CSPAN - Washington Journal 08/11/2025

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Aug. 11, 2025 06:59-10:07 - CSPAN

03:07:55

Washington Journal 08/11/2025

Participants

Main

david becker

31:47

pedro echevarria

cspan 36:05

steven nelson

05:49

Appearances

benjamin netanyahu

isr 01:13

greg abbot

01:02

jd vance

admin 01:34

lindsey graham

sen/r 01:05

margaret brennan

cbs 00:36

mark rutte

01:37

muriel bowser

00:57

Clips

al green

rep/d 00:06

donald j trump

admin 00:11

jonathan karl

abc 00:04

kristen welker

nbc 00:19

patty murray

sen/d 00:10

rev clenard childress

00:06

ron gibson

00:16

sean duffy

admin 00:04

Callers

dennis in north carolina

callers 00:02

jody in florida

callers 00:13

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Speaker	Time	Text
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		Coming up on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live.
		Then we'll get the latest update in the battle over Texas redistricting, sparked by the Texas GOP and the Trump administration, with David Becker, founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research.
		And New York Post Chief Washington correspondent Stephen Nelson talks about the latest White House news of the day and previews the week ahead.
		Also, Quincy Institute Research Fellow Anel Shielin joins us to discuss the latest news on the Israel-Hamas conflict and efforts to reach a ceasefire.
		Washington Journal starts now.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is the Washington Journal for August 11th with President Trump and Russian President Putin scheduled to meet on Ukraine.
		There are differing views on who holds the strategic advantage.
		Some Yale professors argue that Mr. Trump has the upper hand, as the U.S. could use the threat of new tariffs to pressure Russia's struggling economy.
		Conversely, another opinion piece suggests it's Mr. Putin who has the advantage due to his firm stance on Ukraine's territorial integrity and his unwillingness to concede occupied land.
		We'll show you both of those pieces in the start of the program today when it comes to the upcoming meeting between President Trump and President Putin over Ukraine.
		Who do you think has the upper hand?
		Here's how you can let us know this morning.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		And Independents 202-748-8002.
		If you want to let us know your thoughts on who has the upper hand on this upcoming meeting via text, that's 202-748-8003 is how you do that.
		You can also post on our social media site.
		That's facebook.com slash C-SPAN.
		And on X, it's at C-SPANWJ.
		It was last week that that announced meeting is scheduled to take place Friday in Alaska.
		In light of that announcement, two pieces recently coming out taking various viewpoints on strategic advantage.
		This was from Time, two Yale professors writing in the recent days.
		Trump has the upper hand going into the meeting with Putin.
		And here's some of the argument from Yale professors Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Stephen Tyan.
		They write, unless Putin ends his war, he threatens to strangle his own nation with inflation.
		As Trump pointed out, Russian inflation has gone through the roof with annual inflation near 10%.
		Given this deteriorating economic backdrop for Putin, Trump holds all the cards while Putin holds none.
		If Trump chooses to escalate economic sanctions and economic pressure on Russia through cutting off Putin's exports of oil and other natural resources, Putin could run out of money very soon.
		Perhaps even by the end of the year, Putin's bluff is ready to be called if Trump plays his hand correctly and doesn't back down prematurely.
		Again, those are from those Yale professors at Time magazine.
		It's in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
		Trudy Rubin, who writes regularly on foreign policy, in recent days putting this piece up, saying it's Mr. Putin who has the upper hand in the meeting upcoming with President Trump on Ukraine.
		Here's some of the arguments she makes.
		She says, never mind that Putin has made clear over and over that he believes Ukraine has no right to exist, recently repeating his mantra that, quote, all of Ukraine is ours.
		Never mind that the Kremlin Tsar is terrorizing Ukrainian civilians with missiles and Shahid drones.
		Never mind that this Russian war criminal has told Trump's hopelessly naive emissary, Steve Witkoff, that he won't accept less than full Ukrainian capitulation.
		Once again, Mr. Trump appears ready, no eager, to play into Putin's hands.
		Just holding the meeting will be a diplomatic victory for Mr. Putin, who wants to emerge from isolation from the West for his brutal invasion of a neighbor.
		That was from the Philadelphia Inquirer.
		You can find it online.
		Those are the thoughts from those opinion pieces when it comes to this upcoming meeting scheduled for Friday.
		This idea of who has the upper hand going into this meeting.
		If it's Mr. Trump or Mr. Putin, you can tell us your thoughts.
		202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats and Independents, 202-748-8002.
		You can also text us your thoughts at 202-748-8003 and post on our social media sites at Facebook and on X. New York is first up.
		Democrats lying.
		This is Rob on who has the upper hand going into this meeting.
		Rob from New York, hello.
unidentified		Hey, thank you.
		Good morning, and thank you for C-SPAN.
		You do a great job at what you do.
		So keep up the good work.
		I think Mr. Putin has the upper hand because there's supposed to be some sort of blackmail that he can perform.
		Putin against Trump all these years over this story, from when he had a missed Universe contest in Moscow and afterwards they went.
		Trump went back to a fancy hotel and the rooms that was bugged by the KGB and things went on allegedly with women and that received money for their work, and that those tapes are can be used as blackmail.
		So there's no way that our president is going to allow those types of things to come forward.
		Imagine what the world would say if those tapes turn out to be true.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		But of all the things, why do you, why do you think that's the playing card that mr Putin holds?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Why do you think it's that and play it now versus uh, previously on these issues of Ukraine?
unidentified		Well, I think that those are his the the aces up his sleeve, and I think you know Putin is this kgb.
		He's a smart, dirty dog.
		You know he's.
		He's not going to be a loser when it comes to these types of things.
		Imagine that he planned things like this way in advance, blackmail he's.
		He's a shrewd SOB.
		And I wish our president all the luck because I am so pro-Ukraine that it's not even funny.
		But thank you for C-SPAN.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Moses is next.
		This is Moses in Brooklyn, New York.
		Independent line.
		The upper hand when it comes to this meeting on Ukraine.
		Moses, hello.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'd like to express my opinion.
		Why doesn't anyone ever talk about the demographics of Ukraine?
		It's 99% Christian.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Why is a Jew running the Ukraine?
unidentified		Why is there so many corrupt Jews in the Ukraine?
unidentified		They caused this war, not Putin, okay?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So, like, be.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, but specifically on the meeting, on the upper hand idea, who do you think has it at this point?
unidentified		Who has the upper hand?
unidentified		Hitler.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Jackie is next in Oklahoma, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Yeah, hi.
		How are you doing?
		I'm just wondering, why would you even ask the question, who has the upper hand?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We ask it only because some opinion people have talked about this upcoming meeting and what's at play.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You called on it, so what do you think?
unidentified		Well, I think that if Trump and Putin can work out a deal where the killing stops, that's the upper hand.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So you don't think one has the advantage over the other at this point?
unidentified		No, no, they both want peace.
		You know, I think that, you know, the whole idea of Ukraine is they were promised when Russia, you know, collapsed the USSR, that NATO would not go one inch eastward.
		And they haven't lived up to that.
		They haven't lived up to that deal.
		I mean, you know, the guy is surrounded by NATO.
		I mean, what would we do if China put missiles in Russia and Canada?
		How would we react?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So you think, so as far as going into it, nobody has the upper hand in your opinion, one way or the other, as far as the end result when it comes to Ukraine?
unidentified		No, I don't think anybody has the upper hand.
		I think they both have the same goal in mind.
		And let's see what happens.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Jackie there in Oklahoma.
		Let's hear from Jimmy in North Carolina.
		Hello.
unidentified		Hello.
unidentified		How are you doing?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Fine.
		Thank you.
		You're on.
		Go ahead, please.
unidentified		Okay, I believe that Trump could have Yelensky there because it's his country.
		He needs to have a say in how this goes.
		And to promise and to go into any kind of agreement to give land to Russia, I don't think that's our job.
		It's up to the Ukrainians if they want to cede land.
		And Russia started this war.
		I don't see how they can say that they have a right to do anything.
		They did not have to invade Iran, Ukraine.
		I mean, they could have just left it alone, but they decided to go ahead and do what they did.
		And now they want Ukraine to give them more land.
		I don't think it's right.
		And I think Ukraine needs to be at the table.
		There's no way you can do this without them.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		For the two people at the table scheduled for Friday, who do you think has the advantage at this point?
unidentified		Say that here.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		For the people that are going to meet President Putin and President Trump, who do you think has the advantage at this point?
unidentified		I think Putin has the advantage because he can't be trusted.
		No matter what he says, you can't trust a man.
		He's proven time and time again that he can't be trusted.
		You know, and he has nothing to lose, really.
		I mean, yeah, they've lost people in the war just like Ukraine had.
		But Putin cannot be trusted.
		So he has the upper hand.
		I don't trust him at all.
		Trump can go over there thinking that's his friend if he wants, but he's going to leave the table losing it.
		That's how I feel.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Jimmy Bear in North Carolina, that meeting scheduled for Friday between President Trump and President Putin.
		When it comes to advantages or who has the upper hand is some of these pieces that we've showed you this morning leading up to that meeting, what do you think?
		202748-8001 for Republicans, 202748-8000 for Democrats and Independents, 202748-8002.
		And text us too at 202748-8003 if you want to give your thoughts there on this idea of an advantage going into the meeting.
		Let's hear from Mary in Florida, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		I give President Trump a lot of credit.
		I believe he has the upper hand.
		Putin is a thug.
		He'll kill just for the thrill of it.
		I feel very sorry for the Ukrainians.
		They had nothing to do with what happened.
		I pray for them every day.
		Putin is killing his own people.
		He doesn't care about life.
		I believe President Trump is a very smart man.
		He knows how to deal with Putin.
		I do believe Zelensky should be at the first meeting, but maybe President Trump wants to figure Putin out before putting him into it, Mr. Zelensky, President Zelensky.
		But I pray for everybody because it's a terrible war.
		Too many lives have been lost.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mary there in Florida.
		This is Edward, who joins us from Ohio Independent Line.
		You're next up.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Thank you.
		Good morning.
		Yes, I think, well, first of all, in the previous caller, Trump is not a very smart guy.
		I think he's a very ignorant man.
		But aside from that, Putin, beyond a question of a doubt, has had the upper hand for years now with this guy.
		It goes all the way back to the 2016 election.
		And a previous caller had made mention of the possibility that Trump is being blackmailed by Putin.
		I think I kind of buy into that.
		So with that in mind, I have to say that Putin is going to have the upper hand in this upcoming talk, which, by the way, is going to take place.
		I think it's supposed to take place in Alaska.
		Am I right about that?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You are so.
unidentified		Which in itself is a little bit strange.
unidentified		But nevertheless, it's going to be Putin with the upper hand.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		But why specifically in this meeting, though?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Why do you think that's the case for this meeting that he has the upper hand?
unidentified		Well, because he's coming over to the United States, and I don't think that we have the home court advantage with that.
		In fact, you know, Putin is a wanted criminal in just about every country on the face of the earth.
		I mean, if he goes anywhere, I mean, he's going to be arrested.
		So why is he allowed to come into the United States?
		So I think that that was a negotiating ploy as well.
		So he'll be here in our country.
		You would think we'd have the home court advantage, but I just don't think that that's going to be the case at all.
		I think Putin will dominate.
		And I don't think anything is going to come out of this.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Edward in Ohio giving us his thoughts.
		Another Ohio in.
		This is Kevin.
		Democrats line.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Hi.
		I think just the question itself is couched in Trumpian terms.
		I think the whole concept of there's a deal and there's a winner and the loser is actually contrary to the goal of a peace effort.
		In most countries, when peace comes, it's because people are just tired of killing each other.
		In Ireland, you know, the troubles of Ireland were settled when people just said, you know, that's really just enough.
		And so we are people of greater nature, and we should contemplate that and we should work toward that.
		And everything, you know, yes, it's a pitched battle.
		Is it real war?
		I don't know.
		Japan, that was real war, you know, but this is just people who want something, somebody else has.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		In that wanting something, do you think both have a card to play in getting those things that they want?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And if that's so, what's the case?
unidentified		Well, I think the country that can best deal with any hardship and not suffer any political impulse is Russia.
		It's not the United States, you know.
		It's just like fighting with China.
		You know, we can hold out.
		No, China can hold out.
		Guess what?
		We're kind of milquetoast on the world's ability to handle hardship.
		So that's where I come from.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Kevin in Ohio.
		It was Vice President JD Vance in an interview on Fox News talking about the person missing from these upcoming talks, President Zelensky.
		The write-up in the New York Post talking about that interview that he did, there's the headline that Vance says only Mr. Trump, President Trump can decide when to bring Putin and Zielensky together for peace talks.
		Here's some of the thoughts from the Vice President yesterday.
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		One of the most important log jams is that Vladimir Putin said that he would never sit down with Zelensky, the head of Ukraine, and the president has now got that to change.
		We're at a point now where we're now trying to figure out, frankly, scheduling and things like that around when these three leaders could sit down and discuss an end to this conflict.
		Now, what do I think is ultimately going to come out of this?
		Look, it's actually very simple.
		If you take where the current line of contact between Russia and Ukraine is, we're going to try to find some negotiated settlement that the Ukrainians and the Russians can live with, where they can live in relative peace, where the killing stops.
		It's not going to make anybody super happy.
		Both the Russians and the Ukrainians probably at the end of the day are going to be unhappy with it.
		But I don't think you can actually sit down and have this negotiation absent the leadership of Donald J. Trump.
		And the president said this to me today privately.
		He said, look, maybe this works out, maybe it doesn't.
		But it's worth the effort.
		It's worth trying.
		And we're going to keep on using the diplomatic influence of the president of the United States to accomplish an end to this conflict.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That was on Fox News yesterday.
		The editors of the Washington Post write about this upcoming meeting under the headline, A Risky Peace Gamble in Alaska.
		They say at the summit, Mr. Trump should proceed carefully and methodically.
		The starting position of Friday's discussions will be Mr. Putin's demand that Ukraine withdraw unilaterally from what it still holds of Dunk in exchange for a ceasefire.
		Mr. Trump can calmly counter with a proposal put forth by the European allies that Russia first agrees to a ceasefire as a precondition for any reciprocal trading of territories.
		Under such circumstances, swapping of the remains of Dunsk for territories in Zapozo and Kherson regions have Russia currently occupies may be acceptable.
		Security guarantees will also have to be part of the discussion.
		That's from the editors.
		Again, we've showed you the pieces from both Time Magazine and the Philadelphia Inquirer talking about this idea of going into these meetings on Friday.
		Who has the upper hand?
		Getting your thoughts on that.
		202748-8001 for Republicans, 202748-8000 for Democrats, and Independents, 202-748-8002.
		Let's hear from Tony in Pennsylvania, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Morris Eastman.
		I believe that Putin probably had the upper hand because Donald Trump is incompetent.
		So unless he was negotiating with someone like Urkel, then he will never have the upper hand.
		And I agree with the one caller that called and said to you that this question is so irrelevant when there's so many important issues taking place in this country.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, you called and commented on it, and you talked a little bit about it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Elaborate more on why you think the President Putin has the upper hand then.
unidentified		I called to tell you what I just told you.
unidentified		I already told you why, because Donald Trump is incompetent, and you seem to be the same if you're going to ask a question like this with so many issues taking place in this country.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's Tony there in Pennsylvania.
		One of the people also commenting yesterday on these upcoming talks and particularly where the various players are, is the NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta.
		He talked about this meeting, talked about NATO's role, what they feel or what they're looking forward going into the meeting.
		Here are the comments from Secretary General Ruta yesterday.
mark rutte ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to full-skill negotiations, and let's hope that Friday will be an important step in that process.
		We need Ukraine at the table.
		It will be about territory.
		It will be, of course, about security guarantees, but also about the absolute need to acknowledge that Ukraine decides on its own future, that Ukraine has to be a sovereign nation, deciding on its own geopolitical future, of course, having no limitations to its own military troop levels, and for NATO to have no limitations on our presence on the Eastern Flank in countries like Latvia, Estonia, and Finland.
jonathan karl ▲ ● ▼		So you've been clear about that just now.
jonathan karl ▲ ● ▼		The European leaders have been clear about that.
unidentified		But do you believe that Donald Trump supports all of what you just said?
mark rutte ▲ ● ▼		I do believe that.
		Donald Trump, the president, wants to end this.
		He wants to end the terrible loss of life.
		He wants to end the terrible damage being done to the infrastructure in Ukraine.
		So many people losing their lives, so much damage being done.
		And clearly, these two big issues have to be on the table.
		One is territory.
		And we have to acknowledge at this moment that Russia is controlling some of Ukrainian territory.
		And the question will be how to go forward past a ceasefire, including what it means in terms of security guarantees for Ukraine.
		And let me add one important aspect here.
		When it comes to this whole issue of territory, when it comes to acknowledging, for example, maybe in a future deal that Russia is controlling de facto, factually, some of the territory of Ukraine, it has to be a factual recognition and not a political dejure recognition.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		These comments on this upcoming meeting on Friday, who has the upper hand?
		That's what we're asking you.
		202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, and Independents, 202748-8002.
		Some of you posting on Facebook.
		A viewer Mwaos says, and I apologize if I got the name wrong, saying Ukraine is losing badly, adding that Putin has all the cards.
		Bob Glenn, also from Facebook, saying that President Trump has plenty of ways to try and force President Putin into a peace agreement.
		He's already taxing Russian oil going into India and China.
		These, quote, incentives can be increased and throw the Russian economy into a tailspin.
		And then Cindy Hahn from Facebook, too, saying it's President Trump who has all the cards.
		And he's the only one that could pull this off.
		The president's the only president who has the guts and who cares about America enough to do it.
		Those are the comments from Facebook.
		You can make those comments there.
