and how the United States should be supporting Israel in that conflict.
		One of our regular columnists is Heritage Foundation fellow Mike Gonzalez, who writes regularly, has written regularly recently about why Republicans should have and did defund NPR and PBS and the Commission for Public Broadcasting.
		And broadly speaking, how those things are in the best interest of America's founding and timeless principles, as you read it there from our mission statement.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		How do you see President Trump's role as it pertains to your Restoring America project?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And how do you think it aligns with the Make America Great Again movement more broadly?
unidentified		You know, one of the things, so this project was started still about a year into the Biden administration.
		And in that sense, there was, you know, a broad sense of cynicism that definitely predated that that year, but has continued ever since.
		And I think Trump, in a lot of ways, has kind of been the vessel with which people have kind of hammered the system with their cynicism towards government and public institutions.
		And so I think in Trump's sense, he Make America Great again is there's a little pit, there's definitely a parallel there with Restoring America.
		As an editorial line, our publication might not necessarily agree with everything that the administration or the president has done, but broadly speaking, we do agree with much of it.
		He is a Republican president after all.
		He's been governing largely as a conservative.
		And so there is definitely some, there's plenty of overlap there.
		But we are independent ultimately, and we still are going to advocate for the principles that we believe in, regardless of whether the White House is supporting them or not.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I mean, it sounds like the America First agenda of the White House.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Does that align well with the project?
unidentified		Well, it depends on where in what context.
		So we generally believe that we should be advancing American interests abroad.
		President Trump may have a little bit of a different view of, in some respects, of how we want to do that.
		Our editorial line is a little more supportive of Ukraine and involvement with Russia, whereas the president is recently going to be meeting with Vladimir Putin this week in Alaska.
		And we'll see what comes out of that.
		But there's certainly a possibility that that could prove fruitful for in the sense that we think about these things.
		But time will tell.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		There's been a lot of discussion, including in our last hour, about the 2026 upcoming elections, the midterm elections and gerrymandering.
		And you have a recent piece that Republicans are in better shape for the 2026 midterm elections than in 2018.
		Can you elaborate?
unidentified		Yeah, I think, firstly, 2018 was the last real wave election that we've had in this country.
		And 2022 was supposed to be the Republican wave, and it really didn't work out that way.
		And I think for, you mentioned gerrymandering.
		That's a big reason why.
		I think Republicans probably would have won more seats in the House if the redistricting that had happened between 2020 and 2022 had been more similar to what happened in 2010.
		And so what you're seeing now, I think, is that the number of competitive congressional districts is so much fewer now than it has ever been.
		And so Republicans, even if they do lose the House, I don't think you're going to end up in a situation where they're going to be 20, 30 seats down like they were in 2018, just simply because the map is not going to be there for the Democrats to do that.
		And the same, you know, if there's a Democrat president in 2030, it'll be the same thing like that.
		Otherwise, the Republicans are outraising Democrats fundraising-wise right now, which is shocking considering that Trump has largely animated the Democratic base as only he can.
		And then the Democrats are also struggling with their public image as well, which time will tell if they're ever really able to overcome that.
		Now, some of that is definitely some of their own base being upset at them, and they're still going to turn out and vote for them.
		But whether or not the independents and the swing voters that they need are going to turn out for them, I think was a real open question.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned President Trump.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Do you see Republicans as aligning with him and running with him in 2026 the way they did in 2024?
unidentified		Absolutely.
		I think that at this point, now you can't run as a Republican without aligning with Donald Trump.
		Susan Collins in Maine, withstanding, I think she's probably the only one that really can.
		But by and large, I think Bill Cassidy, who voted to impeach Trump in 2021, this time around is really trying to make amends with the president because he knows that if he could still lose his primary next year over that.
		And so I think it's a political liability for Republicans, by and large, to go against the president because the president, whether they like it or not, among Republicans, is the most popular Republican.
		The popularity of Trump doesn't, as a Republican, doesn't translate to the rest of the rank-and-file Republicans.
		And I think the GOP lawmakers as they run for re-election, I think, recognize that.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		There has been some recent polling, though, by YouGov, which said that the proportion of people who intend to vote for GOP candidates in a hypothetical congressional election has declined to 38.4%, while 43.7% said they would vote for Democratic candidates.
		So this means the Democrats are leading Republicans by six points, and Trump's disapproval rating is pretty high.
		The One Big Beautiful Bill Act isn't polling very well.
		How do you account for this in terms of saying that Republicans still may be better positioned?
unidentified		Well, I think one of the problems with polls is that they're a snapshot in time and they don't really capture the whole, really what the mood of the country will be when the election rolls around.
		The other thing is that people who saw this last year with the election that you typically have, there's often a response bias issue that older Democrats have typically been much more willing to respond to polls than other voters, whether they're young and independent or conservative and liberal or older Republicans.
		So I don't really put a whole lot of stock in that.
		I think that it's an old cliche, but I think ultimately the election is going to come out.
		Who's going to be able to drive their voters to the polls and who isn't?
		And so Trump is an animating force both for the Democrats and for the Republicans.
		So there's still plenty of time.
		And he's amassing a massive war chest to get his voters to the polls.
		And so I do think that he's going to be much, he is, in that sense, much better positioned than he was in 2018.
		I think he cares a lot more this time because he doesn't want to get impeached again.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Another animating force in the news right now is the Epstein files.
		This is animating a lot of folks on the Republican side as well as being used as a tool by Democrats.
		What impact do you think that's going to have on the 2026 midterms, if any?
unidentified		I don't think it'll have much.
		I think it's a, you know, if anything, it might depress a little bit of turnout among Trump's base.
