| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
2026 midterm elections. | |
| And AP reporter David Lieb previews the Missouri Legislature special session, considering a new congressional map that would add Republican seats to its delegation. | ||
| Also, Ohio Democratic Representative Greg Lansman talks about Trump administration health care policy, government spending deadlines, and congressional news of the day. | ||
| And later, the Hills Emily Brooks on bipartisan efforts to try to force the release of the Epstein files. | ||
| Washington Journal starts now. | ||
| Well, we're going in. | ||
| I didn't say when, we're going in. | ||
| This is the Washington Journal for September 3rd. | ||
| That was President Trump in the Oval Office yesterday responding to a question on if federal forces will be sent to Chicago to assist local police in fighting crime. | ||
| That statement about the National Guard possibly being sent there, not only resonating in Washington, D.C., with the president already using these forces to fight crime here in D.C., but it's also playing out in Chicago's newspapers as well. | ||
| Here's the Chicago Tribune this morning: the reaction from Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Pritzker braces city for federal incursion, and the Chicago Sun-Times this morning parroting off the president's statements from yesterday. | ||
| We're going in. | ||
| To that, we want to ask you about this idea of federal forces being sent to Chicago to help fight crime there. | ||
| And you can call us on the lines: 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and 202-748-8002 for Independents. | ||
| Chicago residents, if you want to call and give your thoughts on the president's statements from yesterday, 202748-8003 is how you do that. | ||
| As always, you can post on our social media sites. | ||
| That's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and also on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| The president making these statements yesterday. | ||
| Chicago's local journalism is picking that up. | ||
| This is from ABC7 outside of Chicago, saying that the president said Tuesday he will send the National Guard to help fight crime in Chicago as the city braces for the administration's planned immigration crackdown in the area. | ||
| Quote: Well, we're going in. | ||
| I didn't say when, we're going in. | ||
| When you lose, look, I have an obligation. | ||
| This isn't a political thing. | ||
| I have an obligation. | ||
| It also has some reaction there from not only Governor Pritzker of Illinois, but also Chicago's Mayor Brandon Johnson. | ||
| We'll show you that in a little bit. | ||
| The statement by the president was made during a press conference yesterday in the Oval Office, asked about his plans for Chicago. | ||
| Here's some of that from yesterday. | ||
| Chicago is very interesting because I watched Pritchard get up and say about, we don't need help, we're safe. | ||
| But two weeks ago, they had six people murdered, and they had 24 people hit by bullets. | ||
| Last week, as you know, it was seven people, 24 people hit, and seven people died. | ||
| And then over the last two days, it was the that was the crown jewel. | ||
| They had, I guess, nine killed, nine or ten killed, and 50 hit with bullets. | ||
| And you have this governor get up, who's a terrible governor. | ||
| Probably he and Gavin Newscomb would be probably the two worst and most naive. | ||
| They're naive. | ||
| Either they're naive or they're very untruthful. | ||
| And he'll say, We don't want any protection. | ||
| We don't need. | ||
| So in the last three weeks, he's lost almost 20 people killed. | ||
| There's no place, there's no place in the world, including you can go to Afghanistan, you can go to places that you would think of. | ||
| They don't even come close to this. | ||
| Chicago is a hellhole right now. | ||
| I would love to have Governor Pritchke call me. | ||
| I'd gain respect for him and say we do have a problem and we'd love you to send in the troops because you know what? | ||
| The people, they have to be protected. | ||
| I saw it today on one of your networks, not a friendly network. | ||
| Exact, really the opposite, I would say, very unfriendly network. | ||
| And they interviewed about 12 people on this morning. | ||
| Most of them were African American. | ||
| They were black. | ||
| And they were saying, please, please, please let the president send it. | ||
| These were people from Chicago. | ||
| Please, we need help. | ||
| We need help. | ||
| We can't walk outside. | ||
| We're petrified. | ||
| If the governor of Illinois would call up, call me up. | ||
| I would love to do it. | ||
| Now, we're going to do it anyway. | ||
| We have the right to do it because I have an obligation to protect this country. | ||
| And that is the president from yesterday. | ||
| In fact, that ABC 7 Chicago follows up saying the naval station has been preparing to be the base of operations for more U.S. immigration and customs enforcement agents. | ||
| Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noam confirmed plans for ramped up immigration enforcement in Illinois over the weekend, but did not share specific details. | ||
| So when it comes to these presidents' recent statements, when it comes to Chicago, this idea of federal forces going in to help fight crime there, let us know what you think about it. | ||
| 202748-8000 for Democrats, Republicans, 202748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202748-8002. | ||
| And Chicago residents, you can call us at 202748-8003. | ||
| Text us on that same line as well. | ||
| Randy is in Chicago calling us this morning on thoughts from the president yesterday. | ||
| Randy, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| This is horrifying, actually. | ||
| And I actually predicted this, but in his first term. | ||
| So he's kind of predictable and a little dangerous, actually. | ||
| So as far as the specific statements on Chicago, what do you think about that? | ||
| Do you think that federal forces are needed in the city? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, federal forces is not needed. | |
| It was needed as funding for more policing and more funding to police, to get these kids to get jobs and other activities to redirect their energy. | ||
| You know, not jack-booted thugs roaming your streets or just standing there with other guns trying to incite violence. | ||
| Mike is next. | ||
| Mike in Ohio, Independent Line on the President's statements on Chicago yesterday. | ||
| Mike, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Martin Pedro. | |
| To that resident of Chicago, look to your leaders. | ||
| They're the ones that cut back the funding for the police that have sent our jobs overseas over the last decades. | ||
| Now, the people of Chicago, you should be talking to them, not anybody else, because like Washington, they were grateful to see people come in and get the criminals out of their area. | ||
| And it worked. | ||
| Now, after Chicago, they need to go to New York City and L.A. Maybe the residents, after they're able to walk around at night freely without being shot or robbed, they might think, hey, Trump's up to something. | ||
| And it's working. | ||
| The establishment is against Trump because he's cutting all the NGOs and all their money profiting piggy banks. | ||
| People wake up. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| From John, who joins us from North Carolina. | ||
| Democrats lying, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| I think all this is just a rehearsal for when we have midterm elections. | ||
| This is how he's going to stop them. | ||
| He's going to flood all the big, big red cities with law enforcement and stop people from voting so he can stay in office. | ||
| Well, how did you get that from the president's yesterday? | ||
| Hold on. | ||
| How did you get that from the president's statements yesterday, specifically? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I didn't hear them all. | |
| I know, you know, you don't have to hear a lot from him to know what he's doing. | ||
| This guy's a criminal. | ||
| Why would anybody listen to this guy? | ||
| Why would anybody go along with anything he does? | ||
| Okay, Ralph in Florida in Miami, Republican line on the Comments on Chicago yesterday. | ||
| Hello, Ralph. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I was born and raised in Chicago. | |
| And it's a lot different now than it was back then. | ||
| But my thing is, the Democratic leaders of the mayor of Chicago and governor, they do all these photo ops in secured area, more or less safe areas. | ||
| Why don't they go into the south side and west side of Chicago and have their little picture taking and talk to the people and they'll tell them that they want they're not safe. | ||
| They don't feel safe and this and that, but they a trouble with the Democrats, they don't listen to what the people are telling them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And as far as the National Guard, they need something there as far as because what they're doing now is not working. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Ralph in Florida. | ||
| This is Newsweek talking about Chicago's violent crime rate, saying it remains lower than that of the two largest cities according to FBI crime data. | ||
| It has a violent crime rate of about 550 violent crimes per 100,000 residents. | ||
| For comparison, New York and Los Angeles have violent crime rates of about 671 and 728 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, respectively. | ||
| In fact, of the 10 largest police departments included in the FBI data, Houston is the city with the highest violent crime rate, about 1,148 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, according to the data. | ||
| And it also cites other cities like Philadelphia and Phoenix. | ||
| We showed you the headline from the Chicago Tribune this morning. | ||
| Here's the editorial that was released yesterday in response to the president's statements and related matters. | ||
| The editors say this, to reiterate our positions, we do not wish to see the National Guard wandering performatively around the streets of Chicago, a job for which they are not trained. | ||
| We want to see more cooperation between local, state, and federal forces when it comes to stopping violent weekends in the city and in prosecuting the perpetrators of violent crimes. | ||
| We restate we have confidence that many of the right people now are finally in place to achieve real progress, but the federal government can and should pull many helpful levers. | ||
| Time to call a temporary political truce, gentlemen, and call off the insults without waiting for the other side to go first. | ||
| Again, that's the editorial from the Chicago Tribune on this topic. | ||
| J.B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, holding his own press conference yesterday on these matters. | ||
| Here's some of his statements from yesterday. | ||
| I'm aware that the president of the United States likes to go on television and beg me to call and ask him for troops. | ||
| I find this extraordinarily strange as Chicago does not want troops on our streets. | ||
| I also have experience asking the president for assistance just to have the rug pulled out from underneath me when execution meets reality. | ||
| I refuse to play a reality game show with Donald Trump again. | ||
| What I want are the federal dollars that have been promised to Illinois and Chicago for violence prevention programs that have proven to work. | ||
| That is money that Illinois taxpayers send to the federal government. | ||
| And it's an insult to any and every citizen to suggest that any governor should have to beg the president of any political party for resources owed their people. | ||
| I'd like to ask a question of my own. | ||
| And it's one the press should be asking as well. | ||
| When did we become a country where it's okay for the U.S. President to insist on national television that a state should call him to beg for anything, especially something we don't want? | ||
| Have we truly lost all sense of sanity in this nation that we treat this as normal? | ||
| As I have done since becoming governor, I've been reflecting on my responsibilities to the people of Illinois. | ||
| And one of those duties is to share with the public exactly what we know. | ||
| In the coming days, we expect to see what has played out in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. to happen here in Chicago. | ||
| First, Donald Trump is positioning armed federal agents and staging military vehicles on federal property, such as the Great Lakes Naval Base. | ||
| It is likely those agents will be with ICE, Customs and Border Patrol, the Department of Homeland Security, and other similarly situated federal agencies. | ||
| Many of these individuals are being relocated from Los Angeles for deployment in Chicago. | ||
| We believe that staging that has already begun started yesterday and continues into today. | ||
| That was Governor J.B. Pritzker responding to the president yesterday, a shot of Union Station here in Washington, D.C. Your thoughts on the president's recent comments when it comes to National Guards of Chicago. | ||
| We'll hear from Deborah from Chicago. | ||
| Republican line, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Well, let me be very, very honest with you. | ||
| We know that it's a Trojan horse. | ||
| I'm a black American, okay? | ||
| We know, we feel like we're not stupid. | ||
| We know that it's a Trojan horse for him to send the troops in. | ||
| However, it's the lesser of two evils. | ||
| I don't know because they call them YNs, and you can determine the acronym on your own. | ||
| But it's a new crime. | ||
| It's a soulless crime. | ||
| These young kids are walking around with masks on, and they're mowing down people with switches. | ||
| Honestly, I work in an area. | ||
| My husband is a CTA bus driver. | ||
| He works the area. | ||
| I'm a therapist. | ||
| I work in that area, in a high-crime area. | ||
| I work in Oak Gale Gardens, where they mowed down two women this week, just shot them down. | ||
| So we know that it's a Trojan horse. | ||
| We're scared of that, but I don't know if we fear them as much as we fear the YNs that are terrorizing neighborhoods. | ||
| And it's not good here in Chicago. | ||
| And I, you know, I welcome Governor Pritzner to really, really do a focus group and really, really sit down and talk to the residents because he lives in a sheltered community. | ||
| Should he talk directly to the president about these issues? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Would I talk to him? | |
| No, should the governor talk directly to the president about these issues? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| Absolutely. | ||
| Father Flager, people that really are out there, boots on the ground marching like myself, you know, I mean, he really needs to listen to the people that live in the communities, like where I work in the communities. | ||
| I work for the elderly. | ||
| I'm a therapist. | ||
| I go in and out of houses. | ||
| They can't come out their houses. | ||
| It's hard. | ||
| And these people are taxpaying citizens. | ||
| They're not, if you ride through Chicago, it's not a bunch of slum houses through there, like people think. | ||
| But, you know, at the same time, there are people that are living in those residences, especially like when you get to 71st Street East Side. | ||
| When I hate to say this, but when they tore down those projects and things of that nature, they really didn't help these people adapt to life in neighborhoods and the offspring of it. | ||
| I'm not being discriminatory, but it's pretty bad. | ||
| I mean, they're walking around with a mask on and they have no souls. | ||
| They're on the L. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Let's hear from Tim. | ||
| Tim in New York, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| They need to communicate Trump and the governor of Illinois, you know, just talk it out. | ||
| And they need to pass, get some laws pass, you know, jobs, programs for kids. | ||
| Give them something to do. | ||
| Give them hope. | ||
| Give them something to believe in. | ||
| And I think they need to do something about guns. | ||
| Like, come together and just pass a gun law. | ||
| Like, you know, back in the days, like Clinton did with Biden. | ||
| But it's just going to be the same thing over and over. | ||
| But crime's been around since years. | ||
| So they're not going to stop murders, regardless. | ||
| If they do go in there for whatever a month or two and they leave, it's just going to start happening again. | ||
| When you hear the president compare what's happening in D.C., do you think that might work in Chicago or would work in Chicago when he makes these comparisons to what's happening in D.C. over the last few weeks? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, because it's just you out there walking around, you know, the government. | |
| They're walking around. | ||
| Yeah, people's not going to act up, act a fool. | ||
| They're just going to lay low. | ||
| So as soon as they leave, it's just going to start happening again. | ||
| They need to give people something to do and just give them hope and pass some bills. | ||
| That's all they need to do and communicate. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Let's hear from Ron. | ||
| Let's hear from Marana in Maryland, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, hi. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning, America. | ||
| So, I mean, I think, you know, the previous caller pretty much just said it. | ||
| I mean, as soon as they leave, crime will continue. | ||
| Yet, these blue cities and red cities continue to vote in these incompetent leaders. | ||
| I'm 100% for it. | ||
| I think this is long overdue as a black American male. | ||
| When you look at the numbers of murders in every single city, regardless of what state you're in, whether it's a red state or blue state, the majority of those individuals being killed, slaughtered, murdered are black males. | ||
| So any black person who is against this, it's a Trojan horse, it's this or that. | ||
| Right now, as we speak, you have armed thugs roaming your streets and your neighborhoods. | ||
| So I'd rather have a National Guard, FBI, you name it. | ||
| I don't care as long as that person, of course, is a Leo. | ||
| I grew up in Flint, Detroit, Chicago. | ||
| I work now in Southeast D.C. | ||
| I live in Baltimore. | ||
| So there's no caller that can call in and educate me when it comes to crime. | ||
| I know about crime, all right? | ||
| It impacts, number one, black males. | ||
| Bring them on Trump. | ||
| Let's go. | ||
| Bring them. | ||
| That's Ron there in Maryland. | ||
| The Wall Street Journal editors take a look at the topic of federal forces, the recent statements by the president in Chicago. | ||
| They draw this conclusion, saying most Americans want cops on the beat, not soldiers in the streets. | ||
| Governors sometimes deploy their own National Guard units to back up law enforcement, as when New York Governor Kathy Hochul sent troops into the subways last year. | ||
| But that's state action and can't be exempt from posse matatas. | ||
| For Mr. Trump to declare an insurrection to send in federal troops over the objections of an elected governor would be a risky escalation. | ||
| Chicago's chronic crime problem belongs to Mr. Pritzker and Mr. Johnson, the country's worst mayor. | ||
| Mr. Trump can't duplicate there or elsewhere what he's doing in D.C. because there's no place in America that is like the nation's federal capital. | ||
| And as I read more there in the Wall Street Journal, their opinion section this morning, getting your thoughts on these recent statements by the president when it comes to sending federal forces to Chicago. | ||
| Doug is in Las Vegas, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Hey, I just want to make a few just. | ||
| This is just a simple comment about all this silliness. | ||
| I'm for democracy. | ||
| I'm for a republical, Republic democracy, not a strict democracy federally. | ||
| But as far as I'm concerned, I am a Democrat. | ||
| I believe in democracy. | ||
| So if all these people in these blue states that voted for sanctuary city status and stuff, if that's how they want to live, let them. | ||
| It's not my business if Chicago wants to kill vote people who let people who kill people stay on the street. | ||
| If they don't want to arrest them, I don't care. | ||
| I don't live there. | ||
| If that's what they want to vote for, let them kill them. | ||
| So what about federal forces helping to assist with crime there? | ||
| What do you think of that specifically? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think they're not needed at all as long as the people who were elected to do their job and keep the streets safe would just do it, but they don't. | |
| So if that's what you voted for, that's what you get. | ||
| Accept it. | ||
| Live with it with happiness as you kill each other, you nuts. | ||
| Rob in New York State, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Your last caller was right on about everything. | ||
| That Mayor Johnson is such a hypocrite. | ||
