| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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Factors behind the continuing rise in poverty rates among older adults and the challenges of addressing the issue. | |
| And then STAT FDA reporter Lindsey Lawrence will discuss the recent Trump administration actions to crack down on direct-to-consumer drug advertising and the reaction from the pharmaceutical industry. | ||
| Washington Journal is next. | ||
| Join the conversation. | ||
| This is Washington Journal for Saturday, September 20th. | ||
| This week, the debate over free speech and censorship took center stage after ABC suspended late night host Jimmy Kimmel over comments he made on his show about the reaction to Charlie Kirk's assassination and the threat of a government shutdown looms after the Senate rejected dueling House Republican and Democrat short-term spending proposals. | ||
| And former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez told lawmakers she was ousted from the public health agency for refusing to pre-approve public vaccine recommendations and fire career scientists. | ||
| Those are just a few of the stories making headlines. | ||
| And for the first hour of today's program, we're asking you, what's your top news story of the week? | ||
| Here are the lines. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can text your comments to 202-748-8003. | ||
| Be sure to include your name and city. | ||
| You can also post a question or comment on Facebook at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Good morning, and thank you for being with us. | ||
| We'll get to your calls and comments in just a few moments, but wanted to start with one of those stories. | ||
| That is the debate over free speech and censorship. | ||
| This is one of the latest headlines from Politico. | ||
| It says Trump, it says, quote, it's no longer free speech. | ||
| The article saying that President Donald Trump on Friday reiterated his claim that critical television coverage of him is, quote, illegal, and pushed back on criticisms that his administration was taking actions that chill free speech. | ||
| Quote, when 97% of the stories are bad about a person, it's no longer free speech. | ||
| Trump told reporters in the Oval Office complaining about an apparent asymmetry between his victory in the 2024 election and his treatment by media organizations. | ||
| It was not immediately clear what statistics or law he was referencing. | ||
| It goes on to say Trump's comments come days after Disney indefinitely suspended the late night host Jimmy Kimmel after Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr suggested on a podcast that his agency may take regulatory action against ABC, which Disney owns. | ||
| Kimmel drew ire over his comments he made about Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist and White House ally who was shot and killed last week. | ||
| President Trump making those comments yesterday in the Oval Office. | ||
| Here is a clip. | ||
| I'm a very strong person for free speech. | ||
| At the same time, when you have networks that where I won an election, like in counties, I guess it's 2,600 to 525. | ||
| That's called landslide times 2. | ||
| When you have that kind of level of popularity or voter support, as I did in the last election, and yet 97 and 94%, different numbers, you see different numbers with different stats, but 97, 94, 95, 96% of the people are against me in the sense of the newscasts are against me. | ||
| The stories are 90%, they said 97% bad. | ||
| So they gave me 97%. | ||
| They'll take a great story and they'll make it bad. | ||
| See, I think that's really illegal, personally. | ||
| You can't have a free airwave. | ||
| You're getting free airwaves from the United States government, and you can't have that and say, and somebody that just won an election, and I had to go through this during the election, I think it's a miracle that I can win when 97% of the stories on the networks are bad or whatever it may be, whether it's 89, it doesn't matter. | ||
| It's a tremendous number. | ||
| You know it, you report it all the time, and it changes. | ||
| But when you have that kind of a negative reporting, fake negative reporting, when they take a great story and they make it into a bad story constantly, that's what they do. | ||
| Look, 60 Minutes took Kamala's answer and they threw it out and they gave her a different answer so that she sounded competent. | ||
| When things like that happen, George Slapadopoulos from your network, right? | ||
| George Slapadopoulos had to pay $16 million to me because of what he said. | ||
| And that's ABC. | ||
| You had to pay more than that. | ||
| Your network had to pay more than that. | ||
| So I think it's very sad. | ||
| But I think that reporting has to be at least accurate, at least accurate to an extent. | ||
| Again, when somebody is given 97% of the stories are bad about a person, that's no longer free speech. | ||
| That's no longer, that's just cheating. | ||
| For the first hour of today's program, we're asking you for your top news story of the week. | ||
| You can call in Democrats, the line, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll start with Ray, who's in Ithaca, New York, on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Ray. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| And I think what President Trump is referring there is just this constant trend of the media not really calling out. | ||
| The Democrats are constantly moving to the left. | ||
| You see, the Jimmy Kimball thing is the media presents this as somehow Trump shot him down, but ABC made a business decision. | ||
| Jimmy Kimball blatantly lied on what the killer's motives were, where it appears pretty obvious. | ||
| And they made a decision because of all the backlash. | ||
| You see, more and more the media just seems to excuse. | ||
| Look at how they, with Charlie Kirk, the vote yesterday in the House of Representatives, where they wouldn't, you know, if you had 55 Democrats vote, I think the percent of Democrats either voting against the resolution for Charlie Kirk or not voting. | ||
| I think President Trump is correct. | ||
| The media just kind of plays along with the Democrats, and it's not fair, and it's not reporting. | ||
| And ABC is certainly allowed to not continue to employ a person. | ||
| Free speech means that if you say something, you don't go to prison. | ||
| It doesn't mean that you have a guaranteed job at ABC. | ||
| That was Ray in New York, Dallas. | ||
| It's in Dexter, Missouri, line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Dallas, what's your top news story of the week? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have something to say about Jeffrey Epstein's life. | |
| Is it your top news story of the week, Dallas? | ||
| well it's been a stop it's been a story okay according according to what wikipedia's biography of jeffrey epstein he had at least three residences a house in new york a ranch in new mexico and an island in the ocean | ||
|
unidentified
|
The guest bedrooms and bathrooms were equipped with hidden cameras. | |
| Everything that went on in those guest bedrooms and bathrooms was videotaped and saved for blackmail purposes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Those guest videotapes likely still exist, locked away somewhere. | |
| That was Dallas in Missouri. | ||
| Tyrone is in New York, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Tyrone. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| The top news story for me is the freedom of speech situation and seeing how, which I can appreciate what Trump has shown me that this country is very vulnerable to a dictatorship because we're willing to give up our rights so that this man could stay in office. | ||
| He said that he don't want you to say nothing bad about him or you'll pay the price. | ||
| So we'll see how far down the rabbit hole this country goes before it recognizes that we're turning ourselves into a North Korea type regime where we can't say, we can't do, we can't say anything that is unpleasing to the commander-in-chief. | ||
| You know, there are more than 12 different countries where you are jailed or punished if you say something bad about their dear leader. | ||
| So we could turn into that type of country if we allow it. | ||
| And our Congress have become a toothless tiger that refuses to stand up for the people that put them in office. | ||
| And unless they do it, we're going to continue to get worse and worse and worse. | ||
| So I hope this country wake up and recognize that we're in control of what happens in this country. | ||
| And if we don't stand up, we'll get walked all over. | ||
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| There has been response to the Trump actions and the FCC's action. | ||
| This is a headline from UPI. | ||
| It says, Senate and House Democrats propose no political enemy act. | ||
| It says that Senator Chris Murphy said Senate and House Democrats are proposing legislation that they are calling the No Political Enemies Act to quell political violence. | ||
| It says that Murphy accused President Donald Trump of weaponizing the federal government to, quote, destroy political opposition in the wake of conservative activist Charlie Kirk's shooting death on September 10th while announcing the proposed NOPE Act on Thursday. | ||
| It goes on to say that the proposed NOPE Act would create a legal defense for those allegedly targeted for political reasons and provide, quote, real consequences for officials who use the power of the government to target protected speech. | ||
| Murphy explained the proposed act would also enable plaintiffs to recover attorney and legal fees when successfully defending themselves against alleged government harassment. | ||
| Senator Murphy talked about this legislation and response to the Kimmel, the alleged targeting of Jimmy Kimmel and other critics of the administration on Thursday. | ||
| Here's a clip. | ||
| The shooting of Charlie Kirk was a national tragedy. | ||
| It should have been a line in the sand, an opportunity for President Trump to bring this country together to do whatever is necessary to stamp out political violence that's targeted both Republicans and Democrats, political violence that emanates from both right-wing and left-wing radicalization. | ||
| But Trump and his lieutenants are choosing a different path. | ||
| They are choosing to exploit this tragedy to weaponize the federal government to destroy Donald Trump's political opposition. | ||
| They aren't even hiding what they are trying to do. | ||
| President Trump himself has publicly threatened to arrest members of the Soros family simply for funding groups that oppose his agenda. | ||
| Laura Loomer, maybe the most influential outside advisor to the White House, called on Trump to be a dictator and lock up and silence his political enemies. | ||
| And last night, they showed us exactly how serious they are. | ||
| Trump's FCC forced a major network to pull a loud Trump critic, Jimmy Kimmel, off the air, essentially saying that any media actor that doesn't say what Trump wants them to say about Charlie Kirk or Trump's policies is going to be silenced. | ||
| That's censorship. | ||
| That's state speech control. | ||
| That's not America. | ||
| Trump is making it 100% clear that he is going to ramp up his efforts to use the power of the federal government to harass and punish his critics, not because they're supporters of political violence, they are not, but because they have the audacity to openly oppose his policies. | ||
| This is a standard format for every budding despot. | ||
| Frank in Ohio is on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Frank, what's your top news story of the week? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yeah, basically what y'all talking about. | ||
| The way I see this is Obama, this all started when Obama come in office. | ||
| I'm 66. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I voted both ways in the past, but the last 15 years or so, 20, has been Republican. | ||
| This is why. | ||
| Democrats, okay? | ||
| Democrats are the ones that started this. | ||
| When Obama come in office, they took away Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer because it was like being bad, you know, it was harassing Rudolph. | ||
| They took away songs. | ||
| You know, the song that, honey, don't go, it's cold outside. | ||
| They took that away. | ||
| You couldn't say Merry Christmas. | ||
| You had to say season greetings. | ||
| Now, if that's not trying to take away our freedom of speech, I don't know what is. | ||