		You can also post on X as well.
		Give us a call on the phone lines in Texas.
		This is Willie, Republican Line.
		You're next up.
unidentified		Hello.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Willie, in Texas, you're coming in really there's a lot of static there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Can you try getting closer to your handset or at least getting closer to a stronger signal?
unidentified		Can you hear me?
unidentified		Hello?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're better.
unidentified		Yes.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Okay.
unidentified		How about now?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Perfect.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		All right.
		So I think a slight upper hand goes to Donald Trump.
		Somebody just recently said it, or you read it, where, you know, we have the opportunity to bring massive sanctions on Russia.
		On the other hand, I think, you know, Putin has kind of a moral upper hand, in this case, with the whole war to start with.
		I mean, look up Victoria Newland.
		Look up, you know, the folks in the Biden campaign who made this happen and all the other folks who wanted Ukraine to be part of NATO when Russia specifically said, you know, they don't want to, you know, they just don't want Russia, I mean, the Ukraine to go or NATO to go one step further east.
		Really quickly, one last thing, Pedro.
		I think you guys are kind of slipping because you had a guy who called talking about the PP tape, and he doesn't know that that has all been debunked.
		Oh, by the way, all of it has been declassified by Telsi Gabbert.
		And I think that maybe something you all should kind of, you know, maybe look at when people say things like that, just kind of correct them.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Willie in Texas, this is Bill texting us this morning saying that it's President Putin has the advantage because he can walk away or propose a settlement, but he never has to abide by his word.
		Mr. Trump has nothing to bargain away.
		He has no authority to meet in behalf of Ukraine.
		Again, you can text us your thoughts at 202-748-8003 if you wish.
		Let's go to Melvin.
		Melvin is in Florida, Democrats line.
benjamin netanyahu ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Hello.
		Good morning, Pedro.
		You know, this is basically the same thing going back to what happened in Afghanistan.
jody in florida ▲ ● ▼		Trump went out and negotiated with the Taliban and not having Afghanistan people involved in it.
unidentified		And that's what happened.
		People keep thinking that Biden messed it up, knows Trump, and then he released 5,000 prisoners in all that time.
		And that's what ended up bringing that Afghanistan thing down because they were never invited to the table.
		And Trump negotiated with the Taliban and not having the Afghanistan their presence.
		This is the same situation, and it's going to happen the same way again.
		It's Trump doing what he thinks he wants to do.
		And that is not what's supposed to be going on here.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, what do you mean by how does that apply then to Friday's talks?
unidentified		Friday, because he's not going to invite Selensky there and go there.
		He's been trying to negotiate stuff with Russia without Selminsky there in the first place.
		You don't understand what I'm saying?
		That's the issue.
		He negotiated for Afghanistan with Taliban about leaving out of there when they withdraw.
		He left, and Afghanistan's government just disbanded that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Right, got that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		But the vice president himself said this is a starting place for talks and that Zelensky, they're trying to figure out.
unidentified		Vance has no say-so in any of this.
		He's just running his mouth saying something.
		He has nothing.
jody in florida ▲ ● ▼		It's the same thing he's been trying to do several times backdoors.
unidentified		And it comes from also with the issue that he had when he was running for president.
unidentified		He wanted Selinsky to sit up and lie for him about some stuff going on with Biden's son.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So at the end of the day, between the two men, who has the upper hand, in your opinion?
unidentified		Between what two men?
		Oh, Putin's got the upper hand.
		Because Trump, you know, Putin don't pay any attention to Trump.
		He's laughing at him behind the closed doors.
		Please, get serious.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Bob in Tennessee, Independent Line.
		Hi.
		Bob in Tennessee, go ahead, please.
unidentified		Yeah.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You too, Bob, are coming in a real static.
		You're going to have to adjust your phone to get a better signal.
		Try it again.
		Okay, let's hear from Harley.
		Harley in Florida, Independent Line.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		You know, the interesting thing is that they both had the upper hand.
		The only question is who's going to be more determined?
		Because on the one hand, Putin feels he's only got to hold off another three years and he's probably going to be fine.
		And Putin's winning.
		So he even said himself, why should he make concessions when he's winning?
		And the Russians historically never give up.
		They tend to lose in the beginning, and then they win ultimately.
		It's what happened with Napoleon.
		It's what happened in World War II.
		On the other hand, with Trump, if he's really determined to get a peace agreement, he has to change the calculus and show Putin that he's losing.
		And that means he really has to enforce these secondary sanctions.
		But he has to really do it, and he has to do it now.
		And there are a lot of people that'll say that he's not really that determined to do that.
		So it really comes down to perseverance.
		Whoever's going to show more perseverance will have the upper hand.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What does your gut say about who you think is going to show that perseverance?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Who do you think has the advantage that way?
unidentified		Well, Trump has it now, but Putin's playing the long game.
		And the people who are knowledgeable about Russia feel that Putin will never give up.
		And given that they're so much larger than Ukraine, that they'll eventually overwhelm Ukraine and that Europe will eventually get fatigued out of all this.
		The key thing here, really, is for Europe to be united because Europe has 550 million people.
		And when you look at all the NATO nations together, I think it's 31.
		And Russia is only 130 million people.
		But they have all different viewpoints in Europe, and it's hard to get them as a cohesive unit.
		But if they stand together, they arguably don't even need the United States.
		And so far, Trump has been very helpful in getting Europe to improve their defense budget by 5%, which is long overdue.
		So it's really a test of wills.
		Will Europe really get itself together and recognize that they have an existential threat and really be able to be united against Russia?
		Or will Putin just persist on and feel that he'll sacrifice everything in Russia to eventually win?
		And that's what, again, the experts say.
		Or will Trump use all the leverage he has?
		Because he does have enormous economic leverage.
		If he handled India better, instead of humiliating India and Embarrassing them by saying they have to do it.
		If you worked it behind the scenes, you probably could have won India over because India and China are the two largest buyers of Russia's oil.
		And I think he could prevail with India if they just manage it well.
		So I think, you know, they all have the upper hand, if you will.
		The question is, how do they apply it?
		Okay.
		And if they apply it effectively and with persistence, I think that side will prevail.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Harley there in Florida giving his assessment, both of them with the upper hand.
		You may share those thoughts of Harley.
		You may disagree with him.
		202748-8001 for Republicans.
		202748-8,000 for Democrats.
		Independence 202748-8002.
		More from the Post taking a look at this upcoming meeting saying Russian analysts say that Mr. Putin would not agree to withdraw forces from Kherson or Zaparziziya regions and that Russia illegally annexed in 2022, but still does not fully control.
		Quote, Russian troops are not going to make any step backwards, said Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin analyst.
		The only compromise Russia would make, he said, would be to halt its military campaign to seize Odessa and Kharkiv regions and the cities of Kherson and Zaporizhia, which remains under Ukrainian control.
		Zelensky reiterated Saturday that he would not accept any deal that would involve giving territory to Russia.
		And she said, for it's forbidden by Ukraine's constitution.
		James is from Washington, D.C., Republican line, this idea of who has the upper hand on this upcoming meeting on Ukraine.
		James, hello.
unidentified		Hello, and thanks for taking my call.
		I think Putin has the upper hand, and he's not going to stop.
		He's going to keep going.
		And I think what we have to do is to get united against him, European nations.
		I really agree with the last caller.
		It's a matter of will.
		And I think one of the most important things is no matter what, Ukraine has to have NATO.
		They have to be allowed to come into NATO because that's the only thing that's going to prevent Putin from going in there again.
		He's proven time and time again, he's not honest.
		He's going to go in there.
		He's going to try to take more land.
		And he wants to take all of Ukraine.
		He's not going to stop.
		Why should he stop now when he is winning and he's going to win by just keeping doing what he's doing?
		He doesn't keep his word.
		And I think that's what we have to do.
		We have to unite.
		And then Ukraine has to become a form of NATO.
		And even if NATO gives up some land, if they know that they're part of NATO, then Russia will not come in there again.
		But that's the most important thing.
		They have to be a part.
		I don't know why they haven't been a part of NATO.
		In the past, they were supposed to get in and they didn't.
		So that's how I feel.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		James, some of the callers and some of the writing on this talked about the president and further economic sanctions.
		That could be a playing card when it comes to this upcoming meeting.
		What do you think of that idea?
unidentified		That's definitely good.
		And I think that is one of the only cards we have is if Trump can't play his economic card against Putin, because there's a danger that he's going to go into inflation with his economy.
		So I think that's one of the main cards we have.
		And that could work.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		James there in Washington, D.C., giving his thoughts.
		We'll hear next from Jeffrey Jeffries in Michigan, Democrats line.
		Hi, Jeffrey.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		And thank you, Pedro, for all you do and all the hosts at C-Span.
		Just want to say, watch your program forever.
		But your first caller and the gentleman from Ohio nailed it.
		I just had to call in behind their comments.
		And you're still on, Jeffrey.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Okay, I'm sorry.
		I'm watching TV and see you my working.
		But anyway, the first gentleman you had on and the gentleman from Ohio nailed it.
		This is Putin's all-along play.
		Trump played right into it.
		He's just as goofy and stupid as he is.
		He shouldn't even be here.
		And I don't mean to, you know, I don't mean to sound, you know, really, really, but Pedro.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, elaborate on why you think it's President Putin with the upper hand, specifically.
unidentified		Because I told you, the gentleman from your first caller and the other.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, now elaborate on your own words on that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Why do you think that is?
unidentified		All of that stuff on Trump when he was over there hosting that pageant and all that stuff.
		He's blackmailing him.
		The FBI and all that tried to tell him that from day one.
		And oh, it was just a hoax.
		Now this Jeffrey Epstein crap is all this is coming out.
		Now they want to oppress it.
		I'm telling you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, the caller, we had a caller saying that that was all debunked by Tulsi Gabbard.
unidentified		No, it was not.
		They'll tell us anything, Pedro.
		But I said that to say this, and I won't go on and on.
		But now, you mark my word, if Jelensky goes to meets with Russia and I mean with Putin and Trump, he'll be a dead man.
		He will be a dead man, which he's smart enough not to do that anyway.
		Because this is all just a hoax, Pedro.
		I mean, it's really not really a hoax.
		This is all just BS.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, John in your jersey, up next.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Independent line.
unidentified		Hi there.
		Hi.
		Can you hear me?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yeah, I think the U.S. has the upper hand, always did have the upper hand because of resources available for the U.S. to support Ukraine.
		And Ukraine clearly has the population willing to go to war and protect its land.
		And so I think to the extent that Trump is willing to use U.S. resources to arm Ukraine, Trump has the upper hand.
		It's only a question of whether he'll use that or not.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So those resources, are they military in nature only or economic?
		Some of them plied with further sanctions.
		Do you think that's a tool?
		Elaborate on.
unidentified		That's an interesting question.
		I think they're both useful.
		I don't know how effect, at least I've heard news that Russia has found a way to circumvent a lot of the trade restrictions that were placed on Putin.
		I don't really know how successful the U.S. has been with trade restrictions.
		But clearly, the Ukrainian population is willing to fight and die for their country if they have the weapons.
		Can't do it with sticks and pitchforks.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's John in New Jersey.
		That meeting between President Trump and President Putin, as many have said already, taking place or scheduled to take place this coming Friday in Alaska.
		That's the kind of framing the question of us who has the upper hand on this.
		Lynn Nelson off of X saying it's nothing more than a photo op for President Trump, just like at Helsinki.
		We'll never know what was said and we'll never know the truth.
		J.D. Redding said the war criminal Putin's economy is hemorrhaging and his battlefield gains are poor, but he has a diplomatic platform and symbolic wins.
		The president, President Trump, risks undermining Ukraine and fracturing Western unity if he pushes a deal without Kiev's consent, but has leverage through economic tools.
		This is from Patty off of X saying that it's President Putin with the upper hand because he knows he's not going to accept anything that President Trump says Zelensky won't accept giving land to Russia, though there's no winning scenario.
		Putin is KGB.
		He will always be KGB.
		That's why Zelensky and Putin can't be in the same room.
		Those are some of the thoughts of X and Facebook.
		If you want to post there, text us too at 202748-8003.
		If you want to give your thoughts that way, you can always call us on the lines: 202748-8001 for Republicans, 202748-8000 for Democrats and Independents, 202748-8002 in North Dakota, Republican line.
		Jim is next.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Hey, Pedro, can you hear me?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
		Go ahead.
		We can.
unidentified		Yeah, I think it's ironic that they're meeting in Alaska.
		Of course, your listeners are very educated people.
		C-SPAN junkies know their stuff.
		And that belonged to Alaska belonged to Russia.
		And it was Seward's folly became Seward's triumph because the Russians were basically tricked.
		They had no idea of knowing all the resources that were under the water on the coast and under that frozen ground.
		And so we kind of pulled a little bit of a flim plan there.
		Maybe Trump can maybe give back Alaska as a trade.
		But I'm just kidding about that.
		But also, just like the Southwest, United States belonged to the Spanish Empire.
		You often hear a white liberal say, you know, up against the wall, they'll say, we have no moral right to keep people out from Mexico and Central America because that used to belong to them.
		And of course, that's not true.
		It belonged to the Comanche and the Apache.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So relate that to this idea that we're talking about as upper hands are concerned.
		What do you think?
		Where do you think that falls?
unidentified		Well, I think it's kind of, I think it's even, Stephen.
		I think anything can happen.
		But remember, what I'm trying to point out is the same unredeemed lands of eastern Ukraine is what Putin has gone after.
		He's not going, he's trying to redeem what 700 years ago, lands that belonged to Russia.
		That's something that happens throughout history.
		So, you know, Democrats, the same Democrats who say the Southwest should be simply given back or reconquisted by the Hispanics, maybe we can just, maybe Russia, why don't they say the same thing about letting Russia take back those lands that used to belong to them?
		And that's what Putin's going after.
		Putin's not going to invade all the way to Poland and all the way back to Berlin and surround Berlin.
		He doesn't have the resources to do that.
		He's trying to take back those lands that were his people's.
		And if we understand him, where he's coming from, we can work with him.
		We used to try to understand Stalin, and we used to try to understand Khrushchev.
		And we debated them, talked to them, we had meetings with them.
		Stalin has more evil in his pinky toe than Putin has in his whole body, yet Harry Truman and Roosevelt tried to work with him.
		And you have to work with these people.
		And I just think that I think Putin should be allowed to have that land back.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, you made that case.
		Let's go to John in Virginia.
		Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
steven nelson ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		Thank you for taking my call.
		I want to say, first of all, Putin is not coming here.
		He's coming for a vacation in Alaska.
		Number two, Putin is very clear in the first place that he will not accept someone who will bring weapons in his backyard.
		You don't invite someone to your house and have a weapon in your backyard.
		That's not going to happen in Russia.
		Number three, you have to understand, you compare in Apple and Orange.
		Putin is a clear politician, and he's been around for many, many presidents.
		He knows what Donald Trump, what he's thinking, and where he's going, all this thing.
		By saying who's upper hand, remember, people need to understand America, they don't have enough weapons to fight anymore.
		And Putin knows about that.
		We're engaging two wars.
		We're investing two countries.
		We're sending money to countries, money and weapons.
		We're out of weapons right now, and Putin knows about it, and he will not accept it.
		Nothing.
		If Zelensky comes here for vacation, that's fine with him.
		But you have to understand, look at Putin's history.
		People need to understand that.
		And I don't see how we even compare who's got upper hand.
		His words does.
		Putin knows about Donald Trump, his wars doesn't mean nothing to him.
		And we need to understand that.
		We are very disrespect around the world today.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		Let it alone.
unidentified		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		John there in Virginia giving us his thoughts.
		The New York Times this morning takes a look at this upcoming meeting, this idea that Kyiv must be involved.
		A statement from the European leader saying the leaders there said that meaningful negotiations can take place after a ceasefire or a reduction in hostilities has been put into effect.
		That's a position long held by Ukraine, but one that Russia has consistently rejected.
		The European leaders also said that they remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force and that the current front line should be the starting point of negotiations.
		That language amounted to an implicit rejection of Mr. Trump's recent suggestion that a ceasefire deal could include some, quote, swapping of territories.
		That's from the New York Times assessment.
		Here's George joining us from Michigan, Independent Line.
		Hi.
unidentified		Good morning, fellas.
		How are you doing?
		Yeah, my thoughts on this are that if Mr. Trump is such an idiot, how has he already negotiated three stopping three border wars between different countries?
		Okay.
		He's already been going to be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
		And one of the things, the stupidity in this country is just astounding to me.
		How people can call in here and rip on Mr. Trump.
		Everybody that's listening to me should get on their knees and pray every day that Mr. Trump can stop this war.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, specifically, George, what gives them the advantage upcoming on Friday, do you think, specifically?
unidentified		I don't think there's going to be any settlement to that because I think Putin is a liar.
		It's been proven he's a liar.
		He's got the upper hand.
		He's going to continue to fight as long as he can.
		I don't think there's going to be a negotiated settlement to that war.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		George there on our independent line.
		Let's hear from Homer.
		Homer is in Missouri.
		Excuse me, Democrats line.
unidentified		Hello.
		Good morning, Pedro.
		Thanks for C-SPAN.
		You look pretty good this morning.
		I love that tie.
		But obviously, Putin has the upper hand.
		Anybody that saw Mr. Trump in Helsinki knows who has the upper hand.
		I mean, you know what?
		And this guy talked about the P-tapes.
		Well, guess what?
		Whenever you pay off a porn star, that's the kind of baggage you're going to be dragging around.
		That's why I really don't understand how these people support this man.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, specifically, how does that all add up?
		Because several people have brought up Helsinki.