| That man has 150 police in his security detail, but he doesn't want to protect the citizens of Chicago. | ||
| It's disgusting. | ||
| Here in New York State, we just had a Peruvian gang leader arrested last year, 10 miles from me, that was wanted for 23 deaths in Peru. | ||
| So Trump should not only do that in Chicago, he should come to New York and clean house here because these sanctuary states are just terrible, Pedro. | ||
| And I don't care how much these Democrats try to polish the turd, it's still a turd. | ||
| They're a horrible, horrible bunch of people. | ||
| And I just can't believe that we're in a shape we are. | ||
| And this is why we need a revolution. | ||
| Okay, the recent statements about Chicago yesterday come in light of action from federal courts on another matter. | ||
| This is by NBC saying that a federal judge is in California ruling yesterday that the Trump administration violated a 19th century law barring the use of soldiers for civilian law enforcement activities when it mobilized 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines in Los Angeles in June. | ||
| Quote: The evidence at trial established that defendants systematically used armed soldiers whose identity was often obscured by protective armor and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engaging in crowd control and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles. | ||
| That's U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco said in a 52-page filing. | ||
| He concludes in part by saying, in short, defendants violated the Posse Comitatus Act. | ||
| And that's from NBC. | ||
| Other stories there as well. | ||
| You can weave that into the recent statements by the president on Chicago, 202748-8000 for Democrats, 202748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents 202748-8002. | ||
| Chicago residents, a line for you, 202748-8003. | ||
| You can text us on that line too. | ||
| Another resident of New York State Democrats line. | ||
| This is Jim. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I was breezing through the Declaration of Independence, and I came across the word of despotism. | ||
| And it's kind of what Trump is doing now. | ||
| And if you look up in the Constitution and read up on despotism, You will see exactly what's going on. | ||
| What do you mean by that, and how do you specifically relate that to events in Chicago? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Chicago. | |
| Okay, send in more troops in. | ||
| That's more money. | ||
| There's more money going out than coming in. | ||
| He's spent flags, ballroom, a room, ballroom. | ||
| Who knows what else he's spending on? | ||
| And, you know, the guns are the problem. | ||
| Just like the mayor said, but no one will admit it. | ||
| But, and now they're going to, in the big, beautiful bill, as you know, they're allowing to bring back the silencers. | ||
| And I don't know if it was the bump stock, but it was another attachment to a gun that can. | ||
| I'm a gun owner, but you know, I just, what's going on in the inner cities is it's a problem that's going to go on forever. | ||
| But you notice that when he's waving his hands together, that's when he's piling up a bunch of baloney. | ||
| That's Jim in New York. | ||
| Let's hear from Chicago's Mayor Brandon Johnson. | ||
| He was part of that press conference yesterday, commenting on the president's recent statements. | ||
| Chicago will continue to have a violence problem as long as red states continue to have a gun problem. | ||
| Shootings will continue as long as this presidential administration continues to put politics over people. | ||
| We have sued Glock over their semi-automatic guns that are easily converted into automatic weapons with switches. | ||
| We have taken down gun stores in Indiana that illegally sell thousands of guns to traffickers who move them into Chicago. | ||
| But whatever we shut down, and whenever we do this, another one pops up. | ||
| The governor has worked extremely hard to strengthen our gun control laws across our state. | ||
| And as much as we would like to, we cannot send officers across state lines to stop this problem at the source. | ||
| We only have jurisdiction over our own city. | ||
| The governor only has jurisdiction over our state lines. | ||
| It is the role, and more importantly, the responsibility of the federal government and the president to stop the trafficking of weapons across state lines. | ||
| For every shooting in Chicago, there is a gun trafficker in Mississippi making money. | ||
| There is a gun trafficker in Louisiana profiting off of our pain. | ||
| And this is a serious problem that has gone on for far too long, and it requires serious solutions. | ||
| We wrote a letter to President Biden after a mass shooting in Chicago two years ago, asking for more resources to stop gun violence in our city by deploying federal agents to hold these gun traffickers accountable. | ||
| President Biden responded with more resources and stronger enforcement, and that alone had a significant impact on gun violence in our city. | ||
| We need President Trump to do the same. | ||
| Instead of using militarized ICE agents to terrify our communities here in Chicago, instead of sending in border patrol to our city to detain mothers and fathers who have caused Chicago their home for decades, working class people who pay their taxes and make our communities stronger. | ||
| They should direct those resources to taking down gun traffickers so that we can finally put a stop to the violence. | ||
| That was Mayor Brandon Johnson yesterday, part of that press conference. | ||
| You can still see it on our website and our app, including the President's statements about Chicago yesterday. | ||
| Nicholas in Florida, Republican line. | ||
| What do you think about what the president said yesterday about Chicago? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I got to tell you, good morning first. | |
| I'm listening to Brandon Johnson. | ||
| I'm listening to Pritzker, and I'm listening to people. | ||
| And it's just unbelievable how the governor of New York could send in the National Guard to help on the subways. | ||
| You have a governor in Illinois. | ||
| You have a mayor who is despicable in the way he's conducting himself as a man, as a mayor, and as a black man to turn around and discount all the crime that's going in going on around Chicago. | ||
| Trump just trying to send in the National Guard to add support to help. | ||
| It's a sin what the Democrats have done. | ||
| And what Brandon Johnson is spouting, he should resign. | ||
| And so should Pritzker. | ||
| And I support what Trump is doing because he's there to back up the police, not to round up people. | ||
| Dennis is up next. | ||
| He's in North Carolina, Democrats line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I like to say, in my eyes, Trump, only one reason Trump is trying to do all this is he's trying to be a dictator. | ||
| We do not use our military on our shores to detain, to harass, to cause more violence because it's going to go to a point that, say, the National Guard come in there and ICE. | ||
| Somebody that is innocent is going to get killed. | ||
| Now, I know they do have a high gun balance in Chicago. | ||
| That's everywhere. | ||
| But the thing is, let the government of Chicago deal with this. | ||
| You don't need to send there the troops because you send there the troops, you will have a lot more problems. | ||
| Look at when he sends the troops in Washington, D.C. You know what they were doing? | ||
| They were doing landscaping. | ||
| They weren't patrolling. | ||
| They were doing landscaping. | ||
| So that's how I feel about it. | ||
| The best thing they can do is don't let Trump send the troops in. | ||
| That's Dennis there in North Carolina, NBC, the affiliate out of Chicago, saying when it comes to immigration-related matters, that Governor Pritzker confirmed that federal immigration agents would be coming to Chicago soon, saying that in an interview, he said, weeks after hearing no communication from the administration, the team received a phone call, but not from the president himself. | ||
| The phone call made to Illinois State Police came from Gregory Bovino, the Porter Patrol Section for the El Centro, Texas Sender sector. | ||
| Bovino saw the immigration enforcement operations in Los Angeles earlier this summer. | ||
| Quote, they said they will begin operations here sometime in the coming week. | ||
| Governor Pritzker told NBC Chicago that literally, after two weeks of all this talk about troops on the ground, that's the first time we've heard from the federal government on this. | ||
| And then the person who was reporting saying, did they give you a number? | ||
| And then the governor responding, saying they did not. | ||
| Again, you can make those comments. | ||
| What do you think about what the president said about Chicago? | ||
| On the lines, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, Republicans, 202-748-8001, and Independents, 202748-8002. | ||
| If you live in Chicago or around Chicago, 202-748-8003. | ||
| If you want to give your thoughts on the matter as well, let's hear from Gene. | ||
| Gene is in Virginia, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, thanks for taking my call. | |
| I speak as American, as an American, not red, blue, or independent. | ||
| I'm American. | ||
| And what I see is, no, I think the president needs to stand down what he's doing. | ||
| That's why you have those directors, those departments, ask the FBI to work with the local governments, with those mayors, with those governors in those cities and states. | ||
| Get your task force together. | ||
| Get your emergency operations center. | ||
| If it's a big problem, which it is, I mean, there's no way to say it. | ||
| It is. | ||
| It shouldn't be that type of crime that's occurring and those types of deaths that have occurred in these cities for years. | ||
| So get you a task force together. | ||
| Get your people to work with them. | ||
| But we need him. | ||
| We need the president to do his job right now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that is not for him to clear ahead and to micromanage these agencies doing their job. | |
| Local, state, federal agencies work together. | ||
| We don't need him doing their job and being a micromanager. | ||
| Now, what we do need for him to do since he's taken office, we need the end of the fiscal year ends on 30 September. | ||
| We need to see an expenditure report. | ||
| What has the federal government spent? | ||
| And we should have a briefing by the president's team on what has been spent by the federal government since he's taken office so that we can see the state of our economy, the state of our funds with our government. | ||
| Thank you all. | ||
| Let's work together. | ||
| Gene in Virginia. | ||
| This is Jay in Florida, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I'm embarrassed after watching that clip with the mayor of Chicago. | ||
| I've never seen anybody throw blame on everything else but himself. | ||
| It's like, let me just wipe it off. | ||
| I didn't do anything wrong. | ||
| I'm a wonderful mayor, and there's no problem in Chicago yet. | ||
| People are murdered every weekend. | ||
| That's insanity. | ||
| That man stood there and said it was a gun problem. | ||
| It's the Trump issue. | ||
| They didn't go and arrest gun dealers. | ||
| I mean, you want to do that to every single. | ||
| So what Chicago is saying is every single state that sells guns is their problem. | ||
| That's the problem. | ||
| That's why Chicago is the murder capital of the country. | ||
| It's because every other state, 49 states, sell guns. | ||
| The Democrats have absolutely no common sense when it comes to taking care of people. | ||
| He's sitting here worrying more about illegal immigrants and how they're going to be treated when ICE comes in than he is the people in this inner city that are being murdered every single weekend. | ||
| I don't know how you can sit there and listen to this garbage that comes in and not say something, not ask them. | ||
| What about the responsibility of the city to maintain the inner workings of the city? | ||
| Police force, what are they going to do? | ||
| They're outgunned. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Jay in Florida there. | ||
| Thanks for the call. | ||
| A couple of responses from members of Congress. | ||
| Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamurthy saying that the president's illegal attempt to deploy the National Guard to our cities was dangerous and wrong. | ||
| I'm going to leave the courts, stop them. | ||
| But remember, these stunts are meant to distract from his mounting failures and the Epstein files. | ||
| This is Representative Zoe Lofgren saying that the president took the National Guard soldiers away from their jobs and families for no good reason. | ||
| I'm encouraged by the district court ruling declaring his stunt in Los Angeles illegal, but more needs to be done by Congress to put a check on this president's authoritarian bent. | ||
| Senator Marsha Blackburn off of X saying while left-wing local officials refuse to address Chicago's crime problem, residents are begging for action to be taken. | ||
| It's disgraceful for blue cities to be putting politics over public safety. | ||
| And then Representative Brad Schneider saying this threat to Chicago does nothing to help solve our crime in our communities. | ||
| He's just terrorizing a welcoming community. | ||
| There are absolutely things we can do to make communities safer. | ||
| That includes releasing anti-violence funding that President Trump continues to block. | ||
| Again, that's a reaction from members of Congress. | ||
| We'll show you more. | ||
| And take your calls, Peter in Illinois, on our line for Chicago residents, Illinois residents, Peter in Illinois, in Schomburg, I believe it is. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| You know, I was in the Navy back in 93, and Chicago used to be a really nice town. | ||
| And now I continue to live now in Schaumburg. | ||
| I used to take the train downtown from the base. | ||
| It was great. | ||
| You can spend a whole day in Chicago, not have to worry about mugged, robbed, or pursued. | ||
| And you know what? | ||
| President Trump is going to do what he's going to do. | ||
| He mentioned yesterday he has an obligation to protect our country. | ||
| But what these Democratic governors and these city officials don't see the bigger picture here by taking on the blue cities and Democratic governors, he is trying to convert these Democratic states into Republican states. | ||
| And just attacking Trump is not going to resolve the issue because the president is going to do what he wants to do. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| So Democratic leaders and governors, wake up and secure your city, do your job instead of going the other way and losing the midterms. | ||
| That's my take on it. | ||
| Juan, a resident of Chicago, good morning. | ||
| Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| You're on. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, yeah. | |
| I'm just saying if Trump's so worried about the crime, then why do he let the Quinn boys go hurding them for their government's doing a good job? | ||
| Do you think the city's government's doing a good job with crime? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The mayor's doing, I think he's doing a good job. | |
| Crime's been done a lot. | ||
| Trump just trying to be the big shot, but he ain't nobody. | ||
| If I may ask you, when you say the mayor is doing a good job, why do you think that is? | ||
| Or what do you think specifically he's doing to reduce crime there in your city? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, he is. | |
| I mean, like I said, Trump was so worried about the government. | ||
| How come they don't try to figure something about the problems? | ||
| How many shootings have been in, who shootings and stuff like that been since Trump's been in office and don't do nothing about it? | ||
| Okay, Juan there in Chicago. | ||
| Again, a special line for Chicago residents. | ||
| If you want to give your thoughts this morning, 202-748-8003, if you want to do that. | ||
| A couple of Republicans weighing in on yesterday's statement. | ||
| Representative Anna Paulina Luna from Florida saying on X, Chicago's leaders are gaslighting residents into believing that 50-plus shootings in a single weekend is somehow, quote, normal. | ||
| It's not. | ||
| The president cleaned up D.C. in two weeks. | ||
| Chicago's leaders could easily do the same, but they refuse. | ||
| At this point, it's either utter incompetence and it goes on from there. | ||
| You can read it on X if you want. | ||
| And then Representative Andy Harris saying that the president is right. | ||
| Democrat-run cities like Chicago and Baltimore are drowning in crime. | ||
| It's time to enforce the law and restore order in our cities. | ||
| Again, there's some reaction from members of Congress about the president's comments yesterday. | ||
| You can add yours to the mix too on the lines. | ||
| You can text us at 202-748-8003. | ||
| And you can also, if you want, post on our social media sites. | ||
| That's on Facebook, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN. | ||
| And you could do that on X2 at C-SPAN WJ from the Bronx. | ||
| This is Joanne, Democrats line. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| You're on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, can you hear me? | |
| Yep. | ||
| I'm calling because I cannot understand the stupidity of the Republicans and others who support the biggest hypocritical criminal who is the President of the United States. | ||
| He is guilty of the biggest crime ever committed in history. | ||
| He is guilty of insurrection. | ||
| He did not call the National Guard in at that time. | ||
| And now all of a sudden, he's trying to protect the people when he tried to take our country away from us. | ||
| He's the biggest hypocrite ever. | ||
| Why doesn't he send the National Guard to the red states that have far more crime than Washington or Chicago or Los Angeles or any other state? | ||
| The red states have more crime than any of the blue states. | ||
| And he is not cleaning up anything. | ||
| He's a criminal. | ||
| His whole administration is a criminal, or criminals. | ||
| And the National Guard should be taking him down. | ||
| And the administration, they're going to be. | ||
| Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. | ||
| I'm going to pause you there. | ||
| Stephanie in California, Independent Line, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just have three points I want to make. | ||
| Number one, people forgot the history of Chicago. | ||
| It's always been violent. | ||
| Since the days of the mob, there's been gun violence. | ||
| Number one. | ||
| Number two, the National Guard is not going to do anything for crime. | ||
| They're going to stand around just like they're doing in Washington, just like they did in L.A. | ||
| They didn't walk around and stop any crime. | ||
| Number three, he's not even paying the National Guard their full money. | ||
| He's cheating them out of $2,500 a month each. | ||
| So I don't, I just, it's all for show. | ||
| Well, to that second point you made, when you hear the president talk about crime reduction in D.C. and why it couldn't be applied to places like Chicago, why do you think that's not the case? | ||
|
unidentified
|
There was a murder in D.C. on the 26th, the 27th, while the National Guard was there. | |
| So what exactly crime are they stopping? | ||
| Look it up. | ||
| There was a murder. | ||
| There's been a murder in D.C. since he sent the National Guard there, since the FBI has been walking around. | ||
| He has to stop crime. | ||
| He didn't have any impact when the National Guard came to Los Angeles, in your opinion? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not one. | |
| I'm in Los Angeles. | ||
| They stood outside buildings. | ||
| They didn't do anything other than stand outside the VA downtown and the VA on Westwood Boulevard. | ||
| That's Wilshire Boulevard. | ||
| That's what the National Guard did when they were here. | ||
| That's it, and that's all. | ||
| They didn't do anything else. | ||
| Thomas in North Carolina, calling on our line for Republicans, showing you a video of some of the National Guard presence in Washington, D.C. Thomas in North Carolina, you're up. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I just wanted to say I don't understand. | |
| I don't understand how we have Democrats that don't want to work with President Trump to save lives. | ||
| Us black people are dying in Chicago. | ||
| Nine people or was it eight people shot and killed and 40 to 50 injured? | ||
| I mean, that's just too much. | ||
| What's wrong with sending the feds in to help and to work with the work with the police department to stop crime in Chicago or any other city that has a lot of crime? | ||
| Thomas there in North Carolina, it was during his back and forth with the press yesterday that the president was asked about that court order for actions done in Los Angeles to get his reaction to that. | ||
| Here's some of the exchange. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Everyone today in California ruled that your deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles was illegal. | |