		But I really, I just don't, I just don't think that it's going to have much of an effect.
		It's one of those issues that's like that really doesn't drive people to the polls in a way that the border, border security, immigration, and economic issues make people vote with their wallets and their, you know, their life experience.
		And I think, you know, Jeffrey Epstein, you know, is plays well on Twitter, but by and large, I think it's, it's a, and it does well for fundraising, but that's basically it.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		We're going to be taking your questions for Jeremiah Nichols of, excuse me, Jeremiah, calls you the wrong person, Jeremiah Poff of the Washington Examiner, my apologies.
		And our number for Republicans is 202-748-8001.
		For Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		And for Independents, 202748-8002.
		Before we get to the callers, though, I want to ask you a little bit about education policy of the Trump administration.
		So given the Restoring America project's focus on values, do you agree with the president's policy to cut funding to some universities and institutions on the grounds that they are bastions of anti-Semitism and ideological indoctrination, as the administration has said?
unidentified		Well, I don't think that institutions have a right to taxpayer money.
		I think that that's a, you know, you have to, taxpayer money is an investment in these institutions and the principles that these are supposed to be inculcating in our students.
		And so if these institutions want to use taxpayer money, they should be held accountable for how that money is being used.
		And if they're turning Harvard or Columbia into a place where students don't feel safe, I don't think that there's an obligation for the federal government to fund that.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		You write that the Trump administration has already permanently damaged Harvard.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		How so?
unidentified		Their reputation is in shambles and it's not going to recover easily.
		I think that what happened 10 years ago, or even five years ago, you still had a number of conservatives who think that Harvard is a good place to send their kids to school or for college.
		And I think that that's largely changing.
		I think that it's now going to become a much more partisan sorting of the student body at Harvard.
		Not that it wasn't very liberal in the first place, but the prestige of the institution, I think, is very much diminished in the sense that conservative institutions aren't going to look at a degree from there in the same way.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Last week, President Trump signed a memorandum to expand the requirements for colleges to report their admissions data, including proving that they're not unlawfully considering race.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of this memorandum and whether or not universities are likely to comply?
unidentified		Well, it's illegal to discriminate based on race and college admissions.
		I think, you know, and the Supreme Court ruled that a couple years ago.
		And I think that this, I think that the universities were still looking for ways to do that while they were complying with the letter of the law of the ruling from two years ago, while not necessarily complying with the spirit of it.
		I think the Trump administration, what they're doing here is they're saying, okay, now you don't get to backdoor your way into race-based admissions anymore.
		We're going to hold you accountable to make sure that anyone, regardless of where they come from, is going to be able to come, is going to have a fair chance to get admitted to your school.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So do you think universities should be gathering information about race at all?
unidentified		I think it's potentially damaging.
		I think that it would be better for everyone if they didn't.
		And maybe even if, you know, perhaps you could have a total blind admission where you just look at, you know, you don't even know the student's name or anything in the admissions board for perhaps I don't, you know, there are ways that this can be worked out, but I think that by and large, I think that race considerations, I think, pose a very serious problem of fairness and of equality, right?
		You know, everybody should have the opportunity to succeed if they're willing to put in the work.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's get to your calls for Jeremiah Poff of the Washington Examiner.
		Alfredo is in Mountain View, California on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Alfredo.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Yeah.
		What President Trump is doing by urging that Texas governor to redraw the maps in Texas so that he can literally rig the election and throw countless legal voters out of the voting rolls.
		This is a banana republic type of politics.
		This is a man who, Trump, who defies the courts, defies the legal system.
		This man is not qualified to be a president.
		What are your thoughts about throwing out legal voters out of the voting rolls?
		And I take my answer off the air.
		Thank you.
		Well, I don't think that legal voters are being thrown off the voter rolls.
		I think that, you know, the states are required to maintain their voter rolls, and a lot of them often don't, and sometimes have to be sued in order to make sure that they do.
		But, you know, no one who is eligible to vote is going to be turned away from any by any of this.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		What are your thoughts on the efforts of redistricting in Texas as well as some of the calls to do the same in California and New York?
unidentified		Well, I mean, I think this has been a zero-sum game for some time.
		I think, you know, even if you backtrack even to 2021, there was a redistricting war after the census.
		And so Republicans have in the past redistricted in the middle of the decade.
		They did so in Texas and I think 2003.
		So this is not really new.
		And Democrats redistricted in New York between the 2022 midterms and the 2024 election, and it helped them defeat a couple of Republican incumbents there as well.
		So I just, my view is like every party's going to do it.
		They should, you know, if they have the power to do it, they're going to do it.
		And I don't, you know, I don't really think that there's a simple answer to it that doesn't raise other serious problems.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Peering with some of the Texas Democrats that are out of the state holding back quorum in Texas, several of them were in Chicago, Illinois with Governor J.B. Pritzker and highlighting the actions of Texas Republicans while also talking about the Voting Rights Act.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And Governor Pritzker made these comments last Tuesday.
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.
unidentified		You've kind of addressed this, but is there any way out of this?
		I mean, I think if J.B. Pritzker is upset about how Texas is handling their maps, maybe he should look in the mirror for a minute because Illinois has one of the most egregiously gerrymandered maps in the entire country.
		I think they have three Republicans statewide out of, I think, 15 or so.
		I can't remember the exact number off the top of my head, but House seats, but they only three Republicans and they're all in these little tiny little strips that are very obviously not compact districts as you would expect a community to be formed.
		I think in your earlier segment, your previous guest mentioned expanding the House.
		Maybe that is a viable option towards helping eliminate some of this because one of the problems that you have is you have such large populations that are now compacted into congressional districts.
		And so oftentimes what you do through gerrymandering is you have people from one community kind of jammed into another community.
