CSPAN - Washington Journal 08/14/2025

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Aug. 14, 2025 07:00-10:00 - CSPAN

02:59:55

Washington Journal 08/14/2025

Participants

Main

mimi geerges

cspan 36:11

Appearances

brian lamb

cspan 01:25

donald j trump

admin 04:10

hakeem jeffries

rep/d 01:07

jd vance

admin 01:35

karoline leavitt

admin 01:32

scott bessent

admin 01:00

Clips

al green

rep/d 00:04

barack obama

d 00:02

bill clinton

d 00:02

george h w bush

r 00:02

george w bush

r 00:04

glenn spencer

00:03

jimmy carter

d 00:04

patty murray

sen/d 00:08

ronald reagan

r 00:01

sean duffy

admin 00:04

Callers

brad in pa

callers 00:09

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		We'll take your calls and comments live.
		Then a look at the impact of President Trump's recent economic actions with former White House Associate Director for Economic Policy Vance Ginn.
		And we'll discuss the President's declaration taking federal control of Washington, D.C.'s police and the state of policing across the U.S. with R Street Institute, Criminal Justice and Civil Liberties Senior Fellow Gillian Snyder.
		Washington Journal starts now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
		It's Thursday, August 14th.
		President Trump was at the Kennedy Center for the Arts yesterday.
		He unveiled the next recipients of its Hallmark honors and said that he would personally host the award show in December.
		And the White House has said that administration officials will vet the Smithsonian Museum's exhibits for, quote, improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology.
		For our first half hour, we're asking you about President Trump's influence over cultural institutions and museums.
		Our phone lines are different today.
		If you say the influence is too much, call 202748-8000.
		Not enough influence, it's 202-748-8001.
		And just right, it's 202-748-8002.
		You can also send a text to 202-748-8003.
		Include your first name in your city-state.
		And you can post your comments on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
		Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
		Let's start with the President's comments from yesterday at the Kennedy Center.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I'm delighted to be here as we officially announce the incredibly talented artists who will be celebrated later this year at the 2025 Kennedy Center honors.
		It's going to be a big evening.
		I've been asked to host.
		I said, I'm the President of the United States.
		Are you fools asking me to do that?
		Sir, you'll get much higher ratings.
		I said, I don't care.
		I'm President of the United States.
		I won't do it.
		They said, please.
		And then Susie Wells said to me, Sir, I'm like at our house.
		I said, okay, Susie, I'll do it.
		That's the power she's got.
		But I just, so I have agreed to host.
		Do you believe what I have to do?
		And I didn't want to do it.
		Okay, they're going to say he insisted I did not insist.
		But I think it will be quite successful, actually.
		It's been a long time.
		I used to host the apprentice finales, and we did rather well with that.
		So I think we're going to do very well because we have some great honorees, some really great ones.
		Since 1978, the Kennedy Center honors have been among the most prestigious awards in the performing arts.
		I wanted one, I was never able to get one.
		This year, it's true, actually.
		I would have taken it if they would have called me.
		I waited and waited and waited, and I said, to hell with it, I'll become chairman.
		I'll give myself an honor.
		Maybe I'm going to honor, next year we'll honor Trump, okay?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we're taking your calls on President Trump's influence over the arts, cultural institutions, museums.
		Here is a poll that Ipsos Reuters took in, this is from April, though.
		And it asks the question: what Americans think of Trump's cultural takeovers, asked Americans if their president should withhold funding from universities.
		But here is the question at hand: control national museums and theaters.
		So should the president control national museums and theaters?
		Overall, 66% said no.
		Only 14% said yes.
		If you break that down by party, Republicans, 49% said no, 26% said yes, and then 25% didn't answer.
		And then among Democrats, it's 86% saying no, 6% saying yes.
		So that's from April and Ipsos Reuters poll.
		This is the Washington Post with this headline, Trump to host Kennedy Center honors, which will go to Stallone, Gaynor, Kiss, and more.
		It says George Strait and Michael Crawford will also receive the award.
		The annual production may see significant changes under Trump, who revealed the honorees during a visit to the arts complex Monday.
		See what you think of that.
		Here's Willie in Little Rock, Arkansas.
		Good morning, Willie.
unidentified		Hello.
		Hi, Go.
		I think he's taking too much authority.
		I don't think it's right for one man to put his value on the whole United States of America and thank everybody supposed to agree with it.
		I was brought up during the times of the 40s, and I ain't never seen no one president that went as far as he's going as far as he's trying to control people.
		So that's my opinion.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And here is the Wall Street Journal.
		White House to vet Smithsonian Museums to Fit Trump's historical vision.
		It says that top White House officials will scrutinize exhibitions, internal processes, collections, and artist grants ahead of America's 250th anniversary.
		It says that the White House plans to conduct a far-reaching review of Smithsonian Museum exhibitions, materials, and operations, to ensure that they align with President Trump's interpretation of American history.
		It says in a letter sent to Lonnie Bunch, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, three top White House officials said they want to ensure the museums present the unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story and reflect the President's executive order calling for restoring truth and sanity to American history.
		We'll take a look at that executive order right after we see another portion from the Kennedy Center where the president talks about the selection of the nominees for the honors.
unidentified		How involved were you in the selection process of these honorees?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I would say I was about 98% involved.
		No, they all went through me.
		They came over, Rick and Sergio and everybody.
		They said, I turned down plenty.
		They were too woke.
unidentified		I had a couple of wokesters.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		No, we have great people.
		This is very different than it used to be.
		Very different.
		These are great people.
		And I don't have any idea.
		the Republican because I want people that the Kennedy Center has everything.
		Look at the Academy Awards.
		It gets lousy ratings now.
		It's all woke.
		All they do is talk about how much they hate Trump.
		But nobody likes that.
		They don't watch anymore.
		That used to have 45 million people watching.
		Remember The Apprentice, first season?
		The Apprentice had 42 million people.
		The Academy Awards had 41 million people.
		We were the second show to the Super Bowl.
		But since then, the Academy Awards have gone down to, I think they've gone down to numbers that are like a regular show because it went woke.
		We're not doing it for that reason.
		We're doing it because we want the great talent.
		But these are great people.
		So I was very, I was just a very long answer, but I was very involved.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we're taking your calls on the question of President Trump's influence over cultural institutions and museums.
		If you think that it's too much influence, he's too involved with that, then call us on 202-748-8000.
		If you do not think he's involved enough and he should have more influence over those institutions, it's 202-748-8001.
		And if you think what he's doing is about right, it's 202-748-8002.
		And Robert's calling us from Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
		What do you think, Robert?
		He's involved in nothing.
unidentified		Good morning, Alan.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, go ahead.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You've got to turn down your TV because we can hear it.
unidentified		Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
		Good morning.
		You look very nice today.
		I'm just calling in.
		It's about, I say he's about, I like President Trump.
		Finally, a president, I can relate to him my lifetime.
		Very, very strong.
		Not like a lawyer, wants to get everything done.
		Sometimes I wish I was a politician because I really follow Trump.
		I hate people they call up, they hate him, this, that, he's no good.
		Go live in Russia or China for six months and then come back and tell me how bad you think he was.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And here's Janet, Rocky River, Ohio.
		Good morning, Janet.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		Listen, look this up.
		Let everybody know.
		The Kennedy Center, since Trump took over, lost one-third of their subscriptions, and they're heavily in debt.
		This power-hungry clown and these people that love him, this MAGA, are mainly white supremacist, white nationalists, Christian coalition who are taking over our country.
		But please look it up.
		All you have to do is see Kennedy Center, and you will see they lost one-third of their customers, and this man goes out there and lies and lies.
		I think you do a great job, Mimi.
		You're one of the best.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Janet.
		But here is an article.
		This is from the New York Times about that.
		After Trump takeover, Kennedy Center ticket sales fall sharply.
		I believe this is from, yeah, this is from June, early June.
		It says, the Kennedy Center disputed the relevance of the data, part of an analysis by employees saying that it had started its annual subscription campaign later than usual.
		It would be interesting to see more recent data about ticket sales, as Janet said, and whether or not that trend has continued.
		Lester, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, good morning.
		You're on the air.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		How are you?
		Good.
		Mamie, since Trump came on the scene, he have practically destroyed America.
		He's nothing but a clown.
		He gets on national TV each and every day talking down on American people.
		We're not stupid.
		We know what Trump is all about.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So what do you think the influence on cultural institutions, museums?
		What do you think his goal is there?
		You said you know what he's all about.
unidentified		Well, racism is number one.
		The Kennedy Center was in great hand.
		The name on that center, he wants his name on it.
		And what have he done for the United States?
		He don't pay his taxes.
		We don't need some clown like this running around putting his name on all our buildings and stuff.
		Mamie, have a great day.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's take a look at the letter that the White House sent to the Smithsonian Institution.
		And this is a part of it as printed by the Wall Street Journal.
		The initiative aims to ensure alignment with the President's directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.
		The Smithsonian museums and exhibits should be accurate, patriotic, and enlightening, ensuring they remain places of learning, wonder, and national pride for generations to come.
		That's printed in the Wall Street Journal.
		You can see the full letter at whitehouse.gov.
		Going on then to the Smithsonian's response to the White House.
		So they responded to that letter.
		This is also printed in the Wall Street Journal.
		And a portion of that letter says this: The Smithsonian's work is grounded in a deep commitment to scholarly excellence, rigorous research, and the accurate factual presentation of history.
		We are reviewing the letter with this commitment in mind and will continue to collaborate constructively with the White House, Congress, and our governing board of regents.
		Wonder what you think about that.
		We are taking your calls this morning.
		There was an op-ed in the New York Times editorial by a former member of the op-ed board, David Firestone.
		He said this and would like to get your response and your reaction to it as well.
		He said: For the president and the right-wing culture warriors who are pushing these revisions, the real offense of these museums is that they finally tell the truth about American history, who benefited and who suffered in an unsparing way.
		In its desire to remake the Smithsonian into a quote symbol of inspiration, dedicated to quote instilling pride in the hearts of all Americans, the White House is trying to impose a government-mandated whitewashing of art and history.
		Nothing painful will be depicted, described, or taught.
		No human suffering will be acknowledged.
		No heroes will be reduced in their grandeur by moral failings.
		It would no doubt impress the Soviet commissars who impose socialist realism on generations of artists.
		Do you agree with that opinion?
		Give us a call, share your thoughts.
		Here's Sharon in Branchville, South Carolina.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, yes.
		I think this president is way too involved with this with the Kennedy Center.
		He could have easily appointed someone else to take over and do this, but with his egotistical, narcissistic way, he just wants to take over everything and be in charge and has his name up in lights.
		It's ridiculous.
		Even the people that he, the honoree that he put up there, Gloria Gaynor, I have nothing against Gloria Gainer.
		I love Gloria Gaynor.
		In the 70s, she was popular.
		She had one big hit, and that was it.
		I will survive.
		Sylvester Salone, get real.
		I mean, come on.
		This is the only people he thought enough to honor at the Kennedy Center?
		No, he's way too involved.
		Way too involved.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Jim, Indiana, Pennsylvania, good morning, Jim.
unidentified		Hey, it's a great sunny morning here.
		I just, what I'd like to say, I'm not sure what these questions regarding the other gentlemen.
		I'm not sure what they have to do with Russia or anything.
		But anyhow, my degree is in history, and I was actually really interested at one point in working with the Smithsonian and a lot of other federal museums.
		And it's just like, if we're going to take the funding, you know, that's going to take a huge piece of the arts away.
		You know, those are all there, you know, for the American public.
		And it's like, where are we going to put Howard Stearns-Peters?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And speaking of the Smithsonian here, it's USA Today.
		Smithsonian puts Trump's name back in museum's impeachment display with changes.
		So here's what the article says.
		It says the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History has restored references to President Donald Trump after removing them from a presidential impeachment display in late July.
		First reported by the Post on the 31st, changes to the, quote, the American presidency, a glorious burden, entailed the total removal of what the museum called a temporary placard briefly covering Trump's two impeachments in 2019 and 2021.
		A more permanent display about the president has since been added, as have artifacts from the proceedings.
		Some text was changed between displays specifically concerning Trump's involvement with the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and accusations of election interference.
		Here's a picture of that display.
		And then it says that the previous temporary Trump plaque, which was added in 2021, was taken out in July to return the display to how it appeared nearly 20 years ago in 2008, according to a Smithsonian statement.
		The Post also noted that the exhibit said that, quote, only three presidents have seriously faced removal, meaning Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Richard Nixon.
		That's at USA Today.
		If you'd like to read more on that, here's Manuel, Cleveland, Mississippi.
		Good morning, Manuel.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		How are you, Mimi?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good.
unidentified		I think Trump is way too involved.
		Honestly, I think that he shouldn't have any involvement in it.
		And that's pretty much all I have to say.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And we are taking your calls for just about another 10 minutes, and then we will go to open forum.
		So if there's other things you'd like to discuss, we can certainly do those.
		The numbers are on your screen.
		So the question is about your view of President Trump's influence over cultural institutions and museums.
		Too much influence is at 202-748-8000.
		Not enough influence is at 202-748-8001.
		And about right is 202-748-8002.
		Let's hear from John in Esopis, New York.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, I explained to the caller to answer my call that I was, I thought the 202 was for independence, and then they just flashed it up.
		I can't even read.
		I don't have my glasses what the middle one is.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I know, John.
		Sometimes it gets confusing when we change the numbers, but it's okay.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		But I don't want to see it to get too far to the left.
		I hate to see it because I think there's a group, there's two or three groups.
		One leads really far to the left, and they want to degrade everything that America is.
		They want to degrade everything that the founders found.
		And then the other side, I don't agree with the other far end of the spectrum where they're, I put them almost touching the racist ideology.
		But I think a question like this should fall where before you make any serious kind of conclusions, I think it takes a lot of research and work and talk amongst American citizens.
		American citizens have a role in this.
		But I always hear like with the slavery aspects and stuff like that, there's a lot that's unexplained.
		It's not exposed to the citizens, but they get half.
		The truth is during the age of exploring Western European culture really didn't have slavery involved.
		They weren't involved with it until the age of exploration when they were going around discovering new parts of the world.
		And they went out there and they started doing trading for different spices with other cultures and trying to find out, bringing home some trees and plants and stuff.
		But the African nations, the chiefs over there that ran these tribes, that's where the slavery actually was brought into play.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We got it, John.
		And here is what Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on X Republican.
		He said, I was honored to be invited by President Trump to attend the unveiling of the five Kennedy Center honorees for 2025.
		They are all outstanding artists in their fields.
		Early on in his presidency, I started working with President Trump and his team.
		It goes on.
		Here is Congressman Raja Krishna Murthy, who says the Smithsonian belongs to the American people, not to any president's political agenda.
		Trump's plan to vet museum exhibitions, quote, to ensure they align with his interpretation of American history, is an attack on our commitment to facts and the truth.
		And finally, Senator John Cornyn, thank you, Apotis, for fighting to hold the Smithsonian accountable.
		Here's Vinny in OnlyMaryland.
		Good morning, Vinny.
unidentified		Good morning, C. Pat.
unidentified		How are you doing today?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good.
unidentified		Okay, so I guess I'm going to be the only one on this line for this morning, but I think what President Trump is doing is awesome.
		We need government to tell us what we need, what we want to like, what we want to see.
		We need the president who is going to take over our cultural life.
		But why would we stop there?
		He's taking over the media.
		He's taking over the universities.
		He's taking over the companies.
		We need the president who tells the Coca-Cola what to put in their products.
		We need the president who tells INTA who is the CEO going to be.
