CSPAN - Washington Journal 08/21/2025

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Aug. 21, 2025 07:00-10:00 - CSPAN

02:59:56

Washington Journal 08/21/2025

Participants

Main

mimi geerges

cspan 30:52

Appearances

donald j trump

admin 02:38

dr steven camarota

04:49

jasmine crockett

rep/d 00:49

larry nichols

03:34

stephen miller

admin 01:30

Clips

al green

rep/d 00:06

cory booker

sen/d 00:22

glenn ivey

rep/d 00:06

hakeem jeffries

rep/d 00:15

jd vance

admin 00:04

john roberts

fox 00:22

katy tur

msnow 00:11

ken martin

d 00:08

patty murray

sen/d 00:08

sean duffy

admin 00:04

sean spicer

00:15

Callers

donna in west virginia

callers 00:20

mike in chicago

callers 00:13

Large

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Show episode speakers

Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		With the Center for Immigration Studies and the Cato Institute's David Beer and the Bipartisan Policy Center's Matthew Weil on election security and President Trump's proposal to do away with mail-in ballots and voting machines ahead of next year's midterms.
		Also, the latest on redistricting battles in California, Texas, and other states with political politics reporter Shia Kappas.
		Washington Journal is next.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
		It's Thursday, August 21st.
		Last week, the White House announced a comprehensive review of select Smithsonian museums and their exhibits.
		On Tuesday, President Trump said that museums in Washington are woke and they focused on, quote, how horrible our country is, how bad slavery was.
		We're taking your thoughts on that this first half hour of the program.
		How do you think America's history should be portrayed in the nation's museums?
		Here's how to reach us.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		And Independents 202-748-8002.
		You can send a text to 202-748-8003, include your first name and 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 President Trump's Truth Social post.
		This is what he said on Tuesday.
		The museums throughout Washington, but all over the country, are essentially the last remaining segment of woke.
		The Smithsonian is out of control, where everything discussed is how horrible our country is, how bad slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been.
		Nothing about success, nothing about brightness, nothing about the future.
		We are not going to allow this to happen.
		And I have instructed my attorneys to go through the museums and start the exact same process that has been done with colleges and universities, where tremendous progress has been made.
		This country cannot be woke because woke is broke.
		We have the hottest country in the world, and we want people to talk about it, including in our museums.
		Take a look at this Hill article.
		This says that Trump's Smithsonian criticism contrasts with 2017 praise, and 2017 is when the National Museum of African American History was opened.
		And here he is from February of 2017 talking at the opening of that museum.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I'm deeply proud that we now have a museum that honors the millions of African American men and women who built our national heritage, especially when it comes to faith, culture, and the unbreakable American spirit.
		My wife was here last week and took a tour, and it was something that she's still talking about.
		Ivanka is here right now.
		Hi, Ivanka.
		And it really is very, very special.
		It's something that, frankly, if you want to know the truth, it's doing so well that everybody's talking about it.
		I know President Obama was here for the museum's opening last fall, and I'm honored to be the second sitting president to visit this great museum.
		Etched in the hall that we passed today is a quote from Spotswood Rice, a runaway slave who joined the Union Army.
		He believed that his fellow African Americans always looked to the United States as the promised land of universal freedom.
		Today and every day of my presidency, I pledge to do everything I can to continue that promise of freedom for African Americans and for every American.
		So important.
		Nothing more important.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here is Gavin Newsom on X. He's the governor of California.
		He says, Trump's GOP has already called slavery a workforce development program.
		Now he is trying to erase slavery from U.S. history.
		And Mike Lee says, the senator says, racist and anti-American messages, whether on the Smithsonian's website or as part of a physical exhibit at a museum, have no place in a U.S. taxpayer-funded institution.
		Indefensible.
		The reforms Trump is instituting at the Smithsonian can't come soon enough.
		And this is White House Press Secretary Caroline Lovitt.
		Trump's Smithsonian Review is long overdue.
		We want to know what you think and how America's history should be portrayed in those tax-funded institutions.
		This is Josephine in Livingston, New Jersey, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		It is so, so, so sad that the Smithsonian is now being politicized.
		I don't get it.
		History is factual.
		It's not putting your finger up in the air and wetting it and saying, which way do I blow today because they want me to do this today or that tomorrow?
		That's very, very sad.
		Stick to the facts.
		Simple.
		Don't like it?
		Too bad.
		Bye.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Maria in Valencia, California.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Maria, Republican line.
unidentified		Thank you for allowing me to give my opinion.
		Yes, good morning.
		I don't even know where to go.
		Seriously.
		I'm so tired of this president.
		What is he trying to do?
		To erase history?
		Nothing of what he's doing in things makes sense.
		Exhausted?
		One thing, one more thing I want to say.
		I'm so exhausted and tired about so many lies from this president.
		Unbelievable.
		We cannot erase history.
		We're nothing without history.
		That's what we are.
		That's what it is.
		That's what we should be teaching in schools, history.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Maria, Maria, you're a Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Had you voted for President Trump in November?
unidentified		No, I did not.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Tim Boligy, Alabama, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Well, the first thing I would like to say is that Donald Trump is a racist.
		He is a liar.
		He said he wasn't separating families, and we saw it.
		He's separating families with the border thing.
		Now he's coming along and he wants to change the facts on history.
		He's tried to take Jackie Robinson out of the off the picture.
		Everything that Donald Trump gets involved with or touches, everything that he does, he destroys it.
		And, you know, if you look at the Westerns, the Westerns show a different version than actually what happened during the time that the colonialist was over here committing genocide against the Indians.
		I mean, he is a racist, and that's what he's doing.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's talk to Joe, who is in New Providence, New Jersey, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Joe.
unidentified		Good morning.
		How are you doing?
		Good.
		I like to say, well, last person, I mean, everybody, it says racial, racial.
		And that's what causes all the doggone problems because the Democrats are doing this.
		And as far as people lying, all Republicans and Democrats, they're all a bunch of liars.
		So it ain't just one party.
		And these Democrats have got to get to learn this.
		And one thing I just like to say about the show, I wish you would come up with more things than just the president, the president of this, the president of that, the president of that.
		After a while, it gets exploring to hear the same.
		You know, the Democrats are going to say this, and the Republicans say that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But Joe, he is the president.
		So, doesn't it make sense that we're talking about the president?
		I mean, who...
unidentified		Sure.
		I understand that part.
		But every single day, it's the president this, the president that, the president.
		I mean, there's other things.
		The Democrats, why don't you talk about the Democrats?
		That one lady that was talking, she was down South America, and she says that she likes it here better than she likes the United States.
		But you wouldn't talk about that because that's a Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it, Joe.
		Let's hear from a Democrat.
		This is Texas Democrat Jasmine Crockett.
		She was on CNN Tuesday responding to the president's Truth Social posting.
jasmine crockett ▲ ● ▼		My question to the president would be: would you say the same thing as it relates to the Holocaust?
		And the Holocaust did not take place in the United States.
		It seems like there are certain people specifically on that side that anytime we want to discuss what has taken place as it relates to black people and how they took our labor, how they took our lives, how they ruined families, they never want the truth to come out because it hurts their feelings.
unidentified		It's kind of like when we decide to call a racist a racist, such as these racist maps that are going through Texas.
unidentified		They always are upset when you just call them for what they are.
jasmine crockett ▲ ● ▼		But the reality is that we need to start speaking more truth if we are really going to get to the real power.
unidentified		And if we don't recognize the full history, then we are doomed to repeat it.
jasmine crockett ▲ ● ▼		And frankly, this is a guy that is trying to do everything that he can to repeat it.
		That is why there are so many people saying that if you wonder what you would have been doing during the civil rights movement, then the question is, what are you doing right now?
		Because we are literally living through a modern-day civil rights fight.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of that?
		And how do you think America's history should be portrayed in tax-funded museums such as the Smithsonian?
		This is from the New York Post.
		GOP Senator Jim Banks introduces bill banning wokeness, divisive narratives at Smithsonian Museums.
		Quote, stop letting activists rewrite our past.
		It says this bill, this is a quote, this bill puts President Trump's order into law to ensure our national museums celebrate our values, our heroes, and what makes America great.
		This is Mark, Wesley Chapel, Florida, Republican.
		Good morning, Mark.
unidentified		Yes, I'm all for the issue of race and racism and all this to be discussed in American history.
		But let me spend a couple of minutes here real quick of giving some facts out.
		As long as the truth is told, I'm all for it.
		First of all, truth number one, the Democratic Party was the party of slavery in the 19th century.
		Another fact, the Democratic Party fought the Civil War.
		The Democratic Party was the Confederacy.
mike in chicago ▲ ● ▼		They fought the Civil War by and large, not completely, but by and large to maintain the institution of slavery.
unidentified		The Democratic Party was the party of Jim Crow.
		The Democratic Party was the party of poll taxes.
		Were discriminatory measures in the aftermath of the Civil War against black Americans.
		That was the Democratic Party.
		The Democratic Party was the Ku Klux Klan.
		The Ku Klux Klan sprang out of the Democratic Party in 1866.
		And the Ku Klux Klan was the terrorist wing of the Democratic Party from 1866 well into the 1970s.
		Not 1870s, 1970s.
mike in chicago ▲ ● ▼		The Democratic Party was also the party of segregation for most of the 20th century.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, Mark, let me add to your history here, and that is 1964, the Civil Rights Act was the Democratic Party.
		1965, the Voting Rights Act was the Democratic Party.
		And after that, Southern Democrats stopped voting for the Democratic Party and switched to the Republican Party.
		So what's your response to that?
unidentified		My response to that is that a greater number of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 65.
		All of the opposition against the Civil Rights Act of 64 and the Voting Rights Act of 65, all of it came from the Democratic Party.
		All of it.
		Correct.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And that's why they stopped voting for the Democrats.
		That's what most historians would say.
		Right?
unidentified		Well, I just gave you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Ralph in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Well, I hear that talking point.
		Can you put up a map of the former Confederate states like the South and which of those states are controlled, completely controlled by Republicans?
		The former, I'm thinking of like Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Florida.
		So the idea, so what you're correct is the Southern strategy started in the 1960s after the Civil Rights Bills, right?
		The two Civil Rights Act were signed into law by a Democratic president.
		LPJ signed in these reforms, right?
		And during the 1960s, the Southern Democrats were, you know, they were negative toward these civil rights, you know, measures that Johnson had signed in.
		And so they started to migrate.
		I think it's called the Southern Strategy, isn't it?
		The Southern Strategy?
		You still there?
		Yes, yes.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Keep going.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We're listening.
unidentified		Yeah, yeah, okay.
		Well, if you could put up a map of the former Confederacy, the former Confederacy, and how many of those are solid red voted for Trump.
		So the former slaveholding states voted for Trump overwhelmingly, right?
		I don't know who this guy was.
		What was his first name?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, no, we got your point, Ralph.
		We got your point.
		This is Dolores in Maxton, North Carolina, Republican.
		What do you think of our question, Dolores, and how America's history should be portrayed?
unidentified		Well, I'm a Lumbee Indian.
		And I have not saw nothing about the Indians in any president.
		We was Dolores, are you still there?
		Yep.
		They should talk about the Lumbee Indians more than what they're doing.
		It was in the Cherokee Mountains.
		The Lumbee Indians down here in Robertson County is left behind.
		Dolores, I'm still in.
		Yes, I'm here.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yep, we got that, Dolores.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Deborah, Hyattsville, Maryland, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just want to bring up one point.
		The government only give that African American Museum 39%, and I think they raised the rest, which will be about 59.
		So I want to know why is it that the government seems to have more to say than the people who is funded.
		You know, the people, the taxpayers send money to raise money for the museum, and the government only give about 39% of the total cost.
		So I suggest before they let Trump destroy that African American museum, I would rather not take any funding for the next three and a half years, wait till he leave office, and then resume getting funding for that museum.
		Let all the basketball, football players, whoever want to give more money and just don't accept any federal funds.
		Because if in 2017, when President Trump was saying this and that about the museum, he liked it.
		Now he coming back 2025, he got more to say.
		If it was right then when he was speaking in February of 2017, then it got to be right, whatever is going on now.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Representative Gregory Meeks wrote this on X, Hands Off Our History.
		The ugly stain of slavery is part of American history.
		We must acknowledge our dark past to have a brighter future.
		And Ed in Forney, Texas says that America's history should be portrayed accurately in all caps.
		Timbo Mountain Home, Arkansas on tech says, I would expect museums to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and not some want-to-be dictator's version of events that fit his view on reality, changing history for his own political purposes.
		Trump needs to stop his assault on American history and the American people.
		And Representative Joe Morrell says, quote, how bad slavery was is exactly what someone who has never been to a museum would say.
		And let's go back to the calls.
		Independent Line and Marietta, Georgia Sankofa.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		As a descendant of those enslaved that were not immigrants, they were captives and brought to this country forcefully.
		And stop getting that mixed up.
		We were not immigrants.
		We were captives.
		Now, as far as the history museum, I think that's a good thing.
		And the way the United States has always been, let me say this.
		I learned about slavery and all the evils not through any education in school because I was not taught.
		I did that personally on my own.
		And black Americans, the descendants of the enslaved, should never leave up our history to be taught from white people to our children.
		That's our responsibility.
		And secondly, the United States only wants to highlight the good things.
		They don't want to tell about their treachery, their terrorism, because it makes white people feel bad.
		You shouldn't feel bad if you didn't do it.
		But the tube is the light.
		And no matter how much you try to keep it hidden, it's going to come forth.
		And one thing I agree with Jasmine Crockett is that why do we have to be forced to be taught about the Holocaust?
		It didn't happen in the United States.
		We are so quick to tell other countries and want other countries terrorism or myths brung out, but we want to hide behind it.
		We want ours to be here.
		But it's not going to be here.
		Like I said, I taught myself.
		I learned everything I needed to know on my own and not by this educational system.
		And it's never going to do right.
		But no matter what you say, it's already in the book and it can be found if you want to really educate yourself.
		And that's what I suggest all foundational black Americans to do.
		Educate your children.
		Don't leave it up to white people to tell you anything because they're not going to tell the truth.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And here's Tommy in Adgar, Alabama, Republican.
		Hi, Tommy.
unidentified		How are you doing, ma'am?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good.
unidentified		All right.
		I just want everybody to get along and quit this racist stuff.
		We all, brother and sisters.
		We got one God and one God only.
		I pray to God about this every day, ma'am.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And what do you think about what's in the museums?
unidentified		I think they need to let go and let the Hispanic people and all of them have their freedom because they fight for that.
		They was treated wrong for that.
		All right.
		They was treated wrong.
		They're not slaves.
		They need to quit saying they're not slaves.
		We all brothers and sisters, and we got one God.
		And I just want everybody to get along.
		That's all I got to say, ma'am.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Tommy.
		Let's take a look at what Douglas Brinkley is, a historian from Rice University.
		He talked about President Trump's comments regarding celebrations of success.
katy tur ▲ ● ▼		When Donald Trump talks about not having any celebration of success in that statement, saying the Smithsonian doesn't celebrate anything other than the bad stuff, do you get that sense when you go there?
unidentified		Is there a celebration of the successes of this country?
		Oh, it's a monument, really, towards black entrepreneurship and black greatness.
		I mean, you study and look at Muhammad Ali.
		He was the greatest.
		And there he is at the Smithsonian.
		You take a look at, you know, the story of a newspaper like the Chicago Defender that was able to advertise what was going on, not just in Chicago, but around America on race relations and promote the great singers of, say, Bronzeville, Chicago, Southside, people like Sam Cook, Nat King Cole, Quincy Jones, Diana Washington.
		The list is long, the Mihaila Jackson.
		So that's what they're doing.
		It's largely celebratory, but you can't just skip the slavery part of it because it's painful.
		They do a TikTok timeline.
		You walk through on the first floor and understand how black American history has had a different variation than white American history.
		And it's educational at its very best.
		And by the way, President Trump should go to some red states.
		He should go visit incredible civil rights museums in cities like Memphis and Birmingham, Montgomery.
		Everybody's come to grips with this.
		What President Trump's suggesting is some retro go back to a kind of time of segregation thinking.
		And that's not, we're too advanced for that.
		And it's not helpful.
		And particularly not doing it like that on Truth Social instead of having an honest dialogue with the good professional curators and the director of the Smithsonian in an honest way.