| And now, look at them now. | ||
| Now they're saying it's all Republicans trying to take away our speech, our right to say something. | ||
| No, you guys started this stuff. | ||
| Every time you guys start it, you guys flip like a fish out of water. | ||
| Just start. | ||
| Look at Maxine Water. | ||
| You know, run into the gas stations into them. | ||
| Yell and scream at them. | ||
| Run them out of your town. | ||
| If you see them in a restaurant, yell at them until they leave. | ||
| Are you all serious? | ||
| I mean, that's all I got to say. | ||
| That was Frank in Ohio. | ||
| Roy is in California on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Roy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| You know, I watch C-SPAN every day, and I'm astounded at the level of ignorance, the galactically gullible, the intellectually deficient, and the morally challenged members of the MAGA moron cult, the call-in, saying the things like the last individual said. | ||
| Just listen to Senator Murphy. | ||
| You have the number one leader of our country who this all started with him and his divisive rhetoric and nasty spewing. | ||
| Nothing could be the name calling. | ||
| He sounds like a third grader in the schoolyard, constantly calling names. | ||
| And he's the most divisive person that's ever sat in the Oval Office. | ||
| He's inept, incompetent, intellectually deficient, and he's an egomaniacal, infantile buffoon. | ||
| So he can come get me for saying bad things about him now. | ||
| You have a nice day. | ||
| That was Rory in California, Donald, Golden Valley, Arizona, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Donald. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yeah, you know, I've been thinking about this for some time, and I'm just wondering how long it's going to take Trump and his cohorts to come down on Washington Journal. | ||
| And I'd like to know how you protect the Democrats and the people who call in there that have any ill feelings about Trump, because the way he is, I don't trust that man. | ||
| I wouldn't trust him around the block. | ||
| It's just, I'll tell you, if we don't get the Congress back in the Senate, you might as well kiss his country goodbye because he's got it planned. | ||
| I guarantee you that. | ||
| And that's all I got to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Also, this week, it was the House and Senate both voting on measures to continue funding the government past the end of this month. | ||
| This is from NBC News. | ||
| It says the Senate voted Friday to block dueling Republican and Democratic proposals to keep the federal government funded on a short-term basis, raising a chance of a shutdown at the end of the month. | ||
| The Republican plan, which passed by GOP-controlled House by a vote of 217 to 212 earlier Friday, fell short of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster in the Senate. | ||
| The vote was 44 to 48, with Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, the only Democrat to vote yes, and Senators Ram Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the only Republicans voting no. | ||
| A competing Democratic plan also failed to clear the 60-vote threshold. | ||
| That vote was 47-45 along party lines, with seven senators, all Republicans, missing the vote. | ||
| It says the failures underscore the divide between the two parties and leave Congress with no clear path forward to avoid a government shutdown that is set to begin October 1st at 12.01 a.m. | ||
| Both chambers are expected to take at least part of next week off for Rosh Ashana. | ||
| It was yesterday that members of the Senate spoke about the legislation. | ||
| Here is GOP Senate Majority Whip, John Barroso, on the floor. | ||
| Senator Schumer is demanding a trillion dollars in new spending for keeping the government open for just four weeks. | ||
| He's sending billions of dollars to foreign countries, but slashing billions of dollars for rural hospitals in our own country. | ||
| Subsidizing free health care for people who refuse to get jobs, but threatening the paychecks of the people whose jobs it is to keep our nation safe. | ||
| He's demanding a far-left wish list, or else he wants to shut down the government. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's the Democrats' strategy today. | |
| Make no mistake, Republicans will hold Democrats accountable for supporting this dangerous political theater. | ||
| The good news is Congress can keep the government open and functioning without hostage-taking and without shakedowns. | ||
| Republicans clean, continuing bipartisan resolution that just passed the House with a bipartisan vote is ready to go. | ||
| Seven weeks long, it gives Republicans and Democrats on the Appropriations Committee the time they need to finish their work. | ||
| And I see the chairman of the Appropriations Committee and ranking member on the floor right now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The House passed it today, bipartisan. | |
| President says he'll sign it. | ||
| Senate Democrats voted for similar bills, not once, not twice, but 13 times when Joe Biden was president. | ||
| There's only one person standing in the way of keeping the government open, and that is the minority leader. | ||
| He has said it himself: we cannot afford hostage taking. | ||
| I would say to the minority leader: stop holding the government hostage. | ||
| Stop holding the American people hostage. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Get rid of the ransom note. | |
| Keep the government open. | ||
| The American people deserve better than a trillion-dollar shakedown. | ||
| It was also yesterday on the floor that Senator Chuck Schumer responded to Senator Barroso's comments. | ||
| Here is that clip. | ||
| I would just make one point to my good friend from Wyoming. | ||
| When we were in the majority for four years, there was not a shutdown. | ||
| Not one. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because we did what you're supposed to do: talk in a bipartisan negotiation, and each side has input. | ||
| The reason we're having a shutdown now is you and your leadership refuse to talk to Democrats and have any input and want only your imprimatur on the bill, which we believe hurts Americans badly with health care. | ||
| Never a shutdown when we are in the leadership. | ||
| So you can quote all the things you want. | ||
| We did it the right way. | ||
| You are not. | ||
| We are taking your calls on your top news story of the week. | ||
| You can give us a call. | ||
| The lines: Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Let's hear from Fernando, who's in Galveston, Texas, on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Fernando. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I have to say, I've been watching y'all's program for a little over a year. | ||
| And it seems like it's never going to stop. | ||
| But you know what? | ||
| Whether you vote for whatever you vote for, what I'm trying to say is y'all people are still lacking respect for who he is, the president of the United States. | ||
| I voted for him, and I'm proud that I did. | ||
| No matter what, if I have to change my vote next time around, I would change it for the right person. | ||
| I believe he is the right person to this date. | ||
| All he has done is done everything for the good of the people of the United States. | ||
| That's all I have to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Fernando in Texas. | ||
| Gene is in Louisville, Kentucky, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Gene. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, the city of Louisville says people in Louisville. | |
| We can't speak. | ||
| We can't say anything. | ||
| I have to call out of state like places like this to say anything that I have to say. | ||
| Be like, you know, be like, they murdered my aunt. | ||
| They murdered my aunt. | ||
| You know what I'm saying? | ||
| Be like, they murdered the news station, murdered my sister. | ||
| Be like, and nobody won't listen to me. | ||
| Nobody won't come and investigate this. | ||
| You know what I'm saying? | ||
| Y'all won't investigate. | ||
| Be like, y'all news station, y'all won't investigate this. | ||
| That was Gene in Kentucky. | ||
| Steve is in Charleston, South Carolina, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Steve. | ||
| What's your top news story of the week? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yeah, I wanted to say a word or two about this free speech issue that's come up, and it seems to be at the top of the news cycle here. | ||
| But first, I'd like to respond to something a gentleman said a while ago about the president going after C-SPAN. | ||
| I've heard C-SPAN, the folks the host on the show time and time again, turn away and hang up on people who had mean or hate speech to say from both sides and even independents. | ||
| So C-SPAN is doing their job. | ||
| You guys are doing your job at maintaining a level of dignity and decorum among callers. | ||
| So the government has no reason to step into you guys. | ||
| You guys monitor people's speech pretty well. | ||
| Okay, free speech. | ||
| Several years ago, 30 years ago, somewhat, I became a supervisor and I had to attend training with a number of other new supervisors, and a lot of topics were covered. | ||
| And during the training, the gentleman was an outside, I worked with the government, he was an outside contractor, and he said, he asked a question for everybody. | ||
| He said, what is the top priority of most companies in this country? | ||
| Well, everybody said, you know, EEO, which is a top priority, of course, safety, profit. | ||
| Everybody got the wrong answer. | ||
| He said, nope, everybody's wrong. | ||
| So he said, the number one priority for most companies is corporate image. | ||
| Well, let me tell you something. | ||
| He said, every company has an obligation to its company and its shareholders. | ||
| If you say something or do something that damages the image of the company, you're going to suffer the consequences. | ||
| Now, Jimmy Kimmel has a right to free speech. | ||
| I have a right to free speech. | ||
| You have a right to free speech. | ||
| No federal U.S. Marshal is going to haul you off and take you to a federal magistrate and put you in jail for speaking to peace. | ||
| That gives you no expectation of not suffering consequences for behaving or saying something or doing something that damages the image of the company you work for. | ||
| And that's all this is. | ||
| That's all this is. | ||
| Jimmy Kimmel's not going to jail. | ||
| You remember this despicable scene from Kathy Griffin a few years ago with a decapitated head of Trump? | ||
| Same thing. | ||
| You're not going to get away with it. | ||
| You can do that all you want. | ||
| But your company can't afford to put up with that kind of stuff. | ||
| Again, they have an obligation to the public and to their shareholders, and you're going to suffer consequences. | ||
| Now, that company, yeah, they're censoring you, but they have a right to do that. | ||
| They have every right. | ||
| I worked for a government contractor several years ago after I left the government. | ||
| And I knew right then, if our major customer was the government, if I did anything to damage our relationship for my company with the government, I knew what would happen. | ||
| They would walk in, take my badging, take my computer, and say, see you later, pal. | ||
| It's as simple as that to me, but I think they're getting off on the wrong tangent here about this free speech thing. | ||
| And that's my opinion on it. | ||
| And thanks a lot for taking the call. | ||
| That was Steve in South Carolina. | ||
| Clay is calling from Augusta, Georgia, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Clay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The first thing I want to say is the deepest condolences to the curse family. | |
| There's one thing that I wish the news organizations would do is to have a fact checker in those meetings that President Trump has. | ||
| I can understand why he sat there and don't want to have him say things that are outrageous. | ||
| I mean, it's completely a lie. | ||
| But they're not allowed to say anything. | ||
| And if you had a fact checker in there to say, President Trump, with all respect, this is not correct. | ||
| And I know you probably get thrown out. | ||
| But that's one of the problems. | ||
| And one of the things where I get awful for that young folk, please listen to that individual, President Trump, to say something over and over and over the same thing. | ||