		It's called central planning.
		America is finally coming to communism.
		Just not from the source that we all expected is going to come.
		This is the first step, and we are going in the right direction.
		Comrades, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, they all will be proud of what Comrade Trump is doing.
		Huge support.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Ray Lee in Erie, Pennsylvania.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go right ahead.
unidentified		I don't understand.
unidentified		Isn't there some kind of protections for this, you know, for the museum?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You said what?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Is this protecting the museums?
unidentified		No, I'm wondering, aren't there any kind of protections for the museums?
		I mean, he's trying to change history just to make himself look good.
		This is ridiculous.
		But with the Kennedy Center, I'm wondering, wouldn't the Kennedys have something to say about him changing the name on that?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, so Ray Lee, I do have an article about that.
		This is the Washington Post with the headline, Can the Kennedy Center be named for the Trumps?
		The short answer: it depends on who is doing the renaming.
		So it says that House Republicans raised a question last week when they advanced an amendment to a spending bill that would change the name of the Kennedy Center's opera house to the quote First Lady Melania Trump Opera House.
		Who has the power to rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts or all of it?
		It says Jack Sloshberg, who is Slossberg, who's the grandson of the center's namesake, so JFK's grandson, doesn't think anyone can.
		He posted on X, no, Trump cannot unilaterally rename the Kennedy Center's Opera House after Melania Trump.
		A Republican-led House panel advanced such a proposal in a spending bill, but JFK's so he argues that it violates federal law, and he says that bans additional memorials in the center.
		If passed, it could face legal challenges.
		So that's where that stands.
		Here is Suzanne Las Vegas.
		Good morning, Suzanne.
unidentified		Hi.
		I just wanted to tell everybody out there listening to you: you are a bunch of fools if you are listening and you're saying bad things about our commander-in-chief.
		This is a man that got elected by 95% of the people out there.
		So I don't know where you guys were at when we were voting for him.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Suzanne, you said how much?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		95%?
unidentified		Yeah, at least 95% voted for him.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		No.
		That's not accurate, Suzanne.
		It was not a 95%.
		Sorry.
		Gail, Spring Hill, Tennessee.
		Good morning, Gail.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hey, Mimi.
		Hi.
		I had polio when I was a baby, and it's in a museum about all that.
		And my daughter went there to find out about it.
		And it's in some museum, and I'm just wondering if they're going to get rid of that museum because it's very important.
		It has like the iron lungs and everything about it in there.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This was in Washington, Gail?
unidentified		I think so, yeah.
unidentified		They went on a school trip, and yeah, she learned all about it because she wanted to know about her mom, you know, having polio.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And here's Elaine in St. Louis, Missouri.
		Good morning, Elaine.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		And I am just so filled with positive feelings from the way you're conducting this most precious and pressing topic.
		Your leadership, your courage that you're showing in fact checking.
		It's unbelievable.
		And I am so proud to be a grassroots supporter of C-SPAN.
		And I can't imagine walking and standing for something as a 75-year-old older adult.
		But I would walk with other Americans if C-SPAN was ever threatened by the Trump administration.
		Outstanding job.
		Thank you so much for accepting my call.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Elene.
		And Fred in Jessup, Maryland.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, everybody.
		After that, I suddenly feel dumber.
		I think Trump's been doing a great job.
		I mean, look, he's been around for decades.
		He's seen the deterioration of, you know, common sense and everything going on with the corruption.
		Since he's been trying to straighten things out, he's taking nothing but criticism on that.
		He's just trying to fix the problem that the Democrats have caused.
		All this is a crisis caused by one party.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Fred, getting us to the cultural institutions, what do you think the problems are in those institutions and museums that Trump is trying to fix, in your words?
unidentified		Well, see, I didn't know.
		I thought they were sticking to history and the facts.
		I mean, I was surprised when you said that they had impeachment setups in the Smithsonian Institute showcased on anti-Trump messaging.
		I mean, it's just been proven that the impeachments were BS.
		I mean, what supposed to come forward on that?
		Yeah, and reported on it, but the opposite is what's going on.
		I mean, what I see is him trying to just straighten out things from a common sense approach, and everybody's kicking and screaming.
		He's uncovered so much corruption.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And James in Waldorf, Maryland.
		Good morning, James.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call this morning.
		In my view, I totally believe that our president is just usurping authority and taking too much control over the arts.
		It's eerily similar to what took place in Nazi Germany, I believe, where you have a leader that is trying to control how the world sees their country.
		From him trying to take over the Kennedy Center to now trying to disrupt things in the museums, revising history for his own viewpoints.
		That's fascism at its best.
		So I completely disagree with what he's doing.
		I do want our country to do well.
		I want our leader to prosper.
		I want our leader to do well because when he does well, the people do well.
		However, his decisions are, I'm completely against his decisions.
		And I hope that somebody does put the brakes to him because he's gone too far this time.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Bill, Memphis, Tennessee.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Bill.
unidentified		Well, in my view, Donald Trump is one of the most ignorant presidents we've ever had in the history of the United States.
		He probably can't even spell the word museum.
		He knows nothing about the cultural arts, and he has not contributed anything to the cultural arts but stupidity and ignorance.
		Goodbye.
		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And with that, we will end our conversation about this topic.
		You can continue, though, during our next segment, which is Open Forum.
		Anything on your mind related to politics, public policy, things going on in Washington, a lot going on.
		So you can go ahead and start calling in now.
		The lines go back to party.
		So Republicans are on 202-748-8001.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		And Independents 202-74802.
		We'll take a very short break and be back to your calls.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		In our earlier discussion with Zakir Tamiz about his full biography of Charles Sumner, he discussed his differences with Professor David Herbert Donald on the same subject.
		On December the 24th, 1995, Professor Donald talked about his book called Lincoln on the television program Book Notes.
		David Donald died in 2009 at age 88.
		During his teaching career, which he finished as a professor of history at Harvard, Professor Donald was praised for his Lincoln book by historian Eric Foner.
		Quote, it is often considered the best single volume of Lincoln ever.
		It's the most balanced of the biographies out there, said Foner.
unidentified		We discuss author David Herbert Donald and his book, Lincoln, on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
		BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		It is open forum now, whatever's on your mind.
		We will take your calls for the next half hour.
		Here is ABC News affiliate in Chicago saying, Democrats, bash President Trump, look toward midterm elections on Governor's Day at Illinois State Fair.
		We've got a portion of Illinois speaking.
		Hakeem Jeffries, who is the leader of the House Democrats, was speaking at the Illinois Democratic County Chairs Association, and this is what he said yesterday.
hakeem jeffries ▲ ● ▼		These are challenging times.
		We're in a more is more environment.
		As Democrats, as all of you have been doing, we're going to have to continue to do more.
		More rallies, more demonstrations, more protests, more press conferences, more speeches on the House floor, more speeches on the Senate floor, more town hall meetings in Democratic districts, more town hall meetings in Republican districts, more hearings on the hill, more hearings off the hill, site visits in country, site visits out of country,
		and more extraordinary actions like those being taken by courageous Texas Democrats to block this gerrymandering scheme and this Republican effort to steal the midterm elections.
		More is more.
		And that's our charge.
		That's our collective promise to each and every one of you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was yesterday in Chicago.
		Go to your calls now.
		Here's Philip, Oxen Hill, Maryland Democrat.
		Hi, Philip.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		My comment is on the recent federal takeover of the District of Columbia.
		I think it's wrong.
		No other president has disrespected the solemn oath of the District of Columbia.
		I believe it's a shame to put military against our children.
		These are children, kids.
		I mean, it's just totally wrong, right?
		I mean, I believe that no one has honestly looked at the concerns of the citizens of the District of Columbia and the harm that this is causing, right?
		And one other thing, there has never been a Republican mayor of the District of Columbia since they had home rule.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So the ABC News is reporting that it says as GARD deploys Trump to seek long-term federal control of D.C. police.
		It says Trump has pledged to make Washington crime-free.
		Now that long-term, beyond 30 days, would require Congress passing a law to allow that.
		Here he is speaking yesterday about that topic.
unidentified		Federalization of the police has a 30-day limit unless Congress acts to extend it.
unidentified		Are you talking to Congress about extending it or do you believe 30 days is sufficient?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Well, if it's a national emergency, we can do it without Congress, but we expect to be to Congress before Congress very quickly.
		And again, we think the Democrats will not do anything to stop crime, but we think the Republicans will do it almost unanimously.
		So, we're going to need a crime bill that we're going to be putting in, and it's going to pertain initially to D.C.
		It's almost, we're going to use it as a very positive example, and we're going to be asking for extensions on that, long-term extensions, because you can't have 30 days.
		30 days is that's by the time you do it.
		We're going to have this in good shape.
		And don't forget, in the border, everyone said it would take years and you'd have to go back to Congress.
		I never went to Congress for anything.
		I just said, close the border.
		And they closed the border.
		And that was the end of it.
		I didn't go back to Congress.
		We're going to do this very quickly, but we're going to want extensions.
		I don't want to call a national emergency.
		If I have to, I will.
		But I think the Republicans in Congress will approve this pretty much unanimously.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was the president yesterday.
		We're in the open forum, so let's talk to John, an Old Fort, Tennessee Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, I'm going to help that lady out with that percentage.
		It's 86% of American counties that Donald Trump won.
		That's a lot.
		And Democrats, MAGA is here to stay.
		We're strong and powerful.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And John, tell me about why you are MAGA and why you're proud of that.
unidentified		Because he's cleaning up our streets.
		I mean, it'd take an idiot to see that what's not going on.
		It's going on.
		And he's cleaning our streets.
		That's one reason.
		And I don't want little boys to be able to go in little girls' locker rooms and expose themselves.
		Democrats are evil.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Larry in Georgia, aligned for Democrats.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		How are you?
		Good.
		Okay, I just want to make a couple of comments about Trump.
		I'm not bashing him or anything like that.
		Nobody complained about a president no more than this president.
		So there is something wrong with this man.
		That's what is going on.
		But the people, the Republican, doesn't see it.
		They are blind to what he is doing.
		He's not doing anything to help this country.
		And I really am numb to what he says about things, such as the museum taking over D.C., putting an army out in D.C. to control whatever.
		He is a felony.
		Don't you understand that he is a criminal also?
		So they need to have the army and the White House to get the Republican out because they ain't nothing but a bunch of goons and hater racist people.
		That's all they.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here's William, a Republican in Johnson City, Tennessee.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Hey, I'm as MAGA as you can get, and I'm a little bit more extreme right than most MAGA people.
		We have to tax the rich.
		We have to tax people like George Soros, who destroyed the economy of England and Greece and is now trying to do it with his son taking over.
		They need to be taxed at 90%.
		Tom Stryker, the only one that ran without the backing of a billionaire because he is a billionaire, manipulated oil and gas.
		He needs to be taxed at 90%.
		They're criminals.
		The Democratic Party.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, William, increasing taxes is not a typical Republican viewpoint.
		Sure.
		The one big beautiful bill extends tax cuts.
unidentified		It's been done before and it needs to be done.
		President Trump has done more for this country by creating jobs before he was president.
		So is Elon Musk with innovation as well.
		They should be taxed less because they've done good things for this country.
		The Democrats are involved in crime.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So you only want to tax Democratic rich people, not Republican rich people.
unidentified		No, it's an evil, wicked, maniacal Republican, they should be taxed at 90%.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And who decides who's evil, maniacal?
unidentified		People who plunder.
unidentified		That's the only reason for government is to stop plunder.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Cynthia, Democrat, Coriopolis, Pennsylvania.
unidentified		Yes.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Cynthia.
unidentified		Hi.
		First time caller, you know, extended listener.
		First, I want to say that we have a commander-in-chief that would rather lie than breathe.
		I am so tired of people getting mad because people criticize him.
		He deserves all the criticism he gets because to me, he's a con artist, and everything he does is about showdown.
		So he, you know, he's just a show horse.
		And that's all I have to say.
		And you have a great day.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		In Miami, Florida, on an independent line, Pat, you're on the air.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		I totally agree with your previous callers that are saying that he has his hand too much in this pot.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Pat, did we lose?
unidentified		What governor is he really doing?
		No, I'm still here.
		Can you hear me?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, yes.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Yes.
		Just real quick, I was just saying that he has his hands in too many things.
		What type of governing is he doing with his hands in so many things?
		And trying to change history the way it is.
		Here in Florida, Governor DeSantis has totally changed the way black history is taught here in the state.
		Imagine if we were to try to change the Holocaust, et cetera, what an uproar there would be.
		Black people, get out.
		Do something, please.
		And my last thing is there's a lady that called a previous caller and wanted to know what type of protectionism was there for these organizations that he's trying or that he has literally taken over.
		My answer to that is people go vote, but don't vote for any and everyone.
		Vote for representatives that will represent you, that will stand up for you morally, lawfully, legally, and do what is right, regardless of what one man demands that they say and do.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		On the line for Democrats, DeSoto, Texas.
		Carmen, you're on the air.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi.
		I think this whole situation with Trump is out of control.
		It was out of control the first time, and it's out of control even more.
		He's trying to set his own agenda as far as erasing the history of our nation, of our country, past, present, and future.
		Because if you don't know, if our kids don't know, then they can only live with what's there, and that's going to put them back to where they were.
		Who's going to do the work in the fields?
		Who's going to do?
		So we're next.
		And I agree with your previous caller.
		We need to vote.
		We need to get out and vote because he's erasing it all.
		He started with the colleges.
		Now it's the museums.
		Then it's going to be the history books.
		He's removed and put Obama's picture in a place where if you visit the White House, you don't even see the picture anymore.
		He removed the statue of Martin Luther King.
		He's having all the bases renamed back to racist generals.
		If you can't see the pattern now, and it's only it's not even been a year.
		In three more years, we're going to be buried.
		We will be out there in the fields.
		We will be back in slavery.
		And him and this Putin thing, it's all a show.
		He's going to give Putin exactly what he wants.
		Just what Kamala says.
		He says he's not going to have a problem with Putin.
		It's a show because that's why they cut the Ukrainian president out of the talks because him and Putin are going to fix it.
		And Trump's going to be part of when he gets out of there.
		He doesn't even have nowhere close to where the money that Elon has.
		By the time he's out of there, if he's ever out of there, he's going to Texas.
		He's going to all these states because he's taking them over so that he can be the king from now on.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Carmen.
		On the Republican line, Norwalk, Connecticut.
		Joe, good morning.
unidentified		Oh, hey, thanks.
		Yeah, just a couple things.
		I agree with Trump, cleaning up Washington, D.C. You know, we got this in Connecticut, New Haven, Bridgeport, Stanford, NOAA, all the old people, man.
		You're not caught dead out after dark.
		You just don't.
		Everybody stays in.
		They got crime problems all over the country.
		And that's good to bring up the police.
		I think it's a great thing.
		That's what we voted him for.
		And, you know, I tell you what, you're programming on C-SPAN, man.
		Trump needs to NPR C-SPAN.
		You know, your original mission was just to cover the halls of Congress.
		And you've got real left-wing programming, these call-in shows.
		You know, it's, you know, who's calling?
		Your original mission was just to cover the calls of Congress.
		You've got plenty of stuff to cover.
		We don't need to hear from Politico.
		We don't need to hear from Newsweek and the New York Times and all these left-wing outfits.
		We can get that on our own, thank you.
		And, you know, and I'm being forced to pay for it with our cable bills.