		If you want to upgrade certain aspects of black history, Tuskegee Airmen or Buffalo soldiers, go for it.
		You're president.
		It's America 250.
		But you don't have to be as demeaning as he is because he makes all of America look bad.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is what Representative Chantel Brown said on X.
		The American people are asking for lower grocery and housing prices.
		Meanwhile, Trump is busy attacking the Smithsonian for being too woke, for including information about slavery.
		Make it make sense.
		And this is Rick in Florida who says, behind Trump on stopping rewriting our history by woke mobs who pull down statues in Orwellian fashion.
		Slavery is over.
		Get over it.
		Lewis in Hampton, Georgia, Democrat, what do you think?
unidentified		Well, personally, it doesn't Smithsonian is a place where you tell history and you give us an aspect of what we're supposed to, what we were and where we are today and where we are.
		It's a measuring tool.
		So I don't think of it as something that you want to pull monies or stop it because I'm going to donate to it anyway.
		Here in Georgia, I've learned about true history on my own through my parents, through the NAACP, and other organizations.
		And with us having the massive HBCUs here, you couldn't help but learn about black history.
		Every professor was teaching or giving us books on black history that they had written themselves.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Oh, sorry, I thought you were done.
		Ken, Washington, D.C., Independent Line.
		Good morning, Ken.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I appreciate it.
		It is ironic.
		His timing always coincides with is a distraction.
		He's the ultimate wicked magician.
		As he continually does, that's what he's been doing since the 1960s and 1970s, particularly against people of color, not allowing them to rent buildings in his homes in New York and apartments and such.
		Now, the distraction is he just brought $100 million worth of bonds this year, just reported.
		The issue in this country, as far as history is concerned, is it is the truth.
		I noticed that your first call with Billy Bob, whatever his name was, he painted a picture of color based on party affiliation, not on race.
		Because it didn't matter if it was a Democrat or a Republican in the Confederacy or during the Civil War, they were still white.
		And white people still benefited from shadow slavery, from the enslavement of people of color.
		This nation was built on the backs of the desert.
		You could not build this type of society without free labor.
		That's why the vast majority of our work is outsourced overseas because it's cheaper.
		So the only way you can build a nation like this is through that.
		And today, black people in America owe about 3.4% of America's actual wealth, where white people own over 84%.
		Now you can break it down to smaller bits and pieces where you have significantly wealthy people that own a greater, have a greater majority stake.
		But it's a capitalist society.
		And this society is, but race has always played a significant role in it, in the oppression of black people.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So Ken, you're in Washington, D.C. Have you been to the African American Museum?
unidentified		Many times, absolutely.
		And if need be, I'll chain myself up in front of it if they want to change it.
		You have to go to it.
		And like one of the callers said, you know, what happened in the Holocaust Museum, that was a European tragedy, and that was established and continually pushed on a daily basis.
		Anytime you criticize the nation of Israel, you're considered anti-Semitic.
		But when you're here, you're considered woke.
		And let's just be clear, there's a reason why they call it the American dream, because you have to be asleep to truly not know what's going on.
		So be woke means to wake up.
		So if they're fighting against something, they want you to stay asleep and remain prone and weak.
		But unfortunately, we ain't got the unique species of people.
		So black people are stronger than we even give ourselves credit for.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But I got that here as special assistant to the president Lindsay Halligan as she was defending the administration's view of how slavery was being portrayed at the Smithsonian.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This was a Fox News interview yesterday.
john roberts ▲ ● ▼		Like just about every other country in the world, the United States has got a checkered past.
		I mean, what should we do in terms of our museum?
		Should we ignore that?
		Should that be massaged in a certain way to make it less significant?
		I mean, some of the worst episodes in our history were formative experiences that led us to where we are today, and those typically are reflected in museums.
unidentified		Yep, I think the fact that we had our country was involved in slavery is awful.
		No one thinks otherwise.
		But what I saw when I was going through the museums personally was an overemphasis on slavery, and I think there should be more of an overemphasis on how far we've come since slavery.
		Our country is a country of progress, and it's the greatest country in the world.
		And we should be able to take our kids, our students through the Smithsonian and feel proud when we leave.
		There's a lot of history to our country, both positive and negative, but we need to keep moving forward.
		We can't just keep focusing on the negative.
		All it does is divide us.
		And we really need to unite the country and focus on all the positive as we approach America's 250th birthday.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And back to your calls, Michael Pensacola, Florida Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Michael?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, you're on.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go right ahead.
unidentified		There's a great deal of deficiency in reference to history.
		I know a gentleman who's from New Orleans, he's a 61-year-old black man who does not know who Ruby Bridges is.
		Now, those of us who know history, Ruby Bridges is the first person to integrate public schools in New Orleans.
		However, you have a senior citizen who does not know that.
		He wasn't taught that in school.
		And that's what the deficiency involves.
		Public education does not want you to know black history.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So then what about the museums?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Bring us back to the Smithsonian Museum.
unidentified		The museum, Washington is the only one museum that does black history.
		They have black history in Memphis.
		They have black history in Montgomery.
		They have black history in Georgia.
		So there are numerous opportunities to look for black history.
		The part of slavery is just one segment.
		As Douglas Brickland pointed out, you can look at other contributions other than slavery.
		And if they just want to focus in on slavery, there are numerous things that they did at that museum.
		And they don't want to do it.
		What happened is the president is extremely naive because he's not a scholar himself and therefore he has a kind of sophomore view of what history is.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And Rob in Fairfax, Virginia texted us, American history should be understood as accurately as possible.
		No woke guilt trip, no glossing over our national sins of slavery and decimation of Native inhabitants of this land, among other things.
		Well, we're going to switch over to open forum.
		If you'd like to continue on this topic, you certainly can.
		I want to show you this from Fox News.
		Vance and the White House blast, quote, crazy communists protesting DC cleanup, terrorizing locals, quote, calling them, quote, stupid white hippies.
		Let's take a look at a portion of Vice President Vance and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller yesterday criticizing protesters.
		This is outside or this is at Union Station in D.C.
unidentified		It's kind of crazy.
		You hear these guys outside, they appear to hate the idea that Americans can enjoy their communities.
		They knew the fact that D.C. a week ago had a higher murder rate than Trinidad and Tobago, which the United States State Department has said you shouldn't visit because it's unsafe.
		We ought to be able to enjoy great American cities.
		That's what we're trying to do with the Trump administration.
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		And we want to thank all of our law enforcement and National Guardsmen for making it possible.
unidentified		We made a lot of progress in nine days.
unidentified		We're going to make a whole lot more.
stephen miller ▲ ● ▼		For too long, 99% of this city has been terrorized by 1% of the city.
		And the voices that you hear out there, those crazy communists, they have no roots.
		They have no connections to the city.
unidentified		They have no families they are raising in this city.
stephen miller ▲ ● ▼		They have no one that they are sending to school in this city.
unidentified		They have no jobs in this city.
unidentified		They have no connections to this community at all.
stephen miller ▲ ● ▼		But they're the ones who've been advocating for the 1%, the criminals, the killers, the rapists, the drug dealers.
		And I'm glad they're here today because me, Pete, and the vice president are all going to leave here.
		And inspired by them, we're going to add thousands more resources to this city to get the criminals and the gang members out of here.
		We're going to dismantle those networks and we're going to prove that a city can serve for the law-abiding citizens who live there.
		We are not going to let the communists destroy a great American city, let alone the nation's capital.
		And let's just also address one other thing: all these demonstrators that you've seen out here in recent days, all of these elderly white hippies, they're not part of the city and never have been.
unidentified		And by the way, most of the citizens who live in Washington, D.C. are black.
stephen miller ▲ ● ▼		This is not a city that has had any safety for its black citizens for generations.
		And President Trump is the one who is fixing that with the support of the Metropolitan Police Department, the support of the National Guard, and our federal law enforcement officers.
		So we're going to ignore these stupid white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because they're all over 90 years old.
		And we're going to get back to the business of protecting the American people and the citizens of Washington, D.C.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And that is Union Station right there on your screen, a live look at that.
		And we are in open forum.
		If you'd like to talk about that, talk about any other subject that's on your mind, the numbers.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		And Independents, 202748-8002.
		This is also in the news.
		This is Reuters.
		Trump administration better placed than courts to release Epstein files, according to a judge.
		It says that a U.S. judge said yesterday that the Trump administration is in a better position than federal courts to release materials that would satisfy public curiosity about the late financier and sex offenders, Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking case.
		In rejecting the Justice Department's bid to unseal records from the grand jury that indicted Epstein in 2019, Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge wrote that the 70-odd pages of materials the grand jury saw paled in comparison to the 100,000 pages the government has from its Epstein investigation but is not releasing.
		That's at Reuters.
		And this is Tiny, Brookshire, Texas, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
unidentified		How are you this morning?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good, thanks.
unidentified		Yes.
donna in west virginia ▲ ● ▼		I wanted to speak on the Museum of Black History.
unidentified		You know, black history, when I was in school, was taught in school.
		And I heard a caller say, well, it's up to the black to teach their children, but it's also up to the school to teach our children.
		The school is not teaching our children anything about history.
		They want to teach our children about how they can become, boys can become girls and girls can be, Vulcanians can become girls and girls can become boys.
		It is wrong.
		Our black history is a beautiful history with all of the suffering that they went through.
		It's still beautiful to see where we are today, where we have come from.
donna in west virginia ▲ ● ▼		And as far as like one of your callers said, Our ancestors came over here on slave ships and chained.
unidentified		They did not walk across a river and get 500, 1,200 and be paid.
		No, they was brought to the House of Representatives in the basement to be sold.
		Families.
		Torn away from families.
donna in west virginia ▲ ● ▼		And I just don't understand how people can say President Trump want to change it.
unidentified		History can never be changed.
		You have to learn from it.
		And you have to change it as you go and grow as you go.
		And we have come a long ways.
		I can remember being a seven-year-old child out in the cotton field.
		So and living on a plantation.
		I know.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		How old are you, Tiny?
unidentified		I'm 70 years old.
		That's how old I am.
		Yes.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Niamh.
unidentified		I know many of the elderly people have lived through.
unidentified		You don't have to.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You say you lived on a plantation.
unidentified		Yes.
		My dad's share crop.
		I'll say that.
		Yeah.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		Yes.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		This is Charles in Alabama, New York, Democrat.
		Hi, Charles.
unidentified		Hi.
		I'm a little thrown off because I'm still watching and I'm still looking at the listening to the gentleman that was on fire to me.
		So he's speaking the same time I'm speaking.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		No, no, no.
		Don't look at your TV.
		Just listen in your phone because there's a delay.
		You'll get confused.
unidentified		Okay.
		So first of all, I'm not from Alabama, New York.
		Albany, New York.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		After I said that, I was like, oh, did I just say that?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Albany, New York.
unidentified		Yeah, so anyway, go ahead.
		I'm originally, I'm going to try to make this quick.
		I'm originally from Charleston, South Carolina.
		My family moved to New York when I was like maybe five.
		I went to college in Albany, New York, Albany State.
		Well, New York State, Albany University.
		This is not even, how can I say?
		It's laughable.
		Who cares what Donald Trump says?
		Who cares what white America says?
		We, the injured party, have our own experience.
		It means nothing to us.
		Okay?
		Do what you, the individual that profits from separation and segregation, because it's still going on till today.
		They're going to always paint a good picture of everything.
		It doesn't matter.
		We're going to do what we do.
		And when I say we, I'm talking about just people, people who believe in equality, people who are true Christians and go by the word of God.
		This is evil and evil will be dealt with.
		It's okay.
		We're still here and we will overcome all this nonsense.
		You can't get away with that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That's Charles in Albany, New York.
		Henry in Woodruff, South Carolina, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm calling on behalf of the first topic that we had.
		And I mean, how can you erase history?
		History is true.
		That's almost as if somebody go break in your home and you come home and you pretend that it's not.
		But the truth is, they actually did.
		My wife and I had an opportunity to travel to Barcelona, Spain last year.
		And we went on a tour.
		And during our tour, the guy stated, now I'm going to tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly.
		He said, you know, Spain has had some dark moments, and we've had some good moments.
		We participated in slavery and some other atrocities.
		He said, but history is history.
		And so, unlike America, these are exact words.
		Unlike America, we're going to tell the truth because history is true.
		And I know right now you have a lot of evangelical Christians that call in, and that blows my mind as well.
		Because biblically, even God tells Israel in the Old Testament, don't forget your history.
		Don't forget where you came from.
		This is biblical.
		So history plays a very important part in who we are.
		How can you erase who we are and pretend?
		And the Trump, President Trump's representative on Fox yesterday, talking about there's an overemphasis on slavery and when we take our children to the museum, we want to leave feeling proud and good.
		No, no, sometime, just like I had the opportunity to visit the museum in Washington, the one in Montgomery, and when I left there, I left out crying.
		I left out crying and kind of sad and sorrowful and yet glad where we've come from and everything.
		Yes, we did go through some dark moments, and we still, it looks like now the administration wants to take us back there.
		And that's the sad part about it.
		And for you Christian evangelicals, as I enter, you who are supporting this man, Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, the truth, and the life.
		So how in the world can you be following a man and claiming that he's from God who does nothing but lie?
		This is spiritual warfare at his ump teeth, and I think it's going over people's head.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Edward.
		And this is Lawrenceville, Georgia, Republican line.
		Is it Edward?
unidentified		I'm upset with Representative Crockett.
		She loves to call good people KKK and Nazis.
		It's the Democrat Party that was the KKK.
		And the Democrats are trying to push it off.
		You know, that's why they wanted to get rid of all the statues that proved that they were the ones that did everything.
		And that's why we didn't want the statues torn down.
		We want everybody to know the Democrats were the ones that owned the slaves.
		It was the Democrats that started Jim Crow.
		And it was the Democrats that said you couldn't even marry the person you love.
		I mean, I feel sorry for black people, but it's not the Republicans' fault.
		Matter of fact, there's no documented proof that a Republican ever owned a slave.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Edward, do you think that now we have a Republican president, President Trump, who's saying that there's an overemphasis in the Smithsonian museums about how bad slavery was?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Do you agree with that?
unidentified		I agree that some of the museums are not presenting it correctly.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Can you give me an example?
unidentified		I'm sorry that they did what they did, but they're responsible for slavery.
		And matter of fact, that's why they even started the Civil War.
		They fired on Fort Sumter trying to save their slaves.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Alan, Democrat, Brooklyn, New York.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Alan.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm from Brooklyn and today on vacation.
		Three points.
		First of all, being raised in the 50s, I remember the mantra of the Superman program that kids then saw, truth, justice, and the American way.
		And we always juxtapose that to the Soviet Union, which was involved with propagandizing and lying about history.
		That's something Americans did not do.
		It seems bizarre to me that there's anyone trying to engineer history the way the propaganda of the Soviet bloc was doing in the 1950s.
		Secondly, anyone who, like myself, is an American Jew who wants to observe the idea of never forgetting the truth of the Holocaust.
		How can anyone who's trying to engineer the presentation of history in museums to avoid discomfort to any viewers of any ethnic or racial group going to deal with the idea of presenting the truth of the Holocaust ever again?
		That would seem to preclude any Holocaust education whatsoever because arguably all whites and all Europeans would feel that they had some kind of connection to that past.
		And the whole idea is that people are new today and they have to learn from the past to decide how they will conduct themselves and not worry about whether they will feel an association of guilt or responsibility for what was done before, but simply to act properly going forward based on past experience.
		Lastly, it seems to me the main goal of this effort to control history is to control the knowledge of future history because I think the Trump administration and people who support him are trying their best, as they said in Project 25, to eradicate all information in the government about climate science.