		Some of you have brought up the tapes.
		How does that all add up as far as advantage is concerned, do you think?
unidentified		Because obviously, Mr. Trump is Putin's unit holster.
		I mean, ever since Mr. Trump got into office, the Ukrainians have suffered.
		And, you know, it was supposed to be done day one.
		Give me a break.
		I mean, this guy, this president that we have right now is going to make Mr. Buchanan look like Mr. Lincoln.
		I mean, really, Pedro.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Gary there is in Georgia, Independent Line, this upcoming meeting.
		Who has the upper hand?
		Gary and Sylvester, Georgia.
unidentified		Hello.
		Yes, I think that Putin's got the upper hand because we got Trump.
		He was meeting with Putin once before, and he believed Putin owed his own Department of Justice.
		And Putin's going to have the advantage because Trump is afraid of Putin.
		Putin, he tells Trump exactly what he wants Trump to do, and Trump never stands up to Putin.
		He bullies everybody else, but when it comes to Putin, he's sitting in Putin lap, and Putin is spanking him, and that's what he's going to continue to do.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We've offered military support to Ukraine.
		We've offered other types of support to Ukraine.
		Why do you think that is, in your terms, a sense of Mr. Trump being afraid of Mr. Putin in this case?
unidentified		Because he'll continue to be afraid of him.
		Putin has something on Trump.
		I don't know what it is, but he has something over Trump's head.
		And Trump is afraid of Putin.
		And when this meeting is over, you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.
		Nothing is going to change.
		Putin is going to do exactly what he wants to do.
		He's not going to concede anything.
		Putin's going to get just what he wants, and Trump's going to let him have it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Ray.
		Ray on our independent line as well.
		He joins us from Vermont.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, I'd just like to say that neither side has an advantage where the war is concerned.
		There's a lot of death involved on both sides.
		And ultimately, this is leading us into a third world war, which we already is happening in all different areas, technology and internet and every other way as far as that goes.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So why is it that you think neither man has the advantage?
unidentified		Because I think that Putin doesn't have to, and he wants to gain his land.
		And Trump, I don't think that he can force him enough because of the dark money that's involved with everything and China and the nations that support Russia to keep them from not being able to sustain themselves through their sanctions and things, those such things, such things as that.
		You know, the punishment, they're able to withstand it because they're getting oil from places and being supported behind the scenes to continue.
		And they will try to continue.
		And I don't think we can put enough pressure on them.
		I don't think that Trump's going to be able to put enough pressure on them, although I know that his heart is good, and he wants to help the American.
		He wants America first.
		He wants to help the American citizens.
		But there are certain people in our government, not in our government, but people in the country that are against him.
		They don't even see that our nation's becoming communist and it's all being moved towards a new world order.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that's Ray there in Vermont.
		This is Vieweroff of X saying it's not about which of these gentlemen have the upper hand, which clearly President Trump has, but the truth of the matter is that Zelensky doesn't have the cards.
		The concessions that Russia wants in theory has already been conceded on the ground, and tariffs are going to be lethal.
		Again, you can make those comments on X if you wish.
		That's at C-SPANWJ.
		Facebook available to you too at facebook.com slash C-SPAN, as well as our text service if you want to text us your thoughts on various things.
		The phone lines are there for you, too.
		You pick the one that best represents you if you call it in the last 30 days.
		If you hold off from doing so today, we appreciate it.
		Peter is in Massachusetts.
		Independent line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi.
		I'd just like to point out, I think that Putin has the upper hand.
		During the early part of Trump's first term, some of the history came out of his relationship with Russia.
		He wanted very much to have a Trump tower on Red Square.
		He had his teen Miss Universe pageant.
		He said the things that we all know that he said about, well, I'm the owner.
		I have the responsibility to walk in on these girls while they're getting dressed.
		And we know that he has said that just like Jeffrey Epstein, he likes him on the younger side.
		And we know that he has said that with his power and confidence, he can grab them any way he wants.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I don't know how all that relates to what's coming up on Friday.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		How would you make that case?
unidentified		And he has himself said that you don't mess around in Russia because you know that everybody records things.
		So coming up on Friday, Putin holds the same compromat that he has held for more than a decade.
		They go the long game here.
		And the offer on the table is the same as an offer that Trump's henchmen were offering in 2014.
		So nothing new here.
		It is Putin pulling the strings, Trump being the mouthpiece, because Trump is too close to the Epstein situation, and this is looking more and more like it all came in one nice package.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Ohio Republican line, this is Bill.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, I think the meeting really doesn't cost a lot of money, so talk is cheap.
		And maybe it would be a good meeting to have, but Trump really needs to stand his ground and support Ukraine because the long game for Putin is still Ukraine.
		And all he's going to do with this meeting, if he gets an agreement, is to buy time to rebuild his military structure so that when he goes back after Ukraine, it will be final.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Bill, when you say that Mr. Trump has to stand his ground, what do you mean by that?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What would you like to see as part of that?
unidentified		It's to make sure that his ground that he stands is in coordination with Europe and Ukraine.
		And that not giving territory is the right process.
		Giving territory in the sense of not recognizing, but Russia already has certain territories of Ukraine, 20, 25%.
		It should be a temporary occupation.
		It's an occupation, not a give.
		And that at some future date, when the regime in Russia changes and they're willing to negotiate, Ukraine gets back its territories.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Bill, there in Ohio, it was sentiment when it comes to territory and other issues made by the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, Osana Oksana, sorry, Markarova.
		She talked about the possible ceasefire deal, what it would cost Ukraine, and what Ukraine is concerned about.
		Here's some of her comments from yesterday.
margaret brennan ▲ ● ▼		Well, what we know from our reporting is that Envoy Witkoff, Steve Witkoff, went to Moscow.
		He was described, described to him was a Russian idea for some kind of settlement of the war.
		And it included carving up parts of Ukraine.
		Then on Friday, President Trump spoke publicly about what had happened.
		And he said President Zelensky has to get everything he needs ready because, quote, he's going to have to get ready to sign something.
		And I think he's working hard to get that done.
		What is he going to sign?
		What has been proposed?
unidentified		Special Envoy Vitkov is a special envoy on Russia, and he works with that counterpart.
		And we work with Vice President, with Secretary Rubio, with Special Envoy Kelek, and with all team and Secretary Besant and others on everything on our bilateral agenda.
		President Zelensky has been very clear.
		Ukraine is committed to peace.
		We will be very constructive in all of our discussions.
		At the same time, we have to, again, acknowledge the facts.
		You know, it's Russia that attacked us.
		It's Russia that illegally occupied Crimea and other territories since 2022.
		We do have the main Bible of the country, the Constitution of Ukraine, which clearly lists in Article 133 that Ukraine comprises of and says what is it comprised of.
		Now, we all understand the reality on the ground, and we are ready to discuss how to end this war.
		And that's why ceasefire as a step has always been so important to stop the killing, something that President Trump has put on the table as early as February.
		So let's stop the killings and let's get to diplomacy.
		That's something Ukraine always was ready to do.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is Dennis.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		He's in Georgia, Independent Line.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Yeah, I guess we're all relying on reporting coming from different places, but it seems to me like just what I'm hearing with the deals going down with India and the tariffs and the way Trump's manipulating oil resources for Russia or from Russia, I don't see where Russia even has a leg to stand on.
		I think, you know, a lot of things that people are bringing up that Trump did in the past with Pat was a Democrat then, so you got to look at that.
		He might have been doing something there, but I don't know what Russia could use to hold over him, you know, that would be, you know, more powerful than what Trump was going to use as far as markets for against the Putin.
		And I know it's the Putin oligarchs against the Ukrainian oligarchs.
		So, and then we got, you know, I guess we're all relying on reporting.
		So we should all think about that before we, you know, we don't know.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that President Trump's willing to flex those economic stressors then?
unidentified		I think he's going to show Putin the paperwork and he's going to probably lay it out, show him how bad it could get for Russia.
		But, you know, Trump's not a, you know, I don't feel like he's got the brutalness in him that Putin does.
		But when Putin sees the light, his oligarchs that are holding him up are going to say, look, Trump's going to flatten all your tires and you're going to, you know, you're going to be sitting here drunk in the road and the cops are coming.
		So yeah, I don't see Putin have, he doesn't have nothing.
		I don't see, you know, he's really a big boogeyman that's been created, but he's not, you know, he doesn't have anything.
		So I think Trump's going to run through there.
		It's probably going to be, you know, he'll give him a couple weeks of, you know, to get ready.
		But I don't see where Putin has anything to defend his position.
		I think it's just it's over.
		Trump's going.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Yep, we got Dennis there in Georgia.
		Darrell is in Idaho.
		And boy, is he Democrats line?
unidentified		Hi.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I think this goes back to the Crimean issue.
		NATO, or we didn't help them when they illegally took over that area.
		And this has been the goal and dream of Russia since Catherine the Great.
		And before her, is Crimea.
		So I think Zelensky has several cards to play.
		And he's been patiently working at it.
		I was encouraged when both Denmark and Sweden joined NATO, but I'm sure Putin wasn't.
		And in terms of Trump, Putin, and Zelensky, Zelensky has the upper hand because of his people and their determination and their army.
		And he's at least a semi-honest man.
		And I believe this should come down to a quid pro quo.
		I think he should, I'm talking Zielinski, should forfeit Crimea because Lush already basically has it and we went along with that deal.
ron gibson ▲ ● ▼		So in the final analysis, if Zelensky hangs on, I was so embarrassed for our country when Trump attacked him in the White House in a press conference.
unidentified		He's only a semi-honest man.
		He's a brave man.
		And so are his people.
		And I sincerely hope that they can resolve this with a quid pro quo.
		But as you know, that remains to be seen.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Daryl in Idaho, finishing off this hour of calls on this upcoming meeting on Friday over Ukraine between President Trump and President Putin.
		Thanks for all of you who participated.
		You may have heard yesterday and reflected in the headlines today that President Trump has assigned 120 federal agents authorized to work alongside DC police when it comes to cutting down crime.
		In fact, he plans a press conference on that very topic just about 10 o'clock right after this program on his plans on federal forces or federal resources when it comes to the issue of crime and the condition of Washington, D.C. You can see that press conference right after this program or just about after this program at 10 o'clock.
		You can monitor our main channel, C-SPAN.
		Also watch out for it when it comes to our other platforms.
		That's our app at C-SPANNO as well as the .org, C-SPAN.org.
		As far as guests joining us on the program today, later on in the program, we will take a look at the latest news when it comes to the Israel-Hamas conflict efforts to reach a ceasefire.
		That conversation with Quincy Institute research fellow Anel Shelang.
		But first, the Center for Innovation, Election Innovation and Research founder David Becker on the latest on the redistricting war sparked in Texas, also efforts to reshape election administration.
		That conversation coming up next, when Washington Journal continues.
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		Washington Journal continues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Our first guest of the morning, David Becker of the Center for Election Innovation and Research.
		He serves as their founder and executive director here to talk, amongst other things, redistricting and the topic that's taking place across the country.
		Mr. Becker, welcome.
david becker ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, Pedro.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		First, a little bit about your organization.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What were you designed to do and how were you funded?
david becker ▲ ● ▼		So I've been in elections for over 25 years now.
		I serve with the Justice Department as a voting attorney in the Civil Rights Division for three Attorneys General, one Democrat, two Republicans.
		And in 2016, I founded the Center for Election Innovation and Research to work with election officials of both parties all across the country to support elections the voters should and do trust.
		And what we've seen is the election officials of this country are doing a remarkably good job, even under tremendous stress.
		Our elections are more secure than they've ever been.
		We have 98% paper ballots, which are the most secure way.
		The only state without them is Louisiana.
		Those ballots are audited, so we know that the voting technology is counting them properly.
		We don't just trust it.
		We confirm that that worked.
		Our elections are also as accessible as they've ever been.
		It's easier to register to vote than ever before.
		More voters with access to same-day registration, online voter registration than ever before.
		And more voters with access to things like early voting and mail voting than ever before.
		So despite all of those successes, our election officials have been under stress for the last five to 10 years as disinformation about our elections this world.
		And one of the other things we do is we run the Election Officials Legal Defense Network, which provides a pro bono attorney to match with an election official who needs any advice or assistance if they're under threat or abuse or harassment.
		We're funded generally through large foundations.
		We're a 501c3.
		We're completely nonpartisan.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You take a look at the outcomes of elections, how they're conducted, the outcome.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		But back up to that, how does redistricting affect elections ultimately?
david becker ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, redistricting, it's not just about the politics because once the legislators are done playing their political games to try to maximize their political power, then the real work begins for the election officials of the country who have to, because they have new lines, they have to re-precinct, which might mean they have to move people from a precinct they used to be in to another precinct, find a new polling place perhaps for people.
		They'll have to educate their voters about the fact that they might have been expecting to vote in one particular congressional district for a particular representative that they were used to and that changed.
		That amount of work is manageable if it's once every 10 years, but if we start getting into this tit for tat, this gamesmanship between the parties, we could see this happening literally every two years and quintuple that amount of work.
		And it's tremendous.
		And we're talking about a very short period of time.
		There is a September 9th deadline in Texas law right now that the legislature can change, but that's because they've got a March primary and you need time for the election officials to do all that work, as well as for the candidates to qualify in whatever district lines ultimately get drawn.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you make of the Texas, not only what Texas officials are doing when it comes to restricting, but what they're saying gives them the right to do that?
david becker ▲ ● ▼		So it is not illegal. to engage in mid-decade redistricting under federal law.
		Texas attempted to do this about 20 years ago.
		The Supreme Court held in 2006 that there was nothing in the federal constitution that prevented it.
		Now, that doesn't mean it's a good idea.
		It just means that there's nothing that actually prohibits it.
		And under Texas law, they are allowed to do it.
		Now, there might still be other considerations in play.
		The Supreme Court has indicated that they're concerned about extreme partisan gerrymandering, but they've also said that they don't think there's anything they can do about it.
		But there are other considerations such as the Voting Rights Act, which is also under attack to some degree, and the Supreme Court has indicated they might be reconsidering the degree to which the Voting Rights Act is constitutional or applies to certain redistricting plans.
		So while all of those laws might apply, it does seem like Texas can likely redistrict if it chooses to do so with some caveats as to how it might apply to federal law.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What's the reverberations from Texas' decision as you see it right now?
david becker ▲ ● ▼		Well, and they're largely political, right?
		I mean, in the past, what's happened in 20 years ago or so, Texas redistricted in advance of the 2006 election.
		That plan went into play.
		But other states did not retaliate.
		I think now what we're seeing is the margins are so narrow in the House of Representatives that the Democrats are not willing to unilaterally disarm in that fight, even though they have adopted in general in some states, California being most notable, independent redistricting commissions, which are designed under state law to create the fairest set of districts, the least political set of districts possible.
		Under that plan in California, currently there are nine Republicans out of the 52 representatives.
		But if they move forward with their plan, perhaps a ballot referendum in this fall, that would enable them to redistrict as well, they could draw as many as five to even all nine districts Democratic, depending on how they wanted to do it, given that there are so few constraints right now on that redistricting process.
		If the Republicans can do it legally, the Democrats can definitely do it legally as well.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is the case that the Texas governor made yesterday when he was talking about this issue on Fox News.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I want to play a little bit from Greg Abbott and get your response to it.
greg abbot ▲ ● ▼		You look at the way lines are drawn in California, in New York, in Illinois, Massachusetts, where there are no Republicans whatsoever.
		They've run out of Republicans that they can move out of office.
		If Texas had drawn our lines mathematically the same way that California had, we would be not adding five more seats.
		We would be adding 10 more seats.
		And if you look at all the Republican states across the entire country, if we engage in this war, making sure that each state is going to draw their lines away that the Democrat states have, Republicans are going to be able to pick up maybe as many as 25 seats.
		And then I'll add on top of that, with each passing census, it's the red states that are getting the population, the blue states that are losing population.
		We know mathematically that New York and California, they lost seats this last census.
		They're going to be losing more seats in the coming censuses because people are fleeing the leftist ideology of New York, of California, of Illinois, and they're coming to free states like Texas and Florida and Tennessee and others.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So David Becker, there's the justification, at least from the governor's perspective.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think?
david becker ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, no other state is engaging in mid-decade redistricting right now.
		No Democratic state has started that process.
		If California goes through this, they are likely to pass a ballot referendum that would have a trigger that says we will only do this if Texas or some other states go through it.
		Texas is the only state that I know of that has voluntarily mid-decade redistricted before.
		Texas is doing it again.
		Again, we should remember, take a step back to why the founders created the House of Representatives as it was in Article I of the Constitution.
		The House of Representatives was supposed to be the people's house.
		It was supposed to represent the people.
		The Senate was more of an elite house where there were two representatives, two senators from each state, but the House of Representatives was supposed to represent the people.