| That is not normal. | ||
| Something is wrong there. | ||
| But the Republicans, his other people, they're not going to say anything about it. | ||
| If President Biden did it, if he had flattened us, they would have a complaint. | ||
| So that is not right. | ||
| Something is wrong. | ||
| I listened to him this morning and he said something at least five times over. | ||
| The same thing. | ||
| That is not normal. | ||
| So anyway, may God bless the United States of America and hopefully we can get our country back again to make us great again. | ||
| Thank you so very much and have a wonderful day. | ||
| That was Clay in Georgia. | ||
| Mike is calling from Minnesota on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Mike. | ||
| Mike, say the name of your town for me, your city. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm in Brainerd, Minnesota. | |
| Okay, I have a lake's name, and I don't know how to say it on the screen. | ||
| But go ahead. | ||
| There you go. | ||
| Okay, thank you. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| What's your top news story? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'd just like to comment on how clear it is to me when I heard Charlie Kirk speak every time he spoke. | |
| It was very, very clear to me that he was so easy to understand. | ||
| He's a family man. | ||
| He's a man of God. | ||
| He's serving for our country in all positive ways. | ||
| And I just can't understand how people can't see that. | ||
| It just is very, very, it's unbelievable to me with the way this left is going. | ||
| It just seems very easy to me that Donald, President Donald Trump loves our country. | ||
| And one of his right-hand men for getting elected was Charlie Kirk. | ||
| And I just think it's a beautiful thing. | ||
| And just let him run this country, folks. | ||
| He's the best thing that's ever happened to our country. | ||
| He's the most transparent. | ||
| He's the most honest. | ||
| And I think you better look at his stats and what he's done for this country. | ||
| He didn't need this job. | ||
| He didn't need the recognition. | ||
| He didn't need the power. | ||
| And he certainly didn't need the money. | ||
| He stood it because he loves our country. | ||
| Please give him a chance, you guys, and quit riding him. | ||
| Get off his back and let him do his job. | ||
| God bless America. | ||
| That was Mike in Minnesota. | ||
| Another story from this week. | ||
| This is from The Hill. | ||
| It says Senator Rand Paul, that he's a Republican in Kentucky, got into a heated exchange about vaccines with former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez. | ||
| During a Wednesday hearing about Monarez's ouster from the agency, Grilled Paul grilled her about the efficiency of effects, I'm sorry, efficiency of COVID-19 vaccines and the need for newborns to get a hepatitis B shot. | ||
| From that hearing on Wednesday, here's a clip of that exchange. | ||
| So you resisted firing people who have this idea that the COVID vaccine should be at six months. | ||
| That's what this is about. | ||
| You didn't resist firing the beautiful, the perfect, beautiful scientists that are career people and unobjective and unbiased. | ||
| You wouldn't fire the people who are saying that we have to vaccinate our kids at six months of age. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's who you refuse to fire. | |
| So that assertion is not commensurate with the experience that I had with the individuals who are identified to be fired. | ||
| Did any of the people you refused to fire, did any of the people you did? | ||
| Any of the people you refused to fire believe that we should change the vaccine schedule and no longer force six-month-old kids to take it? | ||
| Every one of them was adamant we should keep it at six months. | ||
| Everybody's alarmed, we're going to change the childhood routine. | ||
| Well, we should. | ||
| There is no medical reason. | ||
| What is the medical reason to give a hepatitis B vaccine to a newborn whose mom has no hepatitis? | ||
| So none of the discussion points that you just brought up were ever that's changing the childhood schedule. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The change of your child order answer regular order, regular time. | |
| You have your time, Bernie. | ||
| I got mine. | ||
| Look, this is the debate over changing the childhood schedule. | ||
| The hepatitis B vaccine on the schedule is given to newborns. | ||
| What is the medical scientific reason and proof for giving a newborn a hepatitis B vaccine if the mom is hep B negative? | ||
| I want to go back to the assertion associated. | ||
| What is the medical reason for giving a hepatitis B vaccine to a newborn? | ||
| See, everybody's like blithely going along. | ||
| We can't change the childhood. | ||
| You're somehow terrible if you want to change the childhood. | ||
| We should be discussing what is the childhood vaccine schedule, and you should be, the burden should be on you. | ||
| You want to make all the kids take this? | ||
| The burden is upon you and the people you wouldn't fire to prove to us that we need to give our six-month-old a COVID vaccine and that we need to give our one-day old a hepatitis B vaccine. | ||
| That's what the debate ought to be about, not whether all vaccines are good or whether we live in Alice in the Wonderland. | ||
| We are about halfway through this first hour taking your calls on your top news story of the week. | ||
| And just a reminder, you can also join in by sending us a text. | ||
| You can send that text to 202-748-8003. | ||
| Be sure to include your name and city, or you can post a question, or you can post a comment on Facebook, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| This text coming in from Bird, a Republican in Virginia, saying his top news story is the Charlie Kirk assassination and all the related fallout from this tragic incident continues to rule the news cycle. | ||
| Even the highly patented, usually reliable government shutdown bill vote made little noise and failed to produce any of that quote sky is falling type fear. | ||
| Let's hear from Michael, who's in Stanford, Connecticut, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Michael. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I think the biggest story is Trump with this First Amendment stuff. | ||
| Here he's in the Oval Office saying 97% of the news about him is bad. | ||
| Well, if it was good news about him, maybe they would report that. | ||
| And when you listen to these right-wing stations that are reporting Trump, it's insane. | ||
| What they're saying, they have to be, it's all shtick. | ||
| They're not giving you any news. | ||
| Now, are people going to start coming over if you say something bad about Trump with a mask on and drag you in? | ||
| What's going on? | ||
| Where is he taking this? | ||
| He's not a king. | ||
| You know, in the end, kings, what happens with them? | ||
| They get their heads cut off. | ||
| And I think this has just gone way too far. | ||
| And all you Republicans, if you're going along with this, this is nuts. | ||
| You know, he's going to come for you next. | ||
| There's no stopping him. | ||
| This is what happens when you have an idiot in charge. | ||
| And all these people around him are not the best people. | ||
| They're the worst people. | ||
| He wants to change vaccines and the tariffs. | ||
| Who's that helping? | ||
| Every pr the price of everything is going up and up and up. | ||
| Oh, this is great. | ||
| First day I'm going to bring prices down on everything. | ||
| I'm going to stop the war. | ||
| How could he do there? | ||
| Really? | ||
| Tell me, any Republican, when did Trump say tell the truth about anything? | ||
| He's a liar. | ||
| He's always been a liar. | ||
| He's a crook. | ||
| He's a thief. | ||
| And he's not that bright. | ||
| That was Michael in Connecticut. | ||
| Carla is in Illinois on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Carla. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, it's almost, I don't need to say anything. | |
| I think that gentleman just said it all. | ||
| When I listened to a freedom of speech, I'm an educator, an administrative educator, and we're being head to the Department of Education by someone who doesn't even have an educational degree. | ||
| The CDC is over someone who doesn't have a medical degree. | ||
| I listened to this gentleman over and said that Trump is just doing wonderful things for this world. | ||
| Really? | ||
| Well, what has he done? | ||
| So if you believe in hate, you know, we're going to revolutionize the country because somebody believes in hate. | ||
| That guy preached hate the entire time he was here. | ||
| Martin Luther King preached peace. | ||
| The two people in Minnesota died. | ||
| Did we fly the flags at half-step? | ||
| I don't believe we did. | ||
| But this guy, we're going to make him a saint. | ||
| He is spoiling the country. | ||
| He was dividing the country. | ||
| Trump is, this gentleman was right before. | ||
| He is a liar. | ||
| And it doesn't seem to matter to the Republicans that he lies. | ||
| If you all recall, Miss, and I'll let it go, when President Obama said something on the floor, a Republican stood up and said, you lie, which was, no one had ever done that to a president. | ||
| It went unnoticed. | ||
| Yet, Trump lies daily. | ||
| When are we going to say enough is enough? | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| That was Carla in Illinois. | ||
| Bob is calling from Martinsville, Virginia, on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Bob. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I am celebrating as a black man my 30th anniversary as a Republican, and I'm perfectly happy with that. | ||
| I would like to also make the point as a former media person who ran a department in Alexandria, Virginia. | ||
| One of the things I had to implore upon the people I worked with is the First Amendment. | ||
| There's a lot of talk about the First Amendment, and it's 27 words. | ||
| It's fairly simple. | ||
| And if I may paraphrase, it says, Congress will pass no law abridging freedom of speech. | ||
| Jimmy Kimmel was not run off the air by Congress or any kind of law that Congress wrote. | ||
| And if I can cite two quick examples, in 2006, ABC had a special called, or it was a document, called The Path to 9-11. | ||
| The Clinton administration didn't like certain scenes in it. | ||
| Democrats pressured Bob Iger over at ABC to edit some of the what they considered offending scenes out. | ||
| I think that would be an abridging of freedom of speech. | ||
| And when it came to Roseanne Barr, Valerie Jarrett talked to Bob Iger about the tweet and got Roseanne Barr kicked off the air. | ||
| That is direct government interference. | ||
| No one from the Trump administration called ABC about Jimmy Kimmel. | ||
| Big difference. | ||
| And that's all I really want to say. | ||
| But the whole thing about First Amendment, people should actually take the time to read those 27 words before they start talking about freedom of speech being squelched when you have to read what is in the First Amendment to see if what they're saying is really true. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Bob in Virginia. | ||
| Marilyn is calling from Savannah, Georgia on the line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Marilyn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, good morning. | |
| Good morning, and thanks for having me. | ||
| Go ahead, Marilyn. | ||
| You're on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| As a proud black woman, I do agree with President Trump about the news being a liar. | ||
| For so many years, so many years, the white media has lied on MLK, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvin, Khalid Muhammad, and yes, Minister Farrakhan. | ||
| So now Trump and the Republican Party, now they see exactly what black people have went through and felt for so many years about the media, white media, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and all those white media is lying on black people and destroying the lives of black people for so many years. | ||
| So thank you for having me. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| That was Marilyn, or that was Marilyn in Georgia. | ||
| Jeanette is calling from Fargo, North Dakota, on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Jeanette. | ||
| What's your top news story of the week? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What a joy to call your station. | |