		And I think they realize that if young people today understand the history of how many of their ancestors did not act properly toward future generations, that there's going to be some kind of political repercussions from the reaction of younger generations to the abuse and the neglect of the past.
		And we cannot allow worries that some people are going to be held to account for their choices.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Alan.
		Got to move on.
		Nick in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, good morning.
		I think the president should be arrested for treason because there's no way you can do what you do and demonize the country like you do.
		I mean, it's just totally wrong.
		He's way out of line.
		Way out of line.
		Republicans just sitting by just letting him do it is ridiculous.
		They're all treasonous and they all should be brought up on charges because there's no way a country can function like this.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		On the Republican line in Los Angeles, Kathleen, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		It's early here, and I've called in and said this several times.
		The truth and life is nuanced.
		Black American, I'm a black American.
		Black Americans don't know black American history.
		They have a very broad-brushed perspective of history.
		They have a broad sweeping understanding of history.
		If they knew history, they would know that the Statue of Liberty was not meant for immigrants, but was meant for the newly freed slave.
		If they knew history, they would know that the Civil War was fought to end slavery.
		Abraham Lincoln said that in his second inaugural address.
		Yet, liberal historians say that the Civil War was fought to keep the Union together.
		So that, you know, this is what, if they knew history, they would know that Thomas Jefferson wanted to include a paragraph in the Declaration of Independence that King George imposed slavery on America.
		If they knew history, they would know that Africa sold, Africa had no political system, no economic system.
		They didn't have a country.
		They were a tribal continent who had tribal warfare that sold our ancestors.
		I'm a black American, sold our ancestors for mirror, they they for trinkets, okay?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So do you think that that is, I don't know if you've ever been to the African American Museum in D.C., Kathleen.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Did you have you had a chance to visit?
unidentified		No, I haven't been there, but listen, when you history, what has predominated the narrative in the media, and I think Satya Barisolgan, Batya, the woman who knows the data, the media and progressives have disproportionately distorted history.
		So most people only have a very superficial understanding of things.
		They don't know the details.
		And the devil is always in the details.
		So when Trump says that the Smithsonian is showing an overabundance, they don't, do they put it, does the Smithsonian talk about how the Africans, and I know someone's going to call in and say, well, you know, chattel slavery was different.
		No, Africans enslaved people, various tribes.
		They enslaved warring tribes.
		They buried their slaves alive.
		So yes, it was just as bad.
		And the whole world had slavery.
		Okay, the whole world.
		So they don't know ancient history.
		They don't know world history.
		Do they include in the Smithsonian that Thomas Jefferson wanted to include in the Declaration of Independence who imposed slavery on America?
		Also, I want to say that if they knew the Democratic Party.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You said King George imposed slavery on Americans.
unidentified		Thomas Jefferson wanted to include a paragraph in the Declaration of Independence of the But don't before.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But how did King George impose slavery on the paragraph?
unidentified		In fact, Hillsdale College actually has the actual paragraph that Thomas Jefferson wanted to include.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But I'm asking, is that true from your perspective that it was King George that gave slavery to the colonies?
unidentified		Well, we were in America.
		We weren't American.
		We were a British colony, right?
		We were in America until 1776, until the Declaration of Independence.
		We were a colony of the British, right?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Correct.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So you're saying that it's King George's fault, that it's the British that gave slavery to America, and then after independence, the slaves were not freed.
unidentified		But, and that's not, see, this is, I was saying the truth is nuance.
unidentified		Okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But I got to move on, Kathleen, to other callers.
		Here's Aaron, New York, Democrat.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		This is interesting.
		The Kathleen is naked in some point, but we all know that where slavery came from, the tribes in Africa, the barbaric of slaves in those tribes, it wasn't to the extent of when they came to this country.
		We can't avoid it the same way the natives can't avoid their history, the same way the Jewish community cannot avoid their history.
		If we don't learn from any of this, then we're doomed to fail.
		Every part of this country has been built, and there's blood of African all over this country.
		So we're not ashamed of it.
		And who else would have dealt with the kind of stuff that we dealt with in this country and lived the tale and built so much our influence around the world?
		I can go, I travel if you want to talk about Italy and the Moors, from Spain, from Hispaniola to all.
		If you want to go there, yes, we can go there.
		But you have to read.
		And the Smithsonian is just one example of our history.
		We can't avoid it.
		So whoever walked into that museum, you should go there with an open mind and realize we can't change our history.
		You have to learn from it.
		We have to embrace it.
		No black people in this country and on this planet should be ashamed.
		When somebody said they're a slave, then they should say thank you because we built this country from blood, sweat, and tears.
		Our blood is in the soil.
		We can't avoid it.
		So for those people going around talking about the Democrat, everybody and their family and every developing country and generation and factory, everything, every one of them benefits from our hard work and labor.
		Free labor, by the way.
		Okay?
		So we have to embrace it and move on and learn from it.
		But read, people, read, read, read.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is John, Buffalo, New York, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, John.
unidentified		How are you doing?
unidentified		I'm calling back the topic of Missile.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, go ahead.
unidentified		I believe, you know, like, because some of it is not true.
		Majority of black Americans were not slaves.
		We were already here.
		We were enslaved on our own land.
		So I think he should need to bring that up.
		They should need to put that into our histories and schools instead of calling us Africans because we never came to Africa, so we were already here.
		That's all I got to say.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You're Steve in Hannaheim, California, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hello, Steve.
unidentified		Hey, Mimi.
		Good morning.
		Hey, get your flu shot.
		This new variance got out here.
		It's a killer.
		Say you that.
		Okay, I'm going to elaborate on the two causes, the one from California and the one you just got.
		It's true.
		During the first colonization of America, blacks were not all slaves.
		They were indentured servants like everybody else that came to this country.
		So everybody that came to this country was originally a slave, was originally a slave.
		Even if you look up the Bacon revolts, you'll find out where why they separated the indentured white people from the blacks because they actually took over the capital in Virginia at that time.
		To actually understand.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So Steve, are you saying that the white indentured servants were treated the same as the black slaves?
unidentified		Originally, yes, they were.
		They were worked in the fields together and they were treated exactly the same.
		The indentured servants were at some time allowed to buy their freedom, but they were indentured for life.
		So they came over these ships from England, Dutch, and all the other Europe countries in slaves, just like the blacks did.
		The original slavery.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And how long did that last, that they were treated equally?
unidentified		Like I said, you'd have to look up the Bacon revolt.
		And that's when they started separating the blacks from the whites because they didn't want those two groups to get together again and rise up against the slave owners.
		All right.
		Now, if you want to look at where slavery really began, it started in Serbia.
		And it was basically they had white slaves, but they would run away.
		And since they weren't black, you couldn't tell who they were.
		You have to go, oh, what is it?
		I see your lips moving, but I don't hear you answering me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		There's a delay, Steve, so don't look at the screen.
		Right.
		So, so is your main point, what's your main point, Steve?
unidentified		Is it that most people don't take the time to actually look where slavery began or how the trans person from Europe came here?
		It came from Portugal.
		All right.
		If you look up or watch the Stamp from the Beginning, it's a documentary.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Right, but lasted in the United States a lot longer than it did in Europe.
unidentified		Excuse me, say that again.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I was saying you said it started in Portugal with the traders, the slave trade.
		But slavery lasted in the United States a lot longer than it did in Europe.
		Is that what you were getting at?
unidentified		No, no, no.
		No, no, no, no.
		It lasted a longer in Europe than it did here.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		This is Jacqueline, Douglasville, Georgia, Democrat.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning to you.
		You know, listening this morning, there's a lot of delusion, you know, and confusion.
		Slavery needs to be taught in America, period.
		It started in 1619.
		The facts are that this nation participated in it, and the atrocities that took place need to be told.
		This nation went to war to keep its slave, went to war to keep slaves.
		That's what the Civil War was all about.
		We need to just tell the truth: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
		And this nation refuses to admit and own up to the evil that slavery produced.
		It was ugly and it's shameful, and it still has a stain in our nation.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Jacqueline, why do you say that the nation refuses to own up to it?
unidentified		It just does.
		There's confusion all over the place.
		No, you know, you have to admit what you did.
		The nation needs to admit what they did.
		Again, the Civil War itself took place because a segment of the population wanted to keep people enslaved and to keep them in a lifestyle that they wanted to have, which enriched them.
		You did all the work, slaved back in work for six days.
		You know what I'm saying?
		You were mistreated, called names, raped women, men, and children.
		That's nothing to be proud of.
		That was an evil that was done against a segment of the population.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's get Phil in Baltimore, Maryland, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi, thank you very much for taking my call.
		This is my first time calling in the C-SPAN.
		I've been listening for years and years.
		But I just wanted to say that from my perspective, what the Trump administration is doing to our museums is evil and wrong and against the pursuit of knowledge.
		But ultimately, I see it as unnecessary in America because listening to callers on C-SPAN, most people already have zero understanding of slavery and why, and the fact that there are still slaves in America and the inequality in our system to this date.
		So I understand why a crazed fascist leader like this is an enemy of real historical knowledge.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		When you say there's still slavery in America, are you talking about human trafficking?
unidentified		I'm sorry?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		When you say there's still slavery in America, what do you mean?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Are you referring to people that are trafficking?
unidentified		I'm talking about prison labor.
		I'm talking about prison labor, who supply work to some of the largest firms in America, including Walmart and McDonald's and Nike and some of our biggest companies are some of the biggest employers of prison labor in America.
		It's a continuation of slavery, looking at the 13th Amendment, specifically states that, again, I'm sorry that I'm blanking on the language here.
		I'm driving to work, but you are able to extract free labor from people in prisons.
		And there's still slavery in America.
		We have a system that is designed to imprison non-criminals and then keep them in prison for life.
		Slavery has not gone away.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Phil.
		And that's it for this first hour.
		But later on the Washington Journal, we'll have Matthew Weil of the Bipartisan Policy Center to discuss President Trump's proposal to do away with mail-in voting ahead of next year's midterms.
		But first, after a break, the economics of President Trump's immigration policies will be joined by Stephen Camerada of the Center for Immigration Studies and David Beer of the Cato Institute.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		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.
		Lay down your arms!
		Despise and return to your homes!
		Tonight, we'll feature a reenactment of the Battle of Lexington, followed by historian David Preston's remarks on the roots of the Revolutionary War.
		Watch C-SPAN's America 250 highlights tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
		And pass precedent nominal.
		Why are you doing this?
		This is outrageous.
		This is a tender root quarter.
		This fall, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity.
		Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins.
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mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Cohen, welcome to the program.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		It's good C-SPAN's still funded by the government.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It is not funded by the government.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you mean?
unidentified		Well, I thought you didn't get any money from the government at all.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		No, not at all, and we never have.
unidentified		What a disappointment to Elon Musk.
		I'm sure he liked the doge to you.
		Thanks for having me.
		Love C-SPAN.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Appreciate the opportunity to come out.
glenn ivey ▲ ● ▼		You know, I wish we could have a thousand C-SPANs across the media spectrum.
glenn ivey ▲ ● ▼		Unfortunately, we don't.
unidentified		I think C-SPAN is a huge, huge asset to America.
sean spicer ▲ ● ▼		Not just the coverage that we get of both chambers on one and two, but programs like Washington Journal that allow policymakers, lawmakers, personalities to come on and have this question time during Washington Journal.
unidentified		So it's a huge benefit.
		I hope that all these streaming services carry C-SPAN as well because it's an important service to the American people.
		I'm actually thrilled that this time on Washington Journal, I'm getting a lot of really substantive questions from across the political aisle.
		Our country would be a better place if every American just watched one hour a week.
		They could pick one, two, or three.
		Just one hour a week, and we'd all be a much better country.
		So thank you for your service.
		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Joining us now to talk about Trump, the Trump administration, immigration policies, and the economy is Stephen Camerada.
		He is Research Director at the Center for Immigration Studies and David Beer, Immigration Studies Director at the Cato Institute.
		Gentlemen, welcome to both of you.
unidentified		Thanks for having me on.
unidentified		Yeah, thanks for having us.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I'm going to ask you both this, but Steve, start with telling us about your organization and your ideological point of view.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, the center was founded more than 30 years ago, and it's really the only think tank in Washington devoted exclusively to examining the impact of immigration on the United States.
unidentified		In general, we take the same position that a commission back in the 90s headed by Barbara Jordan, who was appointed by President Clinton on immigration.
		We think the country would be better served by a more modest pace of legal immigration and robust immigration enforcement.
		So we think that would be good for American workers.
		We think it would be good for American taxpayers.
		We think it would facilitate the assimilation of the immigrants we let in.
		So a more modest level of immigration overall and again, more robust immigration enforcement.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What about you, David?
unidentified		The Cato Institute, it was founded in 1977.
		This is one of the premier libertarian think tanks in Washington, D.C.
		And we focus on defending the values of the free market, individual liberty, and limited government.
		And when it comes to immigration, we want to see it be legal and orderly for people to come and have the opportunity to contribute to our country.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And Steve, I want to ask you, I'll start with your report with this headline from the Center for Immigration Studies.
		It says, overall foreign-born population down 2.2 million from January to July, and the illegal population estimated to have fallen 1.6 million this year.
		First, tell us where these numbers come from.
unidentified		Yeah, well, what we did was we used the monthly current population survey, sometimes referred to as the household survey.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		It's where we get all kinds of data, such as, you know, the employment rate, wage growth, things like that.
unidentified		And so actually for more than 30 years, they've been asking people where they were born, if they're U.S. citizens, when they came to America, where their parents were even born, things like that.
		And so we can get an estimate of the foreign-born population.
		And it showed that it hit a record in January of this year, almost 16% of the population, higher than at any time in American history.
		But the most recent data, and actually all the intervening months basically, show a consistent decline since President Trump has taken office.
		And it looks like the overall decline in the foreign-born.
		And to remind your listeners, the foreign-born is anyone who's not a U.S. citizen at birth.
		So it would include green card holders, the permanent residents, naturalized U.S. citizens, any long-term visitors like guest workers and foreign students who show up in the data.
		And finally, illegal immigrants.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		The Census Bureau, which collects the data, and the Bureau of Labor statistics, it's very clear that illegal immigrants do respond in very large numbers to the survey.
unidentified		There's a whole cottage industry of trying to estimate illegal immigration from this data.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, President Trump has called into question government data, so why should this data be trusted?
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		Well, whenever we're measuring migration, you always have to say, look, it is very difficult.
unidentified		That is a different data source.
		That is where they ask employers how many workers they have.
		And the question was, when they revise that data, was it accurate?
		The problem that survey has is that a lot of people, a lot of the employers are no longer sending the survey back.
		And so that's creating a huge challenge.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		I think the BLS generally does a pretty good job, but that is the challenge there.
unidentified		This is different.
		This is the household survey.