		And so they are connected in the district through another community and they don't have a lot of similarity with those people.
		And so, you know, Pritzker in Illinois, what he wants to do is make sure the Democrats have a chance to win the House.
		And, you know, Trump, you know, is, in all honesty, what he's doing here is he's trying to prevent another impeachment.
		And because the minute the Democrats win the House, that's what they're going to do.
		And I think that that's, you know, a big animating force in what he's trying to do here.
		And I think that Republicans also recognize that they don't want to see another two years of gridlock-based shattered by impeachment.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Here is that Illinois congressional district map showing some of those interestingly shaped congressional districts here.
		If folks would like to have a look there, some of them are long and narrow, but as you mentioned, this is something that happens across both parties in many states.
		So let's look, let's hear now from Janine in New York on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Janine.
unidentified		Good morning.
		First, I would like to thank C-SPAN for letting me have a voice at the Martin with his keen day breakfast last year regarding me and my son.
		My question to the guest is: Is there any efforts to protect human trafficked victims that are experiencing a mass amount of retaliation within law enforcement?
		And what is the president's efforts to combat that?
		And that's my question.
		You know, I think President Trump has made human trafficking a serious issue.
		I think it's a primary issue.
		I think it's one of the drivers for his border patrol or border enforcement efforts.
		But, you know, I think that that's a very important issue.
		And I think, you know, I think the president does care about it very much.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Next up is Julius in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Julius.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm stifling laughter as I've heard your guests say that Donald Trump cares about trafficking victims, and I'm thinking about Epstein and the glaring contradiction between what your guest just said and a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who is the greatest trafficker of young girls and women the country has ever seen.
		Wow.
		I don't know what the guest credentials are or why he believes that.
		It's just, it's laughable.
		I think we need to screen our guests better.
		I think that the think tanks put people up here.
		We don't know what they're paid.
		We don't know what their education is.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So our guest works for the Washington Examiner as an editor.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Those are some of his credentials.
unidentified		Is there a specific question that you have for him?
		Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, I'm also concerned about the prestige of America, and I definitely see a decline.
		I see bipartisan support for covering up Epstein.
		I see bipartisan support for the genocide in Gaza.
		I see billionaires' power expanding and growing and working people's power declining.
		I see inequality growing, not just here, but globally.
		I see eroding democratic institutions.
		I see democracies in trouble globally.
		And I'm wondering if this guest has any ideas.
		And maybe if you could speak to his educational background, he looks like he's probably 12 or 13.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Okay, you don't need to go into all of this.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Let's let our guest respond to the actual content of your question.
unidentified		Well, if I'm 12 or 13, I think I can last longer in my career.
		No, I do think that you mentioned Democratic backsliding.
		whatever that necessarily means, I think one of the issues that people don't quite, that people who latch onto that don't quite recognize is I think that there's a reason that people are upset in the United States with their institutions and then globally as well.
		You've seen populist movements pop up around the globe and I think a large part of that is because I think people feel like the Democratic institutions that they've believed in for so long have actually failed them.
		And I think there needs to be a reckoning as to why that is.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And for the record, our guests graduated from the Franciscan University of Stuponville in Ohio in 2019.
		But to the question about President Trump's support for human trafficking victims, I want to read a little bit of an article from the 19th News that the Trump administration pulls back on work combating human trafficking along a top GOP priority.
		And this is a story from July that as Republicans reel from the fallout surrounding accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, advocates working on human trafficking issues say the administration has abandoned promises to prioritize the issue, pointing to a key office charged by Congress with coordinating the federal government's work against human trafficking was gutted, the latest in a string of cuts across different agencies to the government's work on an issue that Republicans have long hailed as a priorities.
		These are referring to cuts at the State Department's office to monitor and combat trafficking in persons.
		And it decimated a team that worked to combat labor and sex trafficking abroad and help coordinate domestic efforts across other agencies, including the Departments of Justice, Health, and Human Services, and labor.
		And these are part of the broader reduction in forces at the State Department.
unidentified		Well, I think that there's been, ever since Trump came into office, I think there's been an incorrect equivocation between cuts as a matter of money and policy versus importance.
		And I think that one of the key distinctions here is that just because you're cutting a program doesn't mean you don't think that the issue that that program was addressing is important.
		And I think that one of the things the Trump administration has done is they're trying to streamline a lot of the way that the government is working.
		They've been working hard to, I think, eliminate some of the bloat.
		They've been looking at a lot of these programs and saying, okay, these programs have been in existence for 10, 20, 30, 50 years even.
		Are they giving the taxpayer return on their investment?
		And I think that the Trump administration, you know, I'd have to look more into that particular program to really give you a, you know, to draw a real conclusion on that in particular.
		But I think it's worth noting that some of these programs haven't really been giving the return on investment that people have been expecting.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		A question we received from James in Alexandria via text message.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Since the Washington Examiner aligns with the current administration, please ask Mr. Poff, when was America great for all people?
unidentified		You know, that's a good question.
		I think that one of the things that people, you know, that I think that in that sense that America has always been striving to be great, and I think that the promise of America has always been, you know, a great one.
		And I think that what people are, I think what Trump tapped into is that the promise of America, that you can succeed if you put your, if you work hard and you prioritize the important things in life of your family and your community, I think that was, you know, that you can succeed, that that was the promise of America.
		I think people don't feel that that's been the case anymore.
		And I think that that's why Donald Trump was able to tap into that and make America great again, a slogan that people resonated with.
		And I think Ronald Reagan at one point used that slogan as well.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Joe from Big Rapids, Michigan says, Donald Trump is not a true Republican.