glenn spencer ▲ ● ▼		They said, oh, the cable companies are paying for C-SPAN.
unidentified		No, I am.
		My cable bill is like $237 a month.
		They're passing it on to me, so I'm being forced to pay it.
		It's like the NPR thing.
		So, you know, you guys should go back to your original mission, man.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Joe, I just want to correct one thing.
		One thing, Joe, we are not like NPR.
		NPR does take government funding.
		C-SPAN does not and has not.
		Here is Earl, Albion, Idaho, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Amy.
		Wow.
		What a morning.
		I guess Cottie M to kind of listen in this morning.
		I didn't plan on calling in, but I get it anyway.
		But I'm one of those people that's been out in the field for 55 years trying to build strength and put food on people's tables.
		But if you're going to look at somebody to go after not Trump, go after Soros.
		He's destroyed countries.
		And let's not sit idly by and let this country be destroyed by what's been going on.
		That's about all I got to say, Meme.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here's Randy, Democrat, Marble Falls, Texas.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I wasn't planning on calling in, but here in this, I agree 100% with what Carmen said, you know.
		And if you're talking about destroying the country, Donald Trump is taking over this country.
		It's mind-boggling to sit there and watch, and nobody says anything.
		I just, I will not get it.
		And I'm an old guy that's got grandkids, and this is what we're going to leave our grandkids.
		It's just a shame.
		That's all I've got to say.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Doc, Independent Line, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm a graduate of Louisiana State University many, many years ago with a degree in political science.
		So I followed, you know, a lot of political stuff, particularly communism.
		Because I despise communism.
		It's the communism, socialism.
		It's the same thing.
		It's the worst thing ever, ever created by a human being is communism.
		They have killed more people than any other form of government in the world.
		But another thing that I want to call about is I want my money back for the last four years.
		I want my tax money back.
		Joe Biden did nothing but attempt to destroy this country.
		And that's the communist way of doing things.
		Chaos, chaos, chaos.
		It's the Democrat way of doing things.
		And the ones in Texas that are gone, I don't know if it's true or not.
		Maybe you can help me.
		They claim that the IQ level in Texas went up about 20 points when they left.
		You may know if you can help me on that, but I would like to know.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		David, Polk City, Florida, Republican Line, good morning.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		One thing that was a big story this week when it came out that Adam Schiff was leaking classified information and somehow believes he's protected by doing that as a member of Congress, being on the intelligence committee.
		That's my only comment.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Leaking to who, David?
unidentified		Leaking to who?
unidentified		He was leaking through a group of other people to the press.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		About what?
unidentified		Do you have any more information?
		It's very well covered in the news right now as to exactly what he was doing.
		And it was all for the purpose of trying to destroy Trump.
		Okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So here I've got something on from Fox News.
		Democratic whistleblower told FBI that Adam Schiff approved classified leaks to target Trump.
		It says intelligence staffer who worked for House Democrats called the alleged behavior treasonous and illegal.
		This is said that he ⁇ the documents which were obtained by just the news were recently handed over to Congress by FBI Director Kash Patel, whistleblower who it looks like is unnamed.
unidentified		I don't see a name here.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Reportedly worked for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee for over 10 years, reported Schiff's alleged behavior to the FBI in 2017.
		That's at Fox News if you'd like to read more about that.
		Here's Joseph, Harrisville, New York, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, I think Mr. Trump is doing a great job.
		I'm a socialist this week because I injured myself at Cubaca AMF, the PINS division, in Louisville, New York.
		But Mr. Trump is doing a great job.
		He needs to keep putting pressure on the access of evil with North Korea, China, Russia, and Brazil.
		We deserve to have a strong dollar.
		And gold is the only way we can have a strong dollar.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Can you tell me, Joseph, why you're including Brazil in the axis of evil?
unidentified		Yes, I am.
		Because they're trying to bring down our dollar.
		And our dollar is the strongest currency in the world.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And how are they doing that?
unidentified		By trying to undermine what Mr. Trump is trying to do in making America great again.
		I love Mr. Trump.
		And he is the best president I have ever seen in my lifetime.
		God bless America.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And also on Fox News, Vice President Vance, adversaries are afraid of U.S. military, and that makes tough talks like Putin possible.
		We've got a portion of his remarks when he was at Fairford Military Base in the U.K. yesterday talking to troops.
		Here it is.
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		But as you all know, it is impossible to bring peace anywhere unless the bad guys are also worried that we've got a hell of a fine Air Force and a hell of a fine military to back up the peace to begin with.
		So what you guys do, even though you may not see it every single day, is you make it possible.
		You make it possible for us to accomplish the president's goals through negotiation.
		You make it possible for us to go into a room and say, yes, we want peace.
		Yes, we want to work together.
		Yes, we'd like to bring an end to this terrible conflict.
		But we've also got some great airmen back at Fairford and other bases.
		They're going to make sure that no matter what happens, the peace and the prosperity and the goals of the American people are going to be well served by what you do.
		So I think if you look back at the last six months, if you look back at the number of lives that we've saved in Rwanda and the Congo, the president ended a 30-year war there.
		If you look at what we've done in the East Asia, where the president ended the conflict, in Serbia, Kosovo, where the president has brought peace to that area of the world.
		And now, in just a couple of days, with the president heading to Anchorage, Alaska, to try to achieve an end to this terrible war in Russia and Ukraine.
		You guys make that possible.
		You guys are the reason why we can go into a negotiation with strength.
		You guys are the reason why we have leverage in these conversations with world leaders, because they know that if we cut a deal, it is backed up by the finest fighting force anywhere in the world.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And back to calls now for Open Forum.
		Dwight, Houston, Texas, Republican.
		Good morning, Dwight.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I would like to talk about the President of the United States.
		My name is Dwight Jenkins.
		I'm the proud owner of the Muhammad Ali Memorabilia Archive Mobile Museum.
		And not only that, I want to talk about my president.
		I voted Donald Trump's in.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You got to turn down your TV, Dwight?
unidentified		Oh, okay.
		Okay.
		Let me turn it down.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, all callers, make sure when you've called in, you've got to either turn off your TV or turn it completely down.
		You there, Dwight?
		Okay.
		We'll try to come back to him another time.
		Barbara Silver Spring, Maryland, Democrat.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I just am sick to see history being literally whitewashed.
		I think when you change the history in a country, it's kind of like we're ashamed of this, so we'll just cover it all up instead of saying that this is the way things have been.
		And I don't know how many people have watched Handmaid's Tale, but this looks like Gilead coming at us.
		I think it's all meant to keep the white race, and I'm white, but I think that it's to keep the white race in charge, in power.
		And it's a sad thing.
		We're watching our democracy go.
		Thank you for taking my call.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		On the independent line, Rich is in Wisconsin.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Rich.
unidentified		Hey, Amy, first thing, we're a constitutional representative republic.
		We are not a democracy.
		A democracy is one vote over one half rules.
		In a representative republic, the minority party has representation so we don't get ran over.
		Okay, let's go to the Obama using the intelligence community to try to rig an election for Hillary Clinton.
		It's coming out finally after, you know, six years.
		What has transpired?
		We've known what happened.
		Jim Comey buried what Hillary Clinton did with an unsecured server, which Obama knew about because everybody in his administration was emailing her on that server.
		She sold stinger missiles to terrorists.
		That's what happened in Benghazi.
		That's why they couldn't send air support because it would have been shot down, but they don't want to tell you that.
		These people have been doing nothing.
		And the best part is, the Republicans were in on it.
		You had to be.
		Because that kind of corruption doesn't go without somebody noticing that you're washing money to everybody on the planet.
		When USAID went down, all of these programs all of a sudden took a hit.
		It's crazy to think that one man can do all this.
		He's donated his salary the entire time he's been in office.
		He's lost business because of boycotts for stuff he never did.
		They framed him for this Russian stuff.
		It was Hillary Clinton who used the Russian asset to get a document through the Kremlin and Christopher Steele, through the Five Eyes, through MI6, dear love, Sir Richard, dear love with them.
		This whole thing is a joke.
		We impeach him for Obama and Joe Biden's crimes and Hillary Clinton's crimes.
		We've slandered his name.
		We've made him out to be this bad man who has a billionaire lifestyle, gave it up to take crap from people who have no idea what they're talking about.
		But they won't, all they'll do is listen to the mainstream media who said that, oh, he's in bed with Putin.
		He's going to give, he gave Ukraine stinger javelin missiles, anti-tank missiles, when Obama gave him MREs.
		Trump sued the county in Florida to allow African American and Jewish club members into Mar-a-Lago because before that, they were excluded.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Rich.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Marion in Athens, Georgia, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		So nice to speak with you.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I would like to see you guys do a segment on emergencies.
		This emergency power that Donald Trump seems to have an endless supply of, is it the same emergency?
		Is it different emergency with court cases?
		Different emergency for taking over Washington, D.C. Help me understand where this power is coming from, please.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Marian and Nolan, Louisville, Kentucky, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for calling, taking my call.
		I appreciate it.
		I love the open forum because it's the way for people to get things off their chest and talk.
		My concern really is since the Supreme Court overruled the Citizens United and they let limited amounts of money into the political process and they considered political donations as a form of free speech.
		But what they're saying and telling the American public that if I go spend money and go to the grocery store and use my money to purchase goods, that is a form of speech, and it isn't.
		I think the Supreme Court doing that is ruined both political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans.
		The only thing they're concerned about is getting the money that they're able to get.
		And that's my biggest problem with things, is the fact that money has poisoned the political system and they are catering to political processes.
		We got these people talking about like J.D. Bands.
		Yeah, he's trying to cheer up the military troops.
		I can understand that.
		But guess what, though?
		Nobody talks about the fact that we as a country are supporting genocide in another country.
		If we're the greatest country on this earth, we should be able to start talking peace.
		Let everybody put their arms down.
		Because a lot of countries have nuclear weapons because they don't trust our country.
		And nobody trusting anybody and trusting the other person.
		So it's causing some problems.
		We have the word in God we trust.
		And there was a, they had to do that with a political, should I say, not a law, but they had to have an executive order to put the money, put the term in God we trust on our money.
		And we really need to take it off because if we're trusting in God, that means we have lost the faith that we had.
		And when you trust in God, that's what you're supposed to be able to do.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Nolan.
		And we'll have more time later in the program for your calls.
		But later in the program, we'll have a discussion on the use of federal resources to fight crime in Washington, D.C. with R-Street Institute's Jillian Snyder.
		Up next, Vance Ginn, who served in the first Trump administration as an economic advisor, discusses the impact of President Trump's recent economic actions.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		Weekends bring you Book TV, featuring leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
		Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
		At 8 p.m. Eastern, Stacey Abrams, a one-time Georgia state legislator and gubernatorial candidate, talks with former Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden about her latest fictionalized thriller, Coded Justice.
		And then at 9.15 p.m. Eastern, Michael Grinbaum gives an inside look at the glamorous Condi Nast publishing empire, the people who crafted its publications, and the standards they set for American culture with his book, Empire of the Elite.
		And at 10.15 p.m. Eastern, Book TV takes you to Freedom Fest, an annual libertarian festival held this year in Palm Springs, California, to hear three authors discuss their works.
		We'll talk with Wrong Speak Publishing founder Adam Coleman, attorney Kent HeckenLively, and computer information technologist Sean Worthington.
		Watch Book TV every weekend on C-SPAN, too, and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
		This August, tune in to C-SPAN for highlights of our America 250 coverage.
		Join us as we continue to explore the American story through the voices, sites, and stories that shaped it.
		Give me liberty or give me death.
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		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		We're joined now by Vance Ginn.
		He is former chief economist and Office of Management and Budget under the Trump administration.
		He's also founder and president of Ginn Economic Consulting.
		He joins us to talk about President Trump's economic policies.
		Vance, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Thank you.
unidentified		It's a pleasure to be with you today.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So tell us about your background first and what your role was during the first Trump administration.
unidentified		Sure.
		I was the chief economist, also known as the official title as Associate Director for Economic Policy at the Office of Management and Budget in the first Trump administration, kind of like the last year, June 2019 to May 2020.
		I've also worked in a lot of public policy and think tank area for over a decade now, working on many issues at the state, local, and federal level.
		Recently came out with a book called Empower Patients.
		So I'm also working on healthcare policy, just a number of different areas.
		But at the end of the day, I'm an economist, I'm a dad, and a husband.
		And those are the types of things that I really enjoy.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So I want to start with the latest numbers, the inflation numbers, Axios with the headline, keep consumer price index gauge rises.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What's the takeaways from those latest numbers for you?
unidentified		Well, when you look at inflation and growing about 2.7% over the last year for overall headline CPI, the Consumer Price Index, which is a good measure of the basket of goods and services that the urban people pay across the country, it's what the Fed looks at.
		It's what other folks in the government like to look at.
		So that's up quite a bit.
		When you look at, and it has moderated some, it was up 9% back in 2022.
		So it's only up 2.7, but that means it's still increasing.
		Prices are still increasing.
		If you look at, if you exclude food and energy, which of course we all buy, but happen to be more volatile over time, it's at 3.1%.
		And so that's about a full percentage point higher than what the Federal Reserve, our central bank, would like it to be, closer to 2% when they look at their flexible average inflation target.
		And so that shows that inflation is still hot.
		It's still growing too fast.
		And especially when you start looking at some of the areas that people spend a lot of money on, like their shelter, that's still growing at a pretty rapid pace.
		Food has started to go up again as well.
		And so those are the types of things that I look at and say, okay, the American people have had a tough time during the four years of Biden with higher inflation.
		And it's moderated some, but it's still way too high.
		And I think that's a combination of excessive government spending by Congress, but also the Federal Reserve printing too much money over a short period of time over the last couple of years, and there's still a lot of liquidity or cash that's flowing across the system.
		Too much money chasing too few goods.
		You're going to get higher inflation over time.
		And that's exactly what we're seeing now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And have President Trump's tariffs impacted that number, do you think?
unidentified		Well, you know, when you look at the tariffs, right, and they've been on again and off again.
		We had the first ones coming in on April 1st, and I guess it was April Fool's Day because they kicked it back a month.
		But we have seen a 10% across-the-board tariff on most countries across the globe.
		And so that does increase the cost of production.
		When you look at the imports that we have here in the United States, about half of those are intermediate goods that businesses buy, like raw materials, things of that nature, that go into the final production process.
		And so that will influence a lot of business costs.
		At the same time, we also have half of them that are final goods and certain goods in particular that we buy as American consumers that we also pay those tariffs.
		Because we've got to remember first that tariffs are taxes, and they're taxes on imports paid by American consumers.
		We could talk about the burden, how maybe initially some of these businesses, whether it's foreign or domestic, pay for that.
		But at the end of the day, people pay these taxes, not companies.
		The last time I saw a business can't pay a tax, it's just a building.
		It's really the people inside there, the employees, the employer, your shareholder value, things of that nature.
		So we are seeing those costs throughout the system.
		But it doesn't necessarily mean, like some would argue, that the inflation measure itself will go up.
		To me, that only comes from increases in the money supply and the Federal Reserve's excessive monetary or expansionary monetary policy.
		It doesn't come from the tariff directly, but what you will see are individual prices that have tariffs on them, like steel and aluminum and many other things that we're importing.