| I enjoy C-SPAN so much. | ||
| I watched the tech and industry seminar with Senator Dave McCormick, Jonathan Martin from Politico. | ||
| It was a fantastic show about the impact of energy expansion. | ||
| It was about South Korea shipbuilding. | ||
| It was about the U.S. steel with Nippon and looking at industry. | ||
| It was a phenomenal show. | ||
| I've not seen anything else about it in any of the newspapers. | ||
| So, C-SPAN, you are the number one place where I can come to for news. | ||
| Now, I do a lot of reading and lots of political books. | ||
| It seems to me, I read, I can't find it, and maybe you can. | ||
| Joe Biden had this great point of in Pennsylvania. | ||
| He had a, oh, it's called the Biden Center, and it was at one of the universities. | ||
| It was financed, I read, someplace, $21 million that came from China. | ||
| And I can't find it. | ||
| But it seems to me that when he finally became president, there was a whole lot of deals made that helped China. | ||
| We had a lot of things going on in the U.S. | ||
| We were energy independent in 2020. | ||
| What's that been going on? | ||
| Right here in North Dakota, we've had turbines, wind turbines that were shipped all over the U.S. | ||
| And eventually a lot of that stuff went over to China. | ||
| Now we're coming back. | ||
| We've got data centers here. | ||
| One is just getting going here in a place called Ellendale. | ||
| It's a phenomenal facility. | ||
| We've got another one that's going up here north of Fargo. | ||
| It'll probably take maybe two years. | ||
| But again, phenomenal. | ||
| We got Microsoft here. | ||
| We got energy here. | ||
| We have got so much going on in North Dakota as well as across our country because we finally got a businessman in the White House who understands the way to get business done. | ||
| You got to get out of the way. | ||
| And Doug Bergham from our state is with the Secretary of the Interior. | ||
| And we're looking at reducing the time it takes to get a permit. | ||
| It used to be two years. | ||
| Now it's going to get whittled down to about six months. | ||
| It's so fantastic as we're just booming. | ||
| And like the guy from Minnesota said, thank goodness for him, get out of the way. | ||
| Like Leah Colka said, either be with us or get out of the way because we are coming through. | ||
| We're on track and this economy is going to boom. | ||
| What do you think about that? | ||
| That was Jeanette in North Dakota. | ||
| Another story of several people this morning talking about the FCC and the issues with freedom of speech. | ||
| This is from CNBC. | ||
| It says Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr on Thursday that ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel appeared to, quote, mislead the American public about facts regarding conservative activist Charlie Cook's killing in the days leading up to his show's suspension. | ||
| It says Carr also told CNBC's squawk on the street that, quote, we're not done yet with the changes in the media ecosystem, that there are consequences of President Donald Trump's election last fall. | ||
| ABC on Wednesday night said it was pulling Jimmy Kimmel live off the air indefinitely because of the host comments, which linked Kirk's alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, to Trump's Make America Great Again movement. | ||
| It was those comments, it was that interview on Thursday on CNBC. | ||
| Here is a clip. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I had asked earlier about Fallon and Seth Meyers, but is the president's view that they should also be taken off the air shared by the FCC? | |
| Well, yeah, I don't speak for the president, so obviously, you know, he speaks for himself on that. | ||
| Our goal and our obligation here is to make sure that broadcasters are serving the public interest. | ||
| And if there's local TV stations that don't think that running that programming does it, then they have every right under the law and their contracts to preempt it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And we'll see how this plays out. | |
| But I do think that, again, we are in the midst of a massive shift in dynamics in the media ecosystem for lots of reasons. | ||
| Again, including the permission structure that President Trump's election has provided. | ||
| And I would simply say we're not done yet with seeing the consequences of that shift. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, what does that mean when you say you're not done yet then? | |
| I mean, will you only be pleased when none of these comedians have a show on broadcast television? | ||
| No, it's not about any particular show or any particular person. | ||
| It's just we're in the midst of a very disruptive moment right now. | ||
| And I just frankly expect that we're going to continue to see changes in the media ecosystem. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Chair Carr, I'm not sure I want to do this or not, but should the government have someone who reviews the writers before the host says something? | |
| No. | ||
| How would you be sure that the host is saying something that you would think is okay? | ||
| That's not my, it's not up to me. | ||
| The way this works is that the local broadcast station is supposed to be responsible for the content. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So the check on that content is not the government. | |
| It's not me here at the FCC. | ||
| It's your local TV station in Provo, Utah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's your local TV station in Scranton. | |
| It's on them under the law. | ||
| They're responsible for the content. | ||
| They're responsible for judging whether they think it's in the public interest or serves the needs of their local communities. | ||
| Not for me to decide, but I'm very pleased that they feel empowered to stand up to Disney and Comcast in the appropriate cases. | ||
| House Democratic leadership responding to those comments on Thursday saying Brendan Carr, the so-called chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has engaged in the corrupt abuse of power. | ||
| He has disgraced the office he holds by bullying ABC in the employer of Jimmy Kimmel and forcing the company to bend to the knee of the Trump administration. | ||
| FCC Chair Brendan Carr should have resigned immediately. | ||
| Donald Trump and the Republican Party's war on the First Amendment is blatantly inconsistent with American values. | ||
| Media companies such as the one that suspended Mr. Kimmel have a lot to explain. | ||
| The censoring of artists and cancellation of shows is an act of cowardice. | ||
| It may also be part of a corrupt pay-to-play scheme. | ||
| House Democrats will make sure the American people learn the truth, even if that requires the relentless unleashing of congressional subpoena power. | ||
| This will not be forgotten. | ||
| Just a little under 15 minutes left in this first hour of Washington Journal asking for your top news story of the week. | ||
| Let's hear from Barry in Dundee, New York, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Barry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I can't see you on the TV. | |
| Oh, there you are. | ||
| Hi, Barry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I'm going to turn this up just a minute. | |
| No, don't turn it. | ||
| Listen, listen through the phone, Barry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Barry, Barry, you got to turn the television down. | ||
| Just talk through your phone. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hi, I'm Independent. | ||
| Listen through the phone, Barry. | ||
| Okay, I've never voted. | ||
| I've never turned the television down. | ||
| Just talk to your phone. | ||
| Barry, I think you're confusing yourself. | ||
| Go ahead and give us the call back when you have that television down in the background. | ||
| Let's hear from Lloyd in West Virginia, line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Lloyd. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| I'd just like to say, you know, this thing of Jimmy Kimmel, I mean, he knows right and wrong, right? | ||
| So he didn't show any respect for Charlie Kirk's family. | ||
| I mean, right after the man got killed. | ||
| And that's kind of pathetic, in my opinion. | ||
| I mean, he's got little children there involved. | ||
| And a woman who's mourning. | ||
| And if that's the kind of person he is, he deserves to be kicked off the air. | ||
| I mean, if he's got personal opinions, he ought to say them where nobody else hears them. | ||
| Not up on the air where the whole world can hear it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And like old Rodney Dangerfield said, it's just a lack of respect everywhere with everything. | |
| And Democrats, they're on here talking. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're all a bunch of Trump haters. | |
| That's all it's about. | ||
| And the Democrats, they want everybody to come together, but yet they got as much hate as anybody I ever heard. | ||
| That was Lloyd in West Virginia. | ||
| And just remember to our callers: if you are calling in, make sure that that television is down in the background. | ||
| Once you talk with our call screener, you just need to listen through the phone. | ||
| Keep the television down. | ||
| It's distracting to our audience, the host as well. | ||
| Let's hear from Ed in Pleasant Valley, New York, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Ed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| You know, this division we have in this country, and it's the weekly news. | ||
| This all started 10 years ago, and the person that started it was Hillary Clinton. | ||
| And the cronies that were involved with her from the FBI, CIA, and all. | ||
| And people out there obviously don't pay attention to what's going on. | ||
| Trump made his biggest mistake in his first election. | ||
| He should have had her brought on charges for what they did to him. | ||
| And as far as I'm concerned, the division in this country right now with all the Nazi stuff, it all came from one person, Hillary Clinton. | ||
| And God, she lives in my state. | ||
| And you know why she's in this state? | ||
| Because there are three-quarters of Democrats here, and that's the only way she can survive. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's all I have to say. | ||
| That was Ed in New York. | ||
| Michelle is in Ridgewood, New York, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Michelle. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm really very confused about what did Jimmy Kimmel say that was negative about Charlie Kirk? | ||
| He didn't say anything negative about Charlie Kirk. | ||
| The whole clip is not shown. | ||
| I think what Trump took offense to was that a reporter asked him during one of his back and forth with reporters how he was doing since Charlie Kirk was murdered. | ||
| And he said, okay. | ||
| And then he started talking about the fabulous ball room that is being built in D.C. | ||
| That was just weird. | ||
| I mean, the reporter is asking how he's doing. | ||
| He says, I'm doing fine. | ||
| And then he goes on and talks about the ballroom. | ||
| I don't understand what Jimmy Kimmel said negative about Charlie Kirk. | ||
| And the other thing I don't understand is why is this man being canonized? | ||
| What happened to him is terrible. | ||
| What happened to his wife and family and children is terrible. | ||
| But he sprouted some really negative, decisive things. | ||
| And I guess I was very confused about the big hoopla about Jimmy Kimmel and why Kirk is being so put up as a saint about what he talked about. | ||
| That was Michelle in New York. | ||
| Kay is in Lake Linden, Michigan, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Kay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I was just wondering if maybe somebody could show a chart with Jimmy Kimmel's ratings over the last maybe 10 years. | ||
| That would be a good show of whether or not he deserved to be fired. | ||
| And maybe we could show a clip of when he went out on the street interviewing women, having them stick their hands in his pocket to see if they can guess what they can feel in his pocket. | ||
| Because he's a sick pig, and that's why he got fired. | ||
| So, anyways, have a great day. | ||
| That was Kay in Michigan. | ||
| Another story from this week. | ||
| This is from Axios. | ||
| FBI Director Kash Patel said he never spoke, said he's never spoken to President Trump about the Jeffrey Epstein files during congressional testimony on Wednesday. | ||