| Do you have any response? | ||
| It was a radical left judge. | ||
| But very importantly, what did you not tell me in that question or statement that you made? | ||
| Pretty much of a statement. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I was asking for the response. | |
| No, no, you didn't say what the judge said, though. | ||
| The judge said, but you can leave the 300 people that you already have in place. | ||
| They can continue to be in place. | ||
| That's all we need. | ||
| But why didn't you put that as part of your statement? | ||
| Because the judge, the same judge ruled exactly as you said, except the judge said that you could leave the 300 people that you already have in place. | ||
| They can stay. | ||
| They can remain. | ||
| They can do what they have to do. | ||
| Thank you very much, everybody. | ||
| We appreciate it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Again, if you want to see that press conference, a lot of topics engaged in during that back and forth with the press, including his statements on Chicago. | ||
| You can always go to our app at C-SPANNO. | ||
| View it on our website at c-span.org. | ||
| It is the comments on Chicago that we're asking you to comment on this morning. | ||
| Lillian in Temple Hills, Maryland, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Lillian, you're on. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I wanted to speak on behalf of Washington, D.C. | ||
| The mayor only did what she had to do because she's afraid that they will take away home rule. | ||
| Second, the troops, the National Guards, they're not doing anything in D.C. They're not authorized to do anything in D.C. as far as police, except for recently she signed a new executive order agreeing with Donald Trump to go ahead and let Metropolitan Police to assist the troops in immigration issues. | ||
| They're not there for crime. | ||
| He only issued them there because it's a sanctuary city and he wants to do immigration. | ||
| And that was the only way he could get into D.C. is to force the troops there. | ||
| But I agree with the lady in Virginia that he needs to be on the budget and do federal issues other than bothering the cities, the blue cities, the sanctuary cities. | ||
| Okay, Lillian there in Maryland, Mayor Bowser in Washington, D.C., Time magazine reporting, magazine's on the website, but Time reporting that the mayor of D.C. has ordered the city to continue working with federal law enforcement officers even after the president's takeover of the nation's capital is set to expire next week. | ||
| Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, issued the order on Tuesday stating that even after the public safety emergency that the president declared over crime in D.C. last month expires, city officials will, quote, ensure coordination with federal law enforcement to the maximum extent allowable by law within the district. | ||
| The order went into effect immediately. | ||
| It has no end date. | ||
| This adding that when he declared the public safety emergency last month, the president invoked the provision of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act that allows the president to take control of the city's police force in quote conditions of an emergency nature, close quote. | ||
| He claimed the operation was intended to crack down on violent crime, even as data showed that violent crime in D.C. was already down significantly. | ||
| More there on the Time website if you want to read about the actions of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. | ||
| Irene joins us. | ||
| Irene is in Illinois on our line for others. | ||
| Irene, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, yes, good morning. | |
| I live right outside of Chicago, the city of Chicago, but I was raised in the city of Chicago. | ||
| Now, I am not a fan of Mayor Brandon, but Mayor Brandon was absolutely right to all the people who called in from Florida and everywhere else. | ||
| Chicago has a gun problem. | ||
| When you're putting guns in the hands of 14, 15, 16-year-old kids, what do you think they're going to do with them? | ||
| They don't know how to use them. | ||
| They're shooting them. | ||
| This is why you have the carjacking. | ||
| This is why you have the crime. | ||
| This is why they're going into stores waving guns and things that don't, and why innocent people are getting killed. | ||
| They're trafficking guns from these other states into the city of Chicago. | ||
| And what Brandon and Pritzer said says, work with them to see to stop these guns from being trafficked into the city of Chicago. | ||
| But of course, when you mention any kind of gun control, these Republicans go crazy and say, you know, we're absolutely crazy. | ||
| No, we're not. | ||
| You got school shootings everywhere. | ||
| Guns, they're more guns than people. | ||
| They're outgunning the police. | ||
| So, you know, I don't understand. | ||
| You know, it's sad that we live in a country where our children have to march for their lives, and you have adults sitting around talking about their Second Amendment's rights. | ||
| It's just a total disgrace. | ||
| You know, they go to bat for the unborn, but our children are being slaughtered, and no one's trying to do anything about it. | ||
| Now, Pritzer and Brandon, they know what's going on in Chicago, and they know what's needed. | ||
| Work with President Trump needs to work with them instead of sending them. | ||
| I mean, we could have the National Guards too, if that's what you want to do, but work with them on getting the guns off the streets. | ||
| And that's all I have to say. | ||
| That's Irene. | ||
| Let's hear from Wanda in California, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, I'll tell you what the root of the problem is. | |
| The root of the problem is the single moms who have been hatching out these gangs for 40 years and raising them like weeds in a vacant lot. | ||
| And we need to stop coddling single moms. | ||
| Well, how does that go to the larger issue of what the president said specifically about Chicago and bringing federal troops there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, I'm in favor of that. | |
| I think they should do that more often. | ||
| Why are you in favor of it specifically? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because I see the results. | |
| The results is no murders for the whole weekend recently. | ||
| And I forget D.C. or somewhere. | ||
| So you can see the results. | ||
| And they also need to surgically sterilize all these single moms. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Michael in Washington, D.C. joins us next independent line. | ||
| Michael, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, how are you doing? | |
| You know, it's just so disheartening and ridiculous to hear like American citizens saying, like that last lady, sterilizing Americans. | ||
| Does she not know a history of this country? | ||
| And one thing I want to say about the National Guard, I see them every day. | ||
| And the majority of people that are out on the street, like, I mean, this is like every weekend across the country. | ||
| I'm talking about hundreds of thousands of people, and the media doesn't pick it up. | ||
| Anybody that can get on the internet, just type in New Successful 2025, and it will blow your mind to see how the media has blacked out all these protests against what Trump is doing. | ||
| I fail to see, and history backs me up, where an issue with crime and bringing in the police and then telling them you can do whatever you want to do, I'm going to back you up, has never solved anything. | ||
| If you look at it historically in terms of how it's affected black and brown communities, it's devastated us. | ||
| The police do not work in our interest. | ||
| They are agents of oppression. | ||
| And so people really need to think about what Trump's motive is. | ||
| Trump has not done anything in the best interest of America. | ||
| It's always been about him. | ||
| Everything is about him. | ||
| So why would we trust that he has good intentions by doing what he's doing? | ||
| It's just been intimidating people. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Jessica. | ||
| Jessica from North Carolina Democrats Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I would just like to say I'm a former New Yorker who now lives in North Carolina. | ||
| The only way that we're going to get rid of this crime is to work with the Democrats or the Republicans. | ||
| My point is the crime is worse in red states than blue states. | ||
| Why not work with the governors of all states? | ||
| Why single out the blue states? | ||
| That's number one. | ||
| Number two, in order to get rid of the crime, you have to work with the young people. | ||
| They've taken away, this government has taken away all of the resources for poor people and young people. | ||
| We need to bring back recreation for the young people. | ||
| Give them something to do. | ||
| They're probably hungry as well because this government is taking away all their SNAP benefits and they're committing crime and joining gangs, some people, in order to eat. | ||
| I know this for a fact because I am retired law enforcement and I talk and work with the kids. | ||
| Give the resources back. | ||
| Help the people. | ||
| Help the governors. | ||
| Don't just go in the blue states with guns and think that you're going to start with. | ||
| As a retired law enforcement person, if I may ask, why not bring the National Guard in to assist police in Chicago? | ||
|
unidentified
|
If the governor asks for help, that's what you do. | |
| Yeah, but as a law enforcement person, why do you think that won't work? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't think it'll work because you don't stop crime with bringing in National Guard for 30 days, 60 days. | |
| You need to have something in place that will help the people when those National Guard members are gone. | ||
| Because the crime is just going to come back. | ||
| And that's all I have to say. | ||
| James is up next. | ||
| And James is from New Jersey, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I think she takes my call. | |
| It's been a while. | ||
| Now, I'm for what the president is doing on one condition. | ||
| Southside Chicago has been a piece of poo-poo for many years. | ||
| Fall back exactly remember. | ||
| Southside Chicago has been a piece of poo-foo. | ||
| Do something southside Chicago. | ||
| Keep doing something good. | ||
| And north southside Chicago, it's a waste. | ||
| Please join. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| James in New Jersey, let's hear from the Senate side yesterday, Illinois Democrat, the minority whip, but Dick Durbin, talking about the events not only of the city that's in his state, but commenting on the Trump administration there too. | ||
| Here's Senator Durbin from yesterday. | ||
| In Chicago, crime rates may be unacceptably high, and I don't doubt that in some categories, but they have been on a steady decline for years. | ||
| And we are already pursuing successful community-based strategies to deter crime. | ||
| We're reaching out to the most vulnerable members of our communities, directly and personally, working with trusted and trained leaders who understand the impact that trauma can have on communities. | ||
| We can work together, but it doesn't mean that Donald Trump shoves it down our throats. | ||
| We want to cooperate with him. | ||
| We have programs that he failed to fund in this budget cycle that we believe are critical for the maintenance of the diminishment of these criminal experiences. | ||
| This is being accomplished through community-based violence intervention and prevention, which represents a historic federal investment in programs designed to help prevent and reduce violent crime. | ||
| But these programs have been cut by the Trump administration. | ||
| The initiative supports evidence-based violence intervention and prevention based on partnerships. | ||
| It combats crime by collecting data, identifying trends, developing strategies, and sharing these practices. | ||
| Ask professional law enforcement, and they will tell you in virtually every conversation on the subject. | ||
| You can't arrest your way out of a crime wave. | ||
| You've got to analyze the basic causes of crime and what to do about it. | ||
| Of course, dangerous people should be arrested and should pay the price for their wrongdoing. | ||
| But a strategy that reduces violent crime over any long period of time takes more than that. | ||
| Replacing these efforts with troops not trained for urban policing risks alienating residents, destabilizing neighborhoods, and harming the National Guard's reputation. | ||
| And I tell you, over the years, I've come to be a big fan of the National Guard. | ||
| They're there when we need them. | ||
| We shouldn't overuse them. | ||
| We shouldn't abuse them. | ||
| We shouldn't put them in jobs they're not trained for. | ||
| That's exactly what the Trump administration is doing in the District of Columbia and threatening to do in Illinois. | ||
| Dennis is in Alabama. | ||
| Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I totally support what the president's doing because black lives do matter. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And Trump does love everybody. | |
| And he will do the red states. | ||
| But the people that are against it are low educated or not educated, but their perspective of what's going on is not the same as if you count the deaths up. | ||
| They're part of the crime, actually, and they were born in this crime, and they live there in this crime. | ||
| They're used to it. | ||
| They're killing the reason why crime's going down because the people are killing each other and the crime will go down. | ||
| I don't believe it's going down. | ||
| I think they're cooking the books. | ||
| And I also think that the mayor of Chicago and possibly the governor are scared because they're going to get caught selling their drugs. | ||
| I believe they're one of the kingpins of the city in bringing in drugs. | ||
| That's what I believe. | ||
| You see, black lives. | ||
| Okay, let's go to Jonathan in Texas. | ||
| Democrats line. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pajo. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I don't think that the National Guard should be deployed to any city because of smoke and mirrors. | ||
| The fact of the matter is, in order to lower crime, you really have to start in the home with the families, teaching the children right from wrong, number one. | ||
| But number two, our legislators. | ||
| We have to have common sense, comprehensive gun laws to help save off crime. | ||
| That's number one. | ||
| Number two, the third thing is most of the crime or the highest rates of crime, like the lady said earlier, are in southern states. | ||
| I live in Texas. | ||
| You have a huge time late, especially in Houston. | ||
| You look at Louisiana, Arkansas. | ||
| You know where the largest amount of crime was per capita in 2023 was also Oklahoma. | ||
| But the current administration is not putting light on that because there's smoke and mirrors. | ||
| But they want us, what he's trying to do is say, hey, look, the blue states are the ones that have the crime problems, Chicago, D.C. Everywhere else, the southern states is just fine, which is absolutely not true. | ||
| Angel, thank you for taking my call and have a great day. | ||
| One more call, and this last call will be from Lois in Maryland, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and thank you for taking my call. | |
| I completely support 100% sending in the National Guard to wherever they need to be. | ||
| Crime is run rampant all over the place. | ||
| And, you know, as a mother, a proud mother of Marines, myself, and a military background family, a lot of people are saying that, you know, you shouldn't go on the grounds in the domestic areas and then leave our troops alone out of there. | ||
| That's crap because one of the oaths that our military, including the Guard, take are to protect foreign and domestic, domestic being domestic. | ||
| I'm between Washington and Baltimore. | ||
| I see what's going on in Washington. | ||
| I see the changes that are starting to happen there. | ||
| And I think the pressure is being put on the governors, the mayors, when they do send in the troops. | ||
| And the ones that are opposed to it don't want that pressure opposed on them. | ||
| So I totally support it. | ||
| I can't wait to see that, you know, hopefully they'll come to Baltimore because it's to the point where you can't even have visitors from out of state try to visit your hometown because it's so ridden with crime. | ||
| So I completely support. | ||
| And I think everybody should leave alone the affiliation parties and the feelings about the individuals themselves and look at the issue. | ||
| The issue is the crime. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That's Lois there in Maryland finishing off this hour of calls. | ||
| For those of you who are participating, thanks for calling us. | ||
| Our next segment takes a look at efforts on redistricting. | ||
| You've heard about Texas and California, but several other states throwing themselves into the mix when it comes to the possibility of changing congressional lines here to talk to us about that and see how it might impact the midterm elections. | ||
| Cook Political Reports Dave Wasserman. | ||
| Joining us on Washington Journal when we come back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, C-SPAN is making it easy for you with our 2025 Congressional Directory. | |
| Get essential contact information for government officials all in one place. | ||
| This compact, spiral-bound guide contains bio and contact information for every House and Senate member of the 119th Congress. | ||
| Contact information on congressional committees, the President's Cabinet, federal agencies, and state governors. | ||
| The Congressional Directory costs $32.95 plus shipping and handling. | ||
| And every purchase helps support C-SPAN's non-profit operations. | ||
| Scan the code on the right or go to c-spanshop.org to order your copy today. | ||
| There are many ways to listen to C-SPAN radio anytime, anywhere. | ||
| In the Washington, D.C. area, listen on 90.1 FM. | ||
| Use our free C-SPAN Now app or go online to c-span.org/slash radio on SiriusXM Radio on channel 455, the TuneIn app, and on your smart speaker by simply saying play C-SPAN radio. | ||
| Hear our live call-in program, Washington Journal, daily at 7 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| Listen to House and Senate proceedings, committee hearings, news conferences, and other public affairs events live throughout the day. | ||
| And for the best way to hear what's happening in Washington with fast-paced reports, live interviews, and analysis of the day. | ||
| Catch Washington today, weekdays of 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern. | ||
| Listen to C-SPAN programs on C-SPAN Radio anytime, anywhere. | ||
| c-span democracy unfiltered c-span shop.org is c-span's online store Browse through our latest collection of C-SPAN products, apparel, books, home decor, and accessories. | ||
| There's something for every C-SPAN fan, and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations. | ||
| Shop now or anytime at c-span shop.org. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now is David Wasserman. | ||
| He's with Cook Political Report. | ||
| He's their senior editor elections analyst here to talk about the topic of redistricting and the impact, potential impact on the midterm elections. | ||
| Mr. Wasserman, as always, thanks for your time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's an honor and privilege. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| For all the states that are jumping in the pool, so to speak, when it comes to redistricting, what's the end goal? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So Republicans wouldn't have launched this redistricting war if they felt great about their chances of holding the House in 26. | |
| And it's an acknowledgement that they're facing a difficult midterm environment. | ||
| They waited until this summer to launch plans to redraw Texas. | ||
| And the Trump White House has used the validity of coalition districts as a rationale to call into question maps that Republicans themselves drew in Texas in 2021. | ||
| Of course, when Republicans drew that map that led to the 25 to 13 advantage in the delegation they have now, it was on the heels of Joe Biden coming within six points of winning the state and coming within a couple points in a lot of districts held by Republicans. | ||
| So back in 2021, Republicans shored up as many of their incumbents as they possibly could. | ||
| Now we're on the heels of Trump winning Texas by 14 points in 2024 and making dramatic inroads with Hispanic voters, particularly in the Rio Grande Valley. | ||
| So what Republicans have done is gone after five Democratic seats, and three of those are very likely pickups. | ||
| Two of those seats could still be competitive, the ones held by Henry Cueyar and Vicente Gonzalez. | ||
| But now Democrats are seeking to retaliate in California. | ||