		You have relative price changes versus the overall increase in inflation metrics like the CPI.
		So I think that's where we're really seeing a lot of the distortions that have taken place from these tariffs that have been put in place by the Trump administration.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to ask you about the revenues from tariffs.
		I heard you say that it's people, it's American consumers are paying this money.
		The Washington Times has an article where it says that Trump tariff revenue jumps to $25 billion monthly as inflation holds steady.
		Now that's over, that's higher, that's up from $7 billion a year ago.
		So it was $7 billion a year ago.
		Now it's $25 billion.
		Will that have an impact on reducing the deficit and improving the economy overall?
unidentified		Well, when you look at any sort of tax collections, and these are higher taxes that are coming in to the government from these imports paid by Americans, you're going to see that if the spending doesn't increase at the same rate and you have an increase in taxes, then the deficit would necessarily go down.
		But what we've also seen is that spending is growing at a rapid clip as well.
		And so we've got to get control of spending, which is the ultimate burden of government on its people.
		And so what I've seen, and there's some talk about this, like you said, the $25 billion, if you annualize that, make it over a year, we can see $300 plus billion dollars of revenue, tax revenue that's collected by the government that's coming in.
		And that's a massive increase.
		This is a large increase from prior years because of that 10% tariff.
		I mean, if you look at the average tariff tax rate that's hitting people now, it's around 15, 16% versus before these tariffs were put in place, it was only 2%.
		So we've seen a substantial increase in these tariff rates overall.
		And there's also been some discussion about what do you do with this extra money.
		Some have said giving rebate checks to Americans and sending it back.
		But I think that would create more dependency on government, having these rebate checks being sent out.
		Instead, I would rather see the tariffs go away.
		At some point, I think we need to know what the end game is with the Trump administration.
		In the first Trump administration, when I was there, there was a zero-zero policy, zero tariffs, zero trade barriers.
		We were trying to get to some measure of free trade.
		At least that was what the rhetoric was.
		Now, I don't hear a lot about that.
		It almost seems like these tariffs are going to be permanent.
		That's why they're trying to give tax rebates.
		That's why they're looking at other ways to either spend the money or send the money back, which indicates that it could be more permanent.
		And I think that would be a step in the wrong direction.
		If this is a good idea to do something to get a negotiation, you know, bring the other side to the negotiating table, whether it's China or other countries, then do that.
		But don't make this a permanent form of taxation.
		We've got enough taxes to deal with already.
		And if you think about, well, can it replace the income tax?
		If it brings in $300 billion a year or maybe $3 trillion over a decade, if you have that average per year, you know, that sounds like a lot.
		But you've got to remember that income taxes alone bring in about $3 trillion every year.
		So it's not enough money.
		It's only about 10% of the amount of income taxes that are coming in.
		So it's not enough to replace the income taxes.
		So I'm hopeful that the Trump administration will have used these, get rid of them as quickly as possible, because I think it's distorting the overall economy and a lot of supply lines.
		At the end of the day, it also is about control.
		I mean, American people should be able to buy from whoever they want to buy from and not have the government dictating where those dollars are going.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to ask you about interest rates, but before I do, I'll let people know that if you'd like to join our conversation with Vance Ginn about President Trump's economic policies, you can do so.
		Our lines are bipartisan.
		Republicans are on 202748-8001.
		Independents are on 202-748-8000.
		And Independents 202-748-8002.
		You can start calling in now.
		Vance, your substack has this headline: CPI still running hot.
		The Fed can't afford to cut rates.
		However, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessett says this on Bloomberg.
		Bessett urges Fed to lower rates by 150 basis points or more.
		I want to play you a portion of his comments and then have you respond to that.
scott bessent ▲ ● ▼		I think what we could see is that, first of all, what if the BLS data had been the higher quality and we'd had those numbers, Jonathan?
		So if we'd seen those numbers in May, in June, I suspect we could have had rate cuts in June and July.
		So that tells me that there's a very good chance of a 50 basis point rate cut.
		And I think President Trump is very good at giving these nicknames.
		And I think the reason that Jay Powell gets the nickname too late is because he wants to go into a series of rate hikes.
unidentified		He's not willing.
scott bessent ▲ ● ▼		He's not Alan Greenspan, who was very forward thinking.
scott bessent ▲ ● ▼		They try to be more data-driven, which I think is a mistake, because I think we are going back into an economy like we had in the 90s.
unidentified		So, you know, it's just very old-fashioned thinking.
scott bessent ▲ ● ▼		But I do think we could go into a series of rate cuts here, starting with a 50-basis point rate cut in September.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		If you could put that into perspective for us, Vance, 150 basis points, is that drastic?
unidentified		Well, it is.
		I mean, currently, the federal funds rate, which is the overnight lending rate between banks that the Federal Reserve targets, they don't control interest rates.
		They target the interest rates with their money supply creation in which assets that they buy, in particular the Treasury securities in this case.
		And it's the current range that they have it in for that federal funds rate is 4.25 to 4.5%.
		So if you were to cut it from 4.5% by 1.5% percentage points or 150 basis points, as he mentioned, then you're looking at a 3% federal funds rate.
		So that's a pretty substantial cut from where it's at today.
		But I think that's not a good idea at this moment.
		I mean, it would be great because mortgage rates could come down.
		The interest rates that are being paid on the treasuries, meaning that on the national debt, which just went over $37 trillion, which is a massive amount, the interest on the debt payments would also go down, which are exceeding about a trillion dollars a year right now.
		So that would be good indications.
		But that or a good step in the right direction as far as the Congress goes and our national debt.
		But really what needs to be done is the cutting spending.
		Spending is what's mainly driving the national debt over time, the primary driver.
		And so I think that's really where you should start instead of trying to bring down interest rates.
		The other thing is that I would kind of go against what Treasury Secretary Besson said was when you look at the labor market, yes, the labor market is weakening.
		And I think whether or not the BLS, the numbers are biased or other things are going on, I think there is some truth to that in the sense of not necessarily biased from a political standpoint, but because of the way that they collect the data, the survey responses are down dramatically from where they were even during 2020, during COVID and everything else.
		You also have some seasonal adjustments.
		After the Trump lockdowns happened and the economy was shut down, that contributed to years of seasonal base adjustments that have now been biased in different directions.
		But if you actually look at the trend since 1965 of revisions, and last month there was a revision, or sorry, this month's Johns report that came out.
		They revised the previous two months by about 260,000 jobs lower, which sounds like a lot.
		But as a percent of employment, right, it's well within the margin of error.
		And those revisions have been going down since 1965 as a percent of employment.
		And so I don't see that there's a huge concern to be had at this time, even though I do think that there are reasons to improve how we collect those data.
		And bringing all this together now, though, to answer your question, is that Bessett was talking about the labor market and a reason why the Federal Reserve would be cutting because the Federal Reserve has this dual mandate of price stability and full employment.
		They also have some regulatory power and other things that are out there.
		But the one thing that they can control is inflation.
		They cannot control the real labor market.
		And so I would rather them go to a single sort of mandate, which is only on price stability because that's the only thing they control.
		They should not be looking as much about the labor market because then it gets into politics and everything else that the Federal Reserve has no ability to control.
		So I think it's a bad time to be cutting interest rates.
		And in fact, if you look at some of the measures that are out there, like the Taylor rule named after John Taylor, we're right in the sweet spot of where that maybe the natural rate of inflation or sorry interest rates would be.
		And so I don't think there's any reason to be cutting interest rates.
		And in fact, given the inflation was 3.1% at the core, we're well above the target rate of 2% that the Federal Reserve has for their rate of inflation.
		And if they wanted a flexible average rate inflation, then really what that means is we need to get below 2% for a while.
		We've been above 2% now since March of, I believe it was 2021.
		We've been well above 2% and it got up to 9%.
		So for a while, we might actually need to see below 2% inflation before the Fed should start cutting.
		So I don't want to see what happened during the 1970s where inflation went up dramatically.
		It came back down.
		The Fed put back on the gas pedal, raised and lowered interest rate, increased the money supply, and inflation ran up again.
		Let's not repeat that this time around.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's talk to callers.
		Raymond is on the Republican line, Windsor, Colorado.
		Morning.
unidentified		Well, independent.
		And not only did you repeat it, you're about to double up on it with these tariffs with another 25% total cumulative inflation rate.
		So you're kind of playing both sides of the cards here, but you did say the word distorted earlier, which tells me I call it debt bubble collapse.
		And Ray Delio, the richest hedge fund manager on the planet, calls it debt demand struggle.
		Basically, meaning that not only did the Trump lockdowns, but your boy Biden with his lockdowns printed so much money that you're playing catch up now.
		You printed so much money, the spending's through the roof, that no matter what you do, you can raise interest rates by 500%.
		You can lower them by 500% and go into negative interest rates.
		If there's no jobs, then there's no transactions.
		And that's the problem right now.
		There's no jobs because you guys did.
		I'm an OG MAGA, and OG MAGA is incensed right now what's going on with Trump 2.0.
		Absolutely incensed.
		If you're a Trump supporter, you may not want to get on Twitter.
		So basically, we did this wrong.
		We did want to do reciprocal trade the first time, but they printed so much money, we don't have a choice now but to raise tariffs so high that it forces manufacturing back to the country.
		And you're not forcing it back.
		All you're doing is you're putting more taxes, a 15 to 25% increase of cost of living on everybody, which is going to lose even more jobs, which is going to put you in that debt demand struggle.
		And what I've called before everybody, debt bubble collapse.
		Good luck, everybody.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think, Vance?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		There's a lot there to take in.
unidentified		Yeah, there is.
		And I mean, there's a lot to it in the sense of the debt collapse.
		And under Biden, which I wasn't a part of that administration at all, but the Federal Reserve printed a lot of money.
		Biden, what I would consider overspit from Congress.
		They had a lot of the Inflation Reduction Act, all these other bills that went through, trillions of dollars of new spending went into place.
		And that put us in a bad situation.
		And I thought we had a weak labor market then, and the labor market is still weak.
		I think there are some positive things to look at, though.
		I think the one big beautiful bill that was passed had a lot of good things in there of making full expensing permanent, which just means that if a business wants to invest, they can write off that investment this year instead of depreciating it over time.
		That's going to incentivize or support more investment across the economy.
		And I think that's a good step.
		It also made permanent the individual tax cuts.
		All the tax rates would have expired at the end of this year and had a massive tax increase.
		Instead, they made those permanent.
		And so I think that was also a good step.
		There are some questionable things that are out there about no tax on tips and other things that are going on.
		And there was some meaningful adjustments to Medicaid and SNAP about work requirements that I think could also start to bend some of the cost curve for the future.
		But we've still got a major debt problem to the caller's point.
		But that comes from excessive spending.
		And so instead of just cutting spending in DC talk of slowing the growth rate of spending compared to what it otherwise would be, which is what happened during the One Big Beautiful bill, we need to be thinking about real cuts to reducing the amount of government spending.
		Maybe going back to pre-COVID levels.
		I mean, there was a substantial increase from $4.6 trillion when I was there and the government spent at OMB, what the budget was at $4.6 trillion, to now they're spending $7 trillion.
		And it's like, okay, where exactly is all this money going?
		And we've got some major problems when you look at Social Security and Medicare and other things.
		So trying to raise taxes through tariffs to deal with this or really any other sort of tax hikes is not the path forward.
		It has to get back to some sort of spending restraint.
		And I've really called for a spending limit.
		I would like to see the spending grow no more than the average taxpayer's ability to pay for it, which is a population growth plus inflation is a good metric.
		And that should be a maximum, not a target, but a maximum to where you have spending grow by less than that.
		And if we grew the spending by a slower amount and had more economic growth, we could really get control over this national debt and fiscal spending crisis that we have in D.C. Pete in Florida, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Pete.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Yes, a lot of common sense stuff that you're putting out there in a big, beautiful bill.
		That's why you had some Republicans standing up against it.
		But again, I'll just say mostly both sides, but mostly the communist Democrats on this big spending, the federal government, as I said, is not supposed to be like that.
		And it's all fiat money out there.
		And when they can convince people, especially Democrats, that a cut is really not a cut.
		It's just they're keeping the spending the same.
		And when Americans decide that they, what was it way back during the founders said, when Americans decide that they can vote themselves a raise, that's what the problem is that we're into now.
		And again, all the fiat money out there is crazy.
		And again, like the last caller even said, good luck, America.
		Well, you bring up some good points there again.
		And the fiat currency system that we have, which just means that the dollar is backed by government debt, creates a lot of problems and distortions out there.
		It would be, I'm more for a competitive currency, whether that's using gold or silver or Bitcoin one day or something along those lines.
		And I think when you look at the financial system, it's overregulated, whether it be from Dodd-Frank back during the Obama years, a lot of these, the Tropra rule from the CFPB that's going on right now and other sort of situations, the Basil III sort of area, when you look at the amount of regulation.
		And even at the Fed, there's a lot of regulation on banking that's influencing American consumers and the amount of credit that they have available or the interchange banking interchange fees as well and credit cards and things of that nature.
		We've got a lot of areas that we should be reducing and deregulating.
		I'm hopeful the Trump administration could get there because at the end of the day, I want to see free market capitalism.
		We haven't had that for a long time.
		If you look at the major industries of our economy, it's dominated by government.
		Whether you think about healthcare, education, manufacturing, I mean, there's a lot of government at play trying to manipulate, distort what those markets are doing to get their intended outcomes versus what prices and the market process really allow to happen.
		That's how you get more efficiency, more economic growth, and more prosperity across the economy.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Randy in Georgetown, Kentucky, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Randy.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you.
		There was a big last year, there was a great, big, huge inflation increase.
		And you guys never mentioned this.
		No one ever mentions it.
		And it was, you have to pay now so much higher insurance on your vehicles.
		You have to pay so much more taxes and licenses on your vehicle.
		When you get them repaired, they're so much higher.
		The used cars are so much higher because the new cars got a 35% increase because of the wages with the UAW.
		You're talking about gangs.
		You're talking about people ganging up on people to get more money.
		And there's so much of this stuff that I could talk about.
		I know you won't give me time, but so many places that you're in error on all this economy.
		We've got to have a state tariffs and keep them on to keep businesses in this country and keep them coming back so we don't have such a terrible, terrible supply chain situation like we have had and be subject to all these other countries.
		But it's just a nightmare of what you guys are doing.
		And we are a communist nation.
		They just allow us to have so much money to where it keeps us happy.
		Just think about it.
		We are a communist nation.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think, Vance?
unidentified		When you look at, it's correct that the insurance rates have gone through the roof for housing, you know, almost literally because there's a lot of reasons for this.
		And one of those is that we've had higher and higher housing prices, which has been, in my view, kind of an asset bubble where a lot of that Federal Reserve money printing has went into housing over the last few years.
		And we're starting to see some of that deflate now as housing prices are coming back down.
		But whenever things are more expensive to rebuild and there are more people moving along the coasts and things of that nature, you're going to see more destruction and costlier destruction.
		And so insurance companies are having to raise those prices.
		At the same time, you're look at the car part of that, car insurance, those have also been going up dramatically.
		And a lot of that happened after COVID.
		When you had the lockdowns, you had the lack of import and exports, whenever you had trade with other countries.
		And that really slowed down a lot of new car building across the economy, along maybe with some of the UAW, like you mentioned there.
		But what it did was it also increased demand for used cars.
		And that raised prices.
		So you had new car prices higher, used car prices higher.
		And so to replace those for recs or whatever may happen, made it much more expensive for insurance companies.
		So what I would like to see is for us to reduce the cost of doing business here at home more than just going to tariffs.
		In fact, it should not go to tariffs at all.