		And it too has challenges.
		And actually, we've been looking at the data, and we don't see, thankfully, a decline in response rates as the immigrant population declines.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So help us understand this top-line number of 2.2 million foreign-born down in the first six months of the year.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Does that mean they left the country, or is this a matter of less people coming into the country?
unidentified		Well, it would be both.
		We think that fewer people are coming in, but the overall number leaving seems to have gone way up.
		Let me just remind your listeners, most research suggests that somewhere around a million people go home on their own each year.
		Anyway, so out migration is significant, but remember, the overall foreignborn is 56 million people, more than 56 million, at least at the start of this year.
		So 1 million people is a relatively small percent.
		It's somewhere around 1.5%.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And do we think that this number is coming mostly from naturalized American citizens, green card holders, or illegal immigrants?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It says this is an estimated illegal population of 1.6.
unidentified		Well, one of the interesting things in the data is there's no decline in the citizen population.
		That is the naturalized citizen population.
		So it looks like it's all among the non-citizens, and it's almost all among post-1980 non-citizens who are from Latin America.
		And prior research by lots of outside organizations and the government suggested about 75% of illegal immigrants are from Latin America.
		So that's a confirmation that it looks like it's illegal immigrants.
		Now we have tried to estimate the legal immigrant population, then subtract that from this data, and that's how you can get the illegal immigrant population.
		It's a common procedure referred to as the residual approach, where you just take how many immigrants overall, estimate the legal population, and all those who are left over constitute the illegal population.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		David, what do you make of these numbers and what do you think might be causing them?
unidentified		Well, I think it's probably is true that there's been a decline in the immigrant population in the United States.
		The household monthly survey really isn't the best vehicle for estimating that.
		I'm sure Steve would admit that this is one of the smaller surveys that the government conducts, so there's greater error here.
		And if you look at it, 2.2 million, it's a large and absolute terms, but really not in terms of the percentage of the population.
		So, you know, it's like a little bit more than a half a percent of the population we're talking about.
		So response rates really don't have to change that drastically if they're concentrated among the illegal immigrant population, which is what we suspect happened here.
		Most of the decline is probably because of the illegal immigrants saying, we don't want to give our data, we don't want to talk to the government under this Trump administration that's so focused. on mass deportation.
		We know the Trump administration is going out and using Medicare data, Medicaid data, any data it can get its hands on, tax data, IRS data, in order to effectuate mass deportation.
		So there's good reasons to think that at least a substantial part of this decline is an illusion.
		If you look at other data that's out there on the total number of jobs, GDP growth and so on, we don't really see the shifts that we would expect based on a big decline in the number of illegal immigrant workers in the United States.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Steve, do you agree with that?
		And if not, what do you think the policies are that are causing this number?
		Is it mass deportation?
		Is it the fear of deportation?
		Or is it something else?
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so we can actually dig deeper into this data and see if immigrants are refusing to identify or anyone is refusing to identify whether they're citizens.
unidentified		Or when they ask, hey, where were you born?
		Are people no longer just refusing?
		And there's always a refusal rate, but fortunately, it hasn't gone up.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		So it looks like people who respond to the survey are as willing as in the past.
		In terms of other data, well, the revision in the employment data is exactly consistent with what you would expect if illegal immigrants are leaving the country.
		We also have another survey called the JOLTS data that looks at how many people are quitting or leaving their jobs.
unidentified		And we can't do detailed analysis, but it looks like a big increase in people who left their jobs both in hospitality and restaurants, which is probably the industry, as best we can tell, with the most illegal immigrants.
		So we have some outside confirmation, the decline in the job numbers, the increase in people reporting who are leaving their jobs.
		So I think that as best we can tell, there's been a big decline in the foreign-born, and it's mostly the illegal immigrants.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		David, I want to ask you about the impact of mass deportations on the workforce and the U.S. economy.
unidentified		Well, look, if it is true, it's a bad thing for the United States.
		It means slower economic growth.
		It means worse job opportunities for Americans.
		We know illegal immigrants are doing jobs that support American workers in better paying positions as managers of job sites, as farmers, as individuals who are doing more specialized tasks at construction sites.
		These are the types of jobs that if the illegal immigrant workforce was completely obliterated, the U.S. workers who are working as managers or in higher paying positions are going to still have to do that work.
		That job still needs to get done.
		Someone has to do it.
		It'll end up being a U.S. worker who had a better job beforehand.
		You can look at the restaurant industry.
		It's the same deal.
		You have a lot of immigrants working in the back of the restaurant, lots of Americans working at the front as managers and supervisors and waitresses and so on.
		Better paying, better quality jobs that are going to go away when we lose the immigrant labor force.
		And of course, business investment in the United States is going to decline if there are fewer workers here.
		That also will have negative implications for economic growth and prosperity in the long term.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Have we seen any of that already happening?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Is there any data to back that up?
unidentified		Well, we have seen a slight loosening of the labor market for the U.S.-born population.
		The unemployment rate has increased under this administration for U.S.-born workers, even compared to last year during this time.
		So there has been some.
		Again, I disagree with the magnitude of what's already happened.
		Most of the mass deportation policy of this administration has not been effectuated.
		You know, we're talking 100,000 to 150,000 deportations.
		A lot of deportations were, of course, happening even before this administration.
		This is not on the scale of what was promised.
		That is to come, and we'll see the full effects in the future.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And I'll just invite our audience to join the conversation.
		You can call us on our lines by party.
		So Republicans are on 202-748-8001.
		Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		We also have a line set aside for immigrants.
		If you'd like to call on that number, it's 202-748-8003.
		Steve, I'll get your response to that and the impact of mass deportations and immigration policy in general.
		So including the control at the border and less legal immigration.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so I think that what is clear is that this has to be the result of more people leaving.
unidentified		I did say that about a million people are thought to leave each year.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		So it looks like that's gotten a lot bigger and fewer are coming.
unidentified		So that's what drove the numbers.
		The thing always to remember about immigration is it creates winners and losers, like most public policies.
		The losers from immigration tend to be less educated Americans, the more than 1 million Americans who work as maids, the more than 1 million Americans who work as construction laborers, the more than 1 million Americans who are in various sectors.
		There are millions.
		There are probably about 18 million Americans.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		Now that is not the whole workforce that competes a lot with the illegal immigrants, but they tend to be at the bottom.
unidentified		They're nannies, maids, and busboys who are the lowest paid, most vulnerable workers and worse.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		One of the worst trends in the American labor market, and really it goes back to 1960, is the share of less educated men who are not in the labor force at all, which means they don't show up as unemployed.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You mean they've given up on looking for a job?
unidentified		Well, as far as we can tell, they're neither working nor looking for work.
		And it used to be that if we were to just exclude the teenagers, just go 20 to 64 year old men, exclude prisoners and exclude people in jails.
		It used to be about 7% didn't work and didn't look for jobs.
		That number is triple now.
		It went way up.
		It was about 16% in 2000, and today it's about 21, 22%.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		And we know this is linked to a host of negative social outcomes, whether it's drug abuse, suicide, political alienation, crime.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And they're not working because they.
unidentified		Yeah.
		So there's a whole series of impediments and there's a whole literature on this.
		It's everything from low wages at the bottom, men discourages work, to things like opioid and alcohol abuse and lots of other things.
		People have identified video games and overgenerous welfare programs.
		And I think one of the reasons is that immigration is keeping wages down at the bottom, and employers love it.
		And it's not necessarily bad for consumers.
		They can be the winners.
		But the losers are all these people who are on the outs, all the people on the sidelines.
		If we could just forget about 1960, if we could just get labor force participation, the share of people working again among men without a college degree, back to what it was in 2000, not that long ago, it would add about 5 million workers to the United States.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		David, what do you think of that?
unidentified		Well, I think it's, you know, you're talking about a trend that is totally disconnected from immigration.
		Some of the areas that have the lowest employment rates are areas where there are very few immigrants going to those areas.
		So I totally reject the idea that immigration has anything to do with it.
		When immigrants come into an area, they increase business investment in that area.
		They increase job growth.
		They create job opportunities further up the skill ladder for the low-skilled immigrants that are low-skilled Americans that he's talking about.
		They end up in better paying, better paying jobs, better quality jobs after the immigrants come in.
		They end up being the managers of the construction site.
		They end up having the opportunity to run a restaurant as a manager or an assistant manager.
		These are the types of positions that are created when you have more workers that come in.
		And then, of course, The immigrant workforce is not just an increase in the supply of labor.
		It's also increasing the demand for labor elsewhere in the economy.
		And that is beneficial to workers across the entire United States.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, what about the point that especially illegal immigration is driving down wages?
unidentified		Well, like I said, it's the same point.
		The more the people enter at these bottom-end jobs, they actually create job opportunities for Americans elsewhere in the economy, better quality jobs as managers, as supervisors, and so on.
		So the idea that it's driving down wages is not something that's been borne out.
		We've had a few natural experiments, we call them in economics, with this.
		And we haven't shown this big decline in wages that were predicted or a big increase in wages after we shut off immigration.
		One of the best examples of this was the shutting down of the Bercero guest worker program for farms in the 1960s.
		It eliminated that option.
		We ended up with decades of illegal immigration after that point.
		But for the affected farms, the years immediately after they cut off the Bercero program, we did not see this big increase in wages.
		Instead, we saw lower production and more jobs being done by machines.
		Can I comment briefly?
		Well, this is an issue that's been well studied, and I respectfully disagree with David.
		David Martin has looked at this question a lot.
		I'm going to say Philip Martin has looked at this question a lot at UC Davis.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		When the de Becero program was ended and before the lack of enforcement allowed illegal immigration to pick up, real wages in that sector not only went up, but so did productivity.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		What they did was they were heavily used in tomato farming.
unidentified		They grew a different shape of tomato with a slightly thicker skin, and that allowed the machines to do it.
		So one worker could do a lot more.
		And so we not only had fewer workers making high wages.
		Now, of course, a lot of this got short-circuited when immigration was, illegal immigration was allowed through lack of enforcement to pick up.
		But the ending of the Becero program was an enormous benefit to agriculture in the short run.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		And if had it been allowed, I think we would have seen the productivity growth.
unidentified		One of the things immigration is doing is reducing productivity in that sector.
		Can I just say one other thing about job competition?
		There is a large literature on this topic.
		My colleague, Jason Richwine, has a paper summarizing that literature showing a lot of negative effects.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		But put that aside, one of the big things, most important things immigration is doing, it's letting us ignore this huge social problem of all these men on the economic sidelines and all their social problems, whether it's opioid addiction, crime, even an early death, because why care?
unidentified		We just have the immigrants.
unidentified		Yeah, these guys are on the sidelines, but nobody cares.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Are you in favor of going after the employers of those that employ illegal immigrants as the kind of the main point of if they're not getting jobs in the first place, they're not going to want to come here, they're not going to want to stay here.
unidentified		Yes.
		For nearly 40 years, the Center for Immigration Studies feels that the centerpiece of immigration enforcement has to be going after the employers.
		They have to be penalized.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		If illegal immigrants knew they couldn't get jobs, many fewer would come.
unidentified		Now that's not the only thing, right?
		We can't give driver's license and in-state college tuition and welfare benefits.
		We can't have sanctuary cities, but employment sanctions.
		And we have the potential to do that with various ways, which we could discuss.
		That has got to be the centerpiece of immigration enforcement.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		David, I want to put something up from Labor Secretary Laurie Chavez-Deremer.
		This is what she said, and I'll have you respond to it.
		She says, Right now, we're seeing American workers are being put first.
		Native-born workers account for all of the job growth, and that's key.
		The American worker is going to win in this occasion because the president has their back.
		All job growth is Native American workers.
		Sorry.
		People born in this country.
unidentified		Right, yeah.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It's not illegal.
unidentified		Yeah, no, no.
		I mean, look, it goes back to Steve's analysis of this CPS survey.
		The problem really with the survey is that the total population is set in advance of the year.
		So the Census Bureau projects what they think the population is going to be in July, and then the survey is used to kind of divide up what we think the people that fill out that population are doing.
		And so if there's a decline in the immigrant responses, then that's going to automatically show up as more Americans responding to the survey.
		But that's really ephemeral.
		It's an illusion based on the quirks of the survey.
		It's not something that's a real increase in the number of jobs for U.S. workers.
		And look, if you look at the unemployment rate, which is what the survey is actually for, the unemployment rate for native-born workers is higher than it was in December and much is also higher than it was this time last year.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's talk to callers.
		We'll start with Roland in Glenn Burney, Maryland.
		Democrat, good morning, Roland.
unidentified		Thanks for taking my call.
		Let me ask you a question really quick first.
		The first question: Do you think if CISPAN was funded by taxpayers, the Trump administration would have probably defunded CISPAN right now?
		Because most of these Republican callers keep finding reasons, excuses, making claims that CISPAN is biased.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Roland, we're talking about immigration and the economy.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Did you have a question about that for our guests?
unidentified		Yes, I do.
		But I would also like you to answer that question.
		All right, so back to immigration.
		Do they take into consideration all those businesses that are created just because of this immigrant, I mean, immigrants in the country?
		Do they realize the productivity, the contributions of all this?
		I keep wondering, the same folks complaining now would probably all start feeling the effects, you know, when there's no grandma there to help with health care, with daycare, parenting.
		So I'd like to know what you think the effect would be on the overall, especially the white population, which is probably the most complaint about this.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We got your point, Roland, Steve, on the impact of immigrants in the economy.
unidentified		Right.
		So, as I said before, winners and losers, right?
		The winners can be the consumers who get to experience the lower wages that immigration creates for America's poor.
		And that's not necessarily bad.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		You might have to pay less for a nanny or to get your lawn cut or your roof fixed.
unidentified		And that could be a real benefit to you.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		But for the majority of Americans who don't have a college degree and for the one-third who have a high school education or even less, it's a bad deal.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		And as I said, not only have they generally not done well with wages, but we see so many out of the labor force.
unidentified		And that is a social disaster.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		The other problem with bringing in people to fill unskilled jobs is it creates a lot of fiscal costs.
unidentified		About 54% of immigrant households access one of the major welfare programs.
		And it's not because they're lazy.
		It's not because they all came to get welfare.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		It's because they have relatively modest levels of education, a large fraction do, and they have low income.
unidentified		They generally work and get those programs at the same time.
unidentified		And that is one of the biggest losers is taxpayers.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, David, your response to that.
unidentified		Yeah, so on the consumer side, that's the purpose of the economy.
		The economy is here to create wealth for other people.
		That's the basis of all economics since Adam Smith.
		We create things of value.
		We trade.
		The more people who are doing that, the wealthier we are.
		The wealth of nations is based on the specialization of labor.
		The amount of specialization is limited by the extent of the market.
		So more people doing this means more specialization, means more things are being created for other people.