| The difference is that a lot of blue states face greater constraints thanks to redistricting reforms and ballot initiatives and different rules. | ||
| And Gavin Newsom and Democrats there have to convince voters on November 4th to approve a constitutional amendment that would set aside the independent commission that voters approved by 22 points back in 2010. | ||
| And that map that Democrats have already put out would offset Texas by generating three to five pickups. | ||
| But Republicans are pressing for more. | ||
| And under pressure from the president, Indiana Republicans, Missouri Republicans, Florida, they're looking at redrawing their maps. | ||
| Missouri's already come out with a plan for the legislature's consideration. | ||
| And that guarantees that Republicans will come out somewhat ahead. | ||
| It's a question of by how much. | ||
| If Republicans get everything they want and Democrats are unable to convince voters in California to adopt this measure, Republicans could add somewhere north of a dozen seats to their tally, which would quadruple their cushion in the House, considering Democrats only need to flip three seats on net to get the House majority next fall. | ||
| But if Democrats succeed in California and maybe in Maryland, where they could draw the lone Republican remaining Andy Harris out of seat, maybe if a court order in Utah leads to the creation of a winnable seat for Democrats in Salt Lake City, they could hold Republican redistricting gains to the five to seven seat range. | ||
| So there's a lot that still needs to be determined before these states begin their 2026 election calendars. | ||
| You talked about Missouri. | ||
| It enters the fray today, so to speak. | ||
| Are these being done independently by governors, or is this strictly in conversations with Republicans in Capitol Hill or the president himself? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's all of the above. | |
| And the president has called in legislative leaders from these states to meet with him and Vice President Vance in the Oval Office to try to exert influence and pressure them into revisiting the lines in the middle of the decade. | ||
| Now, it's not unprecedented to see mid-decade redistricting. | ||
| Texas Republicans pursued this under Tom DeLay, the then House Majority Leader, in 2004. | ||
| And we saw New York Democrats go back to the drawing board and impose a new map before 2024 that modestly improved their chances in a handful of districts. | ||
| The difference is, well, twofold. | ||
| Number one, those efforts were partisan attempts to replace court-drawn maps that had resulted from partisan deadlock in the previous census cycle. | ||
| Now, what we're seeing is a lot of states seeking to replace their own gerrymanders with an even more aggressive gerrymander. | ||
| And the second difference is that we're seeing a free-for-all between the states. | ||
| Everyone's considering it at once because increasingly for both parties, the ends justify the means, and there are so few competitive seats in the House that every little bit of advantage that either party can claw for, they see as a necessary step. | ||
| Our guest is with us. | ||
| And if you want to ask him about these redistricting efforts, the impact on midterm elections, you can call and let us know your thoughts, ask your questions too. | ||
| 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can also text us your thoughts, too, at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Dave Wasserman, you mentioned a lot of states besides Texas and California. | ||
| What's the one to watch right now? | ||
| I suppose you're watching all of them, but what's the most interesting one to watch right now? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Ohio and Florida are the two other Republican-controlled states that are kind of the biggest question marks. | |
| We've known all cycle that Ohio needs to redraw its congressional map because of a technicality in that state's redistricting rules. | ||
| The map that's in place is only valid for two election cycles. | ||
| And so Republicans are likely to make some alterations to two Democratic-held districts, one held by Marcy Kaptur in the Toledo area and then Amelia Sykes in the Akron area. | ||
| And they could make those seats much more difficult for Democrats to hold. | ||
| The question is whether they go after Greg Landsman in Cincinnati. | ||
| There are constitutional prohibitions on splitting the city of Cincinnati. | ||
| And so it could be tough for Republicans to try and make that seat a whole lot more Republican. | ||
| And then in Florida, the question is: to what extent does Governor DeSantis, do legislative leaders want to go after Democrats, considering that we just saw two special elections in April where Democrats massively outperformed Kamala Harris on the ballot. | ||
| Now, those were low turnout races, but Republicans could, in my estimation, rather easily draw at least two Democrats out of the delegation, one in the Orlando area, one in South Florida. | ||
| But if they go further than that, then it could risk some Republican-held seats. | ||
| So between Ohio and Florida, it could be a Republican gain of four. | ||
| You mentioned Ohio. | ||
| There's a story yesterday that the government there or the legislature launched a website for the public to submit its own congressional district plans. | ||
| Talk about this public input, not only in Ohio's case, but how much the public say or has a say in making of these new lines. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, in some states with citizen-driven commissions, let's say Colorado, California, Michigan, the public input can be incredibly informative to how commissioners end up drawing the lines. | |
| But in states where the legislature controls the process and party leaders dominate how maps are drawn, public input like that website is most often the case window dressing. | ||
| It allows the party leaders to say that they've taken into account public input when in reality the map has been in a desk drawer for quite some time and is just awaiting legislative approval. | ||
| And both parties are blaming the other for gerrymandering. | ||
| This is an age-old truth of politics and using it as their rationale to redraw their own state's lines in a way that amplifies their advantage relative to their share of the vote. | ||
| However, gerrymandering is much more potent. | ||
| It's much more effective than it used to be because voters are more geographically polarized than they used to be. | ||
| And that makes it easier for partisan legislatures who control the process in about three quarters of states to manipulate the boundaries in ways that favor themselves. | ||
| We have some calls lined up for you. | ||
| Let's go to Tom. | ||
| Tom joins us from Philadelphia. | ||
| Democrats line. | ||
| You're on with David Wasserman of Cook Political Report. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm just wondering when AI will be used in the redistricting. | |
| It seems like if a bipartisan commission could work to sort of say, you know, we want districts that have a mixed population, some economic vitality, et cetera, et cetera, that both parties agree to and have AI draw up congressional maps. | ||
| It's an excellent question, and it's actually the subject of some research that I'm doing over the next couple years. | ||
| But hating gerrymandering is easy. | ||
| Fixing it is harder because it's really difficult to get interest groups and political parties to agree on any one-size-fits-all solution. | ||
| And as elegant a solution it sounds to delegate this to AI, everything has to be informed by human choices. | ||
| And what goes into that algorithm to create district lines? | ||
| Now, I think one objective approach that has potential would be to tell a program to divide states into equally populous districts using the shortest perimeter or shortest split line possible. | ||
| But then how do you account for natural or for existing municipal and county boundaries on which election administration is based? | ||
| And so you have to create a system that is applicable in the real world. | ||
| Of course, Republicans would like to impose more race-blind redistricting processes and limit or eliminate the use of the VRA, the Voting Rights Act, in drawing district lines. | ||
| Democrats vociferously oppose that. | ||
| And Democrats would like to see more commission-driven processes across states. | ||
| That was part of their HB1 when they took control of Congress and the White House in 2021. | ||
| Of course, they were unable to obtain a filibuster-proof majority to approve it. | ||
| Claudia from Georgia is up next. | ||
| Claudia joins us on our Republican line from Smyrna, Georgia. | ||
| Hello, Claudia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, thank you. | |
| My question is, okay, I understand the process and the historical Republican voting patterns. | ||
| However, what guarantee is there that the new districts will continue to vote Republican? | ||
| Well, there's no guarantee that new districts will continue to vote a certain way. | ||
| In the last decade, we saw a number of districts that were designed to be safe Republican seats end up flipping to Democrats later in the decade in 2018. | ||
| For example, there was one seat each in Dallas, Houston, and the Atlanta metro area that at the beginning of the decade looked really safe, but ended up being overtaken by demographic and political trends as a result of Trump's election. | ||
| And what we're seeing now is the party is engaging in a game of keepaway, mostly Republicans engaging in it. | ||
| And by, for example, in Ohio, revisiting the lines in the middle of the decade, that's hardly a penalty. | ||
| It's actually an opportunity to update the boundaries to make sure that the districts are increasingly winnable for your party. | ||
| Same thing in Texas. | ||
| This map that Republicans passed, they wouldn't have pursued it in 2021 because it would have put too many Hispanic districts at risk of flipping to Democrats. | ||
| Now that Hispanic voters in Texas have gone from being a 70-30 Democratic group to somewhere closer to 53, 47, it's much easier for Republicans to draw districts that are Hispanic majority by population, but still voted for Trump by double digits. | ||
| And there are a number of those districts in the plan that was just approved. | ||
| Dave Wasserman, if a group or an organization or a collective group of people didn't like the end result of a redrawn map, are there legal recourses for those people? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It varies by state. | |
| And you will see that, for example, a coalition of minority advocacy groups backed by Democratic law firms are going to be challenging the Texas congressional map on the grounds that it diminishes the ability of communities of color to elect candidates of choice. | ||
| The issue that I think Democrats will increasingly run into is now that we've seen Hispanic voters migrate towards Trump and become a politically very competitive group of voters, do they merit special protection under the Voting Rights Act? | ||
| Because one of the prongs of what's called the jingles test that the Supreme Court that has been basically the Supreme Court interpretation of whether majority-minority districts should be mandated is that a group be politically cohesive and that other voters, particularly white voters, are numerous to outvote them in a given district. | ||
| I'm not sure it's a clear-cut case given the trend line among that part of the electorate. | ||
| Let's hear from Loretta. | ||
| Loretta in Ohio, Democrats lying for Dave Wasserman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hi, Pedro. | ||
| Good morning, Mr. Wasserman, and good morning, seats band viewers. | ||
| Mr. Wasserman, Pedro just kind of like sold my thunder on the question regarding redistricting. | ||
| But I have another aspect that I'd like to put forward to you. | ||
| Can you please tell me the difference of when Trump asked Georgia for 11,780 votes, and now he's asking Texas for five additional congressional seats? | ||
| Can you tell me what's the difference? | ||
| I'm kind of lost here because it still looks like something's crooked going on. | ||
| And why should a sitting president be able to interfere with state business and what happened to states' rights? | ||
| Can you please explain those? | ||
| All right, Loretta, with a lot of questions for Dave Wasserman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Well, the main difference is that in the example of Georgia from 2020, the president was asking Georgia election officials to undertake actions that were very likely illegal. | ||
| In the case of Texas this time around, under Texas law, the legislature and governor have broad authority to draw election districts when and how they want. | ||
| And in that regard, Texas has always been a kind of a treasure trove for Republicans in the redistricting and gerrymandering realm because they've been able to basically place sandbags higher and higher as Texas has become a more diverse and competitive state. | ||
| Of course, it went the other direction in 2024 towards Trump. | ||
| And so Republicans are being even more aggressive this time around. | ||
| And Governor Abbott showed no hesitation in getting on board with that plan. | ||
| But there are places where the president is running into some resistance or reluctance from state legislative leaders to redraw the lines. | ||
| Indiana and Kentucky, for example, are places where Republicans could very easily draw maps that lock Democrats out of their delegations entirely. | ||
| I don't think that will happen because a number of Republican incumbents are comfortable with the districts that they already have. | ||
| And once you alter one district, you need to alter districts around it. | ||
| And so I think there's kind of quiet pressure from some House Republicans to put the brakes on this. | ||
| Certainly, there are California Republicans who wish this gerrymandering war was not happening because they're at risk of losing their own seats. | ||
| And I suppose, Dave Wasserman, winning the public hearts and minds on this is something that Governor Newsom has to face as he makes his case to have this done. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's right. | |
| And voters approved that independent commission in 2010, 61 to 39. | ||
| And there is an opposition campaign. | ||
| This is a sprint to the ballot. | ||
| There are only essentially two months left before voters decide the fate of California's map. | ||
| And although Gavin Newsom has said that he'll throw, he'll launch a shock and awe campaign to ensure that voters approve this new map. | ||
| There are already ads on the air opposing it and accusing Governor Newsom and Democrats of undoing the voters' will to implement fair districts. | ||
| Keep in mind that former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of the people who spearheaded this redistricting reform effort back when he was governor. | ||
| And he's no fan of President Trump, but he is opposed to undoing the reform he put in place so that Democrats can temporarily gerrymander. | ||
| Thanks for the segue on the ads because we have a collection of some of those ads to show our viewers. | ||
| We'll show them to you now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Following the dictator's playbook, Donald Trump has unleashed a blitzkrieg, arresting people without warrants, targeting the free press, attacking universities. | |
| Now he's coming directly for our democracy with a scheme to rig the next election. | ||
| You have the power to stop him. | ||
| Prop 50, the Election Rigging Response Act, puts our elections back on a level playing field by putting power in the hands of the people. | ||
| Save democracy in all 50 states. | ||
| Yes, on 50. | ||
| Proposition 50 threatens what voters built. | ||
| Voters approved an independent commission that spent thousands of hours meeting with California citizens to create fair election districts where all people are represented. | ||
| And voters decide who gets elected, not politicians. | ||
| Prop 50 destroys this good work. | ||
| Prop 50 is a direct attack on democracy, a dangerous idea that tears away the power of choice. | ||
| Protect your vote and democracy. | ||
| Vote no on Prop 50. | ||
| Dave Wasserman, you couldn't see those ads, but you get the tone of what to expect over the next couple of months. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's right. | |
| And the polling so far on this has been mixed. | ||
| When pollsters have framed this choice before voters as whether to stick it to Trump or not, voters in California are generally in favor of aggressively confronting the president and what Republicans are doing elsewhere. | ||
| But when it's framed as taking the power away from the independent commission and putting it in the legislature's hands to draw maps, voters are pretty clearly opposed to that. | ||
| So it's a race to define the choice for voters. | ||
| And although I think the odds are still slightly in favor that this passes, it's far from guaranteed. | ||
| Lida joins us from New Mexico. | ||
| Republican line. | ||
| Lida, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and thank you for taking my call. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Wassrom. | ||
| I live in New Mexico, and interesting words framed how things are framed. | ||
| Are you familiar with what happened when we had our present governor changed and we had redistricting here in New Mexico? | ||
| And Susanna Martinez had served for two years as a Republican. | ||
| And the maps were drawn, so it was funny. | ||
| I don't know that much about politics. | ||
| All I know is I can't vote for somebody who votes for abortion. | ||
| And I think the DNC people left Chicago streaming smoke to high heaven, if you will, excuse me. | ||
| But anyway, what do you think about the redistricting that they did in this present governor, Governor, Michelle Luhan Grisham? | ||
| Okay, that's Lita in New Mexico. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, New Mexico was a state where Democrats gerrymandered the lines to their advantage in 2022. | |
| And Governor Lujan Grisham, the legislature, they passed a map targeting a freshman Republican, Yvette Harrell, by taking a seat that had for decades been Las Cruces plus the state's southeastern corner and a lot of oil and gas and ranch counties that voted very Republican. | ||
| That's a seat that Republicans had won with few exceptions. | ||
| And they attached it to kind of the southwest side of Albuquerque and made it a true Hispanic majority district. | ||
| And as a result, a Democrat named Gabe Vazquez was able to unseat Harrell in 2022 and has held that seat since. | ||
| And so now Democrats hold all three seats in the state. | ||
| They've locked Republicans out of federal office in New Mexico. | ||
| And it's a mirror image of what we've seen Republicans do in states like Oklahoma. | ||
| But there was a court challenge to the map. | ||
| Ultimately, the New Mexico Supreme Court permitted this Democratic map to go forward, and it will likely be in place for the rest of the decade. | ||
| The question is, can Democrats replicate it elsewhere? | ||
| What we've seen Democrats do is spread their advantage across many districts thinly to try and maximize their chances of winning the House overall. | ||
| And we've seen that in New Mexico, in Nevada, in Oregon. | ||
| And now, you know, the question is whether Democrats can pursue that in any other states besides California. | ||
| And really, Maryland is the only that they might have a decent chance at. | ||
| David Wasserman of Cook Political Report joining us. | ||
| This is Bernie in Kentucky, Democrats Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Love the Cook political report, David. | ||
| Great job y'all do. | ||
| My question was about the fourth congressional district in Kentucky, held by Tom DeSmasse. | ||
| Obviously, President Trump does not like him, and he made it very clear he's going to get him out of that seat. | ||
| But have you heard of any name floating around of this person to be named later to run against Massey? | ||
| Because it's laughable how popular he is in the district. | ||
| So I was wondering if any of you have heard any names floating around. | ||
| I haven't heard anything around here. | ||
| I'm not in the district. | ||
| I'm in Morgan McGarvey's district. | ||
| And he's our congressman. | ||
| Nice guy, plays guitar. | ||
| But Thomas Massey is a very interesting guy. | ||
| But I just wonder if you've heard any names floating around. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, so Thomas Massey has been an iconoclast in the House for years and has been a lone vote against some Republican bills that have passed with overwhelming support in the party. | ||
| And he typically opposes spending bills on constitutional grounds, but it's generated increasing blowback from the president. | ||
| Now, we have seen Thomas Massey overcome anger from Donald Trump before. | ||
| And in 2018 and 2020, he took the same approach legislatively, but ultimately prevailed in his primaries by wide margins. | ||
| The difference this time around is the president has increased his ire towards Massey. | ||