| It says that Patel on Wednesday told Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California, that Trump was never an FBI informant in the Epstein case. | ||
| The story also says Patel also told Representative Zoe Lofgern, another Democrat of California, that he didn't know how many times Trump's name appeared in the Epstein files. | ||
| Here is a clip of that questioning with Representative Zoe Lofgren on Wednesday. | ||
| How many times did President Trump's name appear in the Epstein files? | ||
| Was it more than 100, more than 1,000? | ||
| Were the agents who were pulled from their duties to redact the president's name from the Epstein files working on criminal cases or national security cases or child sex trafficking cases? | ||
| And are the number of agents that have been reported diverted for these purposes? | ||
| Is that accurate? | ||
| No. | ||
| No, what? | ||
| You asked if it was accurate. | ||
| I said it wasn't. | ||
| So you're saying that none of this happened? | ||
| No, I'm saying it was inaccurate. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| How many times did President Numps appear in the Epstein files? | ||
| More than 100, more than 1,000? | ||
| No, and what we've been able to release is what we've been legally able to release. | ||
| No, that's not the question. | ||
| I asked you, how many times did the president's name appear? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| It's your testimony. | ||
| You do not know that answer. | ||
| A number of times? | ||
| No. | ||
| Could you tell us how many agents were diverted for this task and what they were working on? | ||
| When you say diverted, you make it seem as if agents were pulled off what they do all the time. | ||
| Agents at the FBI masterfully do double duty and triple duty. | ||
| And because of the public's interest in this case, we flex resources to make sure that we could answer the public signal demand. | ||
| So do you want us to look through the material and provide it to you, or you do not want us to do that? | ||
| So it's your testimony that no one was diverted from a criminal matter, that this was a top priority to go through this material to look for Mr. Trump's name. | ||
| Is that your testimony that's the highest priority for the FBI? | ||
| What's one of the most impressive things about the FBI leadership and the careers that are in place is that they make the decisions on who to send where on priorities and make sure the mission needs are not hurt. | ||
| And that's what happened here. | ||
| It's shocking to me that the FBI would think that erasing Mr. Trump's name from the Epstein files is a high priority when we have crime, we have national security threats, we have terrorism threats, we have murders such as that that occur, unfortunately, with Mr. Kirk. | ||
| It's shocking to hear that that's your highest priority. | ||
| And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield not what I said. | ||
| That hearing, as well as Kash Patel's hearing on Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, are on C-SPAN's website, as well as other hearings we covered this week. | ||
| You can find them online at c-span.org. | ||
| Let's hear from Mike in Stockton, California, Line for Independence. | ||
| Hi, Mike. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning, C-SPAN host and audience. | ||
| I want to just make a few points if I can. | ||
| I'll try to make them quick. | ||
| And I'm going to summarize back when Reagan was president and he gave those big tax breaks. | ||
| Right afterwards, it appeared to me that factories closed down all across America, moved overseas. | ||
| And everything happened after that. | ||
| At the same time, things got so bad, a new type of crime happened, and I called it pirates in cars. | ||
| It ended up being, they called it carjacking. | ||
| But before this, it never happened before. | ||
| So now, Trump, when he gives these tax breaks, you better believe new crimes are going to happen because it's going to put such a strain on people. | ||
| They can't handle it. | ||
| The average American just can't handle. | ||
| So now, what we're in, to me, is, I would say, biblical times. | ||
| Right out of the Bible, you have a clarion call, a battle cry. | ||
| In 2050, whites will be the minority. | ||
| 90%, 90% go into that and be with the, we're in trouble. | ||
| But on all the other topics, like, you can name a million of them, they're divided. | ||
| But one thing about, just by saying that, but you need, I wish C-SPAN would have a, let people call in and say, what do they feel about that? | ||
| And see how the difference of the comments you get. | ||
| Almost every minority, that don't mean nothing. | ||
| But to white, that's everything in the world in 2050. | ||
| It's like the that was Mike in California. | ||
| And our last call for this first hour is Dawn in Grand Blanc, Michigan, Lying for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Don. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, C-SFAN. | |
| Good morning to American people. | ||
| Jimmy Kimball getting fired is definitely an attack on the First Amendment. | ||
| Now, Fox News was sued for $700 million for telling American people lies. | ||
| And we keep them on their ear. | ||
| Come on, give me a break. | ||
| This Trump administration with these loyalists that do not care about the Constitution lead the wake up. | ||
| We are heading down a slippery slope that is going to be very hard to get out of. | ||
| This Trump administration is a disgrace to America, and people that support him are crapping on the Constitution and veterans that serve this country. | ||
| Trump supporters are a disgrace to America. | ||
| Have a great day. | ||
| That was Don in Michigan. | ||
| Our last caller for this first hour of Washington Journal. | ||
| Later this morning, STAT FDA reporter Lizzie Lawrence will join us to discuss recent Trump administration actions to crack down on direct-to-consumer drug advertising and reaction from the medical and pharmaceutical industry. | ||
| But next, after the break, we'll talk with National Council on Aging President and CEO Ramsey Alwyn about the factors behind the continuing rise in poverty rate among older adults and the challenges of addressing those issues. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Book TV, every Sunday on C-SPAN 2, features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. | |
| Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend. | ||
| At 3:45 p.m. Eastern, investigative reporter Shoshana Walter examines the for-profit drug rehabilitation treatment industry and argues that it fails to help people suffering from opioid addiction. | ||
| Then at 9 p.m. Eastern, author Misty Haginess talks about her concept of Swiftenomics, a case study of famous women, including Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and Madonna, who she claims have managed to thrive in a society largely built for men. | ||
| And at 10.15 p.m. Eastern, Washington Times legal affairs reporter Alex Sawyer argues the justice system has been politicized and the criminal trials Donald Trump faced during the 2024 presidential campaign were biased. | ||
| Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule in your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org. | ||
| Sunday night on C-SPAN's Q&A. | ||
| White House trade advisor Peter Navarro went to prison in 2024, convicted of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the January 6th Committee after being found guilty on two counts. | ||
| In his new book, I Went to Prison So You Won't Have To, Peter Navarro lays out the Justice Department's case, his arrest and trial, and what it was like for him behind bars. | ||
| People think you're in a dorm rather than a cell. | ||
| It's like everybody told me there that they'd rather be in a cell because you only have to worry about one other guy. | ||
| You know, there's a thing called the lock, lock in the sock, right? | ||
| You take a padlock, you throw it in the sock, and a lot of rough justice goes on like that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
White House trade advisor and author Peter Navarro, Sunday night at 8 Eastern on C-SPAN's QA. | |
| You can listen to Q&A wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| America marks 250 years, and C-SPAN is there to commemorate every moment. | ||
| From the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the voices shaping our nation's future, we bring you unprecedented all-platform coverage, exploring the stories, sights, and spirit that make up America. | ||
| Join us for remarkable coast-to-coast coverage, celebrating our nation's journey like no other network can. | ||
| America 250. | ||
| Over a year of historic moments. | ||
| only on the C-SPAN networks. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss factors behind the continuing rise in poverty rate among older adults and the challenges of addressing those issues is National Council on Aging President and CEO Ramsey Alwyn. | ||
| Ramsey, thank you so much for being with us this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for having me. | |
| We'll start with you have having you tell us about your organization, the mission, what you focus on, and who you work with. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Fabulous. | |
| Well, thank you. | ||
| The National Council on Aging is the oldest long-standing national nonpartisan nonprofit working on issues related to the health and economic security of older adults. | ||
| We believe aging well should be a right, not a privilege. | ||
| Everyone should have the right to age well. | ||
| And this year, actually, we are celebrating our 75th year of impact, 75 years of doing just that, improving the health and economic security of millions of older adults. | ||
| And one of those issues is their well-being and finances. | ||
| The U.S. Census Bureau recently released new information from 2024. | ||
| It shows that while there was a slight drop in the overall poverty rate, one group, older Americans, that poverty rate increased. | ||
| Why are more seniors falling into poverty? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Well, the trend is extremely alarming. | ||
| However, not surprising to us. | ||
| We work with thousands of community-based organizations and older adults themselves across the country every day to help individuals with job training and job placement, enroll in programs that can help with basic costs like food and medicine, navigate their chronic conditions, get connected to social services in their community to stay healthy and independent. | ||
| And what we find is that it's increasingly difficult for older adults to age well with health and economic security. | ||
| The challenge is we're living longer. | ||
| It's a wonderful gift, wonderful gift. | ||
| However, financing those additional years can be extremely challenging with the rising cost of health and other basic costs like food and transportation. | ||
| So this year's census data did not surprise us, but what's particularly alarming is that we've gone from 10% to 14% to now 15% of older adults aging into poverty. | ||
| That's over 9 million older adults scraping by. | ||
| So those golden years are not so golden for far too many. | ||
| And we hear this term poverty. | ||
| Explain exactly what that means and how it's measured. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure, sure. | |
| So the traditional federal poverty measure is important because it guides so much of our policy and the allocation of resources. | ||
| But that federal poverty measure was built in the 1960s by a woman named Molly Orshansky. | ||
| At that point in the 60s, food was about a third of our budget. | ||
| And so the whole federal poverty measure was anchored on the concept of food being a third of your budget. | ||
| At that time, she used the most recent census data, which came from the 1950s, to calibrate the federal poverty measure in the 60s. | ||
| Every year since, it's only been updated based on cost of living adjustments. | ||
| So, that federal poverty measure is a measure of true deprivation, and that's about $15,600 annually this year. | ||
| So, at that level, you must be dirt poor in order to be identified as in poverty. | ||
| The supplemental poverty, which we prefer to utilize, is a much more robust understanding of the challenges people face. | ||
| And that tool takes into account housing and health care costs. | ||
| And that's the number that was just released from census that demonstrates 15% of older adults are struggling. | ||
| And we want to show those numbers. | ||