		You can see this.
		Childcare is a great example.
		Elder care is another example where obviously anyone who's gone out there can see and appreciate that we would benefit from having more people who are willing to do this.
		Wages are not based on the number of workers in the United States.
		That is a complete economic inaccuracy.
		The wages in the United States are higher here than they are in other countries because we're more productive than they are in other countries, not based on the number of workers who are here.
		We've had 100 million a person increase in the labor force over the last 100 years, and we are wealthier by every conceivable measure than we were 100 years ago.
		It's been a continuous progress on that front, and it's a result of the fact that we have so many people who are willing to contribute and work for others in the economy.
		On the fiscal effect of immigration, this has also been well studied.
		The Congressional Budget Office did a report on what has happened as a result of the infusion of immigrants during the Biden years.
		Its conclusion is that it would reduce the debt and deficit over the next 10 years by a trillion dollars.
		Other people, including the Cato Institute, have extended that analysis to the long term.
		We're talking about trillions of dollars in lost deficit reduction as a result of this group of workers that we've gotten from abroad.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So are you saying regarding public assistance and the higher rate of immigrants being on public assistance, that that would not be a drain on the American economy and that in fact their productivity outweighs that?
unidentified		Well, yes, it's both.
		Their productivity outweighs the amount that they receive in public assistance.
		They're only, you know, for low-skilled immigrants, they're only slightly above average in terms of their receipt of means-tested or needs-based public assistance.
		But in terms of education, in terms of old age assistance, in terms of all of the other things that the government spends its money on, they're using way less than the average person.
		I mean, dramatically so, and far outweighs the modest amount that is spent on these needs-based programs.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's go to New York, New York, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Paul, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hey, how you doing?
		So I want to sort of follow up on this.
		If you look at low-income people in the United States, almost all of them, whether they're legal, illegal, or citizens, what have you, have to have subsidized health care.
		Healthcare is very expensive in the United States, and that's a reality.
		You bring in large numbers of people who are lower income.
		They're going to have their health care paid for by taxpayers.
		That's just reality.
		Okay?
		That's number one.
		The idea that you bring in more workers and it doesn't impact wages seems to fly in the face of supply and demand.
		And it flies in the face of the American Hotel and Hospitality Association's lobbying, the National Home Builders Association lobbying, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
		Not just them.
		I mean, you speak to any analyst who covers specific industries in those sectors.
		And if you cut off illegal immigration, the cost of labor will go up.
		That means that people in those areas who remain will be paid more.
		I think we just have to be honest about this.
		This idea that there's some sort of a magical way that these people come in and they don't compete with Americans who do those jobs.
		In other words, Americans aren't waiters.
		Americans aren't involved in construction.
		It's just kind of ridiculous to me.
		And I'll leave it there, I guess.
		I'd like to hear your comments on that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Steve.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		Well, this gets to both the benefit and the cost, right?
unidentified		We see a lot of economists saying, look, who want more immigration?
		One of the benefits is it'll drive down wages and help us control inflation.
		We saw that during the whole time.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		Now that maybe inflation isn't much of a thing or as big a concern, people sort of back off from the argument.
unidentified		But it's very clear that they were right.
		If you want lower wages, it's particularly at the bottom end, have a very permissive immigration system.
		And that can benefit consumers.
		And he's right also.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		Everything from the business roundtable to the National Association of Manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce advocates immigration, specifically because they're arguing it'll help control wage costs and labor costs.
unidentified		So that is the benefit.
		But the problem is the cost falls on the least educated, most vulnerable Americans.
		And that is what you have to decide.
		Do you want to see the working poor do better?
		Do you want to see less educated people in this country?
		We're very concerned about the rise of income inequality.
		And immigration is certainly one of the factors contributing to it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's go on the line for Democrats in Ruskin, Florida.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Rob, you're on the air.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm going to try and make this quick before I get cut off.
		I want to piggyback on what you said, Mimi, about the enforcement of businesses.
		I'm here in Florida.
		I understand that we have e-verification and other things to verify immigration status on individuals.
		I used to work in a day labor company.
		I used to have individuals come in.
		I had to use E-Verify for some.
		I had immigrants come in from all different backgrounds, show me a social assurance card with a rooster on it that they got from the corner store down the road for 20 bucks.
		The system is messed up.
		I'm here in Florida.
		About two years ago, there was an accident with a construction company where there was an illegal immigrant who was working machinery, hit a car, killed an individual.
		Ron DeSantis did nothing.
		Okay, a Republican who is running for, who's going to be running for president did nothing.
		So what is, or what are you trying to, like you said, Stephen, that you wanted it to be a focus point.
		What are you guys trying to do?
		Like, what are you really trying to do?
		And I guess my second part...
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You mean to push E-Verify?
unidentified		To enforce that, you know, the actual immigration status, right?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And you said you had a second question.
unidentified		Shoot.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That's okay.
		We'll take that one.
		Don't worry, Roth.
unidentified		Well, to remind your listeners, there's a program called E-Verify.
unidentified		It's voluntary right now.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		And the reason it's voluntary, that employers don't have to verify the legal status of their workers is the business community, ideological libertarians.
unidentified		Lots of people always fight it.
		And many in the Democratic Party don't even like it, even though you'd think they'd be more pro-worker.
		So it's across the board.
		And the reason they don't like it is because illegal immigrants would then have to exit the labor force over time.
		It is not a perfect system, but it is exactly the thing to start, the thing to build on.
		And then we can begin to add in more information.
		It helps us locate those employers that are hiring a lot of illegal immigrants.
		So it's one piece of a much larger puzzle.
		We need to be using IRS records and social security records and integrate them better with e-Verify.
		So e-Verify can become something that really makes a big difference.
		It would even make a big difference just now.
		There's research showing that when they required it in Arizona, the illegal immigrant population dropped significantly.
		So it can work, but it needs to be built on.
		So it's not perfect, but it's a great start.
		And I hope the administration will push for E-Verify and then build on that to make it better and better over time.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		David?
unidentified		Well, E-Verify doesn't work.
		It's been proven to be an effective tool.
		Most of the illegal immigrants who apply, as the caller noted, get approved under it.
		It's an expansion of the government surveillance state.
		I don't want the government to have the ability to shut off jobs for any individual.
		It doesn't want to have a job.
		It should be focused on creating legal ways for people to come so they can come and contribute to this country in a legal way.
		The common sense economic view since Adam Smith is that when people come and contribute to this country, when they work, that is a benefit to everyone in society.
		And that is really, I mean, the idea that we should be focused on eliminating immigration rather than providing a legal way for people to come, I think is the basic fallacy in this argument that we have to focus only on illegal immigration rather than having legal options for people to come where they can contribute in a legal way.
		And maybe they aren't eligible on these guest worker programs.
		They're not eligible for public assistance on these programs so they can get the economic contributions without even the social costs that callers are concerned about.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So I think most people would agree that the legal immigration system is broken and that's why so many people have decided on the illegal route.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think needs to be done to improve the legal immigration system?
unidentified		Well, if you're looking at it from the standpoint of how do we fix the illegal immigration problem, you have to look at the guest worker programs that we have.
		They're only for seasonal or temporary jobs in agriculture or non-agricultural jobs.
		So the year-round positions that don't require a college degree have no legal way to hire them.
		So if you look at the poultry processing plants, you look at construction sites and hospitality, all of these industries have no legal way to hire people to come and work for them.
		And so what ended up happening under the Biden years and even under Trump 1 and before that is the people who came in, who entered illegally, ended up working in those industries that have no way to hire people legally.
		So there's a better option here.
		We can have a legal immigration system that reduces illegal immigration, has the economic benefits to the country without the social costs and fiscal costs.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's go on the Republican line.
		Tony in Cleveland, Ohio.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		So I kind of just wanted to give a shout.
		And, you know, for a long time, I was a Democrat.
		I've been a Democrat pretty much all my life.
		I really kind of switched over parties.
		And honestly, the real reason, and this has a lot to do with immigrants, it's not really immigration, but I'm going to get to the immigration part.
		But I have a 14-year-old daughter who plays high school soft pitch or fast-pitched softball.
		And she goes to a Catholic high school.
		And knowing the fact of, you know, there's Democrats who are pushing the whole, you know, boys and girls sports issues and this and that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And there's a lot of questions.
		You're off the subject.
		Can we get back to immigration and the economy?
unidentified		I was just explaining why I was calling why I'm Republican now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That's okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You don't have to explain.
unidentified		I just wanted to touch base as far as this immigration with Trump trying to clean up D.C. You know, I was there last year with my daughter because her school went and I was scared to death half the time we were there because of how bad D.C. is.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Tony, are we going to get to immigration?
unidentified		I just said immigration.
		That's what I just said.
		About D.C. Immigration.
		Yeah.
		Well, they're everywhere.
		It's not just D.C.
		I mean, it's not just crime.
		There's a lot of immigration in all our cities, including mine, that have been causing more crime than there was prior to this last four years.
		I don't know if you agree with me or not about that, but a lot of people say, well, the immigration doesn't affect the crime.
		It 100% affects the crime.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, let's get a response for you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		David.
unidentified		Well, if you look at when crime spiked, it spiked in the summer of 2020.
		The border was very quiet.
		There were hardly anybody coming at that time.
		This was the Trump, first Trump administration.
		It spiked.
		It remained high for multiple years.
		And then it started falling as the immigrant population in the United States, including the illegal immigrant population, expanded.
		There is not a relationship between immigration and crime.
		This has been extensively analyzed from a number of different standpoints.
		The idea that we would focus our mass deportation efforts on random non-citizens who have not committed crimes, have not been convicted of any crimes, doesn't make sense from a public safety standpoint.
		We should be focusing all of those resources on immigrants who do commit crimes, who are here unlawfully, who can be removed from the United States.
		We shouldn't waste our law enforcement resources going after people who are just going to a job, going to Home Depot, whatever the case might be.
		That is what the Trump administration's policy is.
		He's diverting the Drug Enforcement Administration, the ATF, the FBI, to go after people who are just living their lives and living peacefully here.
		And that is not a good use of public safety dollars.
		We should be focused on people who commit crimes and violent crimes and property crimes, not just people who are in the country illegally.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		I think what the caller was really talking about is one of the most important issues that we never really discuss, and that is numbers.
unidentified		So let me just run through those real quick.
		The share of the U.S. population at the start of this year was nearly 16%.
		That's higher than at any point in American history.
		It's over 56 million people.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And that's illegal?
unidentified		No.
		The total population of the United States is now foreign-born immigrants.
		That's the, as I said at the outset, people are not U.S. citizens at birth.
		This is the highest percentage ever.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		And the number at 56.3 million is by far the highest number.
unidentified		And I think when you listen to David, he's saying what we need is more.
		But I would have to ask, what does that mean for American schools and hospitals?
		What does that mean for our ability to assimilate?
		He wants to take America to a place it's never been before on immigration.
		And we've actually tried his solution.
		Back in the 1980s, we amnestied almost 3 million people, and legal immigration was roughly doubled.
		And yet we still replaced all the illegals.
		Why?
		Because the employers always want more.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		Like David, they think that more is always better because it helps control their wages.
unidentified		It helps give them more bargaining power vis-a-vis workers.
unidentified		And the social networks will still drive it.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		If you want less immigration, you have to enforce the law and institute some real sensible reforms.
unidentified		And I think that the numbers are really the most important issue when it comes to immigration.
		And we've never been here before.
		Well, I just disagree with the idea that we've never been here before.
		Most states in the United States have had a foreign-born share much higher than the current share of the population.
		So nationwide, yes, you're right.
		But at a state level, most states in the United States have had a foreign-born share much higher than they do today.
		If you look at Massachusetts, New York, out west, all of those places in the 19th and early 20th century had much higher shares of the foreign-born in the population than they do today.
		The only place where it's unprecedented is in the South, where immigrants avoided because they had no civil rights there.
		So the idea that it's this untested experiment, look, we're talking about 16%.
		Florida is already higher than that.
		Texas is higher than that.
		Those states haven't collapsed.
		They're still attracting a lot of people to go there.
		So the idea that this is going to be a major problem is just not accurate.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Linda, Ponca City, Oklahoma, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Linda.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I am calling because I am fed up with this immigration stuff, and I think it's scary to have people being snatched off the streets.
		I think there's plenty of jobs for everyone.
		And I think the economy is expanded by having more people work because employers can hire, just like the gentleman said, can have more people working and expand their construction, their restaurant, whatever it is.
		And Trump isn't even looking for a way to legally get these people in.
		And I think there's a pathway for that.
		Sure, there's some illegals that probably need to be deported, but I think overall the economy does better when we have a lot of people working and expanding.
		So that's all I have to say.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You'd like to add to that, Steve?
unidentified		Well, there's no question that adding more people, even unskilled people, makes for a larger GDP.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		But if all that mattered was the aggregate size of the GDP, then you would say that Bangladesh is richer than, say, Australia because it has a bigger GDP or New Zealand.
unidentified		But what matters is per capita GDP, what each individual has.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		And as far as we can tell, immigration generally slightly lowers per capita what each person has.
		But if you just want a bigger economy and you don't care about the distribution of income and you ignore the fiscal impact, immigration can do that for you.
		But I would at least say to the caller, at least consider those millions of Americans who are on the sidelines.
unidentified		It's going to be challenging and difficult to get them back in the labor market.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		But the social problems this is creating by having all these men, particularly not working who are of working age, is worth the effort.
unidentified		And we'll never do it as long as we keep immigration high.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's get one more call in.
		Rachel Brooksville, Florida, Republican.
		Hi, Rachel.
unidentified		Hi.
		Yeah, I'd like to ask a question to the man from Cato Institute.
		I was wondering what research he's using when he was referring to how immigrants are going to improve our economy so much, all these immigrants that Biden let in.
		He can't be using current information because we haven't even gathered current information yet.
		So he must be using information about immigrants when they were like trickling in.
		We're talking about this influx of huge amounts of people coming into our country on our hospitals, our schools, Social Security, Medicare.
		What kind of impact are all these people going to have on all our social programs?
		You just have to stop and think about that.
		There's got to be some kind of an impact, and it's not going to be for the good.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, David.
unidentified		Okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, go ahead.
unidentified		Yeah, so we at the Cato Institute, we've looked at this phenomenon.
		Look, they use educational resources on a per capita basis at much lower rates than the rest of the population because they're much more likely to be working age.
		They work at higher rates, which means that they account for a disproportionate share of national income, which increases tax revenue, which is a good thing.
		They're also healthier on average than the U.S.-born person.
		So they're reducing the per capita use of hospitals and other resources.
		So the idea that it's all negative, you have to look at, yes, there are some costs.
		Anyone who comes here, there's going to be some costs, but you have to look at the upside as well, which is an expanded economy, a larger fiscal surplus as a result of the people who come and contribute to this country.