| And additionally, the president is even stronger within the Republican base than he used to be. | ||
| And so if the president were to endorse a lone challenger to Massey in a primary, of course, it would be a competitive contest. | ||
| Two of the names that had been circulating earlier this year were State Senator Aaron Reed, State Representative Kimberly Moser. | ||
| But thus far, we haven't seen this contest take shape. | ||
| Mr. Wasserman, there's a viewer off of X who wants to bring in the fact of the Constitution, specifically Article 1, Section 2 of the 14th Amendment. | ||
| And then he says states redistricting should be done every 10 years after the census. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, there's nothing in the Constitution that specifies that states cannot revisit political boundaries in the middle of the decade. | |
| Of course, the president is making a push to hold a census in the middle of the decade, which I think will face a number of legal and logistical hurdles. | ||
| But states have varying criteria. | ||
| This is one area where federalism has led to kind of a patchwork of different rules and regulations by state that has led to an uneven playing field. | ||
| There are some states with processes that have led to more competitive districts. | ||
| For example, Arizona and Michigan are two states where we're going to be closely watching multiple races to determine house control. | ||
| And those states have bipartisan commissions. | ||
| But there are also states that have been gerrymandered into oblivion to the point where there are very few competitive races. | ||
| Illinois is an example of a state that Democrats have gerrymandered. | ||
| North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Florida are states that have a lower rate of competitive races because Republicans have pursued aggressive gerrymanders. | ||
| And the Supreme Court decision in 2019 in Rucho versus Common Cause that said essentially once and for all that partisan gerrymandering claims can't be brought in federal court because they're fundamentally a political matter. | ||
| It has opened the floodgates for the political parties to take gerrymandering to new heights and new kind of levels of absurdity. | ||
| And if anything, this arms race might renew scrutiny on how we approach this process in America, considering that this is a simple bureaucratic function and a lot of other first-past-the-post single-member district democracies. | ||
| A discussion on redistricting with David Wasserman. | ||
| Julie from Pennsylvania is next, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi. | ||
| I'm from Irwin, Pennsylvania, which is about 20 miles west of Pittsburgh. | ||
| This is a very Republican district. | ||
| We've always had Republican people, and it was gerrymandered. | ||
| And now we're in Summer Lee's district, who is a socialist. | ||
| And I'm appalled that I have to have her as my representative. | ||
| Can you tell me why we were gerrymandered out of the Westmoreland County area and into Allegheny, which is Pittsburgh? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| And in fact, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, both in 2018 and in 2022, adopted lines that slightly advantaged the Democrats relative to what a neutral map might look like to offset some of the natural geographic disadvantage Democrats in the state are in. | ||
| And that natural geographic disadvantage is Democrats are really concentrated in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. | ||
| And so if you were to draw a map that had districts fully within Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, then Republicans would have an edge in winning more congressional districts because their voters are more evenly distributed across the state, even though the state is politically 50-50. | ||
| And so what the Supreme Court, the state Supreme Court approved was a map that divided Allegheny County into two winnable districts for Democrats. | ||
| The 17th district held by Chris DeLuzio, which is more suburban and goes up to Beaver County. | ||
| And then the 12th district, which is held by Summer Lee, who is a progressive Democrat. | ||
| It's all of the city of Pittsburgh, but for population, it veers out into Westmoreland County and includes a lot of Republican areas that resent being represented by such a liberal Democrat. | ||
| So that's led to a delegation that for now still leans Republican because Republicans picked up two congressional seats in the Lehigh Valley area and Scranton. | ||
| But those seats could be winnable for Democrats in 2026. | ||
| Mr. Wasserman, we saw just in the last day Representative New York Democrat Jerry Nadler deciding that he's going to retire. | ||
| We heard from Joni Ernst, the Republican Iowa senator. | ||
| Are these easy pickups for the party as far as another Democrat taking place and another Republican taking place respectively? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Jerry Nadler's district in Manhattan is one of the safest Democratic seats in the country. | |
| In the case of Iowa and Ernst's retirement, her exit actually may help Republicans hold that seat. | ||
| She had made some comments at a town hall that were ready-made for Democratic ads. | ||
| And now the frontrunner on the Republican side is Congresswoman Ashley Henson, who very quickly threw her hat in the ring. | ||
| She represents the state's Northeastern House District. | ||
| And Democrats have a very promising bench of candidates, whether it's Josh Turek, who is a former Paralympian gold medalist and state rep, or state senator Zach Walls, or Jackie Norris, who's Michelle Obama's former chief of staff, Nathan Sage. | ||
| There are a lot of Democrats vying in this primary. | ||
| If Republicans can get behind Henson and she avoids the primary challenge from the right, then she can enter the general election with a little bit of a head start. | ||
| And there's a little less for Democrats to attack there. | ||
| They've gone after her in her House races the past couple of cycles with limited success. | ||
| So the Republicans are somewhat insulated or have a little bit of an insurance policy in the form of gerrymandering in the House. | ||
| In the Senate, they're somewhat insulated by the map of seats that's up for grab. | ||
| And the fact is that in order for Democrats to win the Senate this cycle, they would not only have to hold their own vulnerable seats in Georgia and Michigan, but they would also have to win the open Republican seat left by Tom Tillis in North Carolina, defeat Susan Collins in Maine, and defeat John Houston in Ohio and win the Iowa open seat. | ||
| That's a very tall order. | ||
| Jeffrey is up next. | ||
| Here in, he's from Kentucky. | ||
| This is Jeffrey, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You're next. | |
| Yes, I'm just not understanding how the people are being taken out of our politics. | ||
| And the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are taking over our votes. | ||
| I truly don't understand what's going on. | ||
| Supposed to be the country of the people, not a political party. | ||
| That's all right. | ||
| Jeffrey in Kentucky. | ||
| Joseph in Joseph in New Jersey, Republican line. | ||
| Hi, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, how are you? | |
| You're on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Okay, I just listened to your guest. | ||
| I don't know if he mentioned how many times Democrats have done gerrymandering. | ||
| I grew up in New York City, Staten Island. | ||
| I don't know if you've ever heard of that. | ||
| Voted for Trump twice. | ||
| Oh, actually, three times and went for him. | ||
| And they were trying to gerrymander it, and de Blasio was going to run for Congress, and he would have gotten Staten Island. | ||
| They had to take it all the way to court to fight it. | ||
| It never happened. | ||
| De Blasio, thank God, didn't run for Congress. | ||
| This is all a game. | ||
| Democrats do it more than Republicans. | ||
| I live in New Jersey now. | ||
| We have three congressmen. | ||
| Half the state voted for Trump. | ||
| And that video you just showed, I don't know if it's getting off topic. | ||
| You just had a video of Trump's Newsom's thing with Trump. | ||
| They have a picture of Trump coming out, walking out with Putin. | ||
| Like they're still going with the Russian, you know, he's friends with Russia. | ||
| He's trying to stop a war. | ||
| And in that video, they have him walking out with Putin, like he's a Russian stooge. | ||
| And the Democrats are never going to learn. | ||
| And I think your guest is a Democrat ally. | ||
| Well, he looks at redistricting in elections. | ||
| And to the point of Democrats and how much they redistrict versus Republicans, Mr. Wassman, if you wanted to engage in that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I call it as I see it. | |
| And I did predict that President Trump would prevail narrowly in 2024. | ||
| But I think the caller has highlighted why Democrats struggle to offset Republican gerrymanders in the states that Republicans control. | ||
| In New York, Democrats sought to pass a map that would have heavily advantaged their own side back in 2022. | ||
| And yet the state Supreme Court overturned it on the grounds that New York's constitutional amendment, which had been supported by then Governor Cuomo, prohibited maps that unduly favor or disfavor either political party. | ||
| And so the state Supreme Court process led to a special court-appointed master being appointed that drew a fairly neutral map and allowed Republicans to hold most of the seats that they previously did, including on Staten Island, which is now a pretty safe seat held by Nicole Maliatakis. | ||
| Whereas many Republican-controlled states don't face those same types of constraints. | ||
| Or, for example, in Florida, where there is a constitutional amendment called Fair Districts that has much of the same language as New York prohibiting gerrymandering, the state Supreme Court there has been appointed almost exclusively by Governor DeSantis and has not taken steps to police gerrymandering, for example, | ||
| splitting the city of Jacksonville so that there are two Republican districts there, or combining St. Petersburg and Tampa so as to lump Democrats together and prevent them from winning surrounding seats. | ||
| And we may see that play out anew for 2026. | ||
| So this is not a level playing field and Republicans have gerrymandered more than Democrats, not necessarily because Democrats occupy some moral high ground, but because Republicans have simply had more power to do so. | ||
| Mr. Rossman, we've talked about a lot of topics when it came to the topic of redistricting, but other than what we've talked about, what else are you watching for? | ||
| Maybe the thing that we haven't talked about? | ||
| What's interesting to you at this point? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think the 2026 midterms are kind of a push and pull between atmospherics and geography. | |
| We've already highlighted a lot of the Republican geographic advantages with gerrymandering and the Senate map, but there are atmospheric factors working in Democrats' favor. | ||
| And the first is really that President Trump, he won in 2024 on cost of living issues and promises to bring down prices. | ||
| To date, we've not seen that happen. | ||
| And so President Trump's approval rating on handling of the economy is lagging three points behind his overall approval. | ||
| That's a reversal of what we saw during his first term when his economic approval was above his overall approval. | ||
| And particularly among independent voters, we've seen them sour on the president. | ||
| And as long as President Trump's approval rating is near the 42 or 43 percent that we see in our average, that bodes well for Democrats in the midterms, at least potentially in the House. | ||
| The second is the unpopularity of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, particularly the provisions relating to Medicaid and cuts to the social safety net, which are unpopular with independent and Democratic voters. | ||
| And even though Republicans will try to highlight tax cuts to make the bill more popular, Democrats will focus on funding cuts to Medicaid and the potential for hospital closures, much in the same way they focused on repeal and replace in pre-existing conditions in 2018. | ||
| And then the third is that voters, Trump voters have not proven they show up for other Republicans, not named Trump. | ||
| They tend to show up in presidential elections when he's on the ballot, but they are not showing up in these off-year elections so far in 2025. | ||
| And it's much the similar pattern that we saw eight years ago. | ||
| We've seen, for example, in the April Wisconsin Supreme Court race, the Democrat was able to get about 78% of Kamala Harris's 2024 vote total. | ||
| The Republican, only 63% of Donald Trump's vote total. | ||
| If that were to play out all over the country next fall, and I think you'll see that pattern show up again in Virginia and New Jersey this fall, then Republicans would still be at risk of losing at least their House majority, even after all of these line changes. | ||
| CookPolitical.com is the website for David Wazerman and his colleagues. | ||
| He's their senior editor and elections analyst. | ||
| As always, Mr. Wasserman, we appreciate your time on this program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks so much, Pedro. | |
| From here until the end of the show, it's Open Forum. | ||
| And if you want to comment and make those calls during Open Forum, we invite you to do so. | ||
| 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, and Independence 202-748-8002. | ||
| Start making those calls. | ||
| We'll take up open forum when Washington Journal continues. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This fall, C-SPAN invites you on a powerful journey through the stories that define a nation. | |
| From the halls of our nation's most iconic libraries comes America's Book Club, a bold, original series where ideas, history, and democracy meet. | ||
| Hosted by renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein, each week features in-depth conversations with the thinkers shaping our national story. | ||
| Among this season's remarkable guests, John Grisham, master storyteller of the American justice system. | ||
| Justice Amy Coney Barrett, exploring the Constitution, the court, and the role of law in American life. | ||
| Famed chef and global relief entrepreneur Jose Andres, reimagining food. | ||
| Henry Louis Gates, chronicler of race, identity, and the American experience. | ||
| The books, the voices, the places that preserve our past and spark the ideas that will shape our future. | ||
| America's Book Club, premiering this fall, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| And past president. | ||
| What? | ||
| Why are you doing this? | ||
| This is outrageous. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is a Kandaroot Court. | |
| This fall, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity. | ||
| Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
| Join Politico Playbook chief correspondent and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns as host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the aisle into a dialogue to find common ground. | ||
| Ceasefire, this fall, on the network that doesn't take sides, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Democracy. | ||
| It isn't just an idea. | ||
| It's a process. | ||
| A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles. | ||
| It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted. | ||
| Democracy in real time. | ||
| This is your government at work. | ||
| This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| This is Open Forum, and you can participate from now until the end of the show at 10 o'clock. | ||
| 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202748-8001 for Republicans, and Independence 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll start off with Ty. | ||
| Ty joins us from Tennessee. | ||
| Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I like to say that we supposed to, everyone have respect for the president of the United States. | |
| Donald Trump was elected president. | ||
| The Democrats are constantly against everything he is trying to accomplish. | ||
| Now, they're saying his policies are going to fail, that they won't be good for the country. | ||
| If that be the case, let him fail. | ||
| If they believe his policies aren't going to work, let them follow through, let them fail. | ||
| They're fighting him every step of the way. | ||
| If his policies will help America, then let the policies go forward. | ||
| I can't understand. | ||
| No one is for the American people. | ||
| It's all political. | ||
| They need to let the president-elect follow through on his policies. | ||
| And if he fails, he fails. | ||
| If that is good for the country, it's good for the country. | ||
| They need the president of the United States to do his job the best he can. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Charles in North Carolina, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Charles in North Carolina. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hello, Pedro. | ||
| Sorry, I didn't realize you were calling me. | ||
| Listen, thank you for letting me have a couple of minutes. | ||
| My message is to the president and to the Congress. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just a couple of things. | |
| On Gaza, civilian casualties are just crazy, and we need to do something about it. | ||
| I'm going to ask these guys to step in and see if they can rein that in. | ||
| Secondly, cost of living in this country, still unreasonable. | ||
| The cost of homeowners' insurance, the cost of auto insurance, costs at the grocery store, affordable housing, all of those things are things we need to be concentrating on instead of some of this other crazy stuff that we're looking at. | ||
| And then finally, if I could just make a suggestion, I'd like to make a recommendation, and this is especially for the president. | ||
| Go out and get an advisory group, maybe 10 or 12 people from around the country, but people who only make $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 a year, and have them come in and give you some recommendations about what would be helpful for the American people. | ||
| Thanks for giving me a couple of minutes. | ||
| Thomas. | ||
| Thomas is in Brooklyn, New York, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Pedro, thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I just want to say something encouraging for the American people and the public. | ||
| We're under an attack. | ||
| Okay, and I don't think we've done a deep analysis of how that attack is coming at us to divide us. | ||
| We must get back to being indivisible. | ||
| Now, it's not totally, I want to say this. | ||
| It's not about going against the president, that office. | ||
| That office is being used outside of the principles, against the principles of our union. | ||
| And we need to understand that he's treading on those principles and he's trying to force his own personal agenda. | ||
| That is the problem. | ||
| But I want to say this. | ||
| We have the solution. | ||
| We, the American people, have the solution to the hype inflation. | ||
| Okay, and it will be coming forth very shortly. | ||
| A complete package. | ||
| It'll be coming through Democrats because the Republicans are not with it. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But it's coming. | |
| Okay, Thomas in New York. | ||
| Republicans are meeting this morning as part of their return to Congress. | ||
| Here's Oklahoma Republican Tom Cole before cameras. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good thing for anybody concerned, and certainly not a good thing for the country. | |
| Do Russ votes talker resistions, the leaders? | ||
| Well, I don't have any problem. | ||
| Look, actually looking at it, I support it. | ||
| Now, I also support a vote on it. | ||
| I think it ought to be voted on. | ||
| OMB's position is they don't need a vote. | ||
| That's actually where OMB has been for over 50 years, going back to the Ford administration. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So this is not an unusual position for them. | |
| GAO has a different position. | ||
| You're probably going to need a court at some point to tell us whether or not. | ||
| But as an appropriator, look, I always prefer us voting on things. | ||
| I would vote for this rescue. | ||
| I support this rescue. | ||
| Secretary Rubio supports this, and it's mostly in his budget. | ||
| But again, I think it requires congressional vote. | ||
| But I'm honest enough to recognize there are two competing positions here, and it's probably going to take the courts to settle whether we need one or not. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So you are concerned about the legality of this, obviously, GAO is not. | |
| Well, it's not so much. | ||
| I recognize there's not clarity in the law here. | ||
| Again, GAO actually changed its position over time. | ||
| 50 years ago, it didn't believe that you needed a vote. | ||
| Then in 2018, it changed. | ||
| I respect them. | ||
| They're a professional organization. | ||