		The Republican Party of Reagan and George Bush has turned a hard right towards authoritarianism, leading those who follow him to an uncertain future for the American experiment.
		This is a common criticism of the Trump administration.
		Your thoughts?
unidentified		Well, I think one of the things that people miss about, you know, when they say like, oh, Donald Trump has pivoted away from the party of Reagan, is I think Ronald Reagan was a president for a moment in time, right?
		1980 to 1988.
		The challenges that the country faced at that time were very, very different than the ones that they're facing now, George W. Bush at the same time.
		And I think in a lot of ways, Trump is a repudiation of the Bush-era Republican Party because that Republican Party became much more corporatized, technocratic, aligned with numerous special interests that we decry in Washington.
		One of the reasons that Trump is so unpopular with a segment of Republicans that were prominent during the Bush years is that he came in there and said, you guys made a mistake going into the Middle East over and over again.
		You guys sold the country out through trade deals.
		These are all things that Trump made as a point because the people that were affected by these policies were hurt.
		And I think that Trump gave them a voice.
		And I think that's why he is, in that sense, he's the president for this time in the way that Reagan was the president for that, for the time that he was.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Eddie is in New York on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Eddie.
unidentified		Yeah, I was just going to say, Tom Holman just announced the other day that so far they're up to 40,000 children that out of the 320,000 that Biden managed to be sex trafficked, they've already got 440,000, I mean, 40,000 kids, they already recovered.
		The FBI is doing a great job.
		Trump's doing a great job.
		And that's all I have to say.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Eddie, I'm sorry, the beginning of your comment was a little unclear and Eddie hung up.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		But I believe that he was talking about recovered children from sex trafficking operations.
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, I haven't looked into too much of it.
		I do think that I think the AG and the FBI have been doing making a priority there.
		I also think that one of the things that is still being worked on is all the Biden administration let in so many people over the border through their immigration policies that there were a lot of unaccompanied minors that basically were completely lost throughout the country.
		And there's a very real possibility a lot of them were trafficked.
		And I think that one of the things that the Trump, that is one of the priorities, I think, at the Department of Health and Human Services that they're trying to prioritize there.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		David is in California on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, David.
unidentified		Yes, dude.
		If the Democrats are in such disarray, how is it that they managed to win, what, 11 special elections so far this year?
		They're also going to win two governorships this year and a couple of congressional seats.
		Get real, man.
		Here's the problem.
		9 million people couldn't vote for the girl.
		So to Americans, this is what you get.
		You couldn't hold your nose like Republicans do.
		And this is what we get, some clown, some 79-year-old clown who wears a diaper, puts makeup on, and he's...
		What's your question for Jeremiah Poff, David?
		My question is, if the Democrats are in such disarray, how is it that they've won seven special elections this year?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's let Jeremiah respond.
unidentified		You know, one of the curses of what Trump, that Trump has brought to the Democratic or to the Republican Party in a certain sense is that he made it a party of low-propensity voters.
		And I think, you know, Democrats always had typically the low-propensity voters.
		They would do poorly in midterms and special elections, and then they would do well in presidential elections.
		Now that has flipped.
		The Republicans now are the ones who do poor in off-cycle elections, and Democrats do better in those elections because they have a more educated, a more engaged base.
		And I think that that is really what explains a lot of the disparities between the special election.
		In Florida, I think in April, the Republicans, I think, underperformed by 15 to 20 points.
		And really, a lot of that can just be explained by the fact that Republicans just didn't show up because they're not really that engaged politically to show up in special elections.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Greg in Claremont, California has a question about our conversation regarding institutions of higher education.
		Your position is that the government shouldn't subsidize liberal education institutions.
		Is your view the same for conservative institutions?
		Better yet, aren't all higher education institutions inherently liberal?
unidentified		Well, I think that depends on what your definition of the term liberal is.
		But I think one of the, you know, there are a number of conservative higher education institutions out there that have refused to take federal funding for years.
		Hillsdale College, most famously, Christendom College in Virginia.
		Those places are much, by not taking federal money, they are kind of separated from the strings that are attached to that money.
		And I think Harvard learned the hard way that once you start taking money from the taxpayer, it comes with strings attached.
		And I think that's one of the things that I think liberals and the left have kind of didn't quite understand when they started subsidizing all these institutions.
		And I think it's better for an institution to not be tied to the taxpayer because it gives you more independence.
		It doesn't even give the appearance that you might be beholden to a certain viewpoint or interest group.
		And, you know, we say the same thing with politicians, with donors, right?
		You know, the ex-person gave so-and-so a whole bunch of money.
		They must be bought by them.
		I think a similar principle applies here when it comes to higher education.
		If you're going to take money from the taxpayer, you've got to expect that the taxpayer is going to put strings to that money.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, when you say that some of these universities don't take taxpayer money or federal funds, are you referring to just grants or also federal funds in the form of like Pell Grants that the students make?
unidentified		Yeah, I don't believe it.
		I might be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure that Hillsdale and those institutions, you can't, they don't take federal funds.
		FAFSA doesn't do you any good at those institutions.
		And I think that, you know, that's how, like, once you start taking money from that pot, like there are numerous strings attached, you know, whether it's Title IX enforcement in the way that the Biden administration was doing it, which raised issues with religious institutions and others.
		And now with the race-based admissions, for liberal institutions, I think you pay a little bit of a price if you take money from the government.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Carl is in Norwich, New York on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Carl.
unidentified		Good morning.
		My question has to do with the immigration policy.
		It seems like the administration is going to great length deport Well, they want to deport a million people a year.
		My feeling is that the country would be better served if we had a smarter policy allowing to allow immigrants to become citizens.