		It should be looking at how do we reduce the cost of business here at home.
		And I think that's where pro-growth policies come in.
		It's about that investment that I mentioned earlier, full expensing in the one big beautiful bill.
		It's about lowering the corporate income tax rate.
		That wasn't done, but I think that should be on the table.
		It's about lowering government spending so that way you don't have more distortions throughout the economy.
		And ultimately, that's also going to mean less national debt and other things throughout the economy.
		Because at the end of the day, when you look at tariffs and you try to say, okay, we're going to help out this sector versus this sector, another sector is going to be hurt.
		There always are unintended consequences.
		And the opportunity cost is really high in those situations.
		And also, I would mention that, you know, there's talk about the hauling out of the Rust Belt and the manufacturing there that happened there, but that wasn't a result of trade.
		In fact, China joining the WTO is years after, decades after we started losing employment in the manufacturing sector.
		And China didn't join WTO until 2001.
		And then you had NAFTA was 1994.
		That was also well after the 1950s and 1960s where employment started to fall.
		And one other point here is that manufacturing output, how much production there actually is, continues to reach near record levels across the United States.
		And so what I would like to see is for us to stop those bad policies in those states in America that drove out a lot of those businesses and manufacturing that was happening in the Rust Belt, including from the labor unions themselves.
		If we can get control of that, we would be in a much better situation to compete in manufacturing and manufacture more here in America relative to raising prices, raising costs through costly tariffs.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to ask you about the firing of the BLS commissioner after the jobs numbers were adjusted.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Your reaction to that.
unidentified		Yeah, so right after the jobs report came out, after that 260,000 revision, we had Trump come in, fire the BLS commissioner that was there based on basically the bias or the lack of good reporting and good estimating from his view, from President Trump's view on what was going on there.
		As I mentioned earlier, the percent changes in these revisions have actually been going down substantially since 1965.
		At the same time, I think that there are problems.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Explain why do they need to keep being revised?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Why can't we have the right number at the very beginning?
unidentified		Well, that would be great.
		But there are additional surveys.
		So what they do with these, the establishment report and the household survey, the establishment survey, they come into all the businesses and a lot of businesses anyway, and they survey them of how many jobs that they're creating or letting go.
		And those survey response rates have declined dramatically from around 80% to 60%, in some cases, 40% in some months within the initial estimate and then the initial reports that are coming in.
		And so what they'll do over the next couple of months is they get more of those surveys that are coming in from those businesses, and then that helps them to revise their numbers.
		And so a big problem here is the survey responses are too low in the beginning.
		So how do we start to improve that at the end of the day?
		And I am hopeful that E.J. Antony, who's the President Trump has nominated to be the next BLS commissioner, can help to get control of and make sure that we get at the best response rates possible, which could include more automation, more ways to get this done more efficiently overall.
		I will say that I don't think this is a good look or a good time to just come in and fire a commissioner who ultimately doesn't have all of the control over how those data are collected or processed.
		And so it made a bad look whenever the president fired her on that day when it came out a couple weeks ago.
		And I'm hopeful that the new commissioner, whoever that may be, including E.J. Antony, who I used to work with, I hired at the Texas Public Policy Foundation back in 2021 and worked for him for a while.
		And I think he has a good insight on a lot of the economy that's out there.
		I don't always agree with him on everything, but he's a good guy overall.
		But I think that there's going to be a big point here to make sure that these numbers don't look political.
		These numbers from BLS really influence a lot of the policy discussion, including what we talked about already today with the Fed and tariffs and everything else, because how weak or how strong the economy really matters.
		But it also influences states because states also get money for Medicaid, unemployment, and things of that nature from the federal government and elsewhere in order to make payments on those programs based on those BLS data.
		So delaying the numbers or manipulating them in some other way that's not going to be a good look for one thing, but also it's going to hurt the credibility of those numbers.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so I was going to ask you about the credibility beyond it being a bad look because we got a text from California about, you know, why would anybody in the business world have faith in the reliability and accuracy of economic data released by Trump administration officials?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What impact do you think?
unidentified		That's going to be a good question.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That'll have on businesses.
unidentified		Right, right.
		No, it's a great question, and I think it's one that we need to keep an eye on and make sure that these have as much credibility and reliability as possible.
		I think there's also a good, there's also good reason to consider alternatives and consider what the private sector is already putting out.
		Automatic data processing.
		ADP does their private sector jobs the Wednesday before the BLS Friday numbers come out every month.
		You also have Indeed, you have home base, you have all these other private sector indicators from the labor market that should be a part of this discussion.
		I mean, looking at just one data point doesn't give you a good picture on anything.
		That's just one data point.
		And so maybe this will also help us to get an idea of a broader range of indicators from the economy and understand that these government numbers are much more credible here in America than I would say anywhere else in the world.
		And let's make sure that we keep it that way.
		But we also need competition with these numbers.
		Anytime you have the government come in and monopolize a data or something else, it's not usually a good idea.
		And I don't think it's a good idea.
		I want more competition.
		And so maybe there's a way to get to that as well.
		And that will help to improve the credibility with the businesses and others that are out there so they can make the best decisions possible to increase profitability.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Billy in Wentzville, Missouri.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Hey, good morning, Mimi.
unidentified		How are you doing today?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good.
unidentified		Good.
		Just a couple of things.
		I just want to clear up a couple of things.
		Like, Trump keeps coming out and continuously saying that there's no tax on Social Security.
		That's not true.
		They still tax Social Security.
		However, you have up to a $6,000 deduction that you can write off.
		The other thing is he continuously comes out and says that America is bringing in all these taxes, billions of dollars.
		But the thing of it is, is we're not bringing in money.
		We're just taxing other countries and we're paying the difference on the taxes.
		So we're being ripped off and he's lying to your faces every single time that he comes out there and continuously says that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		Well, you know, first I would just say that tariffs are paid by Americans when we buy things and we import them from other countries.
		So we pay them.
		There may be some effect on the country, the foreign country that we're importing from.
		If they're getting less demand for their products because of those higher tariffs, well, then maybe they cut production and cut employment.
		And so there is some effect.
		But at the end of the day, a lot of that's going to be borne by people or will be borne by people, whether it's here or there.
		And I agree with you in the sense that those tariffs are raising costs.
		And those additional taxes that are being hiked by the Trump administration through tariffs, which they are going out and celebrating, it's unfathomable to me to see Republicans cheering increases in taxes.
		Usually Republicans have been for lower taxes, more money in people's pockets.
		And this is the exact opposite, which is one reason why I think we need to get back to pro-growth policies.
		That's what I talk a lot about in my podcast, Let People Prosper and Other Things, is really getting into this idea of reducing the size and scope of government, whether it's tariffs or other programs that are out there.
		We need more money in people's pockets to allow them to prosper on what they can do best versus government coming in and distorting all these other markets that are out there.
		And so while their intentions may be good, the results are such that we're not getting those intended results that they would like.
		And manufacturing in particular went down by another, and the employment did went down by 8,000 jobs just last month.
		And so we're seeing this not work even from manufacturing employment.
		And so I think we need to look at a different trajectory, a different road for policy that's more pro-growth minded versus this raising taxes and creating more distortions and uncertainty in the economy.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		That's Vance Ginn, former chief economist at the Office of Management and Budget during the first Trump administration, also founder and president of Gin Economic Consulting.
		You can find him at vancegin.com.
		Thanks so much for joining us.
unidentified		Thank you so much, Mimi.
unidentified		Have a great day.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Coming up later, a discussion on President Trump declaring federal control of Washington, D.C. police with R-Street Institute's Jillian Snyder.
		But first, we go back to Open Forum.
		You can call in now, Republicans 202-748-8001, Democrats 202-748-8000, and it's 202-748-8002 for Independence.
		We'll be right back.
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		c-span democracy unfiltered have been watching c-span washington journal for over 10 years now This is a great format that C-SPAN offers.
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		First of all, if you say hello, C-SPAN, and how you covered the hearings.
		Thank you, everyone at C-SPAN, for allowing this interaction with everyday citizens.
		It's an amazing show to get real opinions from real people.
		Appreciate you guys' non-biased coverage.
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jimmy carter ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is always an unfinished creation.
ronald reagan ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is worth dying for.
george h w bush ▲ ● ▼		Democracy belongs to us all.
bill clinton ▲ ● ▼		We are here in the sanctuary of democracy.
george w bush ▲ ● ▼		Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies.
barack obama ▲ ● ▼		American democracy is bigger than any one person.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected.
unidentified		We are still at our core, a democracy.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.
unidentified		Weekends bring you Book TV featuring leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
		Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
		At 8 p.m. Eastern, Stacey Abrams, a one-time Georgia state legislator and gubernatorial candidate, talks with former Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden about her latest fictionalized thriller, Coded Justice.
		And then at 9.15 p.m. Eastern, Michael Grinbaum gives an inside look at the glamorous Condi Nast publishing empire, the people who crafted its publications, and the standards they set for American culture with his book, Empire of the Elite.
		And at 10.15 p.m. Eastern, Book TV takes you to Freedom Fest, an annual libertarian festival held this year in Palm Springs, California, to hear three authors discuss their works.
		We'll talk with Wrong Speak Publishing founder Adam Coleman, attorney Kent Heckenlively, and computer information technologist Sean Worthington.
		Watch Book TV every weekend on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		In our earlier discussion with Zakir Tamiz about his full biography of Charles Sumner, he discussed his differences with Professor David Herbert Donald on the same subject.
		On December the 24th, 1995, Professor Donald talked about his book called Lincoln on the television program BookNotes.
		David Donald died in 2009 at age 88.
		During his teaching career, which he finished as a professor of history at Harvard, Professor Donald was praised for his Lincoln book by historian Eric Thoner.
		Quote, it is often considered the best single volume of Lincoln ever.
		It's the most balanced of the biographies out there, said Foner.
unidentified		We discuss author David Herbert Donald and his book Lincoln on this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
		Book Notes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		We're in open forum now for the next 15 minutes or so to hear what's on your mind.
		Here's Lynn Lowell, Massachusetts Democrat.
		Hi, Lynn.
unidentified		Hello, how are you today?
		Good.
		I had, actually, I did have a question for the guest, but that's okay.
		I can move on to a different subject.
		I just wanted to go ahead and say I work with the homeless population.
		I keep hearing people talking about Trump cleaning up the streets, cleaning up the streets.
		And I don't know what they're talking about because violent crime is at a pretty decent low right now.
		And the only thing I'm really seeing is that it's a little bit more spread out.
		It's no longer centralized to that poor neighborhood that people used to be shoved into.
		And now they just have to see it.
		Like that's the real only difference that I see right now, where poverty is more spread out and therefore crime is more spread out.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So Lynn, since you work with the homeless population, tell us about what you think about, you know, kind of solving that issue, getting people housed, getting people in more permanent locations or at least in shelters temporarily and off the streets.
unidentified		Build more houses.
		Build homes.
		And don't charge thousands of dollars a month for them.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What about shelters?
unidentified		Shelters are way more temporary, and forcing people to go to shelters has never worked.
		Forced incarceration has never worked.
		Heavy-handed approaches has never worked.
		Police intervention has never worked.
		And it was documented in 1902 by Jack London, who went and studied the unhoused population on the east side of London.
		And you can read that book if you like.
		It's called The People of the Abyss.
		And the exact same arguments and tactics were used against the unhoused population then that we're using now.
		And big surprise, they didn't work.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And here's Donald, Scott Depot, West Virginia, Independent Line.
		Hi, Donald.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Where to start?
		Trump's persecution and how we all should be fuming.
		These Yay Who's record it all on official documents.
		Why'd they do that?
		Because they wanted everybody to know when it finally came out how smart and powerful they were.
		But they picked the wrong guy with Trump.
		You know, funny thing about this country: we love an underdog as much as we hate to see somebody get a raw deal.
		And Trump got a raw deal.
		And she fleeking classified documents.
		Biggest story on X in the last two days.
		You go and you go to the search page, type in shit.
		It all comes up.
		And they did mention her name.
		She's in Mexico living as a political refugee because when she went to the FBI with it, they fired her and started coming up with all kinds of charges on her.
		And then you either pretend not to know about the story or you really don't know.
		Either way, you ought to be glad I wasn't your boss today because I ought to pull you off there at 45 Henry Fort Deposit, Alabama, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Henry.
unidentified		The last two days.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Henry?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You there?
unidentified		The search page.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Dan in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Okay, like the Washington Police Union is in favor of helping their cover their crime.
		They're shorthanded.
		They need more help.
		Granted, not an emergency, but Trump has to find a reason.
		Why doesn't he just enlarge the police force?
		It's going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars for him to do this show of how people can get used to having military control of their civil society as long as he can have the National Guard there and mess up those guardsmen's personal lives doing whatever he wants to do, jobs that should be done by police.
		We know that the answer is Trump doesn't care about the safety of Washington, D.C.
		He wants to find ways to keep using the Army against the civilian population so that Americans get used to it.
		So it's no big deal.
		And of course, because the exercise of power that boosts his personal psychotic desire for power and, of course, a diversion from every other thing that should that he'd like to take eyes off, like what he's doing ever since he became president to help Russia, not Ukraine.
		It's plain and clear.
		He suddenly doesn't want Ukraine to win.
		He doesn't want Russia to win.
		He's become a pacifist.
		He just wants to stop the killing.
		He's so full of it that I can't.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Sorry, we got your point, Dan.
		And on your screen is some National Guard deployment.
		There, a few guardsmen outside of Union Station in Washington, D.C., just across from our studio here at C-SPAN.
		Here is Brenda in Chihuahua, Washington, Republican.
unidentified		Hi.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just wanted to say I've got an idea for to save money with the Medicare and the Medicaid.
		I don't have insurance.
		I'm 62 and I go to the doctor every three months and I pay.
		But what I was going to say is there's people that are on Medicare and Medicaid that go to the doctor every month and they could go every three months.
		You know how much money that would save?
		A ton.
		So I just wanted to say that.
		Okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Joanne in Yakima, Washington, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		I'm concerned about the tsunami.
		It's not being talked about, and I just want to know the latest information on it.
		Can you help me with that, Debbie?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, I'll see if that's still an issue, Joanne.
		Here's Diane in Iowa.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		This is me, right?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, it's you.
unidentified		Well, hi, and this is Mimi, right?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's Mimi.
unidentified		Hi, Mimi.
		I just got out of the hospital yesterday.
		I live in Iowa.
		There was no point A to point B to get to the hospital in Des Moines from where I live in Marion County.
		I went to two other hospitals, and I still haven't talked to a real cardiologist.
		I still don't know what happened to me.
		Monday night, I thought I was dead.
		I've had a heart attack before, and this one was different.
		I don't understand how this has come to this.
		I doctor with a cardiologist on the backside of Mercy.