		And what's happening now is this is the House of Representatives is just being played for political gain one way or the other.
		And the pawns in the middle are the voters.
		The voters who might get moved from a district where they know their representative, where they perhaps have petitioned that representative for help in the past, into another district where they don't know those people, perhaps tied to communities they don't feel tied to as they do now.
		And the districts that are currently in effect in Texas were drawn by the Texas legislature.
		No one forced that on the Texas legislature or on the governor of Texas.
		They drew them through a political process, whereas in California, they drew it through an independent redistricting process, as some other states have.
		Now, there are some Democratic states that also do it politically.
		New York, Illinois, Maryland also do it politically.
		But the number of states that either party could gain are possibly about the same, depending upon how you view this.
		And we should be very careful about making assumptions about what would happen with the census over time.
		Things change over time.
		It used to be that California was a growing state not that long ago.
		It shrunk in the last census, rather.
		That could change.
		One other point I think is really important.
		When political parties seek to gerrymander, seek to maximize the number of districts that they have, the way they generally have to do that, to enlarge the number of districts, they have to minimize their margins.
		And so they're shrinking some of their margins in some of these districts.
		And the proposed Texas plan does this as well.
		And whether those margins have been shrunk too much or not, it does render those districts vulnerable to a potential wave election.
		And I mentioned the 2006 election where Texas did a mid-decade redistricting.
		And we all remember what happened in 2006.
		It was a Democratic wave election.
		And the Democrats won the House that year, and Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House in the next Congress.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		David Becker with us.
		He's with the Center for Election Innovation and Research.
		202-748-8001 for Republicans.
		202748-8000 for Democrats.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		You can text us your thoughts or questions at 202-748-8003.
		In Phoenix, Republican line, this is Tony for David Becker.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, hey, good morning, Pedro.
		Good morning, David.
		I just wanted to comment on the redistricting.
		Obviously, I'm glad this was brought to light.
		A lot of people are being educated on gerrymandering and redistricting.
		So I'm glad the Democrats fled the state to break quorum in legislation.
		And I just want to say, you know, good luck, basically, because California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, they all gerrymandered, and there's not much more gerrymandering they can do.
		A lot of red states have a lot of room to work.
		So I'm glad this has happened.
		You know, for instance, in Massachusetts, I think 37% of the people voted for Trump, yet they don't have one representative in Congress.
		New York, California has 52, I think, representatives, and only seven are conservative Republicans.
		So, yeah, I don't think those states have much room.
		So, you know, but I am glad because a lot of people are getting educated and normally wouldn't think of this stuff.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Tony, there in Phoenix.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thanks.
david becker ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I mean, so there likely is some room for states to do this.
		I mean, Tony's quite right.
		I mean, there were, whereas New York had 37% or so voting for Trump, in Texas, 43% voted for Harris.
		In California, around 40% voted for Trump.
		So we think of these states as deep blue or deep red.
		But even when you're a majority party in an overwhelmingly blue or red state, about 40 or so percent of the population is still voting for the other party.
		And it's unfortunate that we haven't seen widespread redistricting reform that applied the same standard to all the states that would have basically said you have to adopt some kind of independent, non-political redistricting process like California has and several other states have engaged in, largely Democratic states, it should be stated.
		But if we're going to engage in redistricting as if it is just all about political warfare, all about trying to get to 218 in the United States House of Representatives and forget about the voters entirely, then we have to expect that both parties are going to do that.
		And until both parties effectively deter each other, creating kind of a mutually assured destruction in this arms race, then we should expect that we're going to see every two years perhaps complete redistricting chaos for the voters who ultimately are going to pay a price for this.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		In New York, Rob is next.
		Independent line.
		Hello.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thanks for the opportunity and the vehicle to talk about this stuff.
		I'm trying to understand.
		You mentioned that California had an independent redistricting committee, yet there is still, I think the figure was 40% Republican voted for Trump.
		Yet they have such a small percentage of representatives.
		Can you mechanically, how does that happen?
david becker ▲ ● ▼		Well, I can tell, actually, Rob, I can tell you exactly how that happened because I actually served as counsel to the California Independent Redistricting Commission in this last round.
		California's laws require that the line drawers, the independent commission made up of Republicans, Democrats, and independents in California, looks at no political data.
		They don't even look at the residences where the current representatives live.
		Unlike a lot of states where representatives carve out a district based upon where they live to make it work for them, the existing representatives do not get that in California.
		This is very similar to how it works in other states as well.
		So no political information, no identification of whether voters might be Democrat or Republican in any particular district.
		And the result was a plan where, out of the 52 districts, nine Republicans won in the last election.
		Now, I should also state one of the things about the California Redistricting Plan in the 2020 cycle.
		No one filed a lawsuit challenging the plan.
		This is very rare.
		In almost every state, you'll see one party or the other, an interest group, a minority group, someone else, filing a lawsuit, whether they win or lose.
		No lawsuits were filed against that plan at the time.
		And I think the commissioners of the Independent Redistricting Commission, again, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, were very proud of their work and they should have been.
		California voters wanted to have an independent redistricting commission.
		It was not about politics.
		In the past, we've seen prominent Democrats placed into the same district after a decennial redistricting.
		Berman and Sherman were two such Democrats in the Los Angeles area many years ago.
		So this districting plan has worked, but what California Democrats are now saying and seeing is that there's going to be an effort to maximize Republican power, perhaps at the expense of voters in some of the Republican states.
		And so they're going to do the same thing.
		That doesn't make it right.
		It just means that they are not going to unilaterally disarm in the redistricting wars.
		We should say that this is not only on one party.
		I mean, the Democrats tried to do this not in a mid-decade sense, but in Oregon, they tried to maximize Democratic seats several years ago, and Republicans walked out and tried to prevent a quorum from happening.
		So this can be done on both sides.
		And again, the people who ultimately pay the price are the voters in each of these districts.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What data, if a redistricting effort is done aside from politics, what data is used to determine new districts?
david becker ▲ ● ▼		You're going to look at, obviously, population.
		You're going to look at census data in each of the census blocks and census blocks groups.
		You're going to look at where communities of interest are.
		For instance, are there communities that all go to the same schools?
		Are there communities that tend towards the same shopping areas or the same commuting routes?
		Communities that are linked through a variety of reasons.
		That is what, for instance, in California, the law requires them to look at.
		When politics plays a role, it tends to play the primary role, and that's when you get odd-looking districts that link communities that are not really linked together in order to maximize political power.
		California's districts were compact.
		They were, in other words, there weren't like two big groups combined by a highway in between.
		They were compact and they were contiguous.
		Those are requirements in the California Constitution with regard to redistricting.
		California, again, if Republicans didn't like the plan, they certainly have lawyers ready to file a lawsuit against those plans.
		They did in other states.
		California, they did not even bring a lawsuit, which demonstrates to you how well the Independent Redistricting Commission worked in California.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		David Becker, our guest for this conversation, Tim in Wisconsin.
		Democrat slime, you're up next.
		Go ahead, please.
		You're next.
unidentified		Thank you.
		I would just like to ask the gentleman that Trump, I know, wants to quit counting migrants in the census.
		Won't that have an impact on California, Texas, Florida, several other states that have millions of immigrants in them if they don't count them?
		Won't that take away from their seats in the House of Representatives?
		And I live in a district as one of the 19 that are possibly could swing either way.
		Van Orden happens to be our representative, and I see he's already going on Sunday morning talk shows and stuff.
		So I think every seat must be very important because I think 415 of them are already determined according to what I've heard.
		So I would just like to ask you, Vierus question, sir.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Tim in Westby, Wisconsin.
david becker ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, Tim raises a really good point.
		The president has indicated through an executive order that he's going to try to direct the census not to count non-citizens in its decennial census of persons in the United States for purposes of apportionment.
		But this is in the Constitution.
		The 14th Amendment specifically says that, or the Constitution rather specifically says, that the apportionment shall be by the number of persons.
		It could have said citizens.
		The writers of the Constitution could have said that, but they didn't.
		They said persons.
		And the court has ruled on this in the past.
		The Constitution is extremely clear on this.
		So I expect that any attempt not to count all persons in districts will be held unconstitutional by the courts.
		But I'll also say, I think this is a really good point.
		There are many states who, if this went forward, would suffer in terms of apportionment.
		And it's not just blue states.
		It's not just states like California, but certainly Texas and Florida, which have a significant number of non-citizen residents in them, would also suffer when it comes to apportionment and the designation of the number of representatives that each state has.
		So this might be one of those things where a lot of cases things are done for purely political reasons, but they don't have the political consequences that people expect.
		And when lawmakers are crafting laws trying to dictate political outcomes for their own political party, in our history, that almost always fails.
		It almost always yields unintended consequences.
		And that's because the American voter is a very, very complex person.
		American voters do not just sit there and vote party line across the board.
		In Texas, they're looking at the Trump vote percentage in 2024 to determine some of these districts.
		But the Trump voting percentage in 2024 looked a lot different than the Trump voting percentage in 2016, for instance.
		And so if you're trying to use past election behavior from one particular election where you might have maxed out some of your political party's success, you might be surprised at what happens in a midterm election when President Trump isn't on the ballot in future presidential elections where voters are going to evolve and change in a variety of ways.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Another Wisconsinite.
		This is from Irving in Milwaukee.
		Republican line.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Paul, I just want to make a comment in reference to the Democrats fleeing the state of Texas with the redistricting.
dennis in north carolina ▲ ● ▼		That's about as dumb as you can get.
unidentified		I mean, they've done this before two or three times, and the results have always been the same.
unidentified		They've lost every time.
rev clenard childress ▲ ● ▼		And I mean, when you think about it, they have to go home sometime.
unidentified		I mean, they can't stay out forever.
		So I just want to say how stupid it is with what they're doing.
		And it will come to naught.
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Irving in Wisconsin.
david becker ▲ ● ▼		I mean, obviously they're doing what they think is politically necessary for them, just as the Republicans in Oregon, as I mentioned, did the same thing when they were faced with a districting plan that they didn't like.
		So, look, this is not every state has this possibility where the minority party can flee the state and deny a quorum to the legislature.
		Texas is one state where the Democrats do have this ability.
		Obviously, they're making their own political judgment, just as the governor is making his own political judgment with regard to a mid-decade redistricting.
		And again, the existing plan was drawn entirely by Republicans, by the Republican-controlled legislature, by the governor of Texas signing off on that bill.
		So this is not a plan that was imposed on the Republican Party and they're trying to fix.
		It was a plan that they themselves drew that currently exists.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		David Beckett is our guest until 845.
		If you want to ask him questions, you can choose the phone lines.
		It's 202-748-8001 for Republicans.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Independents 202748-8002.
		One of the things your organization does is track this topic of non-citizen voters in elections.
		Why does the center involve itself with that?
david becker ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's because it's become a big issue.
		And there's one big election administration bill pending in Congress right now.
		It's called the SAVE Act.
		And it's about requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in the United States, which is not currently the law in the United States.
		So non-citizen registration and voting has become a political issue.
		We remember in the campaign in 2024, this was raised many, many times, the threat of waves of non-citizens somehow changing our election outcomes and voting.
		And so we decided to look at this from the perspective of what the states had actually found when they analyzed their lists, including states that were allied with President Trump during the election, including states like Texas, for instance, which we've been spending a lot of time talking about.
		All Americans should understand, first of all, is that we effectively already have voter ID in the United States nationwide.
		The Help America Vote Act requires that every single voter since 2002, when they register to vote, provides a driver's license number, which is checked against the motor vehicles file.
		If they don't have a driver's license number, they can provide a social security number, which is checked against the Social Security Administration file.
		And in the very, very small number of people who don't provide either, they have to provide ID when they show up to vote the first time.
		So we already have nationwide ID in order to register and vote in the United States.
		But there has been this specter of large numbers of non-citizens.
		And we looked at every single state that had conducted any kind of public assessment of non-citizens on their voter list.
		And what we found is the numbers are shockingly small.
		The numbers are not zero, but they're not much larger than zero.
		The state of Texas, for instance, during the campaign claimed that there were thousands of non-citizens on their voter list, of potential non-citizens.
		But once the campaign was over and in 2025, they were required to put up or shut up on that.
		They only referred 33 possible cases statewide in a state with well over 10 million registered voters, 10 million voters.
		Other states have found similar numbers.
		Georgia looked at this very comprehensively, found single digits over a period of about a decade of non-citizens voting.
		Ohio, similarly, about 10 or 12 years, found a handful, fewer than 10, that had voted.
		Most states are finding right around that number over time.
		And the states are also showing that they currently have the tools to find and flag those individuals and confirm whether or not they're citizens.
		They have a variety of tools with the Real ID Act.
		Their DMVs have better information than ever before on citizenship.
		Everyone who's listening probably knows when they go into the DMV, they have to show proof of legal presence.
		And that proof of legal presence is almost always, if you're a citizen, a birth certificate or a passport, which the DMV then captures.
		Or if you're not a citizen, it might be, for instance, a green card or some kind of visa.
		But that is also captured, which will clearly indicate on the motor vehicles file that you are not a citizen, at least at that point where you went to the DMV.
		So we're doing a very good job as a country on that.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Apologies.
		It's called the Review of Allegations of Non-Citizen Registrants and Voters.
		If you want to see the report on their line, you threw three large conclusions.
		I think you've already addressed some of them, but I'll just share with the audience that when it comes to the analysis that you did, no apples to apples comparisons.
		What do you mean by that?
david becker ▲ ● ▼		Well, because some states did a really comprehensive look.
		They started with the number of possible non-citizens, but they understood that number might be inflated.
		For instance, someone had gone to the DMV, shown a non-citizen document, and then two or three latist, two or three years later, got registered to vote.
		And it turns out that almost all of those people are naturalized citizens, and oftentimes they got registered to vote right after their naturalization ceremony.
		So the states that did a really good job of this showed what they do is before they announce any numbers, they get the pool of potential non-citizens, and then they do everything they can to whittle that down to the number that actually might have registered and voted.
		Georgia did a great job of that.
		Michigan did a good job of that.
		Georgia's run by a Republican Secretary of State, Michigan by a Democratic Secretary of State.
		But other states just did that first layer and said, here's the number of people we don't know whether they're citizens or not, and put that number out.
		And that number is clearly a vast overcount of the number of actual non-citizens of the House.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Steve is in Ohio.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Democrats line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hey, good morning.
		Yeah.
		With respect to gerrymandering, the fact that the House of Representatives has remained frozen at 435 seats for over a century, and with population growth,
		obviously the congressional districts are becoming larger and larger, which increase the opportunity for gerrymandering because they can manipulate these larger populations for congressional districts.
		And so shouldn't there be some way of sizing the U.S. House of Representatives as a house of the people relative to population so that these districts don't become so large, which make gerrymandering and this fight among states more severe?
		And so, you know, why isn't it that they just size the house relative to the least populous state?
		And then accordingly, everybody can the house can grow with population.
		And maybe is that one part of solving the gerrymandering problem?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Steve there in Ohio.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for the call.
david becker ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's a great point by Steve.
		It's been about 100 years since the House of Representatives was increased in size.
		The number of members of the House of Representatives is not in the U.S. Constitution.
		Congress can change this.
		And right now, we have more people in each district than we ever have before in American history.
		It's about a million people in each district.
		And Congress could change that.
		And there have been proposals to do that at various times.
		It could be, and I honestly think it's a very good idea to take the smallest state population and use that as the baseline.
		There have been others' thoughts to increase it to 1,000 districts or something of that sort.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Is that the idea of proportional representation?
david becker ▲ ● ▼		So proportional representation is a little bit different where you could end up getting, instead of breaking a state into districts, you could end up basically allowing everyone a certain number of votes so that the district lines wouldn't be drawn quite the same way.
		But certainly as you break the units down into smaller units, representation does get proportional.
		So because you can divide it, you can divide it a little more equally.
		So for instance, there are states with one district that are fairly large or fairly small for the one district.
		And then there are states that always are on the cusp of getting another seat.
		Utah famously was that way recently.
		And it's not one party or the other.
		It's usually very close.
		It's just based on population.