		My recollection is the last time this got any serious consideration was during the second Bush administration.
		It never got very far, but it seems like President Trump is talking about getting rid of crooks as well as tying that to a reindustrialization policy.
		It seems like getting rid of crooks would be fine, but many of the people who are here perhaps illegally are pretty good candidates to become citizens or to become productive citizens of the country.
		What does the Washington Examiner policy about a kind of thoroughgoing review of our immigration policy with an eye to giving a lot of the people in the country a very short and productive path to citizenship?
		Thank you.
		You know, I think the immigration issue has been one of the most animating issues for the electorate in recent years, and I think it's one of the big reasons that Trump won.
		You know, at the Washington Examiner, we generally take a very suspicious view of any sort of amnesty that may come down.
		I think that's one of the things that people, you know, people who are here in this country who came through the legal pathways view that as a rather rather unfair to them.
		Because if you see that, you know, we have millions of people who've come in here through the legal pathways and they've generally, you know, many of them eventually become citizens, but then you have a whole bunch of people who just walked across the border and didn't bother to do it the right way, I think is really unfair to a lot of the people who did come here legally.
		And I think that that's one of the things that needs to be considered.
		And a lot of businesses appreciate, you know, big corporations want those people to stay here that came here legally because it helps them lower wages for Americans.
		And I think that that's really another unfair thing that people don't quite see on a day-to-day basis.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Shelly in Ambler, Pennsylvania says, isn't it true that people have lost faith in our institutions because leaders like Trump are actively working to destroy them?
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Isn't it true that Republicans have weaponized all governmental institutions?
unidentified		I mean, I would say that the Democrats did weaponize the institutions in the previous term and as well.
		I think faith in the institutions has declined even before Trump.
		It's not a Trump unique thing.
		I think people don't quite understand what the government is doing for them and how it's helping them.
		What they do see is that their houses are, their communities are falling apart.
		The jobs that once made their communities stable have gone and shipped overseas.
		And they feel like the government who was supposed to help them has failed them.
		And that's why Trump, I think, won.
		He didn't win because he promised to break the institutions.
		He won because the institutions were already broken.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Stephen is in Dewey, Arizona on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Stephen.
unidentified		Yes, I'm calling about immigration.
		And what I don't get about immigration, when Obama was president, they called him the deporter-in-chief.
		He was deporting as many people or close to what Trump is, and he didn't have the 20 million illegals in this country.
		And he wasn't deporting criminals.
		And if you look at the pictures of the cages he put in, there was no beds.
		All of a sudden, all we can deport are criminal illegals.
		When Obama clearly said, and so did Biden, that anyone who comes into the country illegally should be deported.
		And it's just funny how the Democrats who were not around during Obama's deportations and Biden's deportation, all of a sudden they care about these people, all these congressmen and senators.
		It just amazes me that all of a sudden they only have to be criminals and they have their right in court.
		When Obama deported them, they didn't have any rights either.
		Because when you break the law, come in the country illegally.
		And it's just funny how that's changed in the last two, three years.
		Yeah, I think one of the things that the Democrats are going to have to figure out if they're ever going to, if they're going to get, if they're going to be able to right the ship after 2024 is that they need to come to terms with the fact that the American people didn't really appreciate the immigration regime of the Biden years.
		And so they went way to the other direction.
		And, you know, some of them have.
		There were a number of Democrats that voted for the Lake and Riley Act at the beginning of the year.
		But the immigration regime of Obama is far afield from what the Democrat Party is talking about now.
		And I think that's a really good point.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Rick is in Atlanta, Georgia on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Rick.
unidentified		Yeah, I guess the question I have for your guest is, how in the world, how do you do this?
		How do you twist yourself into a pretzel trying to explain away this guy in the White House from January 6th from having people in mass come up against people and trying to take them off the street?
		If that happened to you and your family, wouldn't you be concerned about something like that?
		My father was an Army Air Corps World War II bomber pilot.
		My brother, Marine.
		My wife's mother, father, U.S. Navy.
		I was a Navy fighter pilot.
		I used to vote Republican, but your party has lost their minds.
		How do you twist yourself into a pretzel with this guy who's a grifter?
		You talk about elitism.
		He's got a mansion in Florida.
		He's got a guy who's the most richest person in the world in there.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		It's just about out of time for this segment.
		I think we understand your point.
		I want to let Jeremiah respond.
unidentified		You know, again, I think that one of the things that Trump did is he, you know, he may have come from wealth.
		He may have come from the tower in New York and the mansion in Florida, but he spoke to people in a way that they felt heard in a way that no one else has.
		And I think that people, you can't really discount that.
		And I think that that's one of the things that makes him unique.
		He's going to be a unique figure in American history because of that, because he spoke to people in a way that the institutions that opposed him couldn't understand and couldn't counter.
		And I think that that's really going to be ultimately the story of Donald Trump in the history books.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Well, that is all the time that we have.
		Thank you so much, Jeremiah Poff, who is the editor of the Restoring America Project at the Washington Examiner.
		Thank you so much for your time.
unidentified		Thank you, Kimberly.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And so for everyone else, we're going to be taking more of your calls coming up on Open Forum.
		Our comment lines are open now.
		You can start dialing in.
		Republicans at 202-748-8001, Democrats at 202-748-8000, and Independents at 202-748-8002.
		We'll be right back.
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		Book TV commemorates the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II with several author conversations.
		Ari Hota looks back at the attack on Pearl Harbor from the Japanese perspective.
		A.J. Boehm recalls the challenges that President Harry Truman faced during his first four months in office.
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		Susan Southard examines the impact the atomic bombing of Nagasaki had on the city and its people.
		We also continue our celebration of America's 250th with author conversations on the American Revolution.