| The official poverty measure came in at 9.9% for those 65 and older. | ||
| The supplemental poverty measure is 15%. | ||
| You just said that you prefer to use that 15%. | ||
| Why are they still calculating two different measures instead of just focusing on one? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, that's a great question. | |
| The federal poverty measure is really anchored in our approach to policy because of the long-standing history of the federal poverty measure. | ||
| It is hardwired into how Congress allocates resources to states and to communities. | ||
| It is used to determine eligibility for so many of the programs that can help with the cost of Medicare, with job training programs, food assistance programs. | ||
| So the federal poverty measure, although extremely outdated and a sign of deprivation, it is really baked into so much of our policy. | ||
| Now, it's promising that the U.S. Census Bureau and other policymakers are beginning to use this more nuanced tool, the supplemental poverty measure, but we'd have to see policymakers make some significant changes in order for that measure to really get baked into so many of the policies and the eligibility requirements of programs. | ||
| Our guest for the next 35 minutes or so is Ramsey Alwyn, the president and CEO of the National Council on Aging. | ||
| She's joined us for a discussion on the factors behind the continued rise in poverty rates among older Americans. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for her, you can call in now. | ||
| The lines for this segment are broken down a little bit differently. | ||
| If you are 64 and under, your line 202-748-8000. | ||
| If you are 65 and over, your line is 202-748-8001. | ||
| And if you are one of those older Americans who's also living below the poverty line, there's a special line for you. | ||
| It's 202-748-8002. | ||
| And as our guest Ramsey noted, the current poverty level for 2025 is $15,650. | ||
| Ramsey wanted to talk about, you talked about the number, you hear 15%, but that factors, that translates into about 9 million older Americans. | ||
| What impact is that having on families and caregivers for those 9 million older adults? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Well, for so many struggling to get by, we do often rely on families to help us. | ||
| And the challenge is, as we are living longer, the average 65-year-old today is likely to live two or three more decades. | ||
| It's incredible, but there's cost to that. | ||
| The reality is 30 years of work can't possibly finance two or three decades without work. | ||
| And so often we're leaning on family to help us with some of those challenges. | ||
| For so many, they make assumptions about Medicare, but it's not free. | ||
| So once they're in the thick of it and they're beginning to understand the true cost, it can be hundreds of dollars a month. | ||
| And often coming up short with Social Security means leaning on others for some additional support, thinking about going back to work. | ||
| And so there can be a whole ripple effect in terms of the impact of the major costs that drive us in old age. | ||
| And wanted to, you mentioned that we've seen an uptick in the recent years. | ||
| When did we start seeing this increase? | ||
| How has it changed over a longer period of time? | ||
| And talk about what happened during the pandemic. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Well, what's really interesting is this supplemental poverty measure, because it is more nuanced, taking into account the cost of housing and health care, we can better understand how policy levers and programs that can help do make a difference. | ||
| So actually during the pandemic, there were programs that were expanded. | ||
| Access to SNAP or food stamps was expanded. | ||
| The benefit was made more generous, which went a long way for individuals that were coming up short in terms of getting access to healthy foods that could help them navigate maybe their chronic conditions or other health issues. | ||
| During the pandemic, the expansion of some of those programs, Medicaid and SNAP and others, went a long way. | ||
| And we saw that in the supplemental poverty measure. | ||
| So poverty came down among older adults when those programs were available. | ||
| As those programs have shrunk back to become more limited and more challenging to access with smaller benefits available, thus we've seen a rise from 10% to 14% to now 15%. | ||
| So it shows us policy can make a difference. | ||
| And you just talked about some of those programs, SNAP and Medicaid, and how they've changed over time. | ||
| There were recently cuts and reductions to those programs. | ||
| How could that impact what we're already seeing with older adults in that poverty line? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Well, for older adults coming up short, a program like SNAP can go a long way. | ||
| But with new work requirements for individuals 50 to 64, it's going to become more challenging for individuals to access that benefit of SNAP as well as Medicaid. | ||
| Additionally, there are cuts to Medicaid that are going to have significant consequences on older adults themselves as well as their families. | ||
| Medicaid largely supports access to long-term services and supports in the nursing home, but also in home with home and community-based services. | ||
| The bottom line is we already have waiting lists today for Medicaid services. | ||
| And the deep cuts to Medicaid are going to make those wait lists grow. | ||
| That's going to have implications for families, for caregivers that are sandwiched with older loved ones, younger loved ones having to take time off work to provide service and support that keeps their older adult in their home. | ||
| It's going to have quite a ripple effect, especially for the middle class. | ||
| And we're just beginning to see what that will look like. | ||
| We have callers waiting to talk with you. | ||
| We'll start with Joseph, who's in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on the line for 65 and over. | ||
| Good morning, Joseph. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| This whole thing about the poverty rate has been brewing since the 1990s. | ||
| I was in the Marine Corps, and when Clinton forced me to retire early, Congress wanted me to pay back any money that they paid me to retire early. | ||
| So that cut into my budget. | ||
| When I turned 60, there was the pandemic going on so that All of the contributions to Social Security and stuff were cut off because people weren't working. | ||
| Now that I'm over 65, you see different things that were supposed to be set up for me being messed up because so many people have been fired and there have been mistakes made like sending me my medication and stuff. | ||
| I had to go to the VA to get my medication because express scripts wouldn't send it. | ||
| I mean, it's ridiculous, all the stuff that happens, and nobody pays attention to it because you can call somebody and they will hang up on you. | ||
| They will, you have a, the phone will go blank. | ||
| They don't want to talk to you. | ||
| They would keep you on the phone for an hour and then they won't resolve nothing. | ||
| So that's the kind of stuff that happens to older Americans, too. | ||
| Well, first, I just want to share: I hear you, and you're not alone. | ||
| There are many that are struggling to make ends meet. | ||
| I mean, we're talking about the federal poverty measure, the supplemental poverty measure. | ||
| At the National Council on Aging, we prefer to use a different tool called the Elder Index. | ||
| The Elder Index was created by the Gerontology Institute at University of Massachusetts Boston, and it looks at the true cost of aging in America. | ||
| And according to the Elder Index, the true cost of aging in America is more like $36,000 a year over double the federal poverty measure. | ||
| And when we look at typical forms of income in old age, like Social Security, it only provides about two-thirds of what it takes to truly meet your basic needs. | ||
| So it's virtually impossible for so many. | ||
| And when you're trying to find supports and services that can help make life a little bit more affordable, it's not easy. | ||
| It is not easy. | ||
| It's very challenging. | ||
| There are different programs and service organizations, but you need to be able to navigate them. | ||
| Now, at the National Council on Aging, we're working to fix that. | ||
| And we're working to make it easier for individuals to access the programs that can help them close the gap between the true cost of living and the income they may have. | ||
| I'd encourage you to take a look at benefitscheckup.org. | ||
| Benefitscheckup.org is our free website. | ||
| If you put a little bit of information in there anonymously, we can help you identify the programs you might be eligible for and point you in the right direction so you can go directly to the organization that can help you. | ||
| Often there are hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars of programs that are left on the table when it comes to Medicare affordability, food assistance, transportation, property taxes, and benefits checkup can help you learn more. | ||
| Ramsey, the benefits checkup, is this the same as the benefits participation map that is on your website? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So thanks for asking. | |
| The benefits participation map is a resource we've made available that looks at the number of individuals eligible for programs but not yet enrolled. | ||
| So programs like the Medicare Savings Program, not known by many, but an important program that can help you with Medicare premiums, co-pays, and out-of-pockets, is a program that older adults can enroll in, but they need to know that it's out there. | ||
| They need to know where to go to get support. | ||
| They need to fill out the application. | ||
| They need to submit the application. | ||
| The benefits participation map looks county by county at the number of individuals eligible for that program but not yet enrolled and we're working to really target those communities and those individuals and help them get enrolled. | ||
| The same for SNAP, the same for SSI. | ||
| You mentioned Social Security is usually the biggest source of income for these adults that are 65 and over. | ||
| You also mentioned that some look to pick up a job to help supplement their income. | ||
| This is a question coming in by text from Sue B in Whiting, New Jersey. | ||
| She says, can you work and collect Social Security? | ||
| And if so, how much can you earn annually? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Well, for so many older adults, Social Security is the vast majority of their retirement income. | ||
| And as they get older, as cost of living continues to rise, many end up going back to work. | ||
| As a matter of fact, we for decades have administered the only workforce development program and job placement program for older adults called the Senior Community Service Employment Program. | ||
| And individuals that want and need to continue to work can do so and continue to collect Social Security. | ||
| There are some guidelines around how much of your Social Security benefit will be available to you as you're working. | ||
| But the bottom line is once you get to 70, your desire to continue to work will not affect your benefit at all. | ||
| You want to engage with the Social Security Administration and the regional office to better understand your specific situation if you're under 70 and you're working and looking at your benefit to get a better understanding of how much of those wages would count toward your Social Security benefit. | ||
| Tom is calling from Hyde Park, New York on the line for 65 and over. | ||
| Good morning, Tom. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| A couple questions, comments. | ||
| I'm 65 and I'm still working. | ||
| And one of the things that keeps me up at night is all the future of Social Security. | ||
| You know, there's been estimates that the program will run out of money in less than 10 years. | ||
| My question for your guest is, to what do you have, does your organization have any kind of proposals or recommendations on how to reform Social Security? | ||
| Because frankly, I've been since I was in my 30s, I've been hearing about how the program is headed for bankruptcy and our politicians don't seem to want to do anything about it. | ||
| Also, to what extent is poverty caught amongst the elderly poverty caused by people who did not plan for their retirement, who didn't contribute to a 401k plan or other kinds of retirement savings plans? | ||