| OMB has been very consistent. | ||
| This is not new to Rust Vote. | ||
| It's exactly where OMB was when Gerald Ford was president of the United States. | ||
| It's only I can remember now. | ||
| So, you know, again, that just seems there's not clarity there, and we probably need to get it. | ||
| And this controversy may give us the opportunity to do that. | ||
| Were you given any heads up about the Clark recognition? | ||
| No, I got called the day after it was announced, and they released it late at night. | ||
| And I got a call the next morning with many apologies that, oh, we should have told you about this, but we had to move quickly. | ||
| Look, I've been in politics a long time. | ||
| If you want somebody's advice, you call them before the decision, not after. | ||
| So happy to get the call. | ||
| It was helpful to know. | ||
| But no, this is an administration. | ||
| This is an OMB move. | ||
| And that's fair enough. | ||
| And that's Representative Tom Cole, Republican from Oklahoma, talking about rescissions. | ||
| Axios with that story in recent days about that pocket rescission, as it's known as the president's decision to cancel $5 billion in foreign aid. | ||
| You can pick up that story on Axios. | ||
| Gary, Gary from Sterling, Virginia, Republican line, thanks for holding. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for keeping me on the straight and narrow, Pedro. | |
| I want to tell everybody how to deal with the heat, and that is to breathe deeper and more often. | ||
| Anytime you think of how hot it is for us all to have your lungs and take 10 deep breaths and you'll feel much better, much cooler. | ||
| And the other thing is call the 800 number on your milk or juice cordon and tell them that's a waste of good high-quality plastic on that black on that plastic cap. | ||
| And the old way was better. | ||
| You'd fold the corners back and you'd have a good beaker spout so it wouldn't cavitate on you and you could get all of it out so it didn't become a health hazard. | ||
| Gary there in Virginia. | ||
| Let's hear from Gretchen in Indiana, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, yes, I'm Gretchen and thank you for my call. | |
| I wanted to talk about the gerrymandering and the redistricting in Indiana. | ||
| I used to live in the city. | ||
| Gretchen, can I put you on hold for just a second? | ||
| I apologize for this only because Representative Thomas Massey, who's leading the charge on release of Epstein files, is going before cameras. | ||
| Redacted as to be useless, and that many of them were already available. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you think this oversight tactic is releasing these documents? | |
| I mean, how do you actually read it? | ||
| Clearly, they're pushing for more transparency, but it seems like it's not enough for you. | ||
| Well, I appreciate the effort that they've undertaken, but the scope of their investigation is to investigate the investigators. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Like, they don't ever intend to have any criminal referrals. | |
| There may be some notations from the oversight committee when this is done that, oh, this FBI person didn't check this box, or this person acted unethically, or this person got too light of a sentence. | ||
| But they're not going in and trying to identify who these perpetrators were of these heinous sexual abuse crimes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I wanted to ask which Republicans you think will end up signing onto your discharge. | |
| Well, I made the mistake of getting 12 co-sponsors, and so the White House knew who to target. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, I'm not going to name anybody who's thinking about joining. | |
| But you're confident you'll get the sentence? | ||
| I'm pretty sure. | ||
| I mean, it's a strong effort from the White House. | ||
| They're literally calling it a hostile act to sign this discharge petition now. | ||
| And I don't know if that's precedented in this country to have a president call legislators to say that they're engaged in a hostile act, particularly when the so-called hostile act is trying to get justice for people who've been victims of sex crimes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How did we get to this place where now the White House is calling it a hostile act to try to bring justice for victims of sex crimes? | |
| And obviously, can you talk about your conversations with the speaker? | ||
| He said yesterday, I don't take much stock in what Thomas Massey says when he said that the sort of smalling vote that they're going to try and take up this week was kind of meaningless. | ||
| He's just upset because I'm exposing what he's doing. | ||
| And he takes a lot of stock in what I did. | ||
| In fact, he took three pages out of my legislation and put it in his fake legislation, word for word. | ||
| I mean, you couldn't even get away with that in a high school English paper without getting caught. | ||
| Anything else? | ||
| That's it. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| Representative Thomas Massey talking about that effort, that discharge petition, Political saying that he would forge ahead with that petition to force the disclosure of investigative files related to the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| That's Political's take on it. | ||
| If you go to the front page of the Washington Times this morning, it talks about the release of that information from the House Oversight Committee. | ||
| This is the headline: House panel drops 34,000 pages of long-awaited Epstein files. | ||
| One of the notes of that is thousands of pages of court documents, most previously made public, were part of the document dump. | ||
| Gretchen in Indiana, I apologize for interrupting you. | ||
| Please go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, well, thank you so much. | |
| Yes, I live in the 9th District of Indiana. | ||
| It used to be a purple district. | ||
| We elected Democrats and the Republican House of Representatives. | ||
| Now, in 2008, and Indiana has been a purple state. | ||
| In 2008, we elected Barack Obama. | ||
| Then in 2012, Indiana really, really redistricted so that seven of the ninth districts in Indiana go to Republicans. | ||
| Now, Trump is pressuring our state. | ||
| Our representatives in Indiana said we didn't want to redistrict. | ||
| He brought them all to D.C. and they said, oh, well, maybe redistricting is okay. | ||
| So now what's going to be happening in Indiana is there will be zero Democratic districts. | ||
| So this, and it started happening. | ||
| This redistricting, as I said, started in 2010 after Barack Obama won. | ||
| Gretchen? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Oh, I just want to let you finish your thought. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, so and you can look at the maps. | |
| 2008, what the districts look like. | ||
| And then in 2012, they all became Republican. | ||
| This is not how you win elections. | ||
| Gretchen there in Indiana joining us on this open forum. | ||
| 202-748-8000 for Democrats, 202-748-8001 for Republicans. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll be doing this until 10 o'clock with some short stops along the way to talk about topics. | ||
| You heard Gretchen talk about the topic of redistricting. | ||
| Missouri takes up its own effort as of today. | ||
| And here to tell us a little bit more about what plans are for that state is David Lieb of the Associated Press. | ||
| He's their national state government reporter, Mr. Lieb. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| What exactly is Missouri launching today? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Missouri is launching a special session to tackle redistricting. | |
| And the aim is to take up President Donald Trump's call to give Republicans a chance of winning another seat at next year's congressional elections. | ||
| How did the governor there decide that this is the action he wanted to take? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the governor, like the governor of Texas and Indiana, was under some pressure from President Trump to redraw the congressional districts. | |
| He thought about it for weeks, worked to come up with a plan, and today they are introducing a new map that would take a district in Kansas City that's currently held by a Democrat, redraw it, stretch that district eastward from Kansas City 100 or more miles all the way to central Missouri, incorporating some Republican-leaning rural areas to try to give Republicans a chance of picking up that seat. | ||
| As far as the legislators that could be most impacted by these changes if they go forward, who are they well the representative from that area is Representative Emmanuel Cleaver. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He has vowed to file a lawsuit to challenge the new map if it passes. | |
| Other representatives from that area would also pick up part of the Kansas City area. | ||
| Those include Representatives Sam Graves and Representative Alford. | ||
| They have Republican safe seats, so picking up a few more Democratic voters in those areas not likely to threaten their seats. | ||
| When it comes to the process of redrawing a map, how does Missouri do it? | ||
| Is it publicly driven? | ||
| Is it an independent, is it an impact body? | ||
| Talk about that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So Missouri's process for drawing districts starts in the legislature. | |
| It'll start in the House. | ||
| It'll have committee hearings like a normal bill. | ||
| So we'll have to come out of committee. | ||
| It'll have to go through the House and then on to the Senate and be signed by the governor. | ||
| Republicans hold a more than two-thirds majority in both chambers of the legislature. | ||
| So although Democrats are there and don't like the proposed change, there's little the Democrats can do to stop it. | ||
| We saw Texas Democrats leave the state in order to protest that. | ||
| Is that an option or a venue that Missouri Democrats could possibly engage in? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, if Democrats were to not show up for the special session, it wouldn't stop anything. | |
| Under Missouri's rules, all that's required for a quorum is a simple majority. | ||
| Therefore, Republicans could convene with a quorum all by themselves. | ||
| Now, in the Senate, Democrats do have the power to filibuster, and they're likely to use that, which means they would attempt to talk at length, not only on this particular piece of legislation, but on every step along the process. | ||
| Republicans can stop that by using a rarely used procedural move they call the previous question here in Missouri, which shuts off debate, much like occurs in Washington. | ||
| But to shut off debate in Missouri, it only takes a majority vote. | ||
| So there again, Democrats have little power to actually stop this map from passing in the Senate. | ||
| When the considered map is finally done, how is it approved? | ||
| Is it just through a body? | ||
| Does it have to go to a vote to the public? | ||
| How ultimately is it approved? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So the map becomes law when it's passed by both chambers and signed by the governor. | |
| No public vote necessary. | ||
| Most likely, a lawsuit would be filed quickly. | ||
| So the courts may have the final say about whether what Missouri does is constitutional. | ||
| How do you, is there some sense of what the public thinks as far as this action by the governor? | ||
| Is the state mostly Republican or Democratic, or is there support widespread for the governor amongst the people of Missouri, do you think? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So Missouri is roughly a 60, 40 Republican state. | |
| However, that's not to say that everyone is excited about changing these districts. | ||
| There have already been some organizing efforts by voter advocacy groups, by Democrats, of course. | ||
| We'll get a chance to see what the public thinks most likely tomorrow when committee hearings are held in the House. | ||
| That's when you can expect anyone who wants to to show up and testify about these proposed changes. | ||
| Now, coincidentally, this is coming as there is a petition drive to change Missouri's Constitution. | ||
| And one of the reasons they're doing that is because they think that the Republican legislature has been sort of infringing on the people's right when it comes to making laws. | ||
| So this is giving more fuel to that fire. | ||
| David Lieb, what are you watching for? | ||
| Of the things we talked about, what are you watching for particularly today? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, today will be a largely ceremonial day. | |
| The House will go into session, bills will be introduced, they'll be referred to committee, and that's it. | ||
| The debate on these bills in the full House chamber is not likely to occur until early next week. | ||
| David Lieb serves with the Associated Press. | ||
| He's their national state government reporter talking about this redistricting effort in Missouri. | ||
| Mr. Lieb, thanks for your time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Sue is next. | ||
| Sue joins us from Michigan. | ||
| Independent Line. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, Pedro. | |
| Thank you for my call. | ||
| Yeah, among us a couple of things, germaning is cheating. | ||
| I don't care who does it, the Democrats or the Republicans do it. | ||
| What makes us that much worse is that Trump is so unpopular, he wants to cheat even more by pressuring, what, Texas? | ||
| Now Missouri, shame on them, Indiana. | ||
| As an independent, I'm not being a representative at all. | ||
| And the problem, the other problem is, is that Congress doesn't have a spine. | ||
| The Republicans are getting elected. | ||
| We'll do whatever he says. | ||
| There's no checks imbalances. | ||
| You know, I think it's just awful that they're allowing this to happen and he wants to cheat even more. | ||
| You know, that's not right. | ||
| I'm not a Democrat. | ||
| I don't like half the stuff they do. | ||
| But Republicans are not doing a good job. | ||
| And they're letting the president get away with his worse policies and stuff. | ||
| They're not checking him on anything. | ||
| They do not deserve to be reelected and they do not allow, they should not be allowed to cheat. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Sue there in Michigan. | ||
| Here's Representative Don Bacon talking to reporters. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Obviously, there's going to be a vote on whether it's not. | |
| I guess I need to read more about it. | ||
| I'm not sure. | ||
| I guess I haven't seen much about that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Republican legislators talking to cameras as they're meeting this morning in the opinion pages. | ||
| Two, to point you to in the New York Times, former heads of the Centers for Disease Control talking about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. under the headline, Kennedy is endangering every American's health. | ||
| They write, Mr. Kennedy has fired thousands of federal health workers and severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury, violence, and more. | ||
| Amid the largest measles outbreak in the United States in a generation, he's focused on unproven treatments while downplaying vaccines. | ||
| He canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill-prepared for future health emergencies. | ||
| He replaced experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views. | ||
| Again, that's in the New York Times this morning. | ||
| If you turn to the editorial or the opinion section of the Wall Street Journal, an op-ed from Robert Kennedy Jr. himself, the head of health and human services. | ||
| We're restoring public trust in the CDC. | ||
| He writes under the headline, saying that the path forward is clear. | ||
| Restore the CDC's focus on infectious disease, invest in innovation, and rebuild trust through integrity and transparency. | ||
| To achieve this, the CDC will focus on six priorities. | ||
| And just to give you the bullet point versions, one is to protect from threats of infectious diseases. | ||
| Two is to build infrastructure. | ||
| If you go further on, he talks about modernizing systems as one of those goals. | ||
| Invest in the workforce, enhance scientific rigor, and one of them, the final one, empower states and communities. | ||
| There's more there in the Wall Street Journal, the opinion piece from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the head of health and human services. | ||
| This is David. | ||
| David in New York, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hi, Pedro. | ||
| I'm returning to the issue of deploying the National Guard in Chicago. | ||
| And the first thing to always ask about anything that Trump does is what's in it for him. | ||
| And of course, he's a politician. | ||
| So just like any other politician, there's going to be something in it for them in terms of enhancing their power and authority. | ||
| And when you think of it, he's not deploying troops to Miami, which has a Republican mayor, or Baton Rouge, which has a Republican mayor. | ||
| He's doing it in cities and states where the Democrats are predominant. | ||
| And it's because he wants the issue of crime to be, and the enforcement against crime, in other words, police power, against crime anywhere, but also mostly that he wants to show that the Democrats are weak on crime. | ||
| So this is about the midterms. | ||
| And it's set up so that he says, well, I'm offering you the National Guard so that you can solve crime issues in your state and your city. | ||
| And then when the governor, like Pritzker did yesterday, and the mayor of Chicago, Johnson, when they come out and say, well, you know, we don't want this kind of help, then the voter is going to say, well, they're soft on crime. | ||
| And that's exactly the issue that the way he wants to set it up in terms of the midterm elections. | ||
| So this is not about solving crime. | ||
| This is about Trump's power and keeping control of Congress, ultimately. | ||
| David in New York, let's hear from James and San Diego, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Redistrican and the census. | |
| Earlier today, you had a call or talk about the census. | ||
| The House of Representatives is based upon the population of the United States, which is taken every 10 years. | ||
| Redistrican is taken by the Democrat and the Republican parties in each of the states. | ||
| For instance, California had a great exodus of citizens of the United States, even though the population of California did not change because of illegals coming into California. | ||
| Therefore, those individuals, citizens that left the United States, left California, went to different states. | ||
| Those different states then are going to redistrict by the basis of political parties. | ||
| So if you take that into consideration, then you go to Massachusetts, which has 47% of the population, legal population, residents, as voters of Republicans, and then you have the other portion made up of Democrats. | ||
| You have zero, zero representation in the state of House of Representatives in the state of Massachusetts. | ||
| That's not correct. | ||
| There are five districts, but that is it in the state of Massachusetts. | ||
| Look at the map. | ||
| It's all blue. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Let's hear from Michelle. | ||
| Michelle's in New York, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning, Pedro. | |
| I'd like to first say thank you so much for the unfiltered news that C-SPAN provides. | ||
| I just love this program. | ||
| Also, your cameramen, I'd like to give them a shout out. | ||
| I just think they're fabulous. | ||
| Now, the world did go crazy in Brett Brisket, but thank you, C-SPAN. | ||
| Well, thank you, Michelle, and thank you to our cameramen, too. | ||
| They are there 24-7 for us covering in and around Capitol Hill today, taking them to Capitol Hill to engage in some interviews that we want to share with you. | ||
| Joining us from Capitol Hill to talk about issues is Representative Greg Landsman, Democrat from Ohio, a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. | ||
| Representative Landsman, thanks for giving us your time today. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| At front and center is issues concerning the optimism you might have as far as passing some type of budget before a deadline comes up. | ||
| Where does that stand to you currently? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I wish I was more optimistic. | |
| I mean, we have to pass a budget or we should be passing a budget. | ||
| It's typically done in a bipartisan way, and I think that's what the American people want. | ||
| That's what I hear back from folks back at home. | ||
| But at the moment, the House leadership on the Republican side, they've only put forward a few of the 12 appropriations bills, and it doesn't seem like they're making as much progress in the Senate as they should. | ||
| So unfortunately, this is probably going to end up being a continuing resolution like we did last year, which is just inefficient. | ||