		Andrew Roberts looks back at the reign of King George III and argues that he has been misunderstood in his book, The Last King of America.
		Then, historian Harlow Giles Unger, author of First Founding Father, recounts the efforts of Richard Henry Lee in the Revolutionary War, from his call for independence from Britain in the Second Continental Congress to his exploits on the battlefield.
		And National Constitution Center president and CEO Jeffrey Rosen talks about how the founding fathers thought about virtue and were influenced by classical writers in his book, The Pursuit of Happiness.
		Watch Book TV every weekend on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
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peter doocy ▲ ● ▼		Why are you doing this?
unidentified		This is outrageous.
		This is a kangaroo climb.
		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.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We're in an open forum, ready to hear your comments on public policy and news events of the week.
		We're starting with Bonnie in Delta, Colorado on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Bonnie.
unidentified		Hi.
		I was calling about the illegal immigration that Joe Biden let in to our country.
		I could not possibly figure out what he was thinking when he was doing allowing all those people to come flooding into our country.
		And I heard last week that the way that that each state is delegated to the number of people that they can have in the Congress was by the census.
		And so there was bus upon busload of people that were bused up that were just ready to take the illegals here in Denver and California and New York.
		And that raised the census for each one of the states.
		And now I understand what Joe Biden was doing.
		He was doing what they understand now that is what's going on in Texas.
		And, you know, what about Massachusetts?
		No one even talks about that.
		Massachusetts has no Republican representative to our Congress.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So Bonnie was referencing the way that the census numbers are tallied and in the frequently asked questions page of the U.S. Census Bureau, it does address this point of who is included in resident population counts.
		And that's what is counted every 10 years in the census.
		The resident population counts include all people, citizens and non-citizens, who are living in the United States at the time of the census.
		People are counted at their usual residence, which is the place where they live and sleep most of the time.
		Now, that's related to what Bonnie was referencing in terms of the census.
		Now, Cliff is in Jefferson City, Tennessee, on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Cliff.
unidentified		Good morning.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
		You're an open forum.
		What's your comment?
unidentified		I'm calling about Marsha Blackburn, running for governor in Tennessee.
		I don't understand the people of this state why they would elect her.
		She's done nothing for the state of Tennessee.
		If she gets to be the governor, she'll turn right around and appoint Tim Burchett to take her place in the Senate.
		It's just all a big gimmick.
		That's about all I've got to say.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		There's some reporting on this from just a few days ago in Axios, Nashville, saying Blackburn reshapes the 2026 race for Tennessee governor, saying that U.S. Senator Marcia Blackburn stomped into the Tennessee governor's race Wednesday and quickly assembled an army of support featuring many of the state's top Republicans.
		Blackburn is a titan of Tennessee politics, and she instantly became the frontrunner in the Republican primary field, which also includes U.S. Representative John Rose.
		Scuttlebutt surrounding Blackburn's run began late last year when she placed a statewide television ad.
		Some insiders guessed it would be the announcement that she was running for governor, but that ad turned out to be Blackburn wishing everyone a Merry Christmas.
		All right.
		Mustafa is in Jackson, Mississippi on our line for independence.
		Good morning, Mustafa.
unidentified		Good morning, and thank you for taking my call, Kimberly.
		And that's Jackson, Michigan.
		No worries.
		Everyone gets it incorrect.
		So thank you again for taking my call.
		As a proud U.S. Army veteran and a foundational black American whose ancestors built this nation, I want to talk about the enduring reality of two justice systems in America.
		One system serves white citizens, including those granted honorary white status, while the other disproportionately targets and criminalizes foundational black Americans when defending themselves.
		Take, for instance, the recent incident in Cincinnati.
		The conflict began when a suspected white supremacist slapped an FBA individual.
		Yet the media and justice system have misrepresented the event, failing to report the initial aggression and instead portraying the foundational black Americans as unjustified in defending themselves.
		Even in C-SPAN's coverage of the story, you omitted the critical moment when the suspected white supremacists slapped the foundational black American individual, failing to show the true origin of the conflict.
		Now, contrast that with the tragic case of Jordan Leely, a young black man who was killed on a New York subway by Daniel Penny, a suspected white supremacist, simply for yelling.
		Time and again, when foundational black Americans assert their right to defend themselves or express distress, we are vilified, while others are shielded by a system designed to protect them.
		We work as the Democratic leaders who passionately advocate for the rights of illegal immigrants.
		Why are they silent when it comes to defending the rights of foundational black Americans to protect themselves?
		We are not our ancestors.
		We will not passively adore aggression from the dominant white supremacist society as those and the honorary white.
		Lastly, Kimberly, I would implore you and your listeners to please stop referring to foundational black Americans by the misnomer of African Americans.
		It kind of helps create ethnocide against black American descendants of freedom.
		We are not generic Africans or minorities, people of color.
		Some black people were here prior to slavery.
		Furthermore, an ethnogenesis has taken place with us.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Miles is in San Angelo, Texas, on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Miles.
unidentified		Hey, Kimberly.
		Good morning, everyone.
		There's a lot of passion this morning.
		I'm feeling pretty angry.
		I can't believe that we have a felon as a president and what he's done with Jeffrey Epstein and Jelaine Maxwell and his wife.
		I read yesterday that Epstein was giving his interview, and one of the things he said was he was going at it with Melania in a limo before he ever introduced her to Trump.
		And I thought that was something everybody should really know.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Where did you see that, Miles?
unidentified		I don't know for sure.
		I hate to just, it was in an interview that he gave.
		It was a text.
		It wasn't the stuff that's been released where he says he was his best friend for 15 years, but it was right after that.