		And at some point, it's just math.
		You just decide where is the cutoff when you get 435.
		And that math is a lot easier if the number is larger.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Michael.
		Michael is on our line for Republicans.
		Orlando, Florida.
david becker ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		Hi, Mr. Becker.
		A couple questions.
		One, what has the impact of counting this census with all the undocumented that's coming to the country?
		Does that really impact the number of House seats like New York or California get?
		So that's one question.
		And I don't think it's kind of working the way people wanted it to work in Texas.
		I think that's what's going on here.
		But the other thing is they had Governor Pritzker on the Stephen Colbert show, and they showed the gerrymandering map.
		And he tried to make sense of it, but when it looks so ridiculous of how they were carving out, trying to get the votes, you know, he even said it was just kind of like my child drew this up or a kid did this.
		So I think what's going on here is the Democrats are doing exactly what they have to do politically, but they would be doing the opposite if it was the other way around.
		Thank you for my call.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Michael and Orlando, thanks.
david becker ▲ ● ▼		I think Michael raises a really good point.
		I think this is, I think certainly extreme partisan gerrymanders are not the province of only one party, certainly not the province of only the Republican Party historically.
		Democrats have done this and where politicians draw the lines to fit their goals rather than lines being drawn for the goals of the voters as they've expressed them.
		It creates these problems and it's not just a Republican or Democratic problem.
		Illinois and Texas have drawn the lines according to political goals.
		California, as I mentioned, has passed this Independent Redistricting Commission that draws lines in a more fair way.
		So I think that extreme partisan gerrymandering, I think Michael's exactly right.
		This is Democrats are doing what they think they need to do politically.
		No one's hands are completely clean here.
		But I do think that ultimately, one possible good outcome of this is that the parties will see that this tit-for-tat every two years is not working out for anybody and that they might come together and come up with some agreement on how at least federal redistricting should apply to the states.
		Michael also raised the question of how the counting of non-citizens in states is affecting the number of districts in the states.
		First, we should say this is not a new thing.
		This is the way it has literally always been.
		We have always counted the number of persons because the Constitution uses the word persons.
		It specifically mandates that we count all of the number of persons in determining how many districts in each state.
		And so this is not a new thing, but it's unquestionable that states with larger numbers of non-citizen populations, and this is not just blue states, Texas and California, Florida all have significant numbers of non-citizens.
		New York also, but there are many states that have more than others.
		It's unclear exactly what effect that would have.
		But again, I am very, very confident that the courts in this country will read the Constitution as it is clearly written and as it has been applied throughout our entire history.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Do people who file lawsuits against redistrict areas generally win?
david becker ▲ ● ▼		I mean, it's always, you know, case-by-case basis, right?
		I mean, you'll, there are, the Voting Rights Act has been a very robust check on some of the extreme redistrictings that might occur.
		In that mid-decade redistricting that I mentioned in Texas about 20 years ago, the United States Supreme Court said, yes, there's no prohibition on you doing this.
		And it approved much of the plan, but it actually found a couple of districts that violated the Voting Rights Act and sent it back to Texas to redraw.
		There's also a check on that as well, where the Supreme Court has held that race under the Voting Rights Act can apply, but it can't so predominate over these other traditional redistricting principles that I've mentioned, communities of interest, for instance.
		And if it does, that could violate the United States Constitution as well.
		So there are a variety of legal challenges that could be brought.
		I would say the degree to which state legislatures are restricted by any of these federal requirements is probably at its low point over the last 60 years.
		Just last week, we had the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, August 6th.
		It is considered the crown jewel of the civil rights movement.
		It has been upheld and renewed by Congress multiple times, most recently, only about 20 years ago in an almost unanimous Congress.
		And we're seeing it weaken more than ever before in recent years.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		There's a story in the New York Times today that highlights the fact that it was on the last day of the Supreme Court term in June the justices announced that they would not immediately decide a case from Louisiana testing voting maps that include two majority black districts to satisfy the Voting Rights Act.
		A lower court said that the race had played too large a role in the process where the state said lawmakers had been motivated by permissible partisan politics.
		But it also adds that the unsigned order in June, the court said it would hear a second argument in the case in the term starting in October.
		They say that's a significant development.
david becker ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and they've recently indicated what questions they'd like answered.
		And those questions have led many election experts to wonder whether or not there's a majority on this court that is ready to hold the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional.
		Again, the Voting Rights Act, which has led to so many important advancements over the last 60 years.
		You know, we should remember in 1965, when it was passed, we had many of the states of the old Confederacy where African American citizens effectively could not exercise their right to vote.
		There were literacy tests and other things that were preventing them from registering.
		They were often redistricted out of any kind of representation.
		And now I look at a state like Georgia, which has often become a kind of a hot-button state in many ways.
		But I want to give credit to the state of Georgia.
		Georgia, and Georgia's been led by Republicans for the last two-plus decades.
		Georgia is a state now with one of the highest voter registration rates in the country, with parity between black and white voter registration rates and turnout rates in the country, where African Americans are able to run for statewide office.
		Now, Democrats, African-American Democrats do not yet have the vote totals to be able to get to that point, but they have an African-American senator in the state of Georgia now.
		An African-American candidate came within 55,000 votes of winning the governorship in 2018.
		This is thanks to the Voting Rights Act and our evolution as a nation.
		And we're now seeing that the Supreme Court might strike it down or weaken it further.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is David Becker joining us.
		He's with the Center for Election Innovation and Research.
		We'll hear from Mike.
		Mike is in Ohio, Independent Line.
		Mike, good morning.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Thank you for C-SPAN.
		Yeah, from Ohio, I was raised in a purple state.
		I can recall presidential candidates coming by through Ohio.
		I love purple states.
		I wish we had at least 40 purple states, okay, in this country.
		It would be nice if I could do that.
		Right now, they're trying to make it even more red than before.
		Right now, we have 10 Republicans and five Democrats in the House.
		They want it to be down to 12 to 3.
		They want to take away Amelia Sykes.
		She's my congresswoman here in Akron.
		Now, when it comes to local elections, like I said, I am an independent, but when it comes to city council, I always vote for the Republican.
		We never had more than one Republican on city council in Akron.
		So that one office, I always vote for the GOP.
		I was also a poll worker.
		I'm now retired.
		I said something independent to ask me what party do I favor most of the time.
		I said Democrat.
		They said, that's fine.
		We'll back to it with the Republican.
		That's what I wanted them to do.
		The Republican poll workers I worked with were the best people I could hope to work with.
		Every poll worker I know was as honest as a day is long, whether there's a D by their name, an R by their name.
		I expected them to back the appointment with the Republican, and I respected that person as they did me.
		And finally, what I would like to say, as I admire Mike DeWine, he's a Republican governor.
		At least he stood up for the Haysons and speak through Ohio, saying they did not eat people's dogs and cats.
		Unfortunately, he chose Jim Tressel as his lieutenant governor, who is former coach of Ohio State.
		He doesn't have a chance as governor.
		Our next governor will actually be Ravaswamy.
		I would much rather, man, would I love to vote for Jim Tressel for Ohio's governor because he's now our lieutenant governor.
		But no, I'm afraid that Ravaswamy may be our next governor.
		Gotcha, Mike.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mike, you put a lot out for the guests, Mr. Becker.
david becker ▲ ● ▼		I am so glad Mike called.
		Mike, first of all, thank you for being a poll worker.
		You and as you said, people who you might agree with or disagree with that you work with, you serve such an important role.
		Anyone who has any doubts about our elections, volunteer to be a poll worker, and you'll learn about the checks and balances, the redundancies, the transparencies we have in our process that prevent election fraud and make our system so effective.
		You are giving all of us our voice in our elections, no matter who wins.
		And this is particularly poignant right now because tomorrow is National Poll Worker Recruitment Day.
		So if you're thinking about playing a role in our democracy, no matter which party you vote for, no matter which candidate you're going to vote for, call up your local county, your local election office, and volunteer to be a poll worker and learn just the incredible sense of satisfaction that you'll have in doing that work for your community.
		I have a high schooler.
		He's done it now twice.
		I'm very proud of him for having done this.
		It is not always easy work, but it's incredibly rewarding.
		And so this is call up your find your county election office and volunteer to be a poll worker.
		And thank you, Mike.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Do you need a specific background to become a poll worker?
david becker ▲ ● ▼		No.
		Some places require you to be a resident of the state or of the county.
		Some places require you to be a citizen.
		Some don't.
		Oftentimes, special skills like language skills or technical skills are very valuable.
		This is why young people as poll workers are so helpful because they often have some language skills or especially technical skills that maybe older poll workers might be a little intimidated by some of the technology that's out there.
		Anyone, just if you have any doubts, don't self-select out of this.
		If it's something you want to do, contact your county or local election office.
		Volunteer to be a poll worker.
		They're going to find a way to use you.
		It'll be incredibly rewarding.
		You perform such an important role.
		Thank you, Mike.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Steve.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Steve's in California, Independent Line.
unidentified		Mr. Becker, thank you very much.
		I'm enjoying watching this question.
		You mentioned earlier that there were two methods of being able to vote, a birth certificate or a driver's license.
		Number one, you know, recently, in the past dozen years, there was all the squabble over should people have to present a photo ID to vote.
		So that's my first question.
		Do you believe that's an important factor in keeping a secure election?
		And my second one is, if that's the case, a number of states, I understand, have given out driver's licenses to illegal immigrants or whatever the proper terminology is, undocumented people.
		And what's your feelings on that?
		Does that raise a concern for you?
		And with that, I'll take your answer on TV.
		Thanks.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Steve in California.
david becker ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, Steve.
		So first of all, we should separate out the registration and voting process.
		As I mentioned, federal law, all 50 states, NDC, require you to provide ID when you register to vote, a driver's license number that is matched against the driver file in your state.
		The driver file in your state, even if you've shown non-citizenship or you haven't documented citizenship one way or the other, that will flag in the voter registration system and election officials might follow up.
		So you've got, so there's a filter at the very beginning before you ever cast a ballot to confirm you are who you are and you're eligible to vote.
		This is one of the reasons we see very, very small numbers of non-citizens voting.
		And then, secondly, how do you verify your identity when you're actually casting a ballot?
		And every state has a way of doing that.
		Some require photo ID.
		One of the concerns some states have indicated with regard to photo ID is we know not everyone has photo ID.
		Some states do some very odd things with photo ID, like for instance saying student IDs aren't okay, but hunting and fishing licenses are okay.
		I don't know what the justification for that might be other than political.
		We've also seen odd things where even with student IDs, public university student IDs are okay, but private university student IDs aren't.
		So in Indiana, for instance, Indiana University, you could use your ID.
		Notre Dame, you couldn't.
		Those are some odd things.
		But in every state, you have to show your ID.
		That might be through a signature verification at the time you vote or by mail ballot.
		California, most ballots are by mail.
		It might be that when I show up at the polls, I get asked information that only I would have at the time when I'm checking in, whether I show ID or not.
		But everyone does this.
		And this is one of the reasons we know voter fraud is extremely rare in this country.
		If anyone has any doubts about that, I don't encourage you to try to commit voter fraud because you will get caught, you will be prosecuted, and you will end up spending time in state or federal prison for committing voting fraud.
		The number of prosecutions in every election cycle is shockingly small.
		Those people are caught and prosecuted.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		One more call from Minnesota Republican line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Terry, go ahead.
unidentified		Hi, David.
		Sam, I want to address the illegals being counted in the census and then being represented based on those numbers.
		I think the extraordinary circumstances of the last few years, 10 to 20 million illegals, on top of the illegals that are already here, do play an unfair, you know, it's unfair, takes away votes from legal citizens when they're in that area.
		I also think when you say the 14th Amendment says it, the 14th Amendment also refers to only male citizens being able to vote over 21.
		I think that the court very well could overlook it.
		They overlooked the male citizens part.
		This court absolutely could overlook it.
		But more importantly, I think for anyone to deny the fact that 80% of American citizens would say this is unfair.
		We should not be peeing one voter in a district with an overwhelming amount of illegals getting a representative where another place doesn't because they don't have illegal immigrants there.
		It just seems unfair, and I think that it would be very, very popular.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Sorry, Terry, let me stop you there only because apologies, Terry.
		I'm sorry about that.
		We're almost out of time, but we'll let our guests respond.
david becker ▲ ● ▼		Look, there might be a legitimate disagreement of opinion over whether or not non-citizens should count when we're doing the census and apportioning representatives.
		But if Terry's right and it's so popular, there's a right way to go about this, and that is the constitutional amendment process, because the Constitution says what it says.
		And with regard to male citizens, that's exactly what happened.
		Women were granted the right to vote in the 19th Amendment, and then 18-year-olds were granted the right to vote, I think in the 23rd Amendment, but I didn't look at my Constitution this morning, so I hope I'm not wrong about that.
		Might have been the 24th.
		But so if you really want to push this, this can't be done by the president as a dictator with the swipe of a pen.
		This has to go through the people and the states as the Constitution demands to amend the Constitution.
		And if they want to go through that process, I think the kind of democratic process that the founders envisioned is always helpful.
		We'll find out if it really is popular.
		We'll find out if it's something that actually can pass the amendment process and become a part of the Constitution.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You were close to the 26th Amendment.
david becker ▲ ● ▼		26th.
		Darn it.
		It's early in the morning.
		I'm sorry, Banjo.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		David Becker.
		No, no, no.
		Don't worry about it.
		Electioninnovation.org, the website.
		If you want to hear more about the guest work when it comes to elections and how they're conducted, David Becker, the founder and executive director, thanks for your time this morning.
david becker ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Pedro.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Coming up in about a half hour from now, we're going to talk about the latest when it comes to Israel and Hamas.
		Anel Shi Line of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft will join us for that conversation.
		But first, open forum.
		And if you want to participate, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, Democrats, 202748-8000.
		Independents, 202-748-80002.
		We'll take those calls, and Washington Journal continues.
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		Going on now.
		So you interviewed the other night.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I watched it about two o'clock in the morning.
unidentified		There was a little thing called C-SPAN, which I don't know how many people were watching.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Don't worry, you were on prime time too, but they happen to have a little rerun.
patty murray ▲ ● ▼		Do you really think that we don't remember what just happened last week?
patty murray ▲ ● ▼		Thank goodness for C-SPAN, and we all should review the tape.
unidentified		Everyone wonders when they're watching C-SPAN what the conversations are on the floor.
al green ▲ ● ▼		I'm about to read to you something that was published by C-SPAN.
sean duffy ▲ ● ▼		There's a lot of things that Congress fights about that they disagree on.
al green ▲ ● ▼		We can all watch that on C-SPAN.
unidentified		Millions of people across the country tuned into C-SPAN.
		That was a made-for-C-SPAN moment.
		If you watch on C-SPAN, you're going to see me physically across the aisle every day, just trying to build relationships and try to understand their perspective and find common ground.
		And welcome forward to everybody watching at home.
patty murray ▲ ● ▼		We know C-SPAN covers this live as well.
unidentified		We appreciate that.
		And one can only hope that he's able to watch C-SPAN on a black and white television set in his prison cell.
		This is being carried live by C-SPAN.
		It is being watched not only in this country, but it's being watched around the world right now.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Mike said before, I happened to listen to him, he was on C-SPAN 1.
unidentified		That's a big upgrade, right?
unidentified		Washington Journal continues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Again, for Open Forum, 202748-8001 for Republicans, Democrats, 202748-8000.
		Independents 202-748-8002.
		After this program ends, just about 10 o'clock today.
		President Trump expected to hold a press conference expecting to talk about what federal resources he plans to apply for the District of Columbia when it comes to security matters.
		And you can see that on our main channel, C-SPAN.
		Follow along on our app at C-SPANNow and c-span.org available to you too if you want to hear the president's comments on that.
		It was the DC Mayor Muriel Bauer Bowser talking about the condition of DC, the president's intentions when it comes to federal role, the federal role when it comes to DC.
		She made those comments on MSNBC yesterday.
muriel bowser ▲ ● ▼		So people are coming to our capital.
		They're starting business in our capital and they're raising families in our capital.
		Any comparison to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false.
		I also just really want to say we always want to get better.
		And there are ways more than any other city in America that the federal government can help the District of Columbia.
		Our city is unique.
		Our prosecutor is a federal prosecutor.
		Our judges are appointed by the President of the United States.
		And by the way, we have 15 vacancies in the Superior Court, which we need to go down to the Congress for approval.
		We have two vacancies in the Court of Appeals, which we need to go down.
		So anytime you have a backlog in the courts, you have delayed justice and people are less safe.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Again, D.C. Mayor Bowser from yesterday.
		You can see the president's comments at 10 o'clock today.
		Let's hear from Sal.
		Sal joins us from New Jersey Republican line on Open Forum.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Good morning, Pedro.
		I was just trying, I wanted to, I know Mr. Becker was about the redistricting, but I wanted to ask about the voting sec part of this question.
		I was just thinking to myself, you got these candidates from New York, the fellow running for the mayor, and different states and cities.
		It seems to me that if they have their nationality of the people that represent them, they get in votes that way, whereas the people in the cities aren't even voting for the most qualified candidate.