| And lastly, I live in New York State, and New York State, I get these notices or articles about the worst places to retire in the country. | ||
| In New York State, it's typically on the list. | ||
| To what degree do tax policies, individual tax policies of a state contribute to the poverty levels that you're discussing? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Great. | ||
| Well, great questions. | ||
| And since its inception, the National Council on Aging has been advocating for all the programs all of us rely upon to age well. | ||
| Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Older Americans Act. | ||
| Little known piece of legislation, but it really wraps around Medicare and Medicaid. | ||
| Older Americans Act provides all the services that keep us healthy, independent, and in the community. | ||
| And so as we look at all the policies, we recognize given demographic trends, there are over 11,000 people turning 65 every day, likely to live two and three more decades. | ||
| It's really important we strengthen the programs we all rely upon to age well. | ||
| When it comes to Social Security, the bell has been rung. | ||
| There's no doubt about that. | ||
| And we believe our politicians will have the courage to get it on track to become solvent. | ||
| There are different proposals out there that would allow for them to get it solvent so that it can keep its promise to all beneficiaries, older adults of today, and into the future. | ||
| There are some fixes that would go a long way, and we're proponents of addressing it sooner rather than later. | ||
| In particular, looking at the payroll cap. | ||
| So, Social Security is financed by our payroll taxes. | ||
| Right now, wages up to $176,000 are taxed, and that revenue goes into the trust to pay for Social Security. | ||
| We could increase the cap. | ||
| The idea that after you hit $176,000, those wages are no longer taxed. | ||
| There's an opportunity there to raise the cap back to its intended level, which was to cover 90% of aggregate wages. | ||
| That's eroded over the years. | ||
| Right now, we're only capturing about 80, 85% of wages. | ||
| And some even say scrap the cap. | ||
| Why not tax all wages so that that revenue can be brought into Social Security and ensure its solvency? | ||
| So there are some options on the table, but bottom line, we have more options the sooner we act. | ||
| And so we're proponents of that. | ||
| Especially because, to your point, the nature of work has changed. | ||
| Over half of workers don't have access to a 401. | ||
| And for so many, their wages are pretty tight to begin with. | ||
| It's challenging to set money aside for their own savings. | ||
| And so we really need to make sure we're shoring up Social Security because it's increasingly becoming the only source of income later in life, especially for those that are living paycheck to paycheck, finding it very challenging to set money aside for their long-term savings. | ||
| But the bottom line for us is people that have worked hard, played by the rules, raised the next generation, they deserve to be able to age with health and financial security. | ||
| Our policies could ensure that's possible. | ||
| We just need to have the courage to address them. | ||
| You mentioned a piece of legislation in there. | ||
| It was recently that the legislation to reauthorize the Senior Savings Protection Act was introduced. | ||
| Tell us what this does and why it's needed again. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Great. | |
| So fantastic, bipartisan piece of legislation that is really the primary vehicle for providing trusted, unbiased Medicare counseling. | ||
| Enrolling in Medicare is such an important decision for individuals. | ||
| You want to stretch your limited dollars. | ||
| You want to get in the best plan that can meet your health needs and provide you that peace of mind of health security. | ||
| Well, there's actually a network of nonprofits available that provide counseling, free, unbiased counseling to maximize that enrollment in Medicare and also identify programs that can make it more affordable, like that Medicare savings program. | ||
| Or also there's a program called the Medicare Part D low-income subsidy or extra help that specifically helps with prescription drug costs. | ||
| Now, the act that you mentioned provides the resources to allow that network to be available so that beneficiaries can get that counseling. | ||
| So we applaud the bipartisan leadership of Senator Marsha Blackburn and Senator Lisa Rochester Blunt. | ||
| So Tennessee and Delaware coming together to introduce this piece of legislation that would authorize access to that free unbiased counseling for another five years. | ||
| And that would be consistent with the last 17 years of bipartisan support for this critical program. | ||
| It has been reauthorized several times before. | ||
| What are the expectations this time around? | ||
| When could we see this get passed and reauthorized? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So we're hopeful. | |
| You know, we got really close the end of last calendar year with bipartisan, bicameral support. | ||
| Everyone understands how important it is to get the right type of support and counseling to enroll in the best Medicare plan and stretch your dollars. | ||
| We're pleased that it's been reintroduced. | ||
| And so we'll be working to find some House champions that can help make sure we can get this across the finish line this year. | ||
| Congress must act this year. | ||
| And again, given demographics, 11,000 people turning 65 every day, trying to navigate the complexity of Medicare, they need help to do so. | ||
| It provides savings to the system ultimately when people get into the right plan that meets their needs best and when they steer clear of some of the predatory practices out there. | ||
| Let's hear from Alan, who's calling from Mississippi on the line for 65 and Overk. | ||
| Good morning, Alan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hi, Alan. | ||
| Go ahead, you're on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How am I Alan? | |
| Yes, Alan, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Over the years, both governments have been taking money out of the Social Security Fund. | |
| Barack Obama did it. | ||
| All governments over the years have been taking money out to balance their budget, and now they say there's not enough money in the Social Security and it's going bankrupt. | ||
| Well, talk about calling the kettle black. | ||
| If over the years, the money that's been took out of Social Security by the government, which belonged to the working people, if that money had been invested in the stock exchange over the years, | ||
| and I'm talking 25 to 30 years, there would be ample money to pay the 80 million people in this country a decent social security payment every month. | ||
| So, again, Social Security is the bedrock of retirement security. | ||
| It really is that foundation of financial security for millions of older adults. | ||
| It lifts millions of older adults out of poverty every year. | ||
| It's so critical that we shore up its solvency. | ||
| The Social Security Trust Fund is so critical. | ||
| And there are various proposals out there in regard to ways that we could shore up the trust fund, even opening up general revenue and bringing it into the trust fund. | ||
| But again, it goes back to that political leadership and having the courage to have the conversations that are needed in order to get things on track and keep that promise. | ||
| We believe at NCOA, our political leaders will have the courage to have the conversation. | ||
| We just would like to have it sooner rather than later, not get to the crisis moment. | ||
| Joshua is calling from Minnesota on the line for 64 and under. | ||
| Good morning, Joshua. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're taking my phone call. | |
| My name is Joshua. | ||
| I'm from Minnesota. | ||
| I have a mother and my dad. | ||
| And born in 1964, 1965, so this is of important information for me. | ||
| I was just wondering the website for the National Council on Aging Networks, if that could be closed on C-SPAN and that'd be great. | ||
| Wonderful. | ||
| Well, benefitscheckup.org, free site. | ||
| Please share it with your loved ones. | ||
| Take a look yourself. | ||
| Again, every year, billions of dollars, $30 billion with a B, are left on the table in terms of programs that can help with property tax costs, food, nutrition, transportation. | ||
| Benefits Checkup houses all of those programs and just a couple pieces of information, your zip code, your income level, and you'll receive a customized report with all the programs you're eligible for, in some cases, the application to take the next step and enroll. | ||
| And the National Council on Aging, their website, you can also find them at ncoa.org. | ||
| Let's hear from Roger, who's calling from Lenora, North Carolina, on the line for 65 and over. | ||
| Roger, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and thank you for taking my call. | |
| First, I enjoy C-SPAN, and I'd like to say that I don't think you are left or right-leaning. | ||
| I think you are very fair. | ||
| I want to get out there first, okay? | ||
| I've got three points I'd like you to address. | ||
| How do you think those cuts to that dose you made to Social Security personnel is going to affect services? | ||
| Number one, number two, Trump says that he cut Social Security cut taxes on Social Security, and I've heard him get on TV and say that. | ||
| Can you explain what that situation is on the cuts to Social Security? | ||
| You answered one of my calls about increasing the cap to income for Social Security, but also some people want to increase the age limit to 70 to get Social Security. | ||
| And, you know, people can't, people, like I worked a desk job. | ||
| I could do that. | ||
| But people who work labor jobs, you can't hardly expect them to keep working to 70. | ||
| They'd be so broke down they wouldn't have a four lifespan after that. | ||
| So I'd like you to address those, please. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Great. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So the Social Security Administration administers getting those checks out on time with an extreme efficiency. | |
| Lowest administrative costs ever. | ||
| It's quite incredible. | ||
| And they have been starved over the last decade in terms of resources to administer the program. | ||
| And deeper cuts to the administration of the program, whether it be regional offices or suspending telephonic access to services, can be challenging for older adults themselves looking to get the support they need. | ||
| So we're strong proponents for making sure the Social Security Administration has the resources it needs to be available to the older adults that need the consultation to make sure they're getting the benefits they deserve. | ||
| They're informed in terms of their decisions in terms of when they draw the benefit and the implications of work. | ||
| I'll tell you, we see an increasing number of individuals drawing the benefit at age 62. | ||
| The reality is, each year you can wait to draw the benefit. | ||
| You actually see an 8% increase in your benefit. | ||
| It's incredible. | ||
| So being able to delay drawing down on the benefit serves you well in terms of a larger benefit being available to you. | ||
| But it's critical to be able to have that conversation with a Social Security professional to be able to understand and weigh the trade-offs of drawing at 62 versus 67 versus 70. | ||
| And they need staff, regional offices, they need the ability to have those conversations via telephone with older adults. | ||
| So we've been advocates for staying the course with support there. | ||
| Sandy is calling from Ohio on the line for living below the poverty rate. | ||
| Good morning, Sandy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning. | |
| I didn't think I'd get on so quickly, but that's wonderful. | ||
| Okay, I want to just focus on, and I'm speaking for many seniors, about the COLA, the Social Security. | ||
| If Social Security is in such big problems with wanting to eliminate it after a few more years that they're going bankrupt, All right, then why are they giving us a raise, the COLA? | ||
| What COLA does is raise everything for the seniors then. | ||
| Okay, now I'm fortunate to live in a HUD building where my rent is subsidized, but the rent goes up if we get COLA. | ||