		He said, I introduced Melania to Trump on the jet.
		And then he said, but before that, of course, I knew Melania.
		Anyway, what I would like to say is it's a shame.
		I want to send a shout out to the Navy veteran that called in earlier.
		He didn't get a chance to say more, and he was awesome.
		I feel the same way.
		We have a traitor in the White House.
		We are currently in a dictatorship, a racist dictatorship, and it's frightening.
		I can't wait till it's over with.
		And the other thing, the last thing I would say is the ridiculous idea of him putting it in the middle of the market.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I do want to say, Miles, I was trying to find any evidence of what you just said, and maybe I'm not just able to find it quickly, but I haven't been able to find a source on that bit that you mentioned about Melania Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		But please continue.
unidentified		Well, I don't know why it would be so hard to believe to be true.
		I did see it somewhere.
		I can't say where.
		But anyway, I mean, I'm not putting anything past Trump at this point.
		You know, he's disappearing people.
		The parallels to pre-Nazi Germany are just too frightening.
		And I can't believe that MAGA is going to accept him after knowing what he did to those children.
		It's just the Christian nation thing.
		No, no, wrong.
		It's not a Christian nation, people.
		We're racist, and we use religion to be racist.
		And I'm a white man.
		And it's, you know, the caller before me is exactly right.
		Black people are not Africans.
		They're Americans.
		And last thing I want to say, Kimberly, I swear this last thing.
		Thank you for letting me speak.
		I appreciate it very much.
		And your earrings are beautiful.
		But I just want to say that these people that call other people illegals, that poor lady that called in earlier and says Joe Biden let in two billion illegals.
		No, I live in Texas, lady.
		That gate, that wall idea was a 19-toll idea of Donald Trump's.
		He said, what can we do to make our country great, you guys?
		We need to get the McDonald's out.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Let's hear from Asa in Little Hawking, Ohio on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Asa.
		Asa, go ahead.
		You're in open forum.
		Just make sure to turn down the volume on your TV and go ahead.
		All right.
		I'm going to try to come back to you a bit later.
		Let's go to Robert in Atlantic City, New Jersey on our line for independence.
		Good morning, Robert.
unidentified		Good morning, Kimberly.
		I'm concerned that the Democrats and Republicans in the House will not follow the child sex trafficking accusations of the intelligence agency and organized crime pollution.
		And I don't think they're going to go above Maxwell.
		They might out some of the male Johns that we're paying and videoed with these underage kids.
		But I don't find, in our republic, I don't find our centrist Democrats and centrist Republicans willing to out the intelligence agency blackmail extortion and leverage that they have used for decades against our elected representatives.
		And I'm not confident that we'll find out who has the videos, which, whether it's MI6, Masad, of course, Slangley.
		But that's critical.
		To stop it from happening again, you have to go to the higher-ups and not just the Johns.
		You have to go to who's running that thing.
		And it wasn't Maxwell and it wasn't Epstein.
		They were just low-level soldiers in a bigger scheme.
		And that's my comment.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Tom is in Newark, Ohio on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Tom.
unidentified		Oh, thanks for taking my call and say hey to Greta and Pedro.
		You guys are great.
		Well, I hate to bring this up, but you people aren't listening to me.
		As usual, the Democrats are ignoring our federal laws because they have mortgage into a lawless rogue and criminal party that lusts for perpetual control of our constitutional republic.
		The only people losing Medicare are non-citizens and illegal immigrants.
		The only thing the Dems do well is lie.
		History shows Republicans never engaged in such brutal and godless behavior of slavery.
		Our tent is big.
		Walk on over.
		We welcome all of you.
		Save America.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Coming up after open forum at the end of the show, we'll be taking you live to the United Nations Security Council, where they are going to be discussing the conflict between in Gaza, between Israel and Hamas.
		So please stay tuned after our show if you'd like to watch that here on C-SPAN.
		Back to your calls for Open Forum.
		Adrias is in Cuddy, Pennsylvania, on our line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Adrias.
unidentified		Yes, what I would like to do is, I guess, people always say I say the wrong things, and I don't want to put Donald Trump down.
		I believe we should respect his office.
		But he's the type of person who is an opportunist.
		He takes advantage of the ignorance of Americans because Americans have been programmed to be ignorant, such as racism.
		How are you going to say, I've often asked this question, do you believe in God or do you believe there is a God?
		How can you say you believe in God and you believe you're superior?
		How can you believe in God if you think another race is superior to you?
		So if that makes sense to you, and Donald Trump is the type of person who have no principles, he'll do whatever he has to do to get what he wants.
		That's just about all I have to say.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Don is in New Orleans, Louisiana, on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Don.
unidentified		A very good morning to you in this dog days of summer.
		You know, I thought that the Constitution mandated a U.S. Census, and that's how we base our district congressional districts on a U.S. Census, not gerrymandering.
		Gerrymandering is likened to, like in sports, you had the dead ball period in baseball where the baseball was soft, and then you had the live ball when Babe Root came alive and hit all the home runs.
		And then you had the Showtime Lakers.
		You know, you had these different, you had the West Coast offense in the National Football League.
		You had all these different era.
		I thought those things, West Coast offense and things of that nature, was aching likened to gerrymandering, but it's not the game.
		It's not the sport.
		It's not the constitutionally mandated issue of the sport.
		And then in business, you have general accepted accounting principles.
		And so I don't realize, I realize that we're operating on a system of platforms and not the undergurden of the system of computing and all the other things that advanced America as a superpower.
		And so the people make these things go forward because of their beliefs.
		If you got people believe in MAGA of Donald Trump, then those people are in the minority because of the benefits long before and long after Donald Trump will be in office will hold true.
