| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
We're going to heal this world. | |
| We're going to address political violence. | ||
| And I know that brighter days are ahead for our Commonwealth and our country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks to all of you. | |
| May God bless you and may God bless this wonderful Commonwealth and country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you very, very much. | |
| Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. | ||
| Why are you doing this? | ||
| This is outrageous. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is a kangaroo. | |
| This fall, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity. | ||
| Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
| Join Political Playbook Chief Correspondent and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns as host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the aisle into a dialogue to find common ground. | ||
| Ceasefire this fall on the network that doesn't take sides, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Wisconsin Democrat Congressman Mark Pocan joins us now from Capitol Hill. | ||
| He's the chair emeritus of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. | ||
| And Congressman, I want to start in the wake of last week's shooting of Charlie Kirk. | ||
| How would you describe the political moment we find ourselves in as a country right now? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Scary, bluntly. | |
| I think, you know, the idea that political speech or political actions that somehow can be find violence in response to it is really scary. | ||
| And the fact that someone would be assassinated, like a state representative or a political commentator, whether they're on the right or the left, just isn't what this country is about. | ||
| So that is what people should talk about. | ||
| I think a lot of people are a little misguided on what the issue is right now, but no one should be afraid of expressing their political views and putting their life at risk for doing so. | ||
| So what is a congressman to do right now? | ||
| Is there legislative action? | ||
| How do you feel personally when it comes to your safety? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think there's a lot of talk about security right now. | |
| I mean, some of the security is probably more lax than it should be. | ||
| And that's true for the Supreme Court. | ||
| That's true for the executive branch and true for the legislative branch. | ||
| So I think you will see something coming out of Congress to try to make it just so that there's a little more security when you look at the Paul Pelosi incident or you look at the various incidents we've had. | ||
| Unfortunately, all too often lately, it just shows that we need to at least protect people who are serving us in government. | ||
| And I think at all levels, there's a recognition we need to do that. | ||
| Would you agree with Utah Governor Spencer Cox that social media is a cancer on this country right now? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I usually use sewer, but I'll accept cancer. | |
| I think either way, social media just allows people often too anonymously to say really idiotic, hateful things. | ||
| Yeah, I can also watch a dog jump over a couch and I can see things like that and that's good. | ||
| But where it's taken, especially with political speech, is just way too far. | ||
| I don't know if I have a quick and easy solution other than social media platforms. | ||
| Probably have to look at their overall guidance policies a little bit. | ||
| But it seems like, especially recently, some of the people who are most radicalized are radicalized by online platforms and online communities. | ||
| Should the federal government force those social media platforms to have, to take that hard look and to do something about it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, we should actually have oversight over these platforms in some way, period. | |
| I mean, there's a lot of things from what they do with our personal data. | ||
| We should have more oversight over, you know, those folks have become billionaires and we're really risking people's personal data to probably what they're doing when it comes to some areas. | ||
| But we have to remember, free speech is a foundation of the United States. | ||
| And just because you don't like something that someone says doesn't mean you can either act violently or that you can cancel them. | ||
| And right now we're seeing a lot of canceling of people in their positions for saying stupid things. | ||
| Unfortunately, or fortunately, you have a right to say stupid things, right? | ||
| I mean, that's what the law is. | ||
| And if we're going to change that, then we have to change a little bit about who we are as a nation. | ||
| But I do worry there's a slippery slope right now. | ||
| There's a member of Congress from a neighboring district of mine, Derek Van Dorden, who wants to stop funding for the entire city of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, that has 67,000 people because he misunderstood what an elder said and another elder said something he didn't like. | ||
| That's scary. | ||
| That's going beyond the normal response we should have. | ||
| And we're going to have to kind of be smarter and more adult-like in how we're dealing with this. | ||
| Some headlines from the papers today about the events from yesterday in the wake of Charlie Kirk's death. | ||
| This is the New York Times. | ||
| The White House threatens a crackdown on the far left. | ||
| A few of the other headlines, JD Vance blaming left-wing extremism when it comes to Charlie Kirk's death. | ||
| Stephen Miller talking about a vast domestic terror network and vowing to crack down on that. | ||
| What's your response? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'd say look at Paul Pelosi, look at the state rep and her husband in Minnesota. | |
| Those were Democrats. | ||
| Look, politicizing this is the only thing maybe worse right now, watching some of these people take advantage of a terrible situation where someone was assassinated for their views. | ||
| And if you do it intentionally, I think there's a special place for you maybe down the road. | ||
| But I think that is really efforts to try to change who we are as Americans and change what this country is. | ||
| And that's a dangerous, slippery slope. | ||
| And I think we're going to have to be very careful about that. | ||
| Congressman Mark Pocan with us until the top of the hour, 9 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| If you want to join the conversation, as always, here's our phone numbers: 202-748-8000 for Democrats. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202748-8002. | ||
| As folks are calling in, let me come to your appropriations committee work. | ||
| Where do you see us going over the course of the next 14 days on government funding? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so this is an incredibly disorganized, maybe Congress is the best way to describe it. | |
| The appropriations process normally is done by about June, so we can get it on the floor and vote on it before the August break. | ||
| We have only got a couple bills actually make it to the floor. | ||
| So there's a lot of work that has to happen, and we're not even close to having that where it needs to be. | ||
| Having said that, that probably means there'll be some kind of a continuing resolution. | ||
| But the Republicans are in charge. | ||
| And if they're not coming and getting our votes, and essentially they really haven't been, they're not doing anything serious to try to do that. | ||
| Look, they're in charge of the House, the Senate, and the White House. | ||
| They've got to figure this out. |