		And I think the fact that there's not a legal way for people to do that is the main issue facing the United States right now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, one more call.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Scott, Bowie, Maryland, Independent Line.
unidentified		Scott, are you there?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Bowie, Maryland?
unidentified		Yes, how are you doing today?
unidentified		There you are.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		All right.
		Sorry.
		I apologize.
		So here's my situation.
		I grew up in Queens.
		I had a townhouse.
		I had one construction guy come in from Long Island, had bay windows, and I needed them replaced, charged me $10,000, didn't even look at all the windows.
		I said, thank you.
		I went to another guy out of flushing immigrant population, came in, looked at all my windows, including the big bay window, charged me $2,500 to replace everything.
		So my question to your guests, I understand it does benefit myself as a consumer because I was able to find someone that was able to offer me the same services for a much lower price.
		But for that population that you're talking about that doesn't want to work, is that population not looking for it?
		Because A, if they were to work for that first guy that came in and offered and charged me $10,000 off the bat without looking at everything, they, let me rephrase that.
		Would the guy that offered $10,000 be more likely to hire that population that isn't working versus the immigrant population that came in and offered me $2,500, $25,000 to do the job?
		Because the way I'm looking at this is that the system itself is just broken.
		Capitalism itself is basically seeing who can get the most or least.
		So we're all sort of victims to it.
		So I just want to get their perspective.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yep, go ahead, Steve.
unidentified		Well, look, bottom line, as I said many times, cost and benefits.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		You could benefit as the consumer, but the lower wages, allowing all these immigrants into the country, whether they be legal or illegal, comes at a cost for American workers, the millions who work in construction, and building cleaning and maintenance and jobs like that.
unidentified		And that is a real cost.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		And it's deterring and it's preventing us from bringing those other men back into the labor market, which is challenging.
unidentified		And finally, low-wage workers, and this is true of the native-born, are a significant fiscal drain.
		As I said, not because they're lazy, not because they all came to get welfare.
		We know that for a fact.
		And the one thing about immigrants that some people say is, well, you know, they don't use any more than other poor Americans.
		They don't use any more welfare than low-wage Americans.
		That is true.
		But immigrants are dramatically about 50% more likely to be in poverty or to be in or near poverty.
		And people at that income level, and it's not, are a fiscal drain.
		And it's not some moral defect.
		It's not some failing.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		It's the reality of a U.S. economy that doesn't pay lower wage workers or doesn't pay the less educated that much, coupled with our big welfare state and our big redistributive policies.
dr steven camarota ▲ ● ▼		If you let lots of low-wage people in, you get a big fiscal cost.
unidentified		If you had to put it in a bumper sticker, it's there's a high cost to cheap labor.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Last week.
unidentified		Well, the consumer surplus that you're talking about, anytime you save on goods, that allows you to purchase other things.
		It makes you wealthier, but it also creates jobs out there in the economy for other people.
		And that consumer surplus raises standards for everyone.
		That is what we've seen over the last hundred years in the United States: the continuous raising of living standards here.
		And it's a result of the fact that we're better at producing things than we were in the past.
		Immigrants are part of that story.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That's David Beer, Cato Institute Immigration Studies Director.
		You can find his work at Cato.org and Stephen Camerada, Center for Immigration Studies Research Director.
		They're at cis.org.
		Gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us.
unidentified		Thank you for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Up next, Matthew Weil of the Bipartisan Policy Center discusses election security and President Trump's proposal to do away with mail-in ballots and voting machines ahead of next year's midterms.
unidentified		We'll be right back.
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donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		So you interviewed the other night.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I watched it about two o'clock in the morning.
unidentified		There was a little thing called C-SPAN, which I don't know how many people were watching.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Don't worry, you were in prime time too, but they happened to have a little re-run.
patty murray ▲ ● ▼		Do you really think that we don't remember what just happened last week?
patty murray ▲ ● ▼		Thank goodness for C-SPAN, and we all should review the tape.
unidentified		Everyone wonders when they're watching C-SPAN what the conversations are on the floor.
al green ▲ ● ▼		I'm about to read to you something that was published by C-SPAN.
sean duffy ▲ ● ▼		There's a lot of things that Congress fights about that they disagree on.
al green ▲ ● ▼		We can all watch that on C-SPAN.
unidentified		Millions of people across the country tuned into C-SPAN.
		Thank you!
		That was a major 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 a lot 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 is being watched not only in this country, but it's being watched around the world right now.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Mike said before, I happened to listen to him.
		He was on C-SPAN 1.
		That's a big upgrade, right?
unidentified		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to the program.
		We're joined now by Matthew Weill.
		He is Vice President of Democracy and Bipartisanship at the Bipartisan Policy Center, joining us to talk about election security and mail-in voting.
		Matthew, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Thank you for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So let's just kind of set the table first.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to play you President Trump talking about mail-in voting and what he says is corrupt, and then have you comment on it.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Mail-in ballots are corrupt.
		Mail-in ballots, you can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots.
		And we, as a Republican Party, are going to do everything possible that we get rid of mail-in ballots.
		We're going to start with an executive order that's being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they're corrupt.
		And you know that we're the only country of the world, I believe I may be wrong, but just about the only country of the world that uses them because of what's happened.
		Massive fraud all over the place.
		The other thing we want change are the machines.
		For all of the money they spend, it's approximately 10 times more expensive than paper ballots.
		And paper ballots are very sophisticated with the watermark paper and everything else.
		We would get secure elections.
		We'd get much faster results.
		The machines, I mean, they say we're going to have the results in two weeks.
		With paper ballots, you have the results that night.
		Most people, almost, but most people, many countries use paper ballots.
unidentified		It's the most secure form.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Matthew, break that down for us as far as what the president said there.
unidentified		Sure.
		Well, I think it's first most important to note that more than 90% of Americans are already voting on some form of paper ballot.
		That's the first part.
		I mean, I think the president has kind of conflated a few different things, right?
		So we do have voting machines, but those voting machines nowadays are typically just scanning the paper ballots.
		So you have most Americans writing onto the ballot using a pen, making their indications of who they want to vote for, and then those ballots get scanned.
		And those are scanned at the bull-in place or during early voting.
		So that is one number that people need to remember.
		For absentee ballots, these are highly secure, right?
		So for the most part, voters are only getting these ballots if they request them.
		When they get them, they are being tracked throughout the mail process by intelligent mail barcoding.
		They are reconciled when they are returned.
		So the election official will verify every piece of information on the outside envelope of the ballot before that ballot is ever opened.
		And if there's any discrepancy in any of the numbers or the signature, that ballot won't get opened until a two-person team, typically a Democrat and Republican, can verify what is going on there.
		And so there are numerous security features, both of the mail-in ballot process and the in-person ballot process that keep our election secure.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So I want to, Matthew, draw the distinction between absentee ballots, which are, of course, done by mail, and what are just considered mail-in ballots.
		You did delineate one thing, which was that it has to be requested.
		And as you know, in many states, with mail-in balloting, they send it to all registered voters on their rolls.
		Can you explain kind of the issues with that and with the voter rolls may not be up to date and that people getting ballots that shouldn't be getting ballots?
unidentified		Yeah, so there are certainly some states, typically out West, that are doing a very high percentage of mail voting, right?
		So they are doing all mail-in voting.
		Typically, there are some options for in-person, but for the most part, their voters are casting ballots by mail.
		And anyone who's on the voter roll will get those ballots.
		I think what's also clear is that those states that do that have every incentive to keep their lists as clean as possible because there's a huge cost to sending out ballots.
		And if your list is overly bloated, that means you're going to be wasting a ton of money sending those ballots out.
		But I think it's also clear that the states that have been doing this, you know, Washington State, Oregon, largely California, Arizona, Nevada, they've been doing it for a while.
		And so they are actually the experts at how to do this even better than the states that are just doing absentee voting as one portion of the process.
		Their lists are more accurate.
		They have pioneered the ballot tracking.
		They have the high-speed scanners.
		They have been leaders in signature matching, make sure that the ballots are all valid.
		And so again, I think just because that is their primary source of voting, that is what their constituents have become accustomed to and what they're asking for.
		And it's no less secure than voting in person or during early voting.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And those signatures are matched then in mail-in ballots.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Can you explain how that works as far as being matched to what?
unidentified		So we provide our signature a couple different times and states vary in how they do this.
		Certainly when you submit your initial voter registration form, there's going to be a signature for many people, more than half, that's happening at the DMD.
		The states out west that are doing a lot of mail-in voting have also pioneered capturing other signatures.
		Whenever you're interacting with a government agency, they can capture that signature and update your signature in their process so that they can make sure they have a good range of signatures that is actually your signature to match against the outer ballot envelope of the absentee ballot.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And some people were, we were talking about this yesterday on the program, and some people were saying, you know, I used to live in this state.
		I moved to that state.
		I registered in the new state, but I still got a ballot mailed to the old state.
		That making it ripe for fraud, anybody could take that ballot and forge a signature.
		So what do you make of that argument and those issues with mail-in ballots?
unidentified		Yeah, look, certainly we need to improve our voter registration list maintenance in the country.
		There are reasons why there are some barriers, there's some friction.
		for states removing people from the roles, right?
		We want them to only be removing people who are no longer eligible.
		So how do they determine that?
		There's federal law.
		It goes back to 1993.
		It's the National Voter Registration Act.
		It dictates how states can remove people from the roles.
		They send initially a non-forwardable postcard.
		If that comes back as undeliverable, that's a good indication.
		But it still takes up to four years to remove a voter unless they have some sort of other positive notice that that voter is no longer there.
		But that is one issue.
		And I think there is some ripeness for Democrats and Republicans across the country to realize that we can make that better, right?
		The National Voter Registration Act passed in 1993.
		So like right at the dawn of the internet.
		And it's a very paper-based system.
		And it hasn't really been updated in the past 30 years.
		So that is an area where that could be better.
		But I would dispute the fact that just because that ballot is out there, that anyone can just forge the signature and send it back.
		Again, the signature matching is pretty good.
		And the ballot envelopes often require other identifying information, either a driver's license number, last four signatures of social security number.
		So there are other checks in the process that would make it very difficult for somebody to do that.
		And again, it says right there on the ballot envelope, returning this if it is not you is a violation of state law.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And if you'd like to join our conversation with Matthew Weil of the Bipartisan Policy Center, we're talking about election security and mail-in ballots.
		The numbers are 202-748-8001 for, oh, sorry, we're doing it regional this time.
		So scratch that.
		If you're in the eastern or central time zones, it's 202-748-8000.
		If you're in the mountain or Pacific time zones, it's 202-748-8001.
		And you can, of course, use texting.
		That's 202-748-8003, or you can use social media to reach us.
		The president mentioned voting machines, and he said that they take too long to give you a result, and that if you just use paper balloting, you'll know who won the election by that evening.
		Can you explain what he might mean by that?
unidentified		It's a little hard to know exactly what he means, but I can explain how the counting works.
		So most states are running three elections, right?
		They have mail voting, absentee voting of some sort.
		Every state has that.
		Most states now have some sort of in-person early voting that happens generally, you know, either at the elections office or at a polling place like venue before election day.
		And then you have your election day voting.
		So the count happens in a couple of different ways.
		Most states now are pre-processing absentee ballots.
		So they are doing that signature matching, that verification process that I mentioned before election day.
		So they don't have to worry about the absentee ballots for the most part on election day.
		And what happens with processing, once they have verified that ballot, in some states they can actually open the outer envelope.
		In some states, they take that ballot out and flatten it and prepare it for scanning.
		In some places, they can actually scan the ballot, but they don't tabulate.
		So often on election night in the recent history, the first numbers released are those absency ballots, the bulk of which would come in well before election day.
		Then you have your early voting.
		Early voting, again, is cast typically in the same way that a voter would cast a ballot on election day.
		So if your jurisdiction is using a ballot marking device, which is more of a tablet that then you make your selections on and it prints out a ballot that you then scan, and that would be generally how you would do your early voting.
		Or if you're doing a handmarked paper ballot and then putting it through a scanner, that's generally how you would do your early voting.
		And again, those are tabled typically right on site in front of the voter.
		And then you have your election day voting.
		And the election day voting, again, is, as I said before, for 90% of Americans, in person, on paper, handmarked.
		And so the only voting machine for the most part for what most voters are voting on at this point is the scanner, the scanner of the paper ballot.
		And that's a good thing, right?
		Because if you remember, a lot of the election administration updates happened after 2000.
		We wanted to get rid of the lever voting machines that were very prominent.
		And we wanted to get rid of things like the butterfly ballot and punch card machines.
		So the government in 2002 appropriated about $3 billion to upgrade voting systems.
		And at the time, the best things to buy were voting systems that had only a computer screen and no paper ballot.
		So those were the voting machines of 20 years ago that I think the president is referring to that were very expensive to maintain.
		They didn't have paper.
		You couldn't recount them in any way.
		Those are just a thing of the past at this point.
		Now, voters are voting on paper, and it's the scanners themselves that are doing the counting.
		But the good thing about that is that if we don't trust the scanner after an initial run, we could always count it by hand.
		We can run those ballots again through a different scanner.
		So right now, the only voting technology that voters are really interacting with is that scanner either at the polling place or a high-speed scanner that would be happening behind the scenes.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's talk to callers.
		We'll start with George in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts.
		Hi, George.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call and thank you for C-SPAN.
		I'm calling because I noticed at the beginning of this segment, you played a clip of the president talking about how no one in the world uses mail and ballots, which is clearly a false statement.
		And just the fact checking, I just think, is important to do.
		I mean, by the count I'm understanding, there are probably about 34 countries around the world that use mail and ballots.
		I mean, many of them are in Europe, but Canada, Australia, many countries use mail and ballots.
		There doesn't seem to be a problem there.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
		Okay.
		Go right ahead, Matthew.
unidentified		Yeah, that is absolutely true.
		And it would be very difficult for a country like ours that has voters all over the world, certainly to not have an option, right?
		So we have special protections for our military and overseas civilian population.
		So we have Americans all over the world who are eligible.
		The population is estimated up to 6 million voters potentially.
		And we're a very mobile society, right?
		Americans have always been on the move.
		We have lots of students who go out of state for school.
		We have people who take jobs out of state temporarily but have intent to return to their home state.
		So we are just a very mobile society.
		It would be very difficult.
		And I think it would be kind of an affront to how we've done democracy in America to not allow people who are eligible to vote at their home residence to not be able to vote there.
		And absence of voting is what lets us do that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This is Essie in Oxford, Mississippi.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Hi.
		President Trump is behind time, and he only thinks old and not new.
		And I work or I am involved with nonpartisan groups.
		Many times we've been asked to give help people in the nursing homes who can't leave the nursing homes to help with mail-in ballots.
		Most of those were Republicans.
		And so I just think our world is just going backwards.
		I would like someone to address mail-in ballots from nursing homes and people who cannot leave their home.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Matthew.
unidentified		I mean, that is certainly an issue, right?
		I mean, again, absentee ballots have many purposes.