| It's not a way to run government. | ||
| You're funding things based on a budget years from years ago. | ||
| So it's just frustrating. | ||
| I mean, most of us came here to work, so we want to work. | ||
| And I will tell you that most members, Republican and Democrat, Democratic members, want to work. | ||
| We would prefer to be put in a room and put together a budget, but that's not the assignment from the top. | ||
| And it's frustrating. | ||
| What are you hearing from Democratic leadership about what's acceptable as far as passing a budget? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, they want to be in the room. | |
| I mean, they want to make sure that they're part of the discussion. | ||
| And ultimately, that the budget reigns in this president, but also restores some of the health care cuts. | ||
| I mean, that's a big piece of what is expected. | ||
| And I would hope that the majority appreciates that taking health care away from so many people is going to be enormously problematic for them and our communities, our hospitals, but also them politically. | ||
| And so hopefully that's what we get. | ||
| When it comes to then health care overall on the Senate side, they'll hear from the Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy tomorrow. | ||
| What do you think of his tenure so far? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's been disappointing. | |
| You know, anytime you take somebody who is new to something as serious as this, I mean, running health and human services. | ||
| And instead of leaning on the experts, relying on the professionals, he's getting rid of so many of them. | ||
| And it's beginning to undermine public health. | ||
| And government is to some extent there to protect us against big risks like the outbreak of measles. | ||
| And when you're upending the CDC and our public health system, you're going to see, unfortunately, you're going to see these outbreaks. | ||
| And we're all going to turn to the professionals. | ||
| And he's going to have gotten rid of a lot of them. | ||
| In his own words this morning, there's an opinion piece by Secretary Kennedy. | ||
| And one of the things he says is a point of matter, saying that when it comes to the future of the CDC, he wants to enhance scientific rigor. | ||
| He said, applying Goldstein's standard science to every recommendation, ensuring America leads the world in safe, effective vaccines, and trusted guidance. | ||
| That's what he wrote. | ||
| What's your response to that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Stop firing the people who do that well. | |
| And then stop undermining the vaccines. | ||
| The measles vaccine, these vaccines that have kept us safe and healthy for as long as I've been alive are now going to be hard to find. | ||
| It's not clear what's going to happen, but he seems to be heading in a direction where he's going to be making the country sicker. | ||
| And we've got two kids, 13 and 15, and I don't want them to have to deal with something that we had eradicated decades ago. | ||
| Representative Landsman, your past includes being a public school teacher. | ||
| I want to ask you about the recent shootings that we saw on the news, but ultimately, where is Congress as far as doing more when it comes to keeping schools safe from gun-related violence? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, look, you know, it's a combination. | |
| One, it's just awful. | ||
| It's hard to spend much time thinking about it just because they're eight and ten. | ||
| This is like Uvalde in the sense that you had these young kids, elementary school kids, gunned down. | ||
| It's hard for the mind to process. | ||
| And your heart goes out to everyone involved. | ||
| It doesn't have to be like this. | ||
| We can end this nightmare, and it is a nightmare, but it does mean that I think Democrats and Republicans have to get together and come up with a solution. | ||
| And we did this in the 90s where we paired hiring, I think it was 100,000 new police officers with really smart gun safety reforms. | ||
| And that's what we have to do again. | ||
| We need more officers, but we also need to obviously tackle the mental health issues. | ||
| We have to get serious about big tech and what's happening online. | ||
| But the access to guns has to be diminished. | ||
| It has to be harder for criminals and people who want to do terrible things. | ||
| It has to be much harder for them to get guns. | ||
| And we can do that. | ||
| Congress can pass laws making it harder for criminals to get guns. | ||
| I suppose that those efforts, there has to be some type of balancing act for preserving rights, as some would say. | ||
| How do you achieve that balance? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so responsible gun owners keep their guns. | |
| I'm a big believer in the Second Amendment. | ||
| And in my district, and growing up, just about everyone I know or knew had guns, and most people I know now have guns. | ||
| And the key is, do you want to have criminal background checks to make sure that criminals or people who are going to cause harm don't get guns. | ||
| These are red flag laws. | ||
| And then banning those weapons, or at least making those weapons harder to get in certain places where you can create these mass casualty events. | ||
| I mean, these are all things that I think most Americans agree with. | ||
| If you look at the polling, 70-80% of Americans want to get these guns away from criminals. | ||
| And that does mean saying, look, we're going to do a criminal background check. | ||
| We're going to do that across the board. | ||
| We're going to close these loopholes. | ||
| We're going to make it harder, if not impossible, for people to get these weapons online. | ||
| And these weapons of war, you're not going to be able to find unless you're at a shooting range or something like that. | ||
| Representative Landsman, there is an effort on the Democratic side from Rokana and on the Republican side from Thomas Masley, ultimately for a discharge petition on the Epstein files. | ||
| Where are you on that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I signed the discharge petition last night. | |
| I hope we get enough Republicans to sign the discharge petition too. | ||
| It's the most comprehensive plan to date to get the transparency and the accountability that almost all Americans demand. | ||
| And so hopefully the leader, the speaker will just allow us to vote on this. | ||
| I really don't understand why they're trying to protect these folks. | ||
| We saw the committee release files yesterday. | ||
| What hasn't been released, or I guess what's left to tell as far as documents are concerned concerning Jeffrey Epstein? | ||
|
unidentified
|
On one hand, we don't know, right? | |
| Because they've kept this so secret. | ||
| It's been such a secret. | ||
| But it's the client list. | ||
| It's the testimonies in the witness statements. | ||
| You've got to do it in a way that protects the victims. | ||
| But the victims have said they want their files. | ||
| They would like these files, and they have not gotten it. | ||
| I mean, I have followed this story for years, and the number of victims is staggering. | ||
| What he and others did to these victims is beyond what at least my brain can comprehend. | ||
| And there were clearly very wealthy, very plugged in, very powerful people involved, and all of them need to be held accountable. | ||
| Representative Landsman, your state undergoes a redistricting effort starting today. | ||
| What does that mean for you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know yet. | |
| But, you know, hopefully, at least, you know, I would like to see constitutional maps, maps that are done in a way that's based on voters and not what politicians want. | ||
| I think that should happen everywhere. | ||
| I hate partisan gerrymandering. | ||
| I hate voter suppression. | ||
| I think it is a huge part of why we're in this mess that we're in, where power has been taken away from the average person and you get a government that doesn't really work for most people. | ||
| And so I hope to stay here long enough to pass the John Lewis voting rights bill that would end voter suppression and end partisan gerrymandering. | ||
| We have to fix our democracy, but in terms of what happens to me, I don't know yet. | ||
| What's the worst case scenario then? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's not clear because in southwest Ohio, they can't break up the city of Cincinnati. | |
| They could put me in with one of their members, but I won by 10 in a very gerrymandered seat, a purple seat. | ||
| And so I don't think they want to do that, but we'll see. | ||
| That would be called a dummy mander or what's called a dummy mander where they push the limits so far that they end up losing some seats. | ||
| So, you know, hopefully they don't go in that direction. | ||
| Representative Lansman, before we let you go, you have a series of bills under the umbrella called Pledge to America. | ||
| What's this effort about? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I think, and I guess I'm a product of the 90s, right? | |
| But the Republicans, when they were out of power and in the wilderness, so to speak, they put together their contract for America where they laid out how they were going to fix the things that they believed were broken. | ||
| And so I thought it was really important for us to do the same. | ||
| And I wasn't going to wait for others to do it. | ||
| I laid out in these 10 bills how we're going to fix the economy, make the country affordable again, make sure that people are safe, really tackle public safety, tackle immigration reform, tackle the deficit and getting government working again. | ||
| All of the things that are top of mind for most voters, I lay out in what I believe are the 10 bills that will fix this country and lead to what I call the great American comeback. | ||
| How much traction have you gotten support for those bills? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I've gotten a lot of traction. | |
| I mean, a lot of support back home for sure. | ||
| I mean, you know, and we did this on social, and the feedback has been, oh, you know, this is what we've been waiting for, something that we can hold on to as opposed to just chasing Trump all day. | ||
| This is something that we can believe in and work towards. | ||
| And then up here on the Hill, I've gotten great feedback from leadership and my colleagues. | ||
| Representative Greg Lansman, Democrat from Ohio, member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. | ||
| Thank you for your time, sir. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Michelle from New York and Staten Island, Independent Line. | ||
| Thank you for waiting. | ||
| Go right ahead. | ||
| Michelle in New York. | ||
| Okay, let's hear from Rob. | ||
| Robin, Georgia, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Yes, thanks for having me on. | ||
| I was interested in gerrymandering, and if there's a way to address it on a national level, similar to the National Vote Interstate Compact that some states have passed trying to nationalize the presidential election. | ||
| So just appreciate your comments on is there a way to try to do it nationally so you can eliminate gerrymandering throughout the U.S., but do it in a fashion it's done in all the states. | ||
| Brad. | ||
| Brad from Minnesota, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, you know, he was talking about the gerrymandering, and that kind of just makes, throws me that, I mean, if you look at Massachusetts, 36% are Republican there. | |
| They have zero seats. | ||
| Connecticut, 42% are Republican, zero seats. | ||
| New Mexico, 46% Republican, zero seats. | ||
| New Hampshire, 48%, zero seats. | ||
| Rhode Island, 42%, zero seats. | ||
| Vermont, 32%, zero seats. | ||
| I mean, the list goes on for the Democrats, and then they're crying now about gerrymandering. | ||
| I mean, that's all they've ever done. | ||
| That's how they control. | ||
| And then you get California in there that has all the illegals in the state that get extra seats because of. | ||
| And I think the Democrats are just off the rails today. | ||
| So. | ||
| Okay, Brad there in Minnesota. | ||
| Here's Representative Ralph Norman talking to reporters on Capitol Hill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The oversight released yesterday 30,000 plus documents, but it sounds like only 90% say only 90 cents per sign. | |
| Or 97% of it's already 30%. | ||
| The Democrats will do anything to drive a wedge between the American people and Donald Trump. | ||
| It's not going to happen. | ||
| The information will be out there. | ||
| Is 32,000 pages a start? | ||
| Yes, it's not ending. | ||
| There'll be more reports. | ||
| The logs on the flights, the people involved with abusing children, that'll come out. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much, Doug. | |
| That's Representative Ralph Dorman talking about the release of those documents related to the Epstein files. | ||
| There was a meeting on Capitol Hill, a committee meeting meeting with Epstein survivors. | ||
| And one of the people attending and talking about it was the Oversight Committee. | ||
| Democrat Melanie Stansberry had these comments yesterday. | ||
| What we heard today is a cover-up. | ||
| And it is a cover-up of epic proportions. | ||
| A cover-up involving the United States government, the justice system, rich and powerful individuals. | ||
| a cover-up potentially involving foreign countries and foreign actors. | ||
| And yes, here today in this House, as our colleagues are up in the House chamber and the Rules Committee, a cover-up by the Republicans in this chamber. | ||
| Because as you will find out in the coming days and weeks, this goes all the way to the top. | ||
| So let's be clear about that. | ||
| There has been a systemic failure of the justice system for decades. | ||
| A systemic failure to hold people who are powerful and have money to account. | ||
| And that has allowed not just hundreds but potentially thousands of women not only in the United States but around the world to be bought, sold, and trafficked for sex, not only by Jeffrey Epstein, but by his associates and his rich and powerful friends. | ||
| And as these stories come forward, whether they're stories that have already been told, they're stories in those FBI files that have not been released by the Department of Justice and which they must release because of the subpoena, or whether they are stories of victims that have not yet come forward, we will hold you all accountable for this miscarriage of justice, for the abuse of these women, | ||
| and the abuse of this institution to try to cover it up. | ||
| That took place on Capitol Hill yesterday. | ||
| Let's hear from Ronald in Florida, Independent Line. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I find it so funny that Donald Trump said the Republicans are uneducated. | |
| That's the reason he ran for president to run as a Republican, because he was elected to bring down the grocery, gas, immigration, which I totally agree with him, the illegal immigration, and government waste. | ||
| And we're not even dealing with that right now. | ||
| Look where we're at. | ||
| Look where we're at right now. | ||
| Not even dealing with that. | ||
| And that's just basically all I got to say. | ||
| He's just not keeping his promise. | ||
| We're not even important, the American citizens, since he's made his way to office. | ||
| All we are is just votes for him. | ||
| And we need somebody to get into that White House and get into Congress that believe in taking care of us, the American people. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Ronald in Florida. | ||
| Yesterday, the President made an announcement that Space Command moving from Colorado to Alabama. | ||
| And this is our next caller from Tina. | ||
| She is in Pell City, Alabama. | ||
| Republican line. | ||
| Tina, good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Pedro, good morning. | |
| And thank you, C-SPAN. | ||
| I've appreciated contributing to C-SPAN. | ||
| Sometimes I'm happy about it, some days I'm not. | ||
| But I'm very grateful for what you guys do. | ||
| To the Democrats who declare that all criminals should not have guns, that's what police do when they arrest criminals, somebody in this act of a crime, they take away their guns. | ||
| And I think the inference is nobody should have guns. | ||
| And in that case, we lose our liberty. | ||
| And I'm totally opposed to Democrats who are in favor of removing the site of guns from people. | ||
| Tom from South Carolina, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I'd like to talk about our anointed representatives in Congress who, you know, Congress long ago abrogated the idea of public service and replaced it. | ||
| It's a very great policy. | ||
| It's called public serve us. | ||
| We are now serving our elected representatives or anointed since a great deal of them are running in districts that they can't lose. | ||
| Gerrymandering has proven that. | ||
| And if you look at a lot of states, there are few, if any, of either party in their state legislatures or Congress, depending upon the power you and power in that particular state. | ||
| So we're here to serve our members of an allegedly elected body, which I certainly hope they solve this Jeffrey Epstein thing because that'll mean gas prices will go down and food costs will go down, medical care will get better. | ||
| All you have to do is solve Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And everything becomes fine. | |
| Tom in South Carolina, Republicans meeting on Capitol Hill before CAMA is Representative Ana Paulina Luna of Florida. | ||
| And then also, too, in addition to that, you're going to see other people likely being called to testify and or subpoenaed that were very wealthy and also two very influential in this entire process. | ||
| So what we're told honestly scared me. | ||
| There was some information that was shared with us about Jeffrey Epstein being a foreign intelligence asset involving multiple countries. | ||
| We'll get into that probably during the investigations, but we have requested the SARS reports. | ||
| Now, if you're asking me if I'm going to be signing on the current one, I don't think so because those files have been released. | ||
| But also too, at the same point, when I was, you know, championing this months ago and I was the only member of Congress, why is it specifically happening now? | ||
| And I think that it's a personal rift between Massey and the president. | ||
| And so right now I'm trying to just do my job and focus on the investigation. | ||
| So you don't mean they'll sign that? | ||
| I don't think I'm going to sign it. | ||
| We've already released the documents. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So what would be the point to do that? | |
| Is there a concern that if this were to pass the discharge petition that you would put that sensitive information out there without the checks that we oversighted? | ||
| So the discharge petition, as written, I believe, does not call for that information to be released. | ||
| However, why would we release or force the release of information that's already been released? | ||
| It doesn't make sense. | ||
| So in my opinion, being that we've been looking into this for a while, people need to look at the names in those documents. | ||
| So again, there's 33,000 pages. | ||
| What we were told directly by the victims is that there's a lot of wealthy people that were named in that, and they need to fall up because these victims were not lying about that. | ||
| More importantly, we also interviewed a woman that had started that she started to be molested basically by Jeffrey Epstein at 14 years old. | ||
| And another woman who had her infant daughter that was threatened by him. | ||
| So these people are obviously monsters. | ||
| So we're not supporting a pardon for Gillene Maxwell. | ||
| She wants to give us information on people that are involved. | ||
| She should, and we encourage it for the victim state too. | ||
| But also the victims asked us specifically to get them information from the federal government that had been previously denied to them by previous administration. | ||
| One victim in particular had been molested again starting at 14 years old, and ultimately she tried to get information from the previous administration, was denied that. | ||
| She doesn't have any recollection of what occurred, and so she's been trying to go through therapy on that. | ||
| And so, for a lot of these people, it's not just a headline, but they did talk about the re-traumatization of seeing what's happening in the headlines and then feeling like there wasn't justice served for some of these perpetrators, which is why we're launching the investigation. | ||
| People said, Well, is it a criminal investigation? | ||
| We were also told about immigration fraud that Jeffrey Epstein was actually pulling in people from a lot of the Eastern Bloc countries, and that they have proof of that. | ||
| And so, yes, there needs to be a criminal investigation in regards to this because you can't do that, and obviously, there's a trafficking issue as well. | ||
| And so, it's a lot. | ||