		And remember this, that the United States will be celebrating 250 years.
		And it has one of the, if not the oldest, constitution in the world continuously.
		And so Donald Trump hasn't been around 250 years, and his policy won't last 250 years.
		What we have to understand is that we have very dynamic people amongst us.
		You know, there are two young ladies who saw a couple more folks before we're out of time today.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Denise in North Carolina on our line for Republicans.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Denise.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'd like to address the human trafficking situation and how our elected officials are not being held accountable for their engagement in corruption.
		And what is our president going to do?
		You know, I believe in Donald Trump.
		I believe in his policies.
		But I want to know, is there any way that our government can hold these elective officials accountable, such as Bob Ferguson and Josh Stein, that have engaged in criminal behavior of human trafficking victims?
		And there's nothing to protect human victims.
		And we need to be protected.
		And there's nothing to protect us.
		That's all I have to say.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Brenda is in South Carolina on our line for Democrats.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Brenda.
unidentified		Oh, hi, Kimberly.
		How are you?
		I have three points.
		I'm going to try to be quick.
		One, I think Donald Trump's golden age is basically a recreation of the gilded ages that he's trying to go back to.
		Because before there was a federal income tax, we didn't have a lot of programs.
		There was no Medicaid, Medicare.
		There was no minimum wage.
		And I hope that you can find some historians to go talk about life for the workforce.
		We were pretty much commodities or business, and so death on the job was commonplace.
		And I don't think people understand that.
		My second thing I want to bring up is due process.
		And I think people don't understand about giving migrants due process is when we can give due process to the worst people, then the rest of us benefit.
		I mean, y'all talked about the 30th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.
		168 people were killed.
		He got due process.
		The Boston bombers, one shot, one killed, one shot, taken to the hospital.
		They didn't let him die.
		They got him well, and he went before a judge, due process.
		I mean, that's what our system is based on.
		And maybe we need to have some historians to talk about why we have due process.
		And then the last thing, if you can do some comparison of the Obama administration, Biden administration, and Trump administration on ICE.
		And Obama deported more people than I think the last president other than him was Eisenhower on a much smaller budget, had judges, gave people due process, because I don't think people understand the cost of which it is that Trump is blowing through money, picking up people, people who shouldn't be picked up, housing them for 20 or 30 days in prisons, the cost of that, and then returning them.
		The way he's processing and the money he's spending compared to other presidents who have deported more people with due process versus what he's doing is astronomical.
		Okay.
		And last thing, if I can squeeze it in, is some historians to talk about the revolution, the war, how long it took to fight the revolution, and then the conditions in which the soldiers and everything lived under in that almost seven-year period.
		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Carol is in Elgin, Texas, on our line for independence.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Carol.
unidentified		Good morning, Ceaseman, and good morning to all your viewers, and thank you for taking my call.
		I really appreciate Ceasepin.
		I'm a long time viewer.
		I just wanted to add some facts in.
		I'm from Texas.
		And I wanted to add some facts in about the redistricting that is going on and the fight that's going on.
		And the first one is: Texas is a state that their legislature, their state legislature, only meets once every two years.
		And so we have a special session going on that was called by the governor because they couldn't get the business taken care of during the regular session that meets once every two years.
		And the special session was called to consider cannabis laws and laws governing marijuana.
		And then they added in all the flooding and the victims from Kerrville from the horrendous flooding we had.
		And that was fine.
		There were some more issues added.
		But then suddenly the phone rang.
		And Donald Trump, their king for the Republican Party, was on the phone and said, I want five more seats.
		And the reason was, he said it out loud in public.
		You can go look at it.
		I deserve it.
		I deserve five more seats.
		And that's what he said.
rich in new jersey ▲ ● ▼		And of course, our Attorney General, Ken Paxton, who spoke at the January 6th rally for Donald Trump when they attacked the Capitol, and our governor, Greg Abbott, who used to be Attorney General, they used to openly brag that they got up in the morning and their goal in life was to sue the federal government.
unidentified		And now the federal government called them, the president called and said, I need five more seats.
		So all the cannabis laws and all of the people in Kerrville got shoved off the table.
		They swept it off the table.
lewis in fema region 7 ▲ ● ▼		And three or four days later, Alakazam, we got them five more seats.
unidentified		And that's why Democrats are fighting so hard.
		We're fighting because this, there's some of us that are old enough to remember hot tub Tom DeLay when he redistricted in mid-Span.
		That means not during the census, but three or four years from the census, he redistricted back in the 90s.
		And that's when this all began.
		So there's a little bit of stuff that's going on in Texas that we're fighting over.
		That's a state fight.
		It's translated into a national fight, but this is a state fight because they're trying to cheat.
		I'm in District 10.
		My representative, Michael McCall, he doesn't even campaign.
		He doesn't even put up a sign.
		And he just picked his voters.
		And now he's always elected, and we can't ever change him.
		And he doesn't hold a town hall.
		He doesn't show up.
		He never talks.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		I'm going to get in one more caller before we're going to have to get done with the show today.
		So let's hear from Kente in Sacramento, California, on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Kente.
unidentified		Hey, what's happening?
		Hey, I like hearing about the subject about marijuana all the time.
		It's an issue.
		However, I like to talk about how the consciousness of what she done, America, to black people.
		And that's what's really the issue.
		And black people's cue on the stage is about to come.
		And always when they are on stage, America changes.
		And she's going to have to awaken to what she did to black people.
		And what happened in Cincinnati is something that you're going to have to reckon with because you tried to suppress the rights of those that you saw here before you got here,
		as well as take advantage of the ones that was in Africa when you needed more people to join your slavery here in America when you had to fight the ones that was already here and you won.

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