		It's voters in the move, but it's also, of course, our population of voters with disabilities.
		They have access to the voting process by being able to cast ballots absentee in many cases.
		And so I think that that is a very good point.
		I should have mentioned that as well earlier.
		Of course, we've also had a lot of election officials trying to innovate and trying to bring the election process to those kind of congregate settings.
		Are there voters who are homebound or many states that have populations that are allowed to vote that are incarcerated?
		And they try to bring the process there so that they don't have to vote in absence ballot.
		But those things are expensive and not every jurisdiction can shoulder that cost.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		There's an accusation of ballot harvesting.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Can you explain what that means and what the risk of that would be?
unidentified		Well, ballot harvesting is kind of a loose term.
		It's not necessarily defined any specific places.
		But typically, what people mean by that is one agent of some sort collecting a number of ballots and returning them themselves, right?
		So instead of the voter themselves putting the ballot in the mail or putting it into a drop box or giving it directly to an election official, this one person might collect a few of them.
		Now, some states allow this to some extent.
		Some states allow, for example, a spouse to bring back their husband or wife's ballot or their kids' ballots and put those into the machine, into the drop box or the mailbox themselves.
		And some states ban the practice.
		Again, I would recommend to voters, you know, again, you have to trust, if it's legal in your state, you have to trust who you're giving your ballot to.
		Now, I typically do believe that once the ballot is outside of the control of an election official, there are some security risks, right?
		I mean, that is true of absentee balloting.
		We know that we can mitigate them.
		But I prefer for my ballot, and I vote absentee all the time.
		I want to be the one who's either putting it into that blue box mailbox, or in my jurisdiction in Maryland, I'm able to put it into a very substantial, large drop box right by the elections office that I know is being monitored by video feed for all the time that it's open.
		So I think that's important, right?
		If you're going to be giving it to somebody who is, you know, quote unquote, a ballot harvester, that should be somebody who's pretty close to you, either a close personal friend or somebody who's related to you.
		And I think the idea that there are people out there that are just collecting dozens and dozens of ballots and people are unwittingly giving them to these people is not borne out by a lot of the data.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Charlie, Jonesboro, Arkansas.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Charlie.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I called y'all the day after the election when Joe Biden won, and I said it looked suspicious to me.
		I thought it looked, you know, well, my goodness.
		And Joe Biden, he could go to hell for cheating on an election like that.
		And I think that was a terrible thing.
		And we all just had to take it.
		Donald Trump's going to go to heaven for ending all these wars.
		And I don't get to go to heaven and brag about all the stuff I did to get there.
		You can brag when you go to hell, I think.
		I don't know.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Charlie.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk about the 2020 election, Matthew, and the allegations of fraud there.
unidentified		Again, look, nothing was different about absence ballots, the way they are processed.
		Certainly, there was an effort to do less in-person voting in many places, right?
		I mean, we have to go back to 2020.
		You know, hindsight is 2020 itself.
		And there was a strong belief, and it was widely accepted at the time, that bringing large numbers of people into small rooms at the same time wasn't going to be feasible.
		And so I think it was smart that a lot of states did try to ramp up their absentee voting operations.
		That happened very quickly.
		It had to, right?
		We had from March until November.
		If you remember, there were some primaries already happening when the world kind of shut down.
		And so states were pivoting very quickly.
		All of those things, all those changes were changes made by state legislatures or governors under emergency orders.
		So they were legal.
		And we expected that blip in 2020 of a huge number of absentee ballots to come back down in 2024.
		It did.
		I think what's also interesting is that the numbers and the proportions of the vote that Democrats and Republicans are getting through the absentee ballots has also kind of gone back to the long-term trend lines.
		So for example, the president received more of the absentee vote in Pennsylvania, in Arizona, in North Carolina this year.
		So I think a lot of people are looking at 2020 when we had super high turnout.
		People were engaged.
		They had less to do.
		And so turnout was very high.
		And yes, we made it very easy to vote by putting those absentee ballots in the hands of voters who were all eligible to vote.
		By 2024, the share of vote that was cast by absentee ballot went back to the historical trend line.
		But the distribution of the vote, how many were Democrats, how many Republicans, basically also went back to the trend line.
		And so I think that's also something that's important for your viewers to understand.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Janice in Midlothian, Virginia.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Janice.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I'm kind of feeling the same way a previous caller felt.
		My mother is 83 years old, unfortunately, totally bedridden.
		She's disabled and not able to get to the polls to vote.
		She has been doing mail-in ballots for a while now.
		And I'm just saying, are they trying to say that people who have been voting for decades, just because they can't get to the polls, they're not going to be able to vote anymore?
		I don't understand how they expect to just not to just ignore millions of voters, elderly, who are not able to get to the polls anymore.
		I don't see how that works.
		I don't think that's right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, Matthew, would that be, I guess, would what the president is talking about, would it just be for those mail-in ballots that go out to everybody regardless, or would it just be reserved for people that have a reason, right?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That they're elderly, bedridden, out of town, all those kinds of issues.
unidentified		I think it's important to note that the president's authority to dictate how states run their elections is fairly limited, right?
		And that's how the Constitution envisioned it.
		Article 1, Section 4 reserves the time, places, and manners of election to the states.
		And Congress can override some state legislation for federal law if they want to, but that would be an act of Congress, not the executive by themselves.
		And so certainly I'm hearing a lot of concern about how would people who absolutely 100% need to vote by absentee do it.
		I don't know that there are many states in the country where the state legislators would be so willing to go against the wishes of the electorate and take away a convenient voting option that their voters are using.
		And again, these voters are distributed across Democrats and Republicans.
		It is not a just Democrat operation for absentee voting.
		That is just not true.
		The data don't show that.
		And so the president himself couldn't change any of those laws.
		It would require an act of the state legislatures signed by the governors of those states to change how voting operates in those states.
		And I think at this point, I don't see that as a very likely outcome in most states.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Sumter, South Carolina, Audrey, you're on the air.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		My question is to guess is: Trump had got out and spilled some propaganda that Putin had said that the reason why he lost was because of the absentee ballot.
		Is it true that Russia has absentee ballot, mailing absentee ballots?
		That's my question.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Matthew.
unidentified		I'm certainly not an expert on the Russian election.
unidentified		I know that Putin apparently did very well in the election, but I'm not sure how much the international community believes all the results are coming out of Russia.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here's Wren in Tucson, Arizona.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
larry nichols ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Mimi.
		I just wanted to call in and share my experience.
		I moved from Missouri to Arizona.
		My voting experience in Missouri was waiting in long lines, sometimes for hours, to be able to vote.
		When I moved from a St. Louis suburb closer into the St. Louis City, I was right on the city line.
		My voting place was more black with minority people and voting machines breaking down, running out of paper.
		When I moved to Arizona and got to have the mail-in ballot, I vote every single election.
		I never have to worry about standing in a two-hour line.
		I feel like trying to take away the mail-in ballot is a way of voter disenfranchisement.
		It's a way to try and get people to not go vote.
		I mean, if you look at like the rules they have in Georgia, where you can't pass out water to people in line, this is just another way to try and get us not to vote.
		And especially, I think it hits minority communities even more.
		You know, when I look at St. Louis, it was always more minority communities where the voting machines were breaking down, where they were running out of paper, where there was something happening.
		Even though I, who I voted for, did not win in Arizona, I still feel like my vote counted here.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Ren.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's get a comment from Matthew Weil.
unidentified		Yeah, and that's a great point.
		And Arizona is the poster trial.
		They were the pioneers of no excuse absency voting, permanent absency voting list.
		That goes back to 1992 when Arizona was a much redder state than it is now.
		Now it's a much more purple state.
		So this was pioneered.
		These absency voting options were developed, promoted.
		And I think if you talk to Republicans who have won in Arizona for decades, absency voting was a huge part of their campaign.
		And they were very good at it.
		I mean, I have been in elections now for about 20 years.
		And when I got into elections right after the 2004 election, the commonly held belief was that absency voting helps Republicans, not Democrats.
		And so these things can change.
		My point of view is that voters should have options.
		They should have convenience options, whether that's voting by mail, voting in person, if that makes them more comfortable for some defined period, usually seven days before election day, or voting on election day.
		They should have all of those options to vote and that each of those options should be as secure as possible.
		And I think at this point in 2024, the past election, we have had the most secure election we've ever had.
		We are getting better every single time.
		And that is the progression that I expect to continue because the election officials that I know are dedicated to that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Anthony in Miller Place, New York, you're on with Matthew Weill.
unidentified		Thank you.
		I would just request to the guest and moderator to please allow me to make two points or concerns that I have with regard to voting.
		Number one, back when I was a younger man, I wanted my wife to vote.
		So I brought her down to the polling station and requested that I could go behind the curtain with her.
		This was back when we had mechanical voting without the digital age.
		And the gentleman at the poll worker had explained to me that it was paramount to any voting process that each individual go behind the curtain by themselves without anybody undue influence potential.
		And he said, in this way, it's in observance of all participants, be it the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.
		So therefore, there would be no lack of trust in the system.
		And what we have now is this disenchantment in the system because whether it's the digital technologies, the hacking potentialities, and or just the undue influence of a bunch of ballots being on somebody's kitchen table behind, you know, I mean, what's the difference?
		If I couldn't go behind the curtain with my wife with a mechanical machine, then why can I allow the ballot to be at my kitchen table?
		Okay, that said, but also, how about an educated or an informed electorate?
		We have a system now where the fifth state, the politicians, the media is influencing their keeping it, whether it's the Biden laptop, Russia, Russia, Russia.
		I mean, when the mainstream media keeps the electorate stupid or uninformed, I mean, the most important aspect of any election is an informed electorate.
		And what we have now is an electorate that has been, I think, being led astray or brainwashed or not told the truth.
		So I'll leave it there.
		And thank you so much for C-SPAN and this topic.
		Have a great day, folks.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Matthew, what would you like to comment on?
unidentified		Yeah, I think I'll take the comment about the lever voting machines that were prominent for 80 years in this country.
		I never got to vote on one, but I absolutely remember going to the polls of my parents in New Jersey.
		And I was allowed to go into the voting machine with them.
		And I remember the curtain and the kind of the bunk you got when you pulled down that lever.
		And it was very satisfying.
		But there are problems with that too, right?
		One, it was a very tactile process.
		So it wasn't so accessible for voters with disabilities.
		And just like the voting on the touchscreens that didn't have paper, there was no way to recount any of those machines.
		And so you had to trust that this machine, which many of them weighed about 800 pounds, they had thousands of mechanical parts, were recording your votes accurately.
		And I'm not sure that's always true, especially as those machines got older and they had to cannibalize other machines to do repairs, that those were the most secure options.
		And so I do think we have good paper options now that can be recounted.
		And again, those accidents ballots that are on the caller's table have security options.
		They've been requested if he's living in New York.
		And if they come back from a different person or the simple best match, those FNC ballots are not going to count.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Matthew, as far as today's machines and the possibility of hacking them.
unidentified		So voting machines aren't connected to the internet.
		That is important.
		Voting machines, before they are deployed to other early voting sites or to election disk sites, or if they're doing the counting at high-speed scanners back at the office, go through rigorous sets of what's called logic and accuracy testing.
		They are testing these machines with a set of ballots to ensure that they are counting them the right way, right?
		So that they know what's in the stack of ballots and machines are all tested against that.
		So again, because the machine itself isn't producing the vote, the vote for the most part, the voter themselves are marking that ballot, all the machine is doing is tabulating the marks on the paper.
		And if there's any discrepancy or if there's any reason to believe that those numbers aren't right, you can either re-scan them on a different machine or that's when you get into your hand recount or hand auditing situations.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Kenneth in Arkansas.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Kenneth.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		I listened to the gentleman.
		First of all, say that he's going to get his attorney to get rid of paper voting ballots.
		This gentleman is on the spot.
		He knows what he's talking about.
		Here in my state, we have this church machine.
		You vote who you want to vote for.
		Then you get a paper ballot that comes out.
		And you have to put that paper ballot as a deal for what I'm saying, but you can go back and check it.
		If you have to recount it, but the only way this thing changes is if they do it like they did in Texas and have the government get the legislator to change these payouts, these machines are already set up to go.
		And they spend money on them, and they are really accurate.
		And you don't need to get rid of paper ballots to one of the early, early voting ballots.
		You don't need to get rid of none of this.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		These states are not.
		You're kind of breaking up, but we got kind of the idea.
		Matthew, what, I mean, do you think there's the possibility of GOP-led legislatures in the states to take this up or even Congress here in Washington, D.C. to take up these kinds of issues in response to the president's desires?
unidentified		It's hard for me to know what Congress or any state legislature will do, but I will tell you, the procurement process for a new voting system typically takes two years for most jurisdictions.
		These machines or counters can cost into the millions for a state.
		And so simply getting rid of what we have and saying we're going to get something better is unlikely to be doable before 2026.
		And if states or jurisdictions, counties tried to eliminate all machinery from the paper ballot counting, that would result in very long waits for results.
		It would not speed up the results, right?
		The thing that computers are incredibly good at, what they were basically created for many years ago, was counting things, doing repetitive tasks.
		That is something that typically humans aren't great at, especially when you start to scale it into the millions of ballots.
		And so, you know, if jurisdictions aren't able to use the scanners and they have to use two or three-person teams to count every single ballot, that is going to extend the amount of time it takes to count all of the ballots to weeks.
		You're not going to have results on Election Day.
		I think that there's a perception that places like Canada or Great Britain that have had some high-profile paper-based elections in the past couple years are able to do these things very quickly.
		But the fact of the matter is, they're typically voting on one or maybe two things, and that is not the American style of voting.
		Our ballots are typically pretty long.
		We have federal races, state races, local races.
		We have judges that we vote for.
		We have state and local initiatives and referendum.
		In some places, our ballots are two pages double-sided.
		To hand count that would take a very, very long time.
		And I don't think that would add confidence to the outcomes for most people if it's taking two or three weeks to get any kind of reasonable results out there so that we have an idea of who won each election.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, that's Matthew Weil, Vice President of Democracy and Bipartisanship at the Bipartisan Policy Center there on the web at bipartisanpolicy.org.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Thanks so much, Matthew, for joining us today.
unidentified		Thank you for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Up next, it's more of your phone calls in Open Forum.
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mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		We're an open forum now, and we're going to be taking your calls shortly.
		But a few things for your schedule later today.
		Right after this program, right about 10 a.m. Eastern, we're going to have former U.S. defense officials discussing the future of drone warfare, focusing on the Replicator initiative, which was launched in 2023.
		It aims to produce large quantities of unmanned drone systems in a short timeframe.
		That's live from the Brookings Institution right after this program here on C-SPAN.
		And later this evening, we'll have a discussion about the future of U.S. foreign policy in Eastern Europe in light of the Russia-Ukraine war.
		It's a conversation with retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, who served on the National Security Council during the first Trump administration.
		That event is from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and that will be live at 6:30 p.m. Eastern here on C-SPAN.
		Both of those programs are on our app, C-SPANNow and online at c-span.org.
		Richard in Kansas, Republican line.
unidentified		Hi, Richard.
larry nichols ▲ ● ▼		Yes, ma'am.