| Obviously, there's only a small amount of us, and so I'm following Chairman Comer's lead on this. | ||
| Have you gotten calls at Ana Paulina Luna of the House Oversight Committee? | ||
| They meeting on matters when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| This coming out of a story in the Washington Times, that's their headline today: the Oversight Committee releasing their own pages, 34,000 pages of things related to the Epstein files. | ||
| You heard from Representative Thomas Massey earlier this morning, he and Representative Rokana looking for a discharge petition for the release of more of those files. | ||
| Watch for that to play out on Capitol Hill today, outside of Capitol Hill. | ||
| A rally taking a look at this issue of Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| We'll show you a little bit of that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Stand with survivors. | |
| My name is Liz Stein. | ||
| I am a speaker, writer, educator, and activist in the anti-trafficking movement. | ||
| I am a World Without Exploitation stand fellow, and I am also a survivor of Ghelane Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| I met Ghelane when I was a senior in college. | ||
| I was just 21 years old. | ||
| Maxwell introduced me to Jeffrey Epstein later on that day. | ||
| That evening was the sliding glass doors moment that changed the trajectory of my entire life. | ||
| I was once bright, fun, outgoing, and kind. | ||
| I loved people, and people genuinely enjoyed being around me. | ||
| But after meeting Jeffrey Epstein and Ghelane Maxwell, it felt like someone shut off the lights to my soul. | ||
| Instead of pursuing my dream of going to law school after graduation, overcoming the terror and the trauma that was inflicted on me by these sex traffickers, overcoming that became my decades-long full-time career. | ||
| As sisters, we are initiated as survivors. | ||
| We're initiated into a sisterhood. | ||
| We're in a sorority that none of us asked to join, but we all stand here today strong, stronger together because our collective voice is powerful. | ||
| We stand together also to honor the beautiful souls who lost their lives in the pursuit of getting justice for Maxwell and Epstein's crimes. | ||
| This is not a partisan issue. | ||
| This is a crime, the crime of sex trafficking, and the criminals must be held accountable. | ||
| Disbelieving survivors creates a culture of silence. | ||
| There is strength in numbers, and our courage is contagious. | ||
| I want to humanize sex trafficking survivors for you all just for one moment. | ||
| We are not others. | ||
| We are your sisters, your friends, your colleagues. | ||
| We are in your community. | ||
| Think about the women that you love and then think about them being the victim of sexual assault. | ||
| It's uncomfortable. | ||
| And that's taking place outside of on Capitol Hill, outside of the building. | ||
| Things related to Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| Diana in Ohio, thanks for waiting. | ||
| Democrats line hi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, this is Diana in Maineville, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. | |
| And while watching, regarding the gentleman that was talking about Thomas Massey being primaried, I was watching the local Fox affiliate. | ||
| And one day, the anchor, Teresa Mackey, I believe, was approached to run against him. | ||
| She is a popular news host on Fox News. | ||
| And I thought that would answer the question of who has been asked to participate in that primary. | ||
| Okay, Diana there in Ohio. | ||
| As we've been showing you throughout the course of the morning, a lot of discussions in and around Capitol Hill, particularly on Capitol Hill, when it comes to the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files here to tie those things together. | ||
| Emily Brooks of The Hill, who is a congressional reporter. | ||
| Good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Let's start with the documents that were released last night by the House Oversight Committee. | ||
| What was the reaction? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the reaction from at least the Democratic side of things was that these are documents that the DOJ turned over, the vast majority of which have already been in the public record. | |
| A lot of them are already redacted. | ||
| And so there isn't a lot of new information to be gleaned from this. | ||
| But on the Republican side of things, they're saying that this is a good, great first step towards transparency that people in both parties have been seeking and asking for, and that they are expecting to get more disclosures from the DOJ and more release more information as they get more information based on the subpoenas that have been issued to the DOJ, to the Epstein estate, | ||
| and to a lot of high-profile former officials, including President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, after they come to testify to the Oversight Committee based off of that. | ||
| And Democrats, I will note, are taking credit for the release of this happening at all. | ||
| This only happened because Democrats in the House Oversight Subcommittee, in the midst of the uproar in July over Epstein release, made a motion to subpoena the DOJ for the full unredacted Epstein files. | ||
| They would like to see a lot more than what we're getting right now, but this is the first and what is looking like it's going to be a long process. | ||
| And that brings us to the efforts of Representatives Thomas Massey and Ro Khanna. | ||
| How does that fit into the overall picture? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, so they have a bill that would direct the Department of Justice to release Epstein-related files information that is a lot of what people are looking for. | |
| Then they have this in the form of a bill. | ||
| So this would have to be passed by the House, passed by the Senate, and then either signed by the president or overcome a presidential veto. | ||
| And they have this procedural gambit that they started yesterday. | ||
| Massey started it yesterday called a discharge petition to essentially circumvent House Republican leadership and force a vote on this measure. | ||
| Now this would require 218 signatures. | ||
| So that means if every Democrat signs, then you need six Republicans, five in addition to Massey to sign it in order to force this vote. | ||
| So far, three other Republicans have signed that, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace, and Lauren Bobert. | ||
| So there's a pretty good chance that this does end up coming to a vote, but this is not something that Republican leadership or the White House wants to see. | ||
| The White House official put out a statement last night saying that they would see any cooperation with this discharge petition effort as a hostile act to the administration. | ||
| So that is kind of drawing a line in the sand there. | ||
| They want to go to the route of giving things to the oversight committee rather than see this move forward. | ||
| We saw a meeting of survivors lester day attended by many people, including the House Speaker himself. | ||
| What was the purpose of that meeting overall when it comes to perhaps pressure to release files? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| This is another thing the Democrats were calling for back in July is having a sort of Epstein accuser, Epstein survivor focused event. | ||
| So these women, six of them we're told, met behind closed doors with a bipartisan group of House oversight lawmakers, plus Speaker Johnson attended this meeting. | ||
| And it was a pretty big chunk of his time, over two hours of his time yesterday in what sounded like a pretty emotional meeting. | ||
| There were tears. | ||
| So this is that combined with the efforts of the oversight committee and then another additional counter resolution to that discharge petition from House GOP leadership, basically saying a vote to say we support the House Oversight Committee investigation. | ||
| These are all signals from Republican leadership that they are trying to do something on this without endorsing what the White House called a hostile act from Massey and Connor. | ||
| Emily Brooks, I want to play for our audience a bit from the House Speaker yesterday coming out of that meeting asked by reporters about the President Trump's thoughts on this being a hoax. | ||
| I want to play that and get your response to that. | ||
| I'm not sure what that comment refers to, but I've spoken to the president myself about this many times and he is as insistent as we are. | ||
| He is the most transparent president in memory probably in the history of the country. | ||
| As you know, he stops. | ||
| If he was here now, he would stand here and take your questions endlessly. | ||
| That's his mindset. | ||
| And he wants the American people to have information so they can draw their own conclusions. | ||
| I've talked with him about this very subject myself, so I can tell you that is his heart. | ||
| Now, he also, just as we do, is insistent that we protect the innocent victims, and that's what this has been about. | ||
| There'll be votes in the House this week to advance this and affirm what it's doing. | ||
| Everybody in the House wants to go on record affirming what our oversight committee is doing in a bipartisan fashion. | ||
| There's a discharge petition that is pending, and the reason that I was not comfortable with that and still am not comfortable with the discharge petition is because it was inartfully drafted. | ||
| It does not adequately protect the innocent victims, and that is a critical component of this. | ||
| So the work is being done. | ||
| The Department of Justice and the administration are in full compliance with every congressional subpoena. | ||
| In fact, they're moving it quickly. | ||
| And so the American people are owed this information, and the expectation is it will come out soon. | ||
| So Emily Brooks, he insists that transparency is on his plate, but he wants to protect the victims. | ||
| Those are the things he says. | ||
| What's the reality there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the reality is that no matter what, I think that the Department of Justice is going to take efforts to try and protect the victims and try and not release information that the Department of Justice said. | |
| They do not want to release information that would amount to accusations against individuals that they're not necessarily going to charge in this, which is what a lot of people are looking for. | ||
| And so that's what we should be looking for as they give more disclosures that they said they were going to to the House Oversight Committee about what new information, what new accusations, does anything corroborate what victims are telling lawmakers about this? | ||
| But yes, it's pretty clear that President Trump, who had a former friendly relationship with Jeffrey Epstein before he said that went sour and he cast him out of his Mar-a-Lago club, does not want to be named in this and seen as somebody who was participating in any of the nefarious acts of Jeffrey Epstein or his associates. | ||
| And, you know, Republicans are saying that there's no reason to be worried about that. | ||
| One thing to keep an eye on is that the House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed the Epstein estate for more records, and that is where Democrats expect this infamous birthday book that the Wall Street Journal reported President Trump had a birthday message to Jeffrey Epstein in there that is expected to be part of that. | ||
| So if they release that, both the Speaker and James Comer have committed to release publicly what they get from that. | ||
| As far as the days ahead, I suppose the discharge petition is the thing to watch in the short term. | ||
| But what other things are you watching for? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, they're going to be, throughout the next several weeks, are going to be testimony from high-profile officials. | |
| And I think that the subpoena of President Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which those dates are set for September, if those happen, those should be explosive and something that Republicans will certainly want to highlight as much as possible, just as Democrats are wanting to highlight any connection to Trump, to Epstein, and any allegations of him covering up the Epstein files. | ||
| So this is no sign of going away anytime soon, even if it gets down to a little bit more of a simmer than it was in July. | ||
| But also, you know, we're all hearing from some of the Epstein victims in a press conference today. | ||
| What they have to say and what they want to see as far as transparency and where they think congressional investigations to go, I think should be important as well. | ||
| Emily Brooks reports for the Hill. | ||
| Thehill.com is where you can find her work. | ||
| Emily Brooks, as always, thanks for your time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Back to your calls. | ||
| Jeff in Missouri, Republican line, thank you for waiting. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| The Epstein stuff is a ruse, just like the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, just to keep you all talking about stuff that don't really matter. | ||
| The fact that Trump's putting the National Guard out across the United States is because we have the World Cup, the Olympics, and our 250th anniversary. | ||
| He's not going to have the useful idiots, Black Lives Matter and Tifa, the Democratic paid Soros protesters making the United States look like a chaotic third world country assess poll. | ||
| So he's preemptively cleaning up the streets so he can present a face to the world that is an American prideful presentation. | ||
| We are not going to be part of the new world order. | ||
| We will have our independence in the United States. | ||
| The people are joining by the hand. | ||
| The Democrats are screaming demons. | ||
| It's time for us to come together. | ||
| The American people love one another. | ||
| Racism is a hoax. | ||
| Okay, that's Jeff in Missouri. | ||
| Let's hear from Jeff in Florida, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Yeah, hi. | ||
| Look, we could easily fix gerrymandering, and we could fix the stovepiping of information. | ||
| We could fix people being left out of the political process because they're the minority in a district. | ||
| If we just had 50-50 districts, if we had an amendment to our Constitution that said each state has to form the maximum number of their districts with 50% of each of the majority parties, which would be Democrats and Republicans, well, what would happen? | ||
| If one side ran an extremist and the other side ran a moderate, they'd wipe out the extremist because it would be 50-50 and the moderate would get most of the independents in the middle. | ||
| So just that one change. | ||
| And, you know, the other thing that it would do is what about the 25%, I'm hearing about 25% Republicans, 35% Republicans in a district. | ||
| They never ever get a voice. | ||
| How does that make them want to participate in the political process when they get left out every single election? | ||
| Jeff in Florida there, this is Mike in North Carolina, Republican line. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes, first thing is something's got to be done with these liberal activist judges that are stopping the immigration thing with Trump is putting in. | ||
| But the other thing is the crime, the crime, what's going on. | ||
| You notice even in this, I'm close to Charlotte, about 20 miles from Charlotte. | ||
| And it's the juvenile youth crime. | ||
| They need to do away with the so-called juvenile minors and stuff like that. | ||
| These people need to be, if you knew an adult crime, you need to be punished like an adult. | ||
| And back in the day when I was growing up, they were these things, they were like reform schools. | ||
| You know, why don't they get all these young people out here that's criminals and doing all these criminals if they want to give them a chance to do something like a military camp where there's more, you know, where they're not getting patted on the back and everything and then set go as soon as they turn 18, not having to suffer the consequences for the crimes they've done. | ||
| They've got to do something about that and do away with this under 18 because the majority of these crimes in these big cities are being committed by teens. | ||
| Got your point? | ||
| Got your point? | ||
| Sue is next in Washington, Missouri. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hello. | ||
| Thank you for giving me a voice. | ||
| I just wanted to call up and apologize for the uneducated Missouri voter that called previously. | ||
| And I feel like Trump should have to sit in and listen to these girls tell their story, just like Mace sat in and left crying and broken down. | ||
| But I'm praying for the survivors. | ||
| And hopefully the Republican Congress can come to their senses and work for the people because it's for the people by the people. | ||
| And thank you so much for the time. | ||
| Bom ahom. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Okay, that's Sue there in Washington State. | ||
| Things to watch out for today. | ||
| Just after this program ends, 10 o'clock, you can see a testimony of a member of British Parliament, Nigel Farage of the Reform UK Political Party. | ||
| They'll testify how Britain and the European Union's online policies are impacting free speech and innovation. | ||
| That's in front of the House Judiciary Committee, 10 o'clock on C-SPAN 3, C-SPANNOW, our app, and c-span.org. | ||
| Also, a congressional gold medal ceremony will be held today to honor the African-American men of the 369th Infantry Regiment, commonly known as the Harlem Hellfighters. | ||
| That's in recognition of their military service during World War II. | ||
| The medal will be presented by Speaker Mike Johnson, including remarks from the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, including members of Congress. | ||
| That will be at 3 o'clock this afternoon. | ||
| View that on C-SPAN 3, our app, C-SPANNOW, and c-SPAN.org. | ||
| Isaac is next. | ||
| Isaac and Maryland, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Thank you so much for giving me this chance. | ||
| I'm just trying to appeal to Americans for fairness in everything they do. | ||
| For the Jeff Epstein situation, people should consider people whose lives were affected negatively, whose future was affected and damaged because of the trauma they went through. | ||
| And be fair and honest in letting everybody address and bring a good resolution by being transparent. | ||
| And then, secondly, look at the picture. | ||
| Gislay Maxwell gets moved from maximum security prison to a comfortable place. | ||
| And then Kilmar Abago Garcia is about to be deported to Uganda. | ||
| The picture is not right. | ||
| Let there be fairness in America so that people can move forward and have unity and democracy. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Susie from Tennessee. | ||
| Susie from Tennessee Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi, good morning. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Mike is that, you know, that if you're not, if you're a Democrat or if you're a Republican or if you're even an independent, people, you know, on your show would always say that the Democrats are always looking at Trump. | ||
| We have a few, you know, point views on that. | ||
| For one, you know, that we talk about January 6th. | ||
| They say it's so peaceful, you know, and you look on TV and you see so much in corrupting that. | ||
| Then I look at is, you know, that Trump would be saying, you know, that, oh, everything is good and fine. | ||
| And some people do agree with that and some people don't. | ||
| There's so much corrupt and chaoticness. | ||
| I do also feel that Trump has been caught in so many lies. | ||
| There was a lot of evidence on that. | ||
| The size of the 34 counts of his felony, you know, that was on TV. | ||
| And I just don't understand that when people see all of this, that they still support this man. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay, Susie there from Tennessee. | ||
| Just to show you before we end the show today, this is from NPR. | ||
| It was yesterday that the president announced about this shooting down of a gunboat. | ||
| They're saying that tensions between the United States and Venezuela are rising days after sending U.S. gunboats to South American waters. | ||
| President Trump said Tuesday that the Navy struck a vessel in the southern Caribbean carrying what he described as a Venezuelan drug shipment. | ||
| He said that in the Oval Office during that presser yesterday, and then it was moments later that the Secretary of State Marco Rubio tweeted confirmation of this event, calling it a, quote, lethal strike on a vessel operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization. | ||
| So that's some of the stories there. | ||
| That's from NPR. | ||
| We take you now to the House of Representatives. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The House will be in order. | |
| The chair lays before the House a communication from the Speaker. | ||
| The Speaker's Rooms, Washington, D.C., September 3rd, 2025. |