		I could not see anybody.
		I had to go, I had to go to two other hospitals.
		And then I had that Andrea Graham done yesterday.
		They sent me home.
		Nothing changed.
		I still don't have an answer to what happened to me.
		I had a hard time even trying to fall asleep.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I'm sorry you're having trouble with that, Diane.
		This is Joe in East Rochester, New York, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just wanted to put my two cents in about the D.C. situation.
		My son lives in D.C., and he's been there about a year.
		The first time I went down there, he lives in a relatively nice, which I thought, neighborhood.
		And I noticed, he told me that he had two blacks and an alarm on his place.
		And I was surprised at that because it didn't look like a bad place.
		So we walked around a little bit, and the neighborhood rapidly changed.
		I was really surprised.
		We walked by a CVS, which was only about three blocks from where he lived.
		And he told me it used to be a CVS, and they had so much theft and crime there, the CVS just shut it down.
		I was just surprised.
		And then we had some other savvory people very close.
		And I was, and then he also told me that 16-year-old, there's a curfew in D.C., that 16-year-olds are not allowed on the streets at night, but they break the curfew.
		And I was pretty shocked.
		I thought he lived in a pretty, he does live in a pretty nice neighborhood.
		And so I just thought myself, I said, this is our nation's capital.
		I was like, how do they, you know, people come from other countries?
		It's like they must have a way to get them to the White House if they meet the president because they wouldn't go the way what I saw.
		That's it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Joe.
		And real quick for our caller in Washington State, there is a website called tsunami.gov run by NOAA and the National Weather Service.
		There is no tsunami warning currently, no warning, advisory, watch, or threat.
		So you can find out more at that website.
		David Frenchlick, Indiana, Republican.
		Hi, David.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I just want to come back to a certain couple of topics that have been mentioned already today.
		First of all, regarding the museum and the Kennedy Center, nothing has happened yet.
		Mr. Trump is going in and refurbishing the Kennedy Center, which is, I don't know how long it's been there, in the mid-70s, maybe.
		He nominated an actor, a rock band, a black pop singer.
		Where is the bias?
		I mean, it's ridiculous.
		And regarding the other Smithsonian Institutes, I unfortunately have never been there, but I would like to.
		I'm getting older today in my age, but there are biases, very similar to your original questions today.
		Your topics are always slanted against President Trump.
		It's never, it's an open-ended question.
		And I think I agree with the one gentleman.
		I think.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So tell us about how you think the question this morning was biased against President Trump.
unidentified		Well, it's just to remind you it's an absolute non-story.
unidentified		Where do you get your sources to come up to that question?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Because he was at the Kennedy Center yesterday and he was announcing the honorees.
unidentified		Yeah, yeah.
		All he did was announce the honorees, which is great for them.
		And I don't see where the big topic is.
		You know, there's a lot more things going on in the country than worrying about if somebody's staring at a Picasso or something like that.
		I mean, he honored a diverse amount of people, so he wasn't biased in that.
		He wants to build it and improve it, increase sales.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Linda, Ottawa, Ohio, Democrat.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hello, this is Linda.
		My comment is: if Trump is going to get the military police into Washington, D.C., along with the National Guard, well, the first criminal that needs to be removed is Trump.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is Richard in Chicago, Illinois, Independent.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Richard.
unidentified		Hi.
		I'm complaining about the U.S. letting countries use the official currency, the U.S. dollar, Ecuador, Panama, El Salvador, Timor, Zimbabwe.
		Countries like this are contributing, using our dollar and contributing to inflation and dragging down our currency and having an effect on our economy.
		And it's got to stop.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Ingrid, Pensacola, Florida, Democrat, good morning, Ingrid.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yes, I am not understanding some Republicans that are going along with all this government takeover.
		I thought, I'm 76, I thought Republicans were against the government being so big.
		I understand that the president has taken away $1 billion from funds from Washington, D.C., and that the Mayor Bauer is working with him on some things, and that the crime rate is going down.
		So I don't get it.
		So you said Republicans have always said that the government's too big, the too big.
		So now we have a government takeover.
		What's the deal with the Republicans?
		They switch, they switch.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You said the government took away how much?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		$1 billion from the D.C. government?
unidentified		$1 billion.
		Yes.
		If you watch something besides Fox, Just this morning on Joe Scarborough, he said that the president had taken $1 billion from funds from Washington, D.C.
		He also said that the Mayor Bauer was working with the president on some things that need fixing.
		So, I mean, it's not all or nothing.
		Yeah, let's come together.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let me check that.
		It says, so this is NBC4 Washington.
		This is a local affiliate for NBC.
		D.C. Mayor works to reduce impact of $1.1 billion in spending cuts.
		That's from April 14th, 2025.
		Bowser invokes little-known law allowing district to avoid more than $600 million in cuts.
		So it's an article there for you, Ingrid.
		And here's Randy Millington, Michigan.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		I'd like to start by thanking you and all the men and women it takes to bring us this great program.
		You're doing this nation a great service.
		My concern is that a lot of this stuff that the president now is doing is going to take a couple years to really affect the American people.
		It didn't take that long for it to affect our area here in Michigan.
		We lost a $55 billion chip plant that was going to go in because of the uncertainty of which way he's going to go on tariffs, his up and down policies.
		So there is an effect.
		He's doing some good, but there is, that was a big loss of jobs and employment around here for us, losing that chip factory.
		And the reason they did it, as they said, they were, it was his erratic policies on tariffs and some of the things he's doing.
		So I'd like to see him succeed because that means the country succeeds.
		But there's also, we're only eight months into this presidency, and these things will take years to a couple years before they actually affect the American people.
		So let's keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Randy, and on the Republican line in Columbia, Mississippi, Ava, you're on the air.
unidentified		Thank you.
		I believe today's 90th anniversary of the beginning of Social Security by FDR.
		I'd like to know what the smallest, what the amount of the first chick for, what's the largest Social Security check today.
		And also, I'd like to add the fact I think it was approximately 20 years after Social Security began that the military started to pay an end to the plan, which might account for some of the problems some of the older veterans have today.
		And one last thing about Trump taking over these different things like the Smithsonian, when Joe Biden came in, one of the first things he'd done was fire Lee Greenwood, who sings, God bless the USA from the National Endowments for the Art Board.
		And I know that because I heard Greenwood tell it himself, and it was done strictly for political reasons.
		He'd been on it for years.
		Thank you.
		And good day to America.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Coming up next, R Street Institute's Gillian Snyder joins us to discuss President Trump's declaring the federal control of Washington, D.C. police and state of policing across the United States.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We'll be right back.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		So you interviewed the other night.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I watched it about 2 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.
unidentified		We can all watch that on C-SPAN.
		Millions of people across the country tuned into C-SPAN.
		That was a make 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.
		We know C-SPAN covers this live as well.
		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's 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.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		That's a big upgrade, right?
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		Visit c-span.org slash donate today and join us in keeping America's story alive.
		Thank you.
		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		Joining us to talk about the federal takeover of DC police and policing across the country is Jillian Snyder.
		She's senior fellow at the R Street Institute.
		Jillian, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Thank you for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Can you just tell us about your focus at R Street, what you work on there, and your background in law enforcement?
unidentified		Sure.
		So R Street, we have a lot of portfolios, but I am currently a resident senior fellow on the criminal justice and civil liberties team.
		So there we focus on all facets of the criminal justice system, specifically looking at policing, pre-trial, what happens when someone goes through the system and what we can do to fix post-conviction relief.
		I've been there about four years, and I'm proud to say that my policing career at the NYPD was what inspired me to go into working at a public policy think tank.
		Having that practical knowledge and that on-the-ground understanding of how the system works and operates allows me to contribute to meaningful changes.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So this week, as you know, President Trump announced the federal takeover of DC police and the deployment of National Guard in the city.
		He says that crime is out of control and this is despite, as you know, FBI data showing that violent crime is going down in the city.
		But do you think these actions were warranted?
unidentified		Looking at it from a police perspective, DC Metro Police are about 700 police officers short currently.
		That's a huge number when you're operating in a city like the district and you are supposed to have roughly 3,800 cops and you have about 3,100.
		That's a huge chunk of your patrol capacity is being negatively impacted.
		So, understanding why the administration did it from a cop's perspective, I get it completely.
		The resources are needed.
		I think personally that what needs to happen is the federal agents that are there, the National Guard that's there, the administration needs to be working very closely with the police chief, the mayor, the boots on the ground officers that are working for MPD, because ultimately this will end.
		When it happens, we don't know.
		But in the meantime, when all the federal resources depart, it's still going to be MPD that's there dealing day in and day out with the citizens of the district.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		When you say that the DC police are about 700 people short, how is that number calculated?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Is it a number of cops per capita in cities, or how do you come to understanding how many cops are required for a given city?
unidentified		It varies across the cities, obviously.
		It looks at crime data, it looks at per capita.
		I know NYPD, where I worked, at one point we had over 42,000 police officers, and that was at the time considered optimal.
		Now they're operating about 33,000, and obviously that's suboptimal.
		But a lot of variables will go into determining what is the appropriate staffing level.
		I don't know how DC does it specifically, but one would be, you know, looking at tourists' influxes, looking at amount of businesses within the area, looking at the amount of population density, and then as well as taking in crime statistics, of course.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And so, first of all, why is there that big of a shortage?
		And what do you do about it?
		How do you recruit and train more police officers?
unidentified		DC, unfortunately, is not the only agency that's suffering.
		We're seeing this across the board.
		I recently co-authored a paper with my colleague on the recruitment and retention crisis, looking at agencies across the nation and seeing that approximately 72% of all law enforcement agencies are reporting issues with recruiting and retaining cops.
		So you're seeing in major areas like New York, like LA, like Chicago, like DC, you are not at that optimal level of staffing, whatever and how it's determined.
		The last few years, obviously, with the criticisms against police and the scrutiny that they've faced, it's made the job less appealing.
		But it's important because we've only been talking about this since 2020 and 2021.
		We actually started seeing officers leaving the force before the pandemic.
		After 9-11, we had a surge of people wanting to join law enforcement, myself included.
		And that whole group of people are now eligible for retirement.
		Many of the pension structures are 20 or 25 years, and then you retire.
		So all of those people that came on after 9-11 are now eligible to leave.
		They're not finding the younger generation wanting this job.
		I mean, looking at it now, I retired about five years ago, and my husband just retired.
		And I loved being a police officer, but it's so challenging.
		It's not easy to raise a family.
		It's not easy to have a routine life.
		You don't work bankers' hours of nine to five.
		You work holidays, you work weekends.
		And then, on top of all of that, you are dealing with people in most cases on the worst day of their life.
		So you need to understand that not everyone's going to love you, not everyone's going to appreciate you.
		And the younger generation out there, they don't really want to be dealing with negativity all the time.
		And that's basically what policing is.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		If you'd like to join our conversation, if you have a question about policing, crime rates across the country, or specifically the federal takeover of DC police, you can give us a call.
		Our lines are regional.
		So it's 202-748-8000 if you're in the Eastern or Central time zones.
		It's 202-748-8001 for Mount North Pacific time zones.
		And D.C. residents, if you'd like to call us, you can do that on 202-748-8002.
		Jillian, I want to play you a portion of comments from White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt from Tuesday, highlighting the actions that the newly deployed law enforcement officers took Monday night in D.C. and then get your take on it.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		On another matter, yesterday, President Trump took bold action to finally restore law and order right here in our nation's capital.
		The president declared a crime emergency in the District of Columbia, federalized the D.C. Police Department, and mobilized the D.C. National Guard to end violent crime in our nation's capital.
		As part of the president's massive law enforcement surge, last night, approximately 850 officers and agents were surged across the city.
		They made a total of 23 arrests, including multiple other contacts.
		Last night, these arrests consisted of homicide, firearms offenses, possession with intent to distribute narcotics, fare evasion, lewd acts, stalking, possession of a high-capacity magazine, fleeing to a lewd in a vehicle, no permits, driving under the influence, reckless driving, and a bench warrant.
		A total of six illegal handguns were seized off of District of Columbia streets as part of last night's effort.
		This is only the beginning.
		Over the course of the next month, the Trump administration will relentlessly pursue and arrest every violent criminal in the district who breaks the law, undermines public safety, and endangers law-abiding Americans.
		President Trump will not be deterred by soft-on-crime Democrats and media activists who refuse to acknowledge this rampant violence on our streets.
		He is going to make our nation's capital the most beautiful and safe city on Earth, just as he promised on the campaign trail.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Jillian, are you there?
unidentified		Yes, I am.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah.
		Okay, go ahead.
		Your reaction to that.
unidentified		I know that the numbers have actually increased since that announcement with more arrests being made.
		I did appreciate the fact that they went through the list showing that they're not just targeting low-level disorderly crimes, that they are purposely focusing on felonies, getting illegal handguns off the street, looking at where maybe drug dispensaries or drug distributing centers are.
		But the most important thing is the, they want to make sure that D.C. residents feel safe.
		And I think that's like where everyone's missing this conversation.
		We know that crime stats have shown decreases, and we get that.
		And social science researchers, cops, everyone who understands crime is going down.
		But that doesn't mean D.C. residents feel safe.
		And I think that the main purpose of this surge, as it's called, is to flood these hotspots, flood the zones that are seeing the increases in crime, the increases in violence, and making a bigger impact.
		And again, because the DC Metro Police Department is operating with thinner resources, having this supportive backup with federal agents is going to allow them to at least do targeted hotspot searching.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And let's go to callers now.
		Let's start with Wayne in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
		Good morning, Wayne.
unidentified		All right.
unidentified		How y'all doing today?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good.
unidentified		I'm glad that I'm not a Donald Trump fan, but I'm glad he's doing this.
		Because in all the inner cities where I lived at, and I'm 70 years old, crime was always out of control and it's out of control now.
		Now, most people inner city know who's selling drugs.
		It's their family members, their cousins.
		But they're not going to squeal on them.
		So I say, put the cops in what Donald Trump's doing is good to me.
		And that's all I have to say.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Any comment, Jillian?
unidentified		No, that's the feeling of a lot of Americans.
		If you live or have lived in a major city and experienced crime, I grew up in New York City in the early 80s, and it was, you know, it was scary back then.
		Obviously, it's not like that today.
		But when you've been, you know, exposed to something like that, you know, law enforcement is your go-to for when you don't feel safe.
		So again, I value that caller's opinion because people are not feeling safe in their communities.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to a resident in Washington, D.C., Ashley.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You're on the air.
unidentified		Hey, how y'all doing?
		I just wanted to comment.
		I've lived in D.C. all my life, and I've definitely lived through the crack epidemic and error.
		And so crime to me is, I guess, on a different scale.
		I will say that, you know, what Donald Trump is doing would be great if it had, you know, if it was from a good place.
		I think that the policing that he's doing is really to, you know, incite fear among the black and brown community within D.C. You say you want to stop crime.
		You say you want to, you know, handle these issues, but at the same time, you're cutting funding.