		They look like they just vote for their nationality or their race.
		It seems like that's going to be a big problem in the future, it looks like to me, because nobody's thinking who the best qualified person is.
		Like here in New Jersey, the woman Cheryl, she stands for all different kinds of transgender and all that type of stuff.
		And Chicarelli is not for that type of thing.
		But I mean, why don't they just vote on the best person that's qualified instead of adding all these things that are repertoire to help them get the votes to win the position or the governorship or whatever they're running for in their state?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I think you were referencing the governorship there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Who do you think is the best qualified for the upcoming governor's race?
unidentified		I was listening.
		I heard the both of them.
		I heard more of what Chikarelli said.
		To me, he wanted to lower the taxes and he wanted to help a lot more better qualified things for me living here.
		And I didn't really think, I didn't appreciate what she was standing for.
		I didn't think she wants to lead the same way, high taxes, all the same things that Murphy did.
		And I don't see no, if it stays like that, we're suffering as it is so far.
		So that's how I was looking at things in the future.
		But thank you, Pedro, for my comment.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Sal there in New Jersey.
		Let's hear from Steve.
		Steve is in Alabama, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Yes, good morning, Pedro.
		Thank you for Washington Journal and for allowing me to give my opinion.
		You know, the old way of thinking in regard to confronting Russia or the Soviet Union was that we were to avoid conflict at all costs.
		It amazes me that at this time, we're all going back and forth about why we should support or not support Ukraine in a war against Russia.
		By definition, we are at war with Russia, a war by proxy.
		Russia would win overnight if it wasn't for the military of the United States, for the United States equipment and everything.
		Well, we find ourselves in a precarious nation and our own security threatened by the fact that we are giving away all our military hardware.
		And it's not easy to replace considering that so much of our military equipment now relies upon parts or material that comes out of communist China.
		That's one little thing.
		Another thing is, is that why are Russia and Ukraine fighting over this land?
		Ukraine has been known for centuries as the breadbasket.
		It's the most agriculturally valuable piece of property in Europe because of its ability to grow so much wheat.
		That's one of the reasons why.
		If you're going to take over Ukraine, you have to get rid of the people that's already there.
		And Mr. Selensky, the Jewish president of Ukraine.
		He is willing to fight to the last Christian white man in Russia, I mean in Ukraine, in order to defeat Russia.
		Of course, their inclusion.
		The oligarchs of Russia and the oligarchs of Ukraine and the oligarchs of the United States, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
		Okay.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Steve there in Alabama.
		Let's go to Andy.
		Andy in Kentucky, Republican line.
		Good morning, Andy.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you.
		That fellow you had on before wasn't very knowledgeable about the voting and what you have to show to vote when you go to the polls, such as in the state I'm in.
		People don't realize it, but it's simple.
		And they've been giving these cards out, credit cards to illegals for, my goodness, probably 27 years.
		So a credit card in my state is a legal form of ID to vote.
		And I don't know how many other states, I should have looked it up, I guess, but probably many, many other states have the same rules.
		So you can go to the Department of Elections or whatever in Kentucky and just, it's all the way down to the bottom of what's legal to vote.
		And the people at the polls don't even know about that.
		I have to show them when I go most of the time.
		But also, if you have people in California and you have more delegates or you have more representatives in Congress,
		that takes away my vote because my congressperson is not as, well, they just take away the vote.
		I can't explain it right now.
		But it's pretty simple.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Andy in Kentucky, giving us a call in this open forum.
		You can do the same.
		202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8,000 for Democrats.
		And Independents, 202-748-8,0002.
		We know, at least in short term, what the White House plans to focus on upon the earlier part of the week, but here to talk about that and other things as the week ahead in Washington progresses.
		Stephen Nelson of the New York Post, he's their chief Washington correspondent.
		Mr. Nelson, welcome to the program.
steven nelson ▲ ● ▼		Thank you for having me.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's start with the president's announcement today.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What are we expecting exactly to hear from the White House?
steven nelson ▲ ● ▼		So just behind me around 10 o'clock, President Trump will be unveiling his plan to fight crime and to clean up D.C.
		We do not know exactly what he plans to announce.
		A White House official told me that he's likely to keep us all guessing until he actually makes this announcement.
		There are a variety of options available to the president.
		He is able to deploy the National Guard.
		He's able to deploy federal agents, such as members of the FBI, to patrol the streets.
		He also could take the step of federalizing the D.C. police force for 30 days or potentially longer if Congress approves.
		President Trump points to various high-profile local crimes, including the murder about a mile east of here of a D.C. intern last month and the assault of a former Doge employee about a mile north last week.
		Democrats in the D.C. city governments, they point to data showing declining crime trends, including violent crime.
		However, to make the story a little more interesting, there's a controversy here over the reliability of that crime data.
		Last month, a D.C. police commander whose district includes Adams-Morgan and Columbia Heights, which are two densely populated neighborhoods, was suspended for allegedly falsifying crime data.
		His union rushed to his defense and said he was told to do so by his superiors, implying a potential citywide issue.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		To what extent do we know that the president or his team has been consulting with the D.C. mayor and her team over these issues?
steven nelson ▲ ● ▼		Well, President Trump called the D.C. Mayor a good person in a social media post overnight.
		He has said she has had a chance to clean it up, but hasn't done so, and he posted some images showing tenths of homeless people on the streets.
		Some of them appear to be on the route to his golf course, where he visited over the weekend.
		So he has had a less antagonistic relationship with the D.C. Mayor than during his first term.
		In 2020, there were the anti-police brutality protests and riots just north of the White House, and the mayor put on this DC Street Black Lives Matter to antagonize President Trump, essentially.
		She has gotten rid of that since he has reclaimed office and attempted to work with him, but President Trump says she just hasn't done the job.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to other things for the president, later on this week, that expected meeting with President Putin, what has the White House revealed more about that upcoming meeting?
steven nelson ▲ ● ▼		Right, so President Trump will be meeting President Putin on Friday in Alaska.
		It will be President Putin's first trip to the United States in about a decade.
		There's a lot there, too, that we also don't know.
		We don't know where in Alaska this meeting is going to be.
		We don't know if Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelensky is going to be invited.
		And we don't know what particular items are going to be discussed to potentially resolve the war.
		We do know that the Kremlin has floated a potential aerial ceasefire, but the Ukrainian government has been very resistant to swapping land as President Trump proposed on Friday.
		And so we just don't know how that's going to pan out.
		It's, of course, a very high-stakes meeting for both leaders.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I'm sure the President, the Vice President alluded to this yesterday, the role that the Ukrainian president plays in all this and what the White House plans to do to appease that.
steven nelson ▲ ● ▼		Well, President Zelensky has said that Ukraine expects a fair deal.
		Of course, it seems that his country is probably going to be the one having to make concessions because its land is being currently occupied by Russia.
		President Trump has been very frustrated with both parties, both Zelensky and Putin.
		He's called them names.
		He's attempted to force them to the negotiating table for months and months.
		And this is really a matter of prestige for President Trump as well.
		He has negotiated peace terms between various countries around the world.
		And there's a clamor right now, including from his own White House officials, for him to get the Nobel Peace Prize, which will be awarded in October.
		Just on Friday, the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, two longtime enemies, were here at the White House, and they said that they were going to jointly recommend him for the prize.
		But this Russia-Ukraine conflict has been much more difficult to broker a peace than President Trump expected.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Stephen Nelson, is the topic of tariffs now that deadlines have come and gone, is that a done issue for the White House or what are the next steps?
steven nelson ▲ ● ▼		Well, I don't think it's a done issue.
		President Trump is expressing an interest in negotiating with countries.
		And one that is particularly obvious is India, which currently has a 50% tariff over its imports of Russian oil.
		So the issue of India, which is a major U.S. trading partner, could be intertwined with the Russia negotiations taking place on Friday.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		On domestic matters, we saw that Stephen Meyer, there's a plan for putting Stephen Myrick in to fill temporarily at the Federal Reserve.
		Jay Powell still being a question as far as his future at the Reserve.
		Where is the president at on that topic this week?
steven nelson ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's a good question.
		And President Trump has raged and raged against Jerome Powell and has so far been unable to convince him to resign or lower interest rates.
		It looked like Powell was really on the ropes a couple weeks ago over the $2.5 billion renovation of his headquarters just nearby here.
		But the White House seems to have backed off that issue.
		It seemed for a bit that that was going to be either the excuse to fire him or somehow increase the pressure so much that he had to leave.
		But that's been backed off a little bit.
		So it's unclear where that's going next.
		President Trump has said that he doesn't intend to fire Jerome Powell, but that he intends to replace someone quickly after his term ends in May and have that person lower interest rates by 2% or 3%.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Nelson, since you're there at the White House every day, I want to get your take.
		We've heard about the story about the president's interest in building this ballroom.
		We hear it from our end, but what do you hear from those within the White House about the driving interest of this by the president?
steven nelson ▲ ● ▼		Well, the East Wing, it might be visible over my shoulder right now.
		It's a part of the White House that people don't frequently go to.
		And when they do go through, it's basically an entrance point for tours.
		There's the First Lady's office, there's the calligraphy office.
		There are kind of overflow offices for West Wing people.
		President Trump's plan is to essentially gut the East Wing and put a ballroom inside of it.
		He says it's going to be completed by the end of his term, and he's walked on the roof of the White House to scope out how this will look.
		It's unclear if it will be precisely within the current footprint of the East Wing, though, because the East Wing is not really a large place.
		There's a lot of uncertainty, but there's also excitement.
		You know, changes at the White House have happened over more than 200 years, and whatever he does end up getting done is likely to remain for quite a while.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Stephen Nelson, who reports for the New York Post, joining us.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So what else, if anything, are we expecting from the White House this week?
steven nelson ▲ ● ▼		Well, we haven't received a week ahead guidance with events yet, so we don't know.
		But this D.C. policing announcement is expected to be major news.
		And throughout the week, we're expected to see developments on the Russia-Ukraine talks.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Nelson, thanks for your time today.
steven nelson ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Again, if you want to participate in Open Forum, it's 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, and Independents, 2027-8002.
		You can make your comments there.
		As always, you can post on our social media sites, our tech service, too, at 202-748-8003.
		You heard Stephen Nelson talk about issues when it comes to Ukraine.
		It was on the Sunday shows that the South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham talked about his own viewpoint when it comes to that meeting that takes place this coming Friday between the planned meeting between President Trump and President Putin.
		Here are the thoughts from Senator Graham yesterday.
kristen welker ▲ ● ▼		In red, currently under Russian control.
		Now, President Trump this week didn't rule out Ukraine having to give up some of its territory, something the Ukrainians have rejected.
		Do you believe that Ukraine should sign a deal that includes giving up any part of their territory, Senator?
lindsey graham ▲ ● ▼		Well, think about East Berlin and West Berlin as a way a conflict can be settled, at least for a period of time.
		North Korea and South Korea is in a state of truce.
		There's never been a final settlement.
unidentified		But I come on your show a good bit.
steven nelson ▲ ● ▼		I want to be honest with you.
lindsey graham ▲ ● ▼		Ukraine's not going to evict every Russian, and Russia's not going to keep.
unidentified		So there'll be some land swabs at the end.
unidentified		But what would a good deal look like?
lindsey graham ▲ ● ▼		Make sure that 2022 doesn't happen again.
unidentified		On Biden's watch and Obama's watch, Russia invades.
		The goal for me, and I think President Trump is to end it forever.
		Now, what would that look like?
lindsey graham ▲ ● ▼		You'll have some land swaps, but only after you have security guarantees to Ukraine to prevent Russia from doing this again.
		You need to tell Putin what happens if he does it a third time.
		Pre-invasion sanctions that would crush his economy if he ever did this again.
unidentified		In 2022, we didn't help Ukraine at all.
unidentified		Biden didn't.
lindsey graham ▲ ● ▼		Militarily, we need to keep Ukraine strong, keep flowing them strong and modern weapons, and security guarantees with European forces on the ground as tripwires to prevent a third invasion.
lindsey graham ▲ ● ▼		We want to end this with a sovereign, independent, self-governing Ukraine and a situation where Putin cannot do this the third time without being crushed.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		That's Senator Graham from yesterday.
		We were talking to Stephen Nelson about those changes when it comes to the building.
		The Washington Post takes a look at changes saying under the headline that the president rushes to build that ballroom, but review of that could take years, saying a security fence and a tennis pavilion, neither of which involved the White House itself, each took at least two years to move through the National Capital Planning Commission, which vets construction of and renovation to the region's federal building.
		The Trump administration plans to start work next month on a $200 million, 90,000 square foot structure that will nearly double the footprint of the main building and the east and west wings.
		Records show the project has yet to be reviewed by the commission.
		Three former planning commissioner members told the Washington Post that a review of any exterior construction project at the White House is required by federal law.
		Quote, if we had jurisdictional review over a fence, we would logically have jurisdictional over the entire wing being added to the White House.
		That was L. Preston Bryant Jr., who chaired the commission for nearly a decade before stepping down in 2019.
		That's from the Washington Post.
		If you go to the front page of the Wall Street Journal, a story taking a look at buybacks, stock buybacks by companies.
		It's their lead story.
		This is Crystal Hurricane writing that U.S. companies have announced at least $983.6 billion of stock buybacks this year, the best start to a year on record, according to Barini Associates data going back to 1982.
		They are projected to purchase more than $1.1 trillion overall in 2025, which would mark a high.
		The story adding that strong earnings growth and tax cuts have helped fill corporate coffers while powering stocks out of their tariff-driven April route and lifting the SP 500 and NASDAQ composite to records.
		At the same time, the confusion around the trade has stalled many business investment plans, making buybacks a more appealing use of incoming cash.
		That's the Wall Street Journal giving their take.
		That's on their headlines when it comes to other headlines.
		Things to watch out for in Washington, D.C.
		We told you about the press conference at 10 o'clock, an hour later at 11 o'clock.
		Elected officials talking about energy security, and you can tune in for that discussion as hosted, that discussion that takes place.
		It's hosted by the Elected Officials to Protect America.
		It features officials from Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and others to talk about energy security solutions on a global scale.
		That's news conference at 11 o'clock.
		C-SPAN 2 is where you can view that if you want.
		Our free mobile app is C-SPANNOW, and you can also look at it online at c-span.org.
		In a little bit from now, we will talk about the current latest news when it comes to Israel-Hamas, also topic of Gaza.
		With that, that's Anel Sheeline joining us from the Quincy Institute.
		Until then, open forum.
		And again, if you want to participate in it, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, and Independence, 202-748-8002.
		As always, if you're interested in seeing segments and other discussions that have taken place on this program, you have a couple of ways of viewing that as well.
		You can always go to our app.
		And if you haven't downloaded it yet, we invite you to do so at C-SPAN now.
		It gives you what's taken place over the last couple of days.
		You can see the show and other things in real time as well on the app.
		And then you could do that.
		You can always go to the website at c-span.org if you want to look there as well.
		Miguel in New Mexico, Democrats line on this open forum.
		Hello.
unidentified		Good morning.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Morning, you're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Okay.
		I'm going to talk about capitalism.
		It's running amok.
		I texted you a couple of times, about three years ago, but you never mentioned it to the public.
		You know damn well that capitalism is running amok, and we have to protect it.
		We have to stop it.
		And that's all the president wants.
		He wants to control everything.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		When you say capitalism is running amok, as you say, what do you mean by that specifically?
unidentified		Capitalism wants to control everything.
		And that's us, the U.S. How so?
		Power belongs to the people, not to the president.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Well, if you say capitalism is controlling everything and people in the United States, how so?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Give me a specific.
unidentified		Well, they're running everything.
		Look, look, look who's running.
		The corporations are capitalist, the corporations.
		Okay.
		They're controlling the country right now.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Maha is in Virginia, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hello.
unidentified		Good morning.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Morning, you're on.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		This is Maha.
		I was wondering why the Democratic Party voters are voting for Pakistani mayor like Mamdani.
		Why?
		Why are they supporting anti-Christian, anti-American supporters like Mamdani?
		I don't understand.
		Can you clarify why is it happening?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Why do you think it's happening?
unidentified		It means that the Democratic Party is openly supporting people who are against American values.
		That doesn't make sense to me.
		People come from 10,000 miles to see that American dream, but American voters are rejecting that American value.
		That doesn't make sense to me at all.
		That global Intifada supporter like Mamdani is a front runner.
		It is unbelievable.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, let's hear from Douglas.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Douglas in Maryland, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Yes, Pedro.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		You're on.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, Pedro.
		I'm calling in regards to your format.
		You talk about how divided we are as a country.
		And you further contribute to that by having a person tell their political affiliation.
		That's not necessary.
		We also commemorate a gentleman who talked about listening to the content of people's character and understanding that listen to what comes out of people's mouths.
		You don't need to know their political affiliation.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We're a show based on and taking a look at the world of politics.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Why not hear from those on a political line, per se?