		I think it was Rockefeller that said, none are so enslaved as those that think they're free.
		And it's certainly true.
		Our elected officials aren't running this country.
		It's the administrative bureaucracy because they know all they got to do is wait a couple of years and then they do whatever they want to do.
		Until we clean out that mess, nothing's going to change.
		Now, the guy that you had on there with the voting thing, he knows as well as anybody that knows anything about computer code.
		If you don't see the source code, what's going on in those machines, you cannot verify anything.
		Now, this has been proven over and over and over, but the courts, they don't want to get involved in political things.
		They want to stick with the law.
		And I've heard many, many times that's a political question.
		We don't deal with that.
		Now, back in 1975, there was a book written, Vote Scam, The Stealing of America.
		It was about voter fraud in Florida.
		Janet Reno was the attorney general at the time.
		They brought the complaint to the federal government.
		Who do you think ran that investigation?
		Bill Barr, Robert Mueller.
		You can look it up.
		You can get the book, Vote Scam, and you will see all the letters and everything that were sent to Bob Barr and Mahler.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Richard, I've got a question for you as far as it doesn't seem like you trust elections very much.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Do you still vote over there in Kansas?
larry nichols ▲ ● ▼		No, I do not.
larry nichols ▲ ● ▼		It's a waste of my time.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Just because you don't think that it would be an accurate count?
larry nichols ▲ ● ▼		No, I know it's not.
		Especially when it comes to tax issues and things like that.
		If you cannot see the source code in those machines, you cannot verify the election.
unidentified		All right.
larry nichols ▲ ● ▼		Proven.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Mike Maybrook, New York, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Do you have a question about I haven't heard this on the regular media too much, that the United States government is paying the health insurance for people in the Israeli Army?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Where did you hear that?
unidentified		I heard it on the radio yesterday, a local station here in New York.
unidentified		And the host said, yes, it's true.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, let's look that up for you and see if we can find anything about that, Mike.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Bobby in Gorham, Maine, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I'm sorry that I missed the opportunity to speak with your guest.
		My point was going to be about mail-in voting.
		I'm 71 years old.
		The law changing the voting age from 21 to 18 occurred the year that I turned 18.
		And I have never missed voting in an election since that time.
		However, I've never used a mail-in voting ballot until Donald Trump was running for office the first time.
		During that campaign, he mentioned repeatedly how much he loved the mail-in vote and how he used it almost every time he voted in an election.
		So that's my point.
		Thank you again for taking my call.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		All right, Bobby.
		And for our previous caller, here's a fact check from Reuters.
		The benefits for soldiers serving in Israeli military not included in U.S. spending bill.
		That's in Reuters.
		If you'd like to take a look at the details there.
		This is Ken in Spokane, Washington, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		I just wanted to say that I don't really trust the mail-in voting myself.
		Here in Washington, it's a mandatory.
		Back in the 2000s, we had Christine Gregoire and Dino Rossi running for governor.
		And of course, Christine won it the first time around.
		And then the second time they ran, Dino Rossi won it.
		And she had a recount, and he won again.
		She had another recount.
		And oh, all of a sudden, there were boxes of ballots and other things found in two different areas.
		And of course, then she won.
		And then, yeah, so I really don't trust them anymore.
		I hate to say that, but I don't feel my vote is being counted truly here in Spokane or in Washington.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here is Joseph in Evans, Georgia, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'd like to mention that Tim Scott was one of the most respected lawmakers coming out of South Carolina until he introduced opportunity zones in 1985.
		I was chairman for three counties in Georgia, introducing enterprise zones whereby businesses would open up their business in impoverished areas.
		So here we come.
		Here comes Tim Scott looking for some publicity, and he changes the name from Enterprise Zones to Opportunity Zones.
		And I was really disillusioned with Tim Scott at that point.
		The second point I'd like to make is I was also chairman of the Department of Social Services in Charleston, South Carolina.
		And there was a tremendous bill that was passed and signed by Bill Clinton.
		One of the things that I respect him for, one of the big two things.
		With a stroke of the pen, President Obama gutted the Welfare Reform Act.
		I just don't understand how our lawmakers could be so effective in changing laws.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Joseph.
		And this is The Hill.
		A Texas Democrat abruptly leaves DNC call after being warned she's committing a felony.
		Take a look.
		This is what that moment looked like.
ken martin ▲ ● ▼		Look, I've been really buoyed by the conversations I've had with Democratic governors throughout this country and all of our Democratic elected officials.
unidentified		Sorry, I have to leave.
		They said it's a felony for me to do this.
		Apparently, I can't be on the floor or in the bathroom.
		Well, you told me I was only allowed to be here in the bathroom.
		No, hang on.
		Bye, everybody.
		I've got to go.
		Hey, that is outrageous.
		First of all, let me tell you something.
cory booker ▲ ● ▼		Representative Collier in the bathroom has more dignity than Donald Trump in the Oval Office.
al green ▲ ● ▼		There you go.
unidentified		That is outrageous.
cory booker ▲ ● ▼		What they're trying to do right there is silence an American leader, silence a black woman.
unidentified		And that is outrageous.
unidentified		And I hope everybody took note of that.
cory booker ▲ ● ▼		The fact that she can't even let her voice be heard is freaking outrageous.
unidentified		It is.
		And this is what we're fighting for here.
		This is ultimately what this is about.
cory booker ▲ ● ▼		What we just witnessed, them trying to shut her down and say it's illegal for her to be in the bathroom and on this call.
hakeem jeffries ▲ ● ▼		This is the lengths that they're going to in Texas to try to bring about a system so unjust and so unjustifiable that they are going to try to silence those leaders from being heard and speaking out.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, joining us now is a reporter to talk about those redistricting battles in California and Texas.
		Shia Kappas is with Politico.
		She's a politics reporter and Illinois playbook author there.
		Shia, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Thanks for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Can you just start with explaining that situation we just saw with Ms. Collier?
unidentified		Well, you have Texas on the edge.
		They were voting yesterday to pass these maps after being held up for more than two weeks.
		The Republicans were frustrated.
		They really wanted these maps, the legislation for these maps to go through.
		I was surprised that they went to such lengths because there were enough Democrats on the floor to get the bill passed, whether she was in the bathroom or not.
		But they were frustrated.
		They wanted to get it over with.
		They were pushing the Democrats to follow all the rules, adhere to being in custody with which Governor Abbott ordered.
		And so she was forced to go in the bathroom.
		Crazy.
		I mean, it was pretty crazy.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And there's some lawmakers sleeping there.
		Why are they doing that?
		Why are they sleeping in the House for?
unidentified		They did not want to be forced out in or out with law enforcement.
		That's what Republicans ordered law enforcement to escort them everywhere.
		And they did not want to have to be, you know, bound to that.
		So a few of them stayed on the floor on their own accord, including Gene Wu, who's the minority leader, along with Collier and I think one or two others.
		And they were trying to make a point.
		Look, you know, we come here on our own volition.
		We are going to do this on our own terms as a way to protest what Republicans were doing to force them to, you know, stay in line.
		It goes to what's been happening for more than two weeks where law enforcement was, they were hanging out in front of their homes, the Democrats' homes in Texas while the Democrats were in Illinois.
		They were calling their homes.
		Democrats felt that it was a form of harassment to some extent.
		So it's just a continuation that's been going on for more than two weeks.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Sochia, where do things stand right now with the redistricting and what's the timeline?
unidentified		Well, now Republicans have approved this bill in Texas.
		And immediately we've got to look now at what's happening in California because today the California Assembly is going to vote on three measures that will also look at redistricting, giving Democrats potentially five Democratic seats to counter, as you've been discussing, the five seats that Republicans want in Texas.
		And that's going to be a whole other drama because Republicans in California are opposing it similarly to how Democrats are opposing it in Texas, calling it a power grab.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And when are we expecting a vote in California on that?
unidentified		California's vote could actually come today.
		I don't know if it might be extended because I'm not sure how long debate goes.
		I'm not in California right now.
		But they are expecting that legislation to pass.
		It's three bills.
		And then the timeline needs to move really fast because if you want to change the boundaries of your congressional district, you have to do it before March when petitions go out for candidates to file for these positions.
		And so that's in March.
		The lines have to be drawn by the end of December so candidates know what they're running for.
		You have to send out these, there has to be a vote from voters to decide whether they want to do this.
		So that has to happen before the maps are drawn.
		And you have to send the ballots out to people 30 days before that happens.
		And then if you're a military person overseas, those ballots need to be sent out 45 days ahead.
		So we're looking at September is when these ballots need to go out.
		And here we are, August.
		So it's a very accelerated schedule to move everything along really quickly.
		Politico has done polling that shows Californians are overwhelmingly supportive of redrawing these maps.
		Of course, because it's a Democratic state and they are opposed to Donald Trump, who initiated this whole, you know, this whole battle by urging Texas Democrats in a Zoom call, I believe, to vote to change the districts in their state.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so we talked about Texas, we talked about California.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What's happening in Illinois?
unidentified		Illinois is, they are starting their own redistricting commission, which is a little bit different because they are only focusing on state legislative maps.
		And the logic is, and this commission is run by familiar names, Rayla Hood, Bill Daly.
		Rayla Hood is a Republican, Bill Daly is a Democrat.
		They both happen to work in the Obama administration, and they want to redraw more fairly how state legislative maps are drawn.
		And then in turn, the logic is that state legislators would more fairly draw congressional maps when the next time comes around to draw those maps in 2030.
		There's already some opposition to it.
		It's going to be a lot of public hearings and a lot of talk, but that's how it's happening in Illinois.
		And if I can say, speaking of Obama, he is now getting involved in all of this too.
		A few weeks ago, he had a meeting with the Texas Democrats, encouraging them, praising them.
		They were down.
		They knew that it was futile, that the Republicans in Texas would have control of this whole process.
		Obama said, Look, you had the baton for the first lap, and now we're passing it to Gavin Newsom.
		And now Gavin Newsom and the Democrats are going to pass their own maps, ideally for Democrats, that would add the five seats that Republicans in Texas are to counter the Republicans in Texas, adding five seats.
		All right.
		And just to make it a little bit more complicated, the California legislation does have a trigger that says if Texas does not pass these five seats, then we won't do it either.
		Is there a possibility Abbott might not sign this legislation?
		Maybe.
		It might be that it would take Donald Trump to say, look, Texas, let's back off, and then California will back off.
		I don't know if that would happen.
		We're guessing at this point.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, we'll be watching it.
		Shia Kapas, politics reporter and Illinois playbook author at Politico.
		You can find her work at politico.com.
		Thanks so much for joining us.
unidentified		Thank you for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we will get back to your calls.
		Just a few things.
		If you're interested in this topic, the Texas Senate Redistricting Committee will be meeting today to debate those newly redrawn congressional maps.
		That's happening at 10 a.m.
		This morning, you can watch that on C-SPAN 2.
		That's live from Austin.
		And then later this evening, the Texas Senate may vote on congressional redistricting in the state.
		You can watch that Texas Senate session live at 8 p.m. also on C-SPAN 2.
		Then there's two events happening at noon on the West Coast.
		The California State Assembly meets in a special session to consider a redistricting plan that would redraw five of California's nine Republican districts to be more favorable for Democrats in future elections.
		That's live at noon Eastern on C-SPAN.
		And at the same time, the California Senate will have a special session that will be live on C-SPAN 2.
		So you can watch all of that when you're interested.
		And this is now Roderick calling us from Canada on the Independent Line.
		Good morning, Roderick.
unidentified		Thank you for joining me.
		I'm calling about the Russia-Ukraine conflict and to make some suggestions for potential coverage on your guys's end.
		Main concern I have is that there's far too little focus on NATO's role following 1997, extensively working inside Ukraine,
		attempting to drag that country into NATO, despite there never being a formal referendum or plebiscite conducted within Ukraine asking citizens if they would like their country to join NATO or not.
		One of the pivotal events that occurred was in August of 2008, NATO's annual conference with Bucharest, Romania, that year.
		And at the end of the conference, as they always do, they issued a communique.
		And when I say they mean the leaders of every member country of NATO signed on to this Communique that announced that NATO will become a member, pardon me, that Ukraine will become a member of NATO.
		And it's important to restate that this was all of the member countries' leaders, all of NATO's member countries' leaders, announcing arbitrarily that NATO will become a member.
		Am I rephrasing that right?
		That Ukraine will become a member of NATO.
		And this is at a time that NATO had been active within Ukraine following 1987 when the NATO-Ukraine Council was formed.
		Every single year, 1997 to 2008, NATO conducted its own internal polls asking a small sampling, a relatively small sampling of voters across Ukraine if they were in favor of their country joining NATO opposed.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Roderick, I'm just curious what you think.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Do you think Ukraine should join NATO?
unidentified		My view is that there should be no attempt by NATO's member countries to accept Ukraine today, and there should be an announcement by NATO's member country leaders that they were wrong to have arbitrarily announced that Ukraine will join NATO in 2008, which eventually led to the conflict that's currently raging.
		And I suggest, I urge diplomatically to you guys near quality coverage, please try to interview a professor such as Dr. Jeffrey Sachs at Columbia or Dr. John Mersheimer at the University of Chicago.
		They're both very well versed in economics and foreign policy.
		They have views, much as I do, that we, the West, should not have been attempting to drag Ukraine into NATO.
		Roderick will let the time.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Did you, sorry to cut you off, did you catch our interview with George Beebe on Saturday?
unidentified		I did not.
unidentified		I'll go back and look at that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, yeah, definitely look at that because I think you'll find a good discussion about NATO and kind of Russia's view of NATO's actions.
		I think you'll find that interesting.
		Joe.
		Sorry.
		Joe in New Orleans, Louisiana.
		I think we lost that one.
		David, Barrington, Massachusetts, Republican line.
unidentified		Yes, yes, I'm here.
		I'm calling about the early voting, the people going around collecting paper ballots.
		One of the people called earlier said about the nursing home, people going into the nursing home and collecting early voting.
		I had an election worker come in and to get me to vote early.
		I told her I was a Republican and I was voting for Donald Trump.
		And she wanted me to vote early because that's the regulations in the state.
		And it's allowed by state law.
		And the presidential election is really run by a coammagret of state laws.
		And the regulation is in Massachusetts.
		Early voting is legal and encouraged, actually.
		I told her I wanted to vote on Election Day because the Constitution specifies the first Tuesday after the first Monday.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And David, are you able to get to the polls on your own without any problems?
unidentified		I arranged it with a nursing home, and some people here made arrangements for me to go to the polls on Election Day.
		I got there in the afternoon.
		They had some other things to do in the morning, but I did get there, and I got to vote on Election Day like I wanted to.
		And the nursing home arranged it for me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, David.
		And some news for you, some political news for you.
		This is from the Texas Tribune.
		U.S. Representative Chip Roy and Paxton Aid turned foe to run for Texas Attorney General.
		It'll be the first test of whether Roy's, at times, frosty relationship with President Trump and his turn against Paxton can withstand scrutiny in a statewide primary.
		And he did post just now on X.
		He says, Texas has a long and proud tradition of rising to defend our homes, our freedom, and our communities.
		I'm running for Attorney General to carry on that legacy, unafraid to fight, unafraid to win, and unafraid to defend Texas at every turn.
		That's Chip Roy running for, announcing his run for Attorney General of Texas.
		Robert, Norman, Illinois, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Hello, everyone.
unidentified		Paxton Aid turned foe.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Robert, you got to turn down your TV.
unidentified		It's okay.
		Just second.
		Sorry.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It's okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go right ahead.
unidentified		About the D.C., the military in D.C. and in California.
		Yep.
		We are in an insurrection in those two states.
		Just because Trump has not called for insurrection does not mean that we are not in an insurrection state.
		If you look at the qualifications of the law concerning insurrection, it is an insurrection.
		He hasn't just called for insurrection.
		Number two, it's voting as far as the Texas issue with the voting and the redistricting.
		That shows a lot on the people of Texas.
		Of course, Texas had the long history of slavery and Juneteenth and not telling people.
		And I'm starting to look at not so more as the representative, but as the people who vote the representative in the power of the lacking of morality, values, and traditions that affects the whole entire country.
		Plus, right now, it looks like we are a racist, discriminatory country going back to the 1930s instead of 1960.
		It's really concerning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, got those two points.

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