		You still haven't, you know, had Congress release a billion dollars, you know, that we're hoping that they're holding on to, which really would go into, you know, a lot of programming for the youth and for different facets.
		So I think when you look at that, and then you also look at other states, right, like Missouri or Louisiana or Memphis, they have a way higher crime rates in D.C.
		But you're not focusing on any of those states.
		You're only focusing on the blue states where we did not vote for you in high numbers.
		And that is the issue that I have with this.
		Nobody wants crime.
		Everybody wants a safe city, right?
		But we want to make sure that the intentions that you're doing it with are in the best interest of the residents of D.C.
		And right now, it just doesn't feel that way.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Jillian.
unidentified		I really appreciate that caller's mention of programming.
		And that's something that this administration does need to consider.
		And it's kind of like a hit or miss because at the federal level, their hands are tied on what they could do at the state level, of course.
		But we need the states to primarily focus on making sure that community-based programs, social service programs, juvenile-related programs to address some of those issues.
		States really need to work together to come up with ideas other than just locking people up.
		But at the same time, when there are violent felonies occurring, when there are murders happening, when there are rapes occurring, we do need law enforcement to go out there in full force and keep the residents safe.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Jillian, how much does this deployment cost?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Do we know the total cost on maybe a per-month basis?
unidentified		I wouldn't be able to say.
		I actually looked into it the other day and there were approximations for the LA when he sent the National Guard into LA.
		But again, those figures were so inconsistent.
		I saw $100 million, I saw $120 million, but no one has come up with this is the amount, at least to my knowledge.
		It's very expensive.
		There's no doubting that.
		But what's happening in Metro PD, because they don't have enough comps, they are forced to make all these officers work overtime.
		That's costing hundreds of millions of dollars as well.
		So if you are now taking some of that burden temporarily off of MPD and instead using federal resources for the federal agents that are there patrolling, I mean, I wouldn't say it's a cost savings, but I'd say it's similar in nature that you're using less overtime for MPD, but more spending on federal agents.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Another Washington, D.C. resident, Terry, you're on the air.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I have three things that I would like to say.
		Number one, I do live in Southeast.
		I feel like I've been under a police state for years.
		There's always a police car.
		There's a big presence, cars on the corner, et cetera.
		So for people who maybe have not experienced this, welcome to my world.
		Number two, where are the people being taken?
		Do they have their constitutional rights intact?
		And the third thing is in terms of the money, I'm wondering if this is an opportunity in Trump's mind to get his hands on the retirement monies, because I've heard in different states when they're grabbing, there's an ulterior motive there.
		And so is this about the fully funded pensions of the citizens of Washington, D.C.?
		Will the money be affected at all?
		I'll take my answer off the air.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So Terry, before you go, when you said that you felt like you lived in a police state in Southeast with a lot of police presence, does that make you feel safer?
unidentified		It makes me feel safer.
		And I like the idea because the policemen are not beating people.
		They are not bum rushing people.
		They're not intent from what I've seen.
		It's just the presence to me, it lets the people know that, well, there is, if you do something wrong, we're there.
		But I'm a little dubious when it comes to what the others may do because these are young people and young people have energy and young people have undirected energy and young people have energy that is available for use, but they don't have jobs.
		I mean, they're doing some things I do believe.
		I walk right by them.
		Nobody's bothering me.
		And I'm not saying that that would not happen, you know, at different times of the day or night, but I have not been harmed by these same youths.
		Okay.
		So I think that they're just doing useless things.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's get Jillian Snyder to respond.
unidentified		So on her first point about having a lot of visible presence of officers, I mean, I wouldn't consider that a police state.
		That is a very standard tactic that most agencies will use because statistically, if you have uniformed presence, opportunistic crimes will not occur.
		If you have an officer sitting in a patrol car or standing on a street corner in uniform, you are not going to see someone sell drugs right in front of them or steal someone's person, run down the street or commit a robbery because that presence is there, that capable guardian, if you will.
		So most agencies, I know when I started with NYPD, for the first year, they literally stuck me on a street corner in East New York, in Brooklyn, just to be there because it was a very high crime area.
		And the goal was that visible presence was a deterrent.
		So that's on that point.
		She also alluded to the juveniles.
		I think that's who you were talking about with the high energy level.
		What we do need, and this is not just DC specific, this is across the country.
		We do need more services and more programs that give youths other options than defaulting to crime.
		When I worked in the South Bronx, which is where I spent most of my career, we did have the fortune of getting a community rec center built.
		And previous to that, we had a high rate of burglaries and kids breaking into cars and breaking into bodegas and stealing stuff.
		Once they opened this rec center, which had a lot of sports programming and just things for them to do other than be idle on the street, we did see a decrease in those juvenile-related crimes.
		Obviously, it didn't get rid of all of them, but it made a substantial difference.
		So that's kind of where I'm going with that.
		The third point I really can't speak to.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And this is Dustin in Idaho.
		Good morning, Dustin.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just want to say that I fully support Trump with what he's doing.
		Everybody's going to be safe.
		That's all I got to say.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And this is Daniel in Springfield, Virginia.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		Thank you for having me on.
		My main point was the trust between people and police.
		I think after 2020, after George Floyd, the trust with the police has just gone way down.
		And I think they've been working on that ever since and trying to get recruiting up and everything.
		And I think that areas are lacking a lot of police.
		And I think crime is on the ramp.
		And I think that Trump is taking advantage of that and using all these people's fears of crime to take control of the National Guard and these cities.
		And he said DC is just the beginning.
		And all these, I just don't want it to get to the point of him having ultimate authority over the police and just be able to have that trust with people again.
		Especially I just want to say one more thing with the 2028.
		I just have questions for Jillian to see how much control he would actually have over the police in DC because he already tried a coup in 2021 and he could try the same thing with this military takeover.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Jillian.
unidentified		You brought up two important things.
		So trust.
		That is something huge.
		Our street, we do a lot of work on police legitimacy and the institution and culture of policing and how community members feel about it.
		So if you don't trust the institution of policing, you're less likely to call 911 when you see a crime, call 911 when you're the victim of a crime, or just respect the law entirely.
		So I think it's really important to note that agencies since 2020 have been working really hard to do more things in collaboration with communities to try and rebuild that trust.
		On the other thing we were discussing about the, I think Trump, I think the president is looking at this through the lens of public safety.
		He ran on that platform.
		That's something he's always been very vocal about.
		And again, many callers today have expressed gratitude because they've said they don't feel safe and they think that this is a necessary thing.
		Ultimately, I think that what will have to happen is it's not a takeover, in my opinion.
		In the beginning, that's how it seemed.
		The media did kind of spin it that way.
		Myself, I was a little confused.
		And now it seems like it is a collaborative effort.
		You know, the police chief's on board.
		The mayor has slowly begun being more receptive to this, saying that they do appreciate the extra assistance.
		She herself did mention that MPD is down significantly, about 700 officers.
		So as long as this continues to be a partnership and not a takeover, I think that's promising.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So how does that actually work, Jillian?
		You know, in addition to the National Guard, you've got agents from the FBI, the ATF, U.S. Marshals.
		There's other agencies.
		How does the coordination work with all those different agencies and the Metropolitan Police?
unidentified		They're still, I'm thinking from what I'm seeing on the news, they're still kind of working that out.
		Obviously, they're going to be a hierarchy is going to be established.
		But from what I've talked to other MPD officers that I know, and I've talked to a couple of federal agents that I know just to see what it is boots on the ground right now, MPD does seem to still be the lead.
		So as everyone knows, National Guard does not at this time have any powers of arrest.
		So they are not out there grabbing up people and handcuffing them because they don't have the power to do so.
		They're there to support the efforts of MPD and the federal agents.
		Even the federal agents that are there, their powers of arrest differ from local policing.
		So, primarily, MPD is going to be the one to effectuate all of these arrests.
		Doesn't mean that a federal agent, if they observe a crime, cannot detain a person, but they will be working with MPD to actually make that arrest because, again, there's jurisdictional concerns: what crimes a federal agent can make an arrest for versus what a local cop can make an arrest for.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Kevin in Washington, D.C. Hi, Kevin.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Um, first, uh, I think I was watching the press conference from the White House press secretary, and a lot of things she was saying were very misleading.
		And I think we, I mean, everyone appreciates this, but we need to be honest and factual.
		Um, she had mentioned that there were some arrests for homicides and some of these violent crimes, but what she didn't mention was that the U.S. Marshall Task Force serves the felony warrants for the Metropolitan Police Department.
		Those warrants are taken out by MPD detectives and served by the Marshall Task Force, and they go out every day and serve these warrants.
		So, now they're incorporating those numbers, which or arrests that would have been made anyway, regardless of whether they were part of this show or not.
		So, I think it's a lot misleading to say that I don't want the public just to think that all of a sudden these federal agents are out here and they're you know they're doing MPD's job.
		Those warrants are taken out by MPD and they're served anyway.
		So, those numbers are being taken from point A and placed into this surge.
		So, I think it's misleading to say just because of the surge that these arrests are being made.
		They're being made, they would have been made anyway.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We got that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Kevin, Jillian, go ahead.
unidentified		Numbers themselves are misleading.
		Honestly, if you look at the crime statistics, the FBI report came out.
		Everyone was very excited, myself included.
		I thought it was progress being made.
		The numbers look decent, but that only accounts for the crimes reported to police.
		So, everyone, you know, celebrating that yay crime went down, overall violent crime 4.5% in the entire country.
		That's great news, but that's only about half of all crime that occurs is reported to police.
		So, statistically, all our numbers are misleading.
		We were looking specifically at DC, and you know, 26% crime dropped from last year, which was reported.
		And now, there's allegations that some of those numbers may have been manipulated by MPD staff members.
		So, always take numbers with a grain of salt.
		That's what I say.
		They're good for looking at longitudinal trends, but we shouldn't be basing public policy at all simply on the numbers.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Jillian, you said half of all crime is reported to police.
unidentified		So, I just had another paper published about a month ago on case clearance rates and looking at violent crime versus property crime.
		And we've seen just the reporting is one of the biggest issues of why case clearance rates have declined so much.
		But it is approximated, and again, take numbers with a grain of salt.
		It is approximated that about half of all crime that occurs in reality is reported to police.
		The other way that most researchers or social science agents will look at crime is looking at the National Crime Victimization Survey.
		So, that's a BJS study that is supposed to capture the other crime numbers that are not reported to police for called the dark figure of crime.
		And you'll see that I believe we don't have the 2024 numbers yet, but 2023 numbers were showing higher.
		So more crimes were not reported to police in 2023 than had been two and three years previously.
		So that's showing that these numbers, these FBI reports that we're all relying on, while helpful in identifying trends over courses of time, they're not capturing all crime that occurs in reality.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Dr. Carla, Wayne City, Illinois, you're on with Jillian Snyder of the R Street Institute.
unidentified		Yeah, I'm from Illinois, and I was just wondering, there was a woman that talked about the blue states being targeted.
		And I'm kind of wondering now, Illinois is, I mean, I know we got Governor Prisker, and he says he's doing a good job.
		He's lied through every bit of it because there's so much crime around here.
		You can't turn on the news without seeing somebody being arrested for pedophilia, drugs, murder.
		I mean, all kinds of crime.
		There's all kinds of crime in Chicago.
		I moved away from up north to get away from the cities because I was like an hour and a half from Chicago and the crime was seeping down closer to me.
		So I moved further south.
		But the crime in the blue states, a lot of it is because of sanctuary cities.
		And I was wondering if you can determine how, you know, like who's got the highest crime rate in this country?
		Is it Chicago?
		Is it Washington, D.C.?
		Is it California?
		I mean, people don't understand that.
		Crime went up when they decided to sanctuary these cities.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		So you're letting.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Jillian, the relationship between crime and illegal immigrants.
unidentified		So statistically, it's not supported, actually.
		Most people who are here undocumented, they are not, again, I'm not speaking on all undocumented people because we obviously know of cases, high-profile cases in which undocumented people did commit heinous crime.
		But overall, we do not see higher rates of crime being committed by undocumented people when compared to legal citizens.
		So that is statistically what I know.
		Again, we have to just take that with a grain of salt because as this woman is describing, she's perceiving, and that's what we all do.
		So when you see disorder, when you see a lot of undocumented people during the pandemic, we had in New York City, we had that issue, homelessness overall, people that were unhoused and suffering from substance use issues.
		So the city itself was just blanketed in people who had nowhere else to go.
		And yes, if you are walking down the street, you did not feel safe.
		That didn't necessarily mean that crime on that street was out of control.
		You just see this disorder and you personally don't feel safe.
		So I don't want to say that there's a relationship between sanctuary cities and crime, but obviously a lot of people feel that it is.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Michael Lewisburg, North Carolina, you're next.
unidentified		Good morning, Meevy, and good morning to your guests.
		There's so many issues here that I'm just trying to lock in on a couple real quickly.
		I will say that President President Trump is a master of he knows his base, he's a master of deflection, a master of distraction.
		He knows with his base that talking about crime, okay, all these black people are committing all these violent crimes, and you got the good guys in the white hats and the white guys from the National Guard, you know, coming in to protect all the solid, peaceful white citizens of DC.
		That's what this is all about.
		And the problem, the other problem is, ever since Daryl Gates made it a policy to recruit officers from the deep south to come out to LA to be police officers, you've got these three percenters and these oath keepers, and these police departments are actively recruiting these people.
		And until you automatically disqualifier from employment that you belong to one of these groups, you can't come into the department all tattered up with tattoos all up and down your arms.
		Black folks and most people of color are never going to trust the police because you have stories every day of police abuse against members of this community, especially black folks.
		I'm black, and I used to be a law enforcement officer.
		And I can tell you stories about events that occurred when I was a law enforcement officer.
		So that really is your problem.
		You got to quit recruiting these guys.
		You can't let them come in there with tattoos all up and down their arms.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Michael, we got that point.
		Let's get a response.
		Go ahead, Jillian.
unidentified		Well, thank you for your service and prior law enforcement experience.
		I appreciate it.
		You mentioned the tattoos.
		A lot of agencies now are actually getting rid of some of those standards.
		There's been a lot of news this week.
		I know it's probably gotten muted by some of the bigger news, but agencies across the country are reducing their hiring standards, including some of those tattoos or certain piercings or other things, because they're so desperate for officers.
		So all of these agencies that are just struggling to get by, they're coming up with new and intuitive ways, whether it be, you know, allowing someone that had a prior arrest for simple marijuana possession, which 10 years ago, that was absolutely not.
		You can't be a police officer, but now it's more commonly accepted.
		So as long as there's enough time between the arrest and when you're applying, they'll make a consideration.
		They're also looking to reduce physical fitness requirements in some agencies, saying that it's too difficult to pass the physical fitness.
		They're reducing educational standards.
		NYPD just did that.
		They reduced it from 60 to I think 34 college credits now to be an officer.
		So again, this is all to say the desperation of agencies to fill these seats and get people out on patrol is causing a dramatic reduction in hiring standards across the country.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Reggie Randallstown, Maryland, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just want to make a quick comment with what your guest just was saying about the standards.