unidentified		Because you judge what they say.
		I don't need to know that you are Republican or you are a Democrat.
		It doesn't make common sense.
		And we've gotten away from common sense.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Douglas there in Maryland.
		We'll go to Alan next in Washington, D.C., Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Yeah, hi.
		I too, I guess, want to be a little bit critical of the format.
		I guess the first thing I like to ask is: is there a repository where one can go look at and assess how centrist, right, or left-leaning the topics or people that you come on what position they hold in regard to the things that they discuss?
		Because that would be good to kind of have a place where you can go and see: is there more of a right-leaning or left-leaning kind of thing?
		And that's one piece.
		The other piece is that a question I have is: have you guys had any doctors from, because I don't get to watch all the time, but have you guys had any doctors from Gaza, American doctors, or even any doctors who have been in Gaza to kind of talk about what they've experienced?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I don't know if that's the case or not.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What do you think we would learn from that?
unidentified		Well, I've learned a great deal by virtue of hearing what these people have had to see.
		Like one of the acronyms they now talk about is WCNSF, Wounded Child, No Surviving Family.
		That's your thing over there.
		I heard another doctor talk about all the child amputees that he's this guy has been around the world at all kinds of tragic events.
		And he was taken aback by what he saw there.
		So I think that, you know, because I oftentimes hear folks on there talking on behalf of the righteousness of what Israel is doing over there.
		And you're just starting to now finally talk about the hunger and the famine going on over there.
		But these things have been going on for the onset of the conflict.
		And I just think that some of the, again, speaking to the issue of how biased or what perspective you guys are talking from, again, if you had a repository that could kind of, you know, because the only way I can now figure it out is if I did it myself and looked at each individual segment and then came back and talked to you about my scorecard.
		But if you had something that you had up there open, then I think that would validate the claim of you guys being fair and providing information for all perspectives.
		But as of right now, I don't, I kind of question that because you typically have the Heritage Foundation or all the centrist or right-leaning think tanks coming on there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Sure, we do that.
		We do left-leaning think tanks as well.
		We do independents as well.
		Again, we come from a lot of different perspectives when it comes to topics that we choose.
		And the best way to do that, if you it's it's I don't know if it will satisfy what you're looking for, but the best way to do that is to go to our website at c-span.org.
		Again, every program that gets aired on the network shows up there.
		Every segment that gets aired shows up as there as well.
		And so we invite you to go to c-span.org to check out the things and the information that we present.
		Anel Sheeline is with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statescraft.
		She serves as their research fellow.
		Next on to talk about the latest when it comes to Israel and Hamas efforts to reach a ceasefire, the claims by the Israeli government over Gaza in the last few days, and all other topics.
		That conversation coming up on Washington Journal.
unidentified		Past president, why are you doing this?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		This is outrageous.
unidentified		This is a Kennaroo Carl.
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		Washington Journal continues.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		We welcome to the program Anelle Sheeline of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
		She serves as their research fellow here to talk about the latest when it comes to Israel and Hamas.
		Ms. Sheiline, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Tell our audience about the Institute and particularly the positions it holds when it comes to matters of foreign policy, specifically in the Middle East.
unidentified		So the Quincy Institute is an anti-militarism think tank.
		So essentially arguing that U.S. foreign policy is overly militarized and that we could more effectively accomplish our goals and pursue our national interests without relying so heavily on our military.
		So in the Middle East, that would look like a smaller military footprint, less support for much of the Middle East, whether it's Israel or Saudi Arabia or Egypt, and just needing to rethink the way the U.S. engages with the region, which for the past several decades has been primarily militarily, which has contributed to much of the chaos and violence that we see there.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Can you, for that last part you just said, how do you think that specifically applies as far as the U.S. is concerned what you see happening with between Israel and Hamas?
unidentified		Certainly.
		Well, I mean, you think about the fact that the U.S. policy for a very long time has been to support Israel, essentially unconditionally.
		And as a result, we see Israel behaving much more aggressively than it would if it couldn't count on such overt American support.
		We see Israel not only attacking Palestinians, but attacking Lebanon, attacking Syria, even attacking Iran, and expecting the U.S. to continue to back it up and to foot the bill, to continue to provide billions of dollars every year, even though this is not necessarily in America's interest.
		Many Americans are quite tired of the unnecessary, endless wars, especially in the Middle East, which as a region is no longer as important as it perhaps once was.
		And arguably, even at those times when the strategic importance of the Middle East was arguably perhaps more important than it is today, an overly militarized approach has not contributed to stability or to pursuing American interests in the region.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		What factors do you think contribute to the idea that you just said that the Middle East really, as far as the United States is concerned, really is as important as it was in previous years?
unidentified		I mean, in particular, thinking about oil, obviously, oil continues to be very important for the global economy.
		But at this point, the United States is not dependent on Middle Eastern oil the way it used to be.
		In fact, much of the Middle East oil goes to China, which is, there's nothing wrong with that.
		But you think about the oversized role that the United States continues to play in the region, essentially to provide China with oil.
		So this is certainly something that we've seen reflected in the America First movement in wanting to rethink some of the ways that the U.S. engages abroad, in particular by sending our troops into harm's way, often unnecessarily.
		I mean, I think in particular, you think about the reaction to the U.S. getting involved on Israel's behalf against Iran when Israel had attacked Iran unprovoked in June and then proceeded to fight the 12-day war, as it's called, and significantly-I mean, you think about the expenditure of American missiles at that time.
		We have really reduced our capacity to defend ourselves in the future as a result of Israel dragging us in.
		Subsequently, the fact that Trump did drop the bombs on Iran, and that for the moment seems to have sort of calmed that, or we've moved away from active conflict there.
		But the concern is that Israel could do something like that again, and the United States would very likely get dragged in again, which is not in our interest.
		It doesn't make Americans safer to do so.
		And arguably, it also doesn't make Israel safer to continue to behave in such an aggressive manner, such that it is the way it engages with its neighbors is to bomb them.
		And it thinks that makes it safer.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Our guest with us until 10 o'clock.
		And if you want to ask her questions, it's 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202748-8000 for Democrats, and Independence 202-748-8000 to Anel Sheeline of the Quincy Institute.
		You have a background at the State Department when it comes to Middle Eastern affairs.
		You left the State Department.
		Can you describe to folks why you left and how your experience at the department informs what you do now?
unidentified		Yes, so I worked for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, a bureau that no longer exists.
		Trump dismantled it.
		But at the time, the office I was working for was responsible for promoting human rights in the Middle East.
		And so, a big part of why I left was because that had become essentially impossible.
		That although obviously human rights have never been the primary driver of American foreign policy, they were still a concern.
		And the Biden administration, in particular, had emphasized that human rights were going to be at the forefront of their foreign policy.
		That was not my experience even before October 7th.
		Human rights were one consideration, not a primary one.
		But after October 7th, it essentially became impossible to try to promote human rights because whenever we as the State Department tried to tell a foreign government, hey, you need to stop targeting journalists, you need to stop locking up political prisoners, they would come back at us with, well, look at what you're enabling Israel to do to Palestinians.
		How on earth could you lecture us about human rights?
		And so I decided to resign in March of 2024 when it had just become clear that staying inside government, I really couldn't accomplish anything and that I hope to be more effective by coming out and speaking publicly against it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		In recent days, President Trump said when it comes to Gaza, he wants to take over aid there to help people there, at least those are his words.
		What do you think about those recent comments by the president?
		Does it suggest a shift when it comes to how he views Gaza?
unidentified		I do think that the president is concerned about starvation inside Gaza.
		However, I would challenge him to rethink what Israel's portrayal of what is going on.
		You think about the fact that throughout, even in the aftermath of October 7th, when Israel was engaging in sort of indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, you didn't see the levels of starvation that we're seeing now.
		And that was because you still had international humanitarian organizations that were permitted to operate, although they had limited operability.
		Israel did not allow in everything.
		There has been a siege imposed on Gaza ever since 2007 after Hamas took control.
		But you still didn't see the horrific levels of starvation.
		Israel was still allowing in baby formula, for example, until March 2nd, which is when Israel stopped allowing in any aid at all.
		And that was when the conditions started to be put in place for what we're seeing currently.
		Then Israel started to allow the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to operate in May.
		However, as people may have observed, this is an organization that is not actually primarily saving Palestinians.
		Over 1,300 Palestinians have been killed in and around these GHF sites.
		There were never reports of those incidents when it was UNRWA or the World Food Program or other UN organizations or other international organizations carrying out aid distribution inside Gaza.
		So I think if Trump is really concerned about the starvation of Palestinian children, and he absolutely should be, he should simply allow these organizations that for years have been able to successfully operate, whether it's inside Gaza or other zones in need of humanitarian assistance, they are the professionals, they know how to do it.
		When they were able to operate, you didn't see either the horrific deaths that GHF is causing, nor did you see starvation.
		So again, Israel claims that Hamas is stealing the aid, and that is why they had to suspend aid delivery inside Gaza.
		But both Israeli military officials and USAID reporting have showed that there's no widespread evidence.
		There's really no evidence at all that Hamas was engaged in some sort of campaign to steal the aid.
		It is really, Israel wanted an excuse to dismantle UNRWA, the UN Refugee Works Agency, which since 1948 and the creation of the state of Israel, has been involved in supporting Palestinian refugees, whether it's in historic Palestine, Lebanon, or Jordan, or Syria.
		But UNRWA, part of why Israel has tried to delegitimize UNRWA for years is because UNRWA is involved in maintaining the status of Palestinians as refugees.
		And as refugees, they, like all refugees, have a right to return to their original homes if they wish to.
		You think about Ukrainian refugees, if they wish to return, they should be allowed to do so.
		You think about refugees from any other conflict zone have the right to go home if they choose to.
		Palestinians do not have that right.
		Israel has not allowed them to return.
		And so by destroying UNRWA, Israel was trying to destroy the records of Palestinian refugees, trying to destroy the means by which Palestinians have been able to survive and eke out an existence both in the West Bank and in Gaza.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Anel Sheline, our guest, our first call is from New York Independent Line.
		This is Tim.
		You're on with our guests.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Thank you very much.
		Good morning.
		I was wondering if you could speak to, I recently read from Professor Ilan Pape and Mersheimer and Finkelstee, and if you could talk directly to the AIPAC and other Zionist movements and how they're affecting the decision-making that's going into the decision-making from the United States.
		Thank you.
		Certainly.
		So the Israel lobby and APAC specifically is one aspect of the Israel lobby continues to be an extremely powerful force inside American politics.
		This partly reflects decisions like Citizens United, for example, which as people are aware allowed for much greater influence of money upon campaign finance.
		And as has become increasingly apparent in the aftermath of October 7th, the Israel lobby has been much more active and has had to work a lot harder to maintain what used to be sort of a given, this assumption that Israel would continue to have bipartisan support.
		Both Republicans and Democrats would continue to shovel vast amounts of money to Israel because this was seen as reflecting American interests.
		However, since October 7th, that sort of unconditional American support has declined precipitously.
		And a majority of Americans stopped supporting what Israel is doing, I believe, back in March of 2024.
		And in the aftermath of that, you've seen the Israel lobby operating that much harder.
		So, for example, they primaried two representatives in Congress who had spoken out on behalf of Palestinians and against what Israel was doing.
		Corey Bush and Jamal Bowman both lost their seats as a result of millions of dollars that APAC poured into their districts.
		And now the concern is that someone like Summer Lee is likely going to be the next representative that AIPAC is going to try to primary.
		So we certainly continue to see the influence of the Israel lobby.
		People may have seen photos of both Republican and Democratic members of Congress traveling to Israel during August recess.
		Instead of going home to their districts to listen to their constituents, they're in Israel being fed propaganda and making quite apparent that their primary concern are those of moneyed interests, including those of the Israel lobby.
		So to respond to your question, the Israel lobby continues to be extremely influential inside U.S. politics, but I do think that they're having to work a lot harder and expend a lot more resources to continue to accomplish goals that used to be a no-brainer or seen as very squarely lined up with American interests.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		In Florida Democrats line, this is Michael.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Yes, hello.
		Do you know of any organizations that are proposing dealing with Israel on a basis of truth?
		In other words, when you negotiate with someone, you know, instead of starting out with lies and propaganda, we should begin with how Israel really came into existence.
		Now, I think the reason we don't do that is because there's a fear, oh, well, that would mean that people will be against Israel.
		But the truth of the fact is, that's where truth comes in.
		Israel does exist.
		But Israel also exists because of our religiosity and colonialization.
		And it was basically just like we did with the Native Americans here in America.
		We took the land from the Palestinians.
		I don't know if you ever saw the movie Red Dawn, but these are, when we see people leaving who are poor and impoverished, we see, oh, those poor people.
		No, those are heroes who are leaving the land that their great-great-great-great-great-grandparents raised allahs on and saw replaced by oranges.
		And the fact is, we can negotiate, and there isn't anyone out there, including the Quincy Institute, that starts with, listen, we're going to be honest about the fact that Israel, how they came into existence, and how wrong that was, but the reality is we're here now, and where do we move forward from here?
		That is the only way to have any hope of negotiating in good faith with people who have been downtrodden to that extent.
		It applies for the Native Americans, and it applies to the Palestinians.
		And how dare we propose anything else?
		And I know, I can tell from looking at you, you're a sincere person.
		Your organization, one of the best out there, the Quincy Institute, even it has succumbed to this.
		Okay, Michael, we'll let her respond.
		So, I mean, in terms of needing to look at the establishment of Israel, I mean, I absolutely agree with you.
		That is an extremely important context.
		And I think a very important thing to keep in mind is international law and the fact that Israel, since its creation, since Israel was established in the aftermath of World War II, there was supposed to have been a state of Palestine established as well.
		That is not what happened, unfortunately.
		And the international community still owes a debt to the Palestinians for failing to, in the context of creating a state in the aftermath of the Holocaust.
		I mean, I think that there continues to be such an amount of guilt over the Holocaust.
		I mean, this was a European crime carried out against European Jewry, primarily.
		And the Palestinians were the ones who were asked to pay for that, which is, you know, your analogy to the Native Americans is extremely apt.
		And sometimes you've heard Israeli politicians comparing what they're doing to what the United States did to Native Americans.
		And I hope that most of us would American, as Americans, would agree that what the U.S. did to Native Americans was horrifying and it was genocide.
		And if that were, if America were doing that today, it would not be acceptable.
		The fact that it happened at that time doesn't mean that it's acceptable now.
		And this is also in the context of the creation of the state of Israel.
		You know, 1948 was also the year of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which Palestinians have really never enjoyed.
		The idea that they have a right to their own sovereignty, that they have a right to basic freedom of movement.
		I think that, for example, Mohsen Mahdawi, who was the Palestinian grad student wrongfully detained by the Trump administration, who was released because there were no charges there to hold him, when he's asked this question about, you know, well, doesn't Israel have a right to exist?
		His reply is essentially, you know, the Jewish people deserve safety.
		Palestinian people deserve safety.
		All people deserve safety.
		Israel does not have the right to annihilate Palestinians or anyone else.
		And, you know, I think that although obviously at our current moment under our current administration, international law is not something that is prioritized.
		But at the same time, I think going back to international law would not only be beneficial for figuring out what needs to happen in the context of historic Palestine, but also for moving forward and would go very far for helping to reestablish American legitimacy if we actually adhered to international law and saw it as something that, especially moving forwards,
		as the United States is no longer in the position of world hegemon and instead has to negotiate a world order within which there are relatively more powerful countries around us, we also would benefit from upholding a system of international law that governed all.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Ms. Chanel, Sheila, sorry, Ms. Sheila, it was yesterday that the Israeli prime minister talked about their plans for Gaza, about their concerns over safety issues over that.
		Here's a little bit from yesterday.
		I want you to respond to it.
benjamin netanyahu ▲ ● ▼		Given Hamas's refusal to lay down its arms, Israel has no choice but to finish the job and complete the defeat of Hamas.
		Now, we've done a great deal.
		We have about 70 to 75 percent of Gaza under Israeli control, military control.
		But we have two remaining strongholds, okay?
		These are Gaza City and the central camps in the Moasie.
		That's roughly, it's schematically presented here, but it's fairly accurate.
		Last Thursday, Israel's cabinet, Israel's security cabinet, instructed the IDF to dismantle the two remaining Hamas strongholds in Gaza City and the central camps.
		Contrary to false claims, this is the best way to end the war and the best way to end it speedily.
		We will do so by first enabling the civilian population to safely leave the combat areas to designated safe zones.
		In these safe zones, they'll be given ample food, water, and medical care, as we've done before.
		And again, contrary to false claims, our policy throughout the war has been to prevent a humanitarian crisis, while Hamas's policy has been to create it.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		There's the Israeli prime minister from yesterday, Ms. Sheila.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		How do you respond to that?
unidentified		Netanyahu is lying through his teeth when he says things like, we have provided adequate food for Palestinians.
		He is lying through his teeth about providing safe zones.
		The idea that Israel needs to seize control of Gaza and that this will address the situation, the only thing it will address is to complete Israel's genocide of Gaza, which it has been carrying out from the beginning.
		We saw John Donison from the BBC, for example, who said, we had a ceasefire deal back in January.
		All the parties signed up.
		We had hostages being freed, Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails being freed.
		Israel broke that deal because they didn't want to end the war, and that is still the case.
		In addition, in recent days, we've seen a shift in the media narrative where we are seeing mainstream media outlets paying attention to the starvation of babies in Gaza because Israel continues to block basic essentials like baby formula.
		But instead, you see this tendency to blame Netanyahu as if he himself is responsible for carrying out the genocide.
		And he certainly is.
		And the idea that he is doing this for political purposes in order to keep himself out of jail is 100% accurate.
		Yet at the same time, it ignores the fact that a majority of the Israeli Jewish population continues to support these policies.
		Things like 68% of Israeli Jews do not want any aid to enter Gaza.
		79% of Jewish Israelis say they are either not so troubled or not troubled at all by the reports of famine in Gaza.
		And so although Netanyahu himself is very invested in maintaining the war, even despite the advice of military officials who point out the fact that the Israeli military is exhausted, reservists are no longer showing up for duty,
		the idea of shifting from primarily an air war of bombing Gaza to a full occupation of Gaza City, Israeli military officials are saying we don't have the people power to achieve this.
		And yet Netanyahu just wants to continue the war because that keeps his governing coalition together, which has these far-right extremist terrorists like Security Minister Ben Gavir or Finance Minister Smotrich.
		That's how Netanyahu stays out of jail is he has to hang on to power for as long as he can.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Ms. Shanel, before we, Sheiline, sorry, before we go back to calls, I want to play a little bit of response from the vice president in an interview he did yesterday.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		He was asked about the Gaza plan, and I want to get your response to him.
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		Obviously, there are a lot of downsides, a lot of upsides to that.
		But I think fundamentally what we're trying to accomplish for America's perspective is, number one, we want to make this so that Hamas cannot kill innocent people, Israelis, Americans, or anybody else.
		Number two, we want the hostages to come home.
		And number three, the president's been very clear that you do have a humanitarian crisis there.
		We're a lot of innocent people who are really struggling.
		And we want to make sure that the people of Gaza are able to get food, able to get medicine, and so forth.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		So that was JD Vance responding to the Israeli Gaza plan.
		What do you think about the response?
		What do you think that obligates America to do?
unidentified		I mean, as I said before, if Trump and Vance wanted to address starvation in Gaza, they would insist that Israel allow in aid, open up the borders, flood the zone with aid.
		At this point, so many people are so close to death as a result of starvation that if they ate food, that could kill them.
		Because at this point, they need medical interventions in order to survive.
		You can't simply hand them food because their bodies can no longer digest it.
		I mean, the level of famine in Gaza is shocking.
		And it takes months for a famine to take hold.
		Israel has done this intentionally.
		And Israeli officials and politicians have said this, that it's easier for them to starve Palestinians than it's easier and cheaper to starve Palestinians than it is to bomb them.
		And even Trump has expressed doubts.
		According to the Financial Times, he told a prominent Jewish donor, quote, my people are starting to hate Israel, end quote.
		And you think about prominent conservative influencers like Steve Bannon or Tucker Carlson.
		Carlson in particular has been incensed at Israel's targeting of Christians, saying, quote, they are not allowed to use my tax dollars to bomb churches, end quote.
		And although many American Christians, especially evangelicals, continue to support Israel based on the belief that their faith requires them to do so, many are also good people who are horrified by what Israel is doing to Palestinians.
		A majority of young conservatives do not support America's blank check to Israel or anywhere else for that matter.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear.
		Oh, sorry.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Go ahead.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Michael in North Carolina, Independent Line.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I have two questions for Ms. Sheiline.
		The first is: could you describe in more detail specific U.S. statutes that are being violated by the support for Israel by the U.S. government?
		And secondly, I don't know exactly what MOU 20 is, but I understand that it's a memorandum of understanding that was signed by Henry Kissinger back in the Nixon administration that pledges U.S. military support for Israel so that Israel will not use nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
		Could you address these two questions, please?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Michael and North Carolina.
unidentified		Certainly.
		I was trying to look up MOU 20, couldn't find it in a quick search.
		I'm not familiar with that, although the U.S. has committed by law to certain things, like, for example, maintaining Israel's qualitative military edge, for example.
		The Obama administration signed an MOU committing to $3.4 billion a year for Israel for the, I think, I believe it was for 20 years, though I should check that.
		As far as Kissinger and the Israeli nuclear program, I'm not familiar with that specific MOU, but certainly the establishment of Israel's nuclear program is kind of a hidden secret.
		The idea that Israel is a nuclear-armed power and yet attained nuclear weapons in a manner that was not certified through existing international institutions in many ways gives lie to the ongoing concern over Iran attaining a nuclear weapon.
		And I think many Americans are, based on media coverage, have a perception that Iran already has nuclear weapons, which it does not, and that Israel doesn't, which it does.
		So in terms of who is the stronger military power here, it is absolutely Israel, not only as a result of its nuclear weapons, but also just a result of the massive, massive amounts of money and security assistance the U.S. sends to Israel every year.
		As far as specific statutes that the U.S. is violating in our continued support for Israel, one that is particularly important is Section 620i of the Foreign Assistance Act, which says that the United States will not send security assistance to a government that is blocking American humanitarian aid.
		And we saw Israel blocking humanitarian aid under Biden, and Biden did not move to cut off security assistance, and neither has Trump.
		Other important sections of U.S. law, I mean, things, for example, like the Leahy law, which say that if a specific unit of a foreign military is engaged in gross violations of human rights, those include things like killing people, rape, enforced disappearance, other sort of bodily harm, that that military can no longer receive any U.S. security assistance.
		And in the case of Israel, we send them so money weapons and so much assistance that it's really impossible.
		There's no effective system of end-use monitoring whereby we could say, okay, this specific weapon ended up with this unit, and we have to cut off assistance to this unit.
		There have been efforts, there have been Leahy designations that sat on Secretary Blinken's desk for months.
		These predated October 7th.
		These were determinations of specific acts of gross violations of human rights that the Israeli military had carried out that the internal State Department process, even though It is extremely difficult to even get there given all of the forces arrayed against it.
		The outcome was that Blinken refused to assign these Leahy designations even to units of the Israeli military that had documented themselves engaging in gross violations of human rights.
		The list goes on.
		There are additional aspects of U.S. law, including about just sending security assistance to a government engaging in such horrific human rights violations that should have cut off Israel's security assistance decades ago.
		But here we are, whether it was under Biden or under Trump, we are not upholding our own laws when it comes to Israel.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Anel Shelin of the Quincy Institute joining us for this discussion.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Sophia is up next in North Carolina, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning, Pedro, Ms. Anel.
		Thank you.
		I have two quick questions.
		I do agree a lot about the humanitarian and the compassion and the suffering.
		But what I haven't heard in this conversation, unless I missed it, I haven't heard Ms. Anel say that Hamas is 100% responsible for unprovoked evil against Israel on October 7th.
		I'd like to hear her say that or tell us what she thinks.
		And two, what should Netanyahu done in response to October 7th, especially without the help of Egypt, Jordan, all the other countries not taking in Palestinians?
		Thank you.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Ms. Sheiline.
unidentified		Well, Hamas certainly committed heinous crimes against humanity on October 7th, but that does not justify Israel's actions in the nearly two years since.
		So, in particular, the idea that Jordan and Egypt should have taken Palestinians, Israel should not be killing Palestinians in the first place.
		And as the earlier caller discussed, I mean, Palestinians should never have been displaced from their own homes.
		Palestine should have been established such that the Palestinian people had somewhere to live.
		I mean, arguably, even the idea that Israel needed to be established in historic Palestine when the majority of the population of Israel is of European descent.
		These are people who are coming from Europe, from Russia, many also from the Middle East.
		But in the aftermath of the Holocaust, this was primarily the idea of needing to provide somewhere for European Jews.
		I'm forgetting if I addressed all aspects of the question.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		If the response from, she did bring up what the response from Israel should have been to October 7th.
unidentified		Certainly, thank you.
		So, in the aftermath of October 7th, we had Hamas saying that they would be willing to return all of the Israeli hostages in exchange for an end to the violence.
		That is not what Netanyahu wanted.
		He wanted to have this, I mean, this provided a uniquely unique justification to allow him and his government to attack Gaza and to take control of a territory.
		You know, you have Israeli settlers eager to move into Gaza.
		Israeli settlers had been living in Gaza until 2005, and they were forcibly removed by the Israeli government, which decided that it was too much of a security burden to try to allow them to live there.
		And you have many Israeli settlers who've wanted to go back since that time.
		But in response to the question of what should Netanyahu have done, I think he should have taken the deal and gotten all of the Israeli hostages out back in October or November of 2023 when Hamas offered this.
		And the idea in the first place, I mean, Hamas exists because it is resisting Israeli occupation.
		If Israel agreed, if a state of Palestine were created, you wouldn't have organizations like Hamas or any other militant organization advocating militarily for the establishment of a state of Palestine.
		You think about the fact that when Palestinians try to resist peacefully, which is often what they're told to do, you know, don't embrace violence, you need to resist peacefully, they are met with violence.
		The March of Return, for example, where people tried to march peacefully in order to demonstrate that, look, we just want to be able to return and to get out of Gaza, which has been an open-air prison for years.
		While obviously what Hamas did on October 7th was heinous, you need to look back further than October 7th to understand why Hamas exist.
		Why do other militant organizations in the Palestinian territories exist?
		It's because of Israel's ongoing occupation that denies Palestinians their right of sovereignty, their basic human rights, their right to movement, their right to food, their right to exist.
		And so, if actually Israel wanted to achieve peace and to no longer be in a position of having to deal with movements like Hamas, they would need to establish a state of Palestine and somewhere for the Palestinian people to exist with equal rights or to give Palestinians equal rights in a unified state from the river to the sea, in all of historic Palestine, whereby Palestinians and Jewish Israelis would have equal rights.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		There was a recent joint statement.
		We don't have time to read it fully, but France, United Kingdom, and Canadians put out a joint statement on Gaza, and part of that reading about the humanitarian efforts there.
		What do you think about that state?
		It says that we will not stand by the Netanyahu government, pursues these egregious actions.
		If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take the issue further.
		And there was a response from the Wall Street Journal to that action as well.
		What did you think about the statement from those three countries?
unidentified		I mean, I think it's too little, too late.
		And especially the emphasis right now on recognizing a state of Palestine, well, what exactly would these countries be recognizing?
		And people have pointed out they will just be recognizing a graveyard.
		So, you know, would this be a state of Palestine on the 67 borders?
		Would this be just sort of some Bantu stand like apartheid Saudi apartheid South Africa tried to shove the black population of South Africans onto and say, okay, we've, you know, they've got their own territory, they should be good.
		So I think that although it is, while the international, while the recognition of a state of Palestine by European countries or by sort of the so-called global north is not insignificant, it is inadequate because without following that up with any sort of action, for example, cutting off weapons to Israel or otherwise pressuring Israel and insisting that they need to end their genocide of Palestinians,
		a mere recognition of Palestine, I mean, the majority of the world's countries already technically recognize a state of Palestine and it has had no effect.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from James in Phoenix, Republican line.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		And James, we're running close to the end of time, but go jump right in.
unidentified		Okay, good morning.
		I think your guest is a little misguided, Pedro.
		You know, I was going to say the same thing as the woman from North Carolina about I haven't heard Hamas come out of her mouth.
		It's Israel, Israel, Israel.
		So my question is: well, actually, I have another comment about UNRWA.
		I think the guests, I think I heard, or maybe I'm mistaken, but there was some people who worked in UNRWA who actually were involved in October 7th.
		But back to my question to the guest, would she agree with Hamas being exiled from that area?
		That way, I think the Palestinians would have a better chance of thriving in that region.
		We've tried two state solutions, but yes, we want the Palestinian people to thrive, but I don't think it's possible with Hamas.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Okay, thank you.
unidentified		As I said, as long as Israel continues to occupy to maintain the Palestinian people under a state of occupation, whether it's Hamas or some other organization, they're going to continue to resist that occupation.
		They're going to insist on their own rights, as any people around the world have a right to do.
		In terms of the question of needing to these allegations that UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7th attacks, those have been refuted.
		I was in the State Department and saw the intelligence at the time, which was provided by Israel.
		It was very shaky.
		It relied on the idea that they had images of Palestinians involved in October 7th, and that that was tied to ID numbers of UNRWA employees.
		However, up until March of 2024, which was after this, it was January 2024 that Israel made these allegations, UNRWA did not use Palestinian ID numbers for their staff.
		And so this idea that you could sort of link UNRWA employees with their ID number and that meant they're involved in October 7th, it was all very shaky and didn't line up with UNRWA's own records.
		And so although UNRWA did suspend 12 employees on the basis of this concern, because UNRWA is very concerned with their own legitimacy and the UN in general, all it really has is the perception of neutrality.
		Ultimately, there was no evidence there.
		And Israel never did provide evidence, except that Israel has been trying to get rid of UNRWA for decades.
		Because as I said, UNRWA maintains the refugee records.
		UNRWA allows Palestinians to continue to exist.
		UNRWA not only provided food, but it provided education and medical care.
		It allowed Palestinian life to continue both in the occupied territories and for other refugee populations elsewhere.
		And Israel is not interested in that.
		They would rather have Palestinians be stripped of their rights as refugees and be recategorized as aid seekers that can then be managed in effectively Bantu stands, as I said,
		these sort of tiny enclaves where they will be fully controlled and never allowed Allowed to return or to achieve their own state or equal rights again in a broader state that a sort of one-state solution whereby both Jewish Israelis and Palestinians would have equal rights under the law.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Ms. Sheiline, then, if that's all the case of everything we've talked about, what's the best way to resolve these issues?
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		I know it won't happen overnight or over time, but what's the best path to go down?
unidentified		I think recognizing equality for Palestinians, recognizing their human rights, recognizing their rights to sovereignty, that the United and directly their direct action that the Trump administration should take is what they did in January, where you saw Trump being willing to impose pressure on Israel in order to get that ceasefire.
		He wanted a ceasefire in place for his inauguration.
		He did that primarily to show that he could achieve something that Biden couldn't or more likely wouldn't do.
		So we know that Trump has it in him.
		He knows how to get Nanyahu to listen.
		It's to say, look, if you don't do this, if you don't listen to me, you know, I'm America, I'm the superpower.
		I give you the security assistance.
		I'm not going to provide you with anymore.
		And this would be very much in keeping with an America-first approach.
		This is what he was elected to do.
		You think of people like Marjorie Taylor Greene calling this a genocide and saying that she doesn't want to give any more aid to Israel or to anyone else.
		She represents what many Americans feel, which is that it is not in America's interest to continue to send massive amounts of money to Israel or anywhere else.
		So if Trump threatened or actually did cut off security assistance, you would start to see Israel behaving very differently because they cannot maintain this war and this violence against the rest of the region without American support.
		You would really start to see Israel having to make a very different calculus.
		And that would then incentivize them to behave more like a good neighbor, to stop attacking Lebanon or Syria or Iran, to stop threatening to force Palestinians over the border into Egypt.
		If they actually had to engage with their neighbors the way most countries do, which is if you attack them, you can expect them to attack you and it's going to hurt, they would not behave so aggressively.
		But it's this unconditional American support that has allowed and incentivized Israel to behave in a much more aggressive manner, even than Israel used to.
		I mean, you think decades ago, previous Israeli leaders understood this better.
		But because of the decades and decades of American support, including for things like Iron Dome, which is often perceived as sort of a defensive thing, it's protecting Israeli civilians.
		No, in fact, after Iron Dome, you started to see more aggressive action by Israel, more Palestinian civilians killed because they knew that they would face no repercussions.
		So that's a crucial decision.
		I'll support defensive weapons for Israel, but not offensive.
		They're all essentially offensive weapons by preventing Israel from absorbing and experiencing behavior.
		If Israel had to behave like a normal country, they would not be engaged in this kind of aggression against Palestinians or their regional neighbors.
		So moving forward, the U.S. could do a lot more to support peace in the region by no longer sending this unconditional support to Israel and instead saying we're going to prioritize America's interests and not Israel's.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Anel Sheiline is with the Quincy Institute and you can find her work online as well as her colleagues at their website.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Anel Sheiline, thanks for your time today.
unidentified		Thank you so much for having me.
pedro echevarria ▲ ● ▼		Just a few minutes from now, the President of the United States expected to brief reporters on his plans for the District of Columbia when it comes to safety and the use of federal resources there.
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		The flag replacement program got started by a good friend of mine, a Navy vet, who saw the flag at the office that needed to be replaced.
		He said, Wouldn't this be great if this is going to be something that we did for anyone?

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