		I'm a retired Navy veteran, and I know that when you start dipping or start amending standards, basically you start going to the low trough.
		I mean, you're asking for trouble.
		I don't care how desperate you ought to recruit.
		You know, that's the reason why society has to go out and start recruiting, you know, with these kids while they're in junior high and high school, teaching them standards and morality.
		And then you can have a better trough to choose from.
		But when you start, you know, making excuses, you know, because you're so desperate that you're going to go out and get Barney Fife to go out and police your community, no, that's the wrong answer.
		There's no excuse for that.
		And secondly, I want to say about this Donald Trump thing, this surge, all that is, first of all, like Carla said before me, it's a deflection because it's where the Epstein files at.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		She addressed the recruitment.
		So let's get in, Valerie from Richmond, Virginia.
		Valerie, go ahead.
unidentified		Hi, thank you for taking my call.
		It's been very interesting listening to everybody and their opinions.
		My first question would be: why would you federalize DC with the black mayor?
		And you did the same thing in Los Angeles.
		Now, my understanding, he can only do it for 30 days.
		So after the 30 days, then what?
		Your guest is saying there's a shortage of police officers all over the country.
		So I would think with the National Guard, and that's a lot of money.
		I'm retired Army.
		So I know how much it costs to put a soldier, a reserve soldier, on duty for 30 days, depending on what their rank is.
		That money could have been better served by pumping that into DC to have programs, to find affordable housing, or to open up centers for homeless people.
		So the money that are spent on this so-called exercise of authority is a big smoking pile of you know what, because we all know you know what it's all about, but I'd like to hear her comment.
		Okay, and Jillian, last comment, you mentioned the 30 days.
		I know that President Trump has discussed working with Congress to possibly get some legislation to expand that, but no, as of where it stands now, after 30 days, this can no longer take place.
		What you were saying about the money is absolutely true.
		It it's costly to do something like this, but just so we know it's not unheard of for states or districts in this case to need to use National Guard services, because in New York, Governor Hochl had to do it a few months ago.
		She actually had to deploy National Guard to the subway stations because we didn't have enough cops to do it.
		We saw an increase in subway crime, so we needed the national guard support.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, that's Jillian Snyder, senior fellow at our Street Institute.
		You can find her work at Rstreet.org.
		Jillian, thanks so much for joining us today.
		Thank you so much and uh, next we'll finish up this program with open forum and uh, you can give us a call.
		Anything on your mind regarding politics or public policy Republicans.
		202748 8001.
		It's 202748 8000 for Democrats and 202748 8002 for independents.
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jd vance ▲ ● ▼		Why are you doing this?
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		This is outrageous.
unidentified		This is a kangaroo quarrel.
		This fall, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity.
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mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We've got about 20 minutes left, and we're going to be taking your calls.
		If you'd like to go ahead and call in, and the numbers are Republicans 202-748-8001, Democrats are on 202-748-8000, and Independents 202-748-8002.
		I want to just bring something to your attention.
		This is the front page of the Washington Post, and it's about the 13-year search for Austin Tice.
		He's a freelance journalist captured in Syria.
		He is a former Marine.
		He had attempted an escape but was recaptured.
		It says that ever since Tice's family and three American presidents have tried to find him, an agonizing endeavor where at times the only constant appeared to be the swirl of unconfirmed information and the obduracy of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
		Despite intensive efforts to secure Tice's release or confirm his status, the truth about his fate remains elusive, making his case one of the most difficult, U.S. officials say they have ever encountered.
		Again, that's about Austin Tice.
		And currently, over on C-SPAN 2, we've got a program, we're covering a program about that, and that is underway on C-SPAN 2.
		It's from the National Press Club if you'd like to watch that.
		And let's go to calls now.
		Martin LaGrange, Kentucky, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Actually, I'm calling about something completely different.
		I wanted you to look up the article where China has launched the world's largest hydrogen plant and powered by solar and wind.
		While the United States is sitting around thinking they're going to bring coal back to the United States, I think it's important to remember that the Biden administration was trying to fast-forward the United States into environmental energy.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, yes, I am seeing information about that.
		This is Newsweek.
		China unveils groundbreaking hydrogen high-speed train.
		Oh, you are talking about a sorry, maybe that's not a power plant.
unidentified		Okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Austin.
		Oh, sorry.
		Austin in California, Republican.
		Good morning, Austin.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		I just wanted to add, I think that what he's trying to do is normalize this federalizing of the police in Washington so that when it comes time for our next election, he could accomplish what he tried to accomplish last time.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Nicole in Irvine, California, Democrat, good morning, Nicole.
unidentified		Hi.
		I was just going to say that I don't think it's acceptable for this administration to destroy its capacity for foreign aid.
		I think it's hurting a lot of people that could have otherwise, their lives could have been saved.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Are you talking about what aid?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I didn't catch that, Nicole.
unidentified		I'm talking about the destruction of U.S. aid by this administration.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		U.S.AID.
		Yes, okay.
		And why do you think that that's unacceptable?
unidentified		I think it's unacceptable to not help people who could have been helped.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Abraham, Bronx, New York, Republican line, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		My name is Abraham, and I'm a Republican.
		I was very, very disappointed that Donald Trump could be able to put in the National Service.
		Hello.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, go ahead.
unidentified		We can hear you.
		Yes.
		To put the army in the streets of New York, has he forgotten January 6th?
		Where was he when January 6th was taking place?
		Our police officers were assaulted and everything else.
		Where was he?
		I'll never vote for a Republican no more.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Ed in Brownsville, Tennessee, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Ed.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yeah, I wish you'd have had this lady on with Jeff Asher yesterday, but my other comment would be: don't we really create a lot of these problems in society with our drug laws and gun laws, for instance?
		Did you know that more people have died from firearms since 1968 than all wars combined?
		Think about that.
		Number two, these war on drugs, look what it does.
		Look what it does to us.
		And nobody can cite success of the war on drugs.
		100,000 overdose, overdose deaths.
		Just think if they were controlled, regulated, legally, you could go up and buy your drug and it wouldn't be fentanyl in it.
		You would know what was in it.
		People do drugs.
		Why don't we accept it?
		Why do we incarcerate?
		And up to 40% of the people in jails and prisons have a mental illness.
		To me, we create all these problems.
		And I'm sick of all these cops.
		And I wish you would have a guy on there.
		And I can't think of his last name, but his first name is Alex, and he's got a book called Copaganda.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Ed.
		And we're going to go over to the State Department.
		This is Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, with Paraguay's foreign minister at the State Department.
		Take a look.
		This is happening live.
		That was the Secretary of State, and we'll go back to your calls.
		To Israel, Silver Springs, Florida, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, there's a lot of stuff that's going on in the background behind the scenes that are going unnoticed with the 20 this bill, the big, beautiful bill.
unidentified		And it's hello?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yep, go right ahead.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We're listening.
unidentified		Yes, the big, beautiful bill, which is symbolic to 666.
		They just don't call it that.
		But that's exactly what it is because of everything that's going on in this nation.
		And there's stuff that's going on behind the scenes, which people don't see.
		And it's going unnoticed, like the segregation between the colored students and the people being thrown off of planes that are being unnoticed and a lot of other things.
		But they failed to realize that all this segregation stuff is just bringing more hatred.
		The January 6th, when they didn't bring the National Guards then, that they had the power to do so when there was neo-Nazis and things of that nature, they could have done it, but now they're doing it and they're doing it because of the other cultures that are involved that they themselves are provoking to cause all this havoc.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And on the line for Democrats, Richdon Park, Illinois.
		Carl, go ahead.
unidentified		All right, this is Carl.
		Basically, I listen to C-SPAN every morning.
		And sometimes I've been listening for certain things for people to say.
		And when I don't hear it, I just had to call in today.
		If you notice about the situation with Washington, D.C. and what he did in California, if you notice that all the states that he talked about or that he talked about in his press conference in regards to policing those states like Illinois and Chicago and all of those states, they're all black mayors and they're all black people.
		See, he needs to stop that.
		And then you have a lot of black people that will support him and they don't even hear that.
		They don't even see that.
		And the thing that I have a problem with, criminals are criminals, whether they're black or white.
		Why don't people talk about the fact that when white people go around with guns shooting people like the guy did in New York when he killed about four people and he killed that police officer?
		We need to realize that nobody wants crime.
		Of course they don't.
		And you will never wipe out crime.
		You can reduce crime.
		And I think that everything really starts with the family.
		Even when they talk about education and they blame teachers and everything, it's not the teachers.
		It is the parents.
		It is the household.
		When we raise our kids, my wife and I, all of our kids have higher education.
		We spent time with them.
		We educated them.
		We reinforced what the teachers did.
		It's almost like football practice.
		You go to school, it's like practice.
		You come home and it's like practice.
		You have to study in order for a child to do well.
		Stop blaming teachers as if they're the problem.
		But to conclude things, we have to stop trying to follow this man.
		He is wrong for this country.
		I'm telling you, he's wrong.
		People can call Democrats devils, evil, communists, socialists, whatever.
		When they talk about Donald Trump, they're not trying to hate him.
		I don't hate him.
		I just speak the truth.
		The man is wrong.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Carl.
		And a couple of things for your schedule today.
		At 1 o'clock Eastern, President Trump will be making remarks at the White House.
		We'll carry that live for you here on C-SPAN.
		Then at 2.30, California Governor Gavin Newsom and other Democrats will talk about responding to Republican-led redistricting efforts, including attempts to adopt a GOP-favored congressional map in Texas.
		That's from Los Angeles County.
		That will be here on C-SPAN, 2.30 p.m. Eastern.
		And then finally this evening, the U.S. and the U.K. strengthening their relationship in an era of heightened global competition and technological change.
		British Ambassador Peter Mandelson will speak about that and other topics, including the impact of artificial intelligence.
		That will be at 6.30 p.m. Eastern, C-SPAN here, C-SPAN Now, our app, and C-SPAN.org online.
		Dan, good morning, Republican line, Palm Bay, Florida.
unidentified		Yes.
		Hi.
		I just wanted to say a couple things.
		One was, Democrats, I love the fact that you are crying and moaning this morning about police being in Washington, D.C. Guess what?
		We have three and a half years left, so you can keep crying.
		Second of all, I just wanted to say about you, Mimi.
		I find it interesting that you only facts at Republicans.
		First of all, I just wanted to say that it's pretty obvious that the Democrat Party is trying to keep people.
brad in pa ▲ ● ▼		In other words, Social Security programs, different sort of monetary programs that the government people govern.
unidentified		Therefore, they're always going to be.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And you're going in and out.
		Sorry, you're not on a good connection.
		Charles Merchantville, New Jersey, Democrat.
		Good morning, Charles.
unidentified		Good morning, ma'am.
		What I'm going to say is going to stop 50% of the crime in America.
		I'm going to say two things.
		Another thing, I'm going to say it's going to stop 35% of the crime in America.
		In two days, I'd be 87 years old.
		I've been out here on the street and in the prison teaching and training for 64 years of that time.
		All you have to do in America is all the men and women who've been in Yale, clear their record.
		You clear the president's record.
		If they got four or five charges, so what?
		He had 34.
		If you clear their records, that would create 50% of the crime.
		The other 35% is you have to go to the schools and teach trades again.
		Come on, electrician, carboners, truck drivers, nurses.
		Then you got people who coming out, get a job.
		You let our people out of jail at 17, 18 years old.
		They don't know nothing.
		They're going to steal or rob a car, stick up somebody, get a gun, and go crazy.
		But if you teach them a trade when they get out of school, they have a job.
		And if they can work, they went to college if they have to do it.
		Why don't you listen?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Becky is a Republican in Ohio.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Becky.
unidentified		Hi there.
		Hey, I got a few just things I want to say out here.
		Number one, Letitia James went after Trump in New York for bogus stuff.
		So he wasn't really charged with any of that.
		It was all bogus.
		Number two, people saying that our taxes are up.
		Let me tell you what.
		This is going to be a good year.
		And next year, and the next year, and the next year.
		I hope the Republicans stay in-house.
		And then they need to read a really good book.
		It's called Democrats Hate Americans.
		That is a good book from Mark Levin.
		I used to be a Democrat, but I would never turn myself into being a Democrat anymore.
		Thank you.
		Have a good day.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Mark is a Democrat in North Tonawanda, New York.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Mark.
unidentified		Hi, how are you?
		I just want to first start out and say you guys got a great show, and thanks, C-SPAN, for doing this.
		And you're a very good host, too.
		With that being said, I just wanted to say that, you know, people have nothing to blame but theirself for this.
		Everybody should have the right to walk down the street, someone like you, leave work late, go on a subway, and not have to worry about having a gun to your head or getting ripped out of your car.
		So people have nobody to blame but theirself.
		Unfortunately, the bad people take the good people down.
		Me personally, I think it's a great idea.
		If I was there, I'd be giving the guys coffee.
		How could anybody not want to have extra eyes and ears and get these people?
		Two days, he's got over 100 arrests.
		He took 35, 40, maybe 50 guns off the street.
		If you take one gun off the street, that's one less bullet that's going to wind up in somebody and cause damage.
		I just don't understand what the big problem is.
		You know, I mean, and the other thing, too, there's so much blame to go around.
		It's sad that we're at this point in this country.
		But I'll tell you what, whether it's DC or anybody, if you've got governors, you've got police chiefs, you've got mayors, if they're incompetent, you got to get rid of them.
		It should never get to this point where you have to bring in all these extra resources to get a job done.
		And it's just terrible.
		Everything has to be such to the point of this.
		I foresee this really stand for a little while because, you know, I'm watching some videos online and stuff.
		And I'll tell you what, you've got some real nitwits.
		And I'm not just picking on D.C., just all over this country.
		You've got like a subculture of different people, very aggressive people.
		And this is what people have pushed this to the point where you have to bring in the heavy guns.
		And that's all there is to it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it, Mark.
		Paul, Independent Line, Dexter, Michigan.
		Hi, Paul.
unidentified		Hi, I'm calling about the Trump Epstein file.
		I think Putin's got the goods on troll because nobody will know how many little Russian girls he's messed with.
		And this is just a big cover-up with all this National Guard stuff to take our minds off of, you know, the Epstein file.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Blue in Wilmot, Arkansas, Republican, good morning.
unidentified		This is just a big cover-up of all those things.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Blue, if you're there, you've got to turn down your TV.
		Hello?
		Nope.
		Judy, South Beach, Oregon, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I have a request.
		I would like to see C-SPAN get somebody like Heather Cox Richardson on the show or Jennifer Welsh of I Had It podcast.
		I guess Heather Cox Richardson is a historian.
		She explains things thoroughly.
		And also, Trump is really not a president for the people.
		He really isn't.
		I mean, the policies, all of his policies in the Big Beautiful Bill are not designed to help the average person.
		They're cutting rehab programs.
		There's a lot of people that are fighting addiction.
		And where I live, they've got a couple good programs, and they're cutting back now because funding has been cut.
		And I just would like you to have, I would love to see Jennifer Welsh or Heather Cox Richardson.
		She can answer any question.
		She explains things where people could understand.
		And also where I live, every Saturday from 12 to 1, there is protests going on.
		We have to stand up.
		We have to stand up to this administration before we no longer have a voice.
		And I'm just saying, you know, if you're just feeling, if you're just feeling like nobody's listening to you, we need to get out on the streets.
		It's the only thing that's going to save us.
		Thank you.
		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		One more call, Mike.
		Woodbridge, Virginia, Independent Line.
		Looks like we might have lost to Mike.
		Well, that's the time that we've got for today's program.
		We appreciate everybody that called in.
		Thanks for watching, everybody.
		We're back again tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern here on Washington Journal.

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