| And guess what? | ||
| Our health care benefits go down every little bit that you get. | ||
| So you're really not giving us anything. | ||
| And why are you giving it to us? | ||
| Don't give us a raise. | ||
| And so I just am curious, and so are others. | ||
| They wish that you wouldn't give us the COLA because it just hurts us in the long run. | ||
| So thank you for your time. | ||
| Well, thank you for sharing your story. | ||
| It really illustrates the juggle so many are experiencing in terms of the various costs that we need to juggle as we age. | ||
| The Social Security policy is written in a manner that is intended to keep up with inflation and the cost of living, thus a cost of living adjustment. | ||
| And that's important because the power of Social Security could be eroded over time if we weren't adjusting for the rising costs of basic needs. | ||
| That being said, this year's COLA is quite modest. | ||
| It's less than 3%. | ||
| And the reality is, just as you shared, that's going to get eaten up real quick in terms of the increase in Medicare premiums. | ||
| So the reality is there are a variety of costs as we age. | ||
| They're all going up. | ||
| It's hard to keep pace with those costs on Social Security alone. | ||
| And there's a real gap. | ||
| And that's where some of these programs that you can enroll in that can help with other basic needs can help you close that gap. | ||
| Jay is calling from Laplanta, Maryland, on the line 465 and over. | ||
| Good morning, Jay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, let's call the plate on. | |
| Anyway, so about a half dozen callers ago, a guy called about the government taking money from the Social Security Trust Fund. | ||
| I called in, so I didn't get to hear your answer. | ||
| And by the way, are you with Social Security Works, right? | ||
| No, I lead the National Council on Aging. | ||
| Back to my point. | ||
| This is an issue for, you know, there may be people that say, I don't want to listen in this morning because I'm 25 or 35 years old, you know, but they should because that guy six calls ago or seven, I don't know what it was, talked about how during the wars, the forever wars that we had, Iraq, Afghanistan, the way they were popular enough with the people was they didn't have to raise taxes. | ||
| The way they did that, one of the ways, and I know this because the Center for Defense Information that existed from 1972 to 2012, there's an Admiral Eugene Terrell that was there. | ||
| And he would go around the country and around the world saying, you know, these wars shouldn't be financed by taking money out of the Social Security Trust Fund. | ||
| I mean, that wasn't probably the entirety, obviously, of how to fund the war, but it shouldn't have been done at all. | ||
| And that helped contribute to, I would think, the problems funding Social Security after how many years it's going to run out. | ||
| So anyway, that's a real important issue. | ||
| We shouldn't find any more wars. | ||
| And most of it was under Republicans like Bush. | ||
| They fought these wars and they wanted to fight more. | ||
| And, you know, got your point. | ||
| Jay, we'll see if Ramsey has a response. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure, sure. | |
| So again, Social Security is the bedrock of retirement security, and it's financed by our payroll taxes, so it's highly reliant on the workforce. | ||
| So you've got over 70 million baby boomers, you've got us Gen Xers sandwiched in between, and then 90 million millennials. | ||
| And critical to ensuring the solvency of Social Security's trust fund is making sure we have the right policies in place that can maximize those in their working years to be able to finance ultimately those that are not able to work. | ||
| So we believe there are a variety of proposals around increasing the payroll cap, maybe even scrapping the cap that could help go a long way in addressing the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund. | ||
| Let's hear from Larry, who's in Galesburg, Illinois, on the line for living below the poverty line. | ||
| Good morning, Larry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| My question is: I live in public housing, and I heard you say what the poverty level was. | ||
| I make $15.09 a month, and then it's $18,108 yearly. | ||
| Now, according to you, I'm not below the poverty level, but according to my public housing, I am. | ||
| And the second question is: they've dropped my SNAP benefits down to $20 a month, which means I'm spending $200 or more a month on food just to eat healthy. | ||
| So, can you help me with either one of those, either one of those? | ||
| Well, thanks for sharing your story. | ||
| Like so many older adults, it's challenging to meet your basic needs when it comes to the increasing cost of food and health care, and you're not alone. | ||
| So, the federal poverty measure, again, such a low level, $15,600, doesn't really account for the true cost of living. | ||
| That's why we prefer to use the ELDER Index, which demonstrates that you need more like $36,000 to make ends meet and age well in America. | ||
| And certainly at your income level, there's a gap between the true cost of aging and the income you have available to you. | ||
| Many of those programs, whether it be housing subsidies, subsidies for Medicare, they're all anchored on that federal poverty measure, either the measure itself or a percentage of it. | ||
| And so, individuals have to navigate their eligibility for these programs. | ||
| It may be an eligibility level of 100% of federal poverty or 125%, 150%, 200%. | ||
| It can be overwhelming to know what you're eligible for. | ||
| So, we're working to try to make it easier. | ||
| One way to do that would be for some policy change that would allow individuals to either auto-enroll in programs when they're at the income level to be eligible, and we know that income level because of Social Security, or maybe create a universal application, a 1E app or a FAFSA-like app where when you're enrolling in one program, it identifies if you're eligible for others. | ||
| These are ways we could make it easier for individuals navigating the eligibility of the many different programs. | ||
| Right now, it's a DIY, do-it-yourself type of approach, and it's very overwhelming, very challenging. | ||
| Again, benefitscheckup.org is a resource to help, to make it a little bit easier. | ||
| But there are some policy changes we should be making to make it easier for the millions of older adults that need this type of critical assistance. | ||
| We have one last call for you. | ||
| It is Jim in Elmhurst, Illinois, on the line for 65 and over. | ||
| Good morning, Jim. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| My question is about the payroll tax. | ||
| And the cap is usually affecting is for people who are wealthy. | ||
| And I don't understand why it hasn't been removed because it'd be easy politically to do it. | ||
| So I'm thinking, is there another reason? | ||
| Is it because that the Social Security is a trust? | ||
| And if they remove the cap, the wealthiest people are paying way more than the actuary cables would theoretically be able to pay them back. | ||
| And then that becomes a tax and not part of the trust. | ||
| You pay into a trust and it's supposed to pay you back what you pay into it in actuaries. | ||
| And if you pay more, then it's just confiscating and they should have to call that a tax. | ||
| And that's against the law for this program. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| So Social Security, as well as Medicare, Medicaid, and the Older Americans Act all need to be strengthened given the demographics of 11,000 people turning 65 every day. | ||
| It's so important that in order to meet the moment, we're strengthening and expanding all of these programs. | ||
| Social Security has some really tangible opportunities to get on track with its solvency, but it does require a conversation about some difficult policy choices and using the tax levers that are available. | ||
| We would like to work with both sides of the aisle to begin to have that conversation sooner rather than later so we can shore up that trust. | ||
| It's unique that there is a trust that is positioned to keep the promise of Social Security. | ||
| And we need to do that for older adults of today and into the future. | ||
| Ramsey Alwyn is president and CEO, the National Council on Aging. | ||
| You can find the organization and the programs, the resources she spoke about at ncoa.org. | ||
| Ramsey, thank you so much for joining us this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for having me. | |
| Later this morning on Washington Journal Stat FDA reporter Lizzie Lawrence will join us to discuss recent Trump administration actions to crack down on direct-to-consumer drug advertising and reaction from the medical community and pharmaceutical industry. | ||
| But next, it's open form. | ||
| You can start calling and now here are the lines. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
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. | ||
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| 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, Sundays at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| have been watching C-SPAN Washington Journal for over 10 years now. | ||
| This is a great format that C-SPAN offers. | ||
| You're doing a great job. | ||
| I enjoy hearing everybody's opinion. | ||
| I'm a huge C-SPAN fan. | ||
| I listen every morning on the way to work. | ||
| I think C-SPAN should be required viewing for all three branches of government. | ||
| First of all, if you say hello, C-SPAN, and how you'll covered the hearings. | ||
| Thank you, everyone at C-SPAN, for allowing this interaction with everyday citizens. | ||
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| Appreciate you guys' non-biased coverage. | ||
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| For the next 25 minutes or so, we are in open form. | ||
| There's a public policy issue you'd like to discuss. | ||
| You can go ahead and give us a call. | ||
| The lines there on your screen. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll start with Randall, who's calling from Washington, D.C. on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Randall. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I simply want to say that what I think America needs to do is have a realignment of people so far as their income. | |
| Do you realize that only 80%, 80% of Americans earn under $100,000? | ||
| To me, we need a party that reflects that reality because that would give us a majority to vote for things that we need. | ||
| In this country, we only have like 812 billionaires and only 200, I mean, 22 million people are millionaires. | ||
| The majority of us are working stiffs, but yet we fight among each other because of race and stuff like that. | ||
| I've seen places that are heterogeneous, homogeneous populations, and they have universal health care. | ||
| They have education paid for. | ||
| We can't do that because there are some people in America that say, I don't want those people to have my tax dollars. | ||
| I was watching a show and they didn't have private schools. | ||
| The best school system in the world doesn't have private schools. | ||
| Everyone attends public schools, private schools are against the law. | ||
| We need to have a party that reflects the majority of the people. | ||
| And we've got to get over race and all these other things that are being manipulated against us. | ||
| That was Randall in Washington, D.C. Walt is calling from Indiana on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Walt. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, this is some advice for the guys out there who are not millionaires or billionaires. | |
| They're working class or middle class. | ||
| There's some basic truths about being old. | ||
| One, Social Security was never intended to be the sole source of income. | ||
| There are other things you can do and ought to. | ||
| Another thing is that when you get old, life does not become less expensive. | ||
| It becomes more expensive, particularly for medical benefits. | ||
| So I organized my life during my working years to assume the worst case scenario. | ||
| And so when I completed my active duty time, I stayed in the reserves to get the benefit, the medical benefits that you get when you get to 60 years of age, and there's a pension. | ||
| And when it came to working to pep up my Social Security benefits, not only did I work a full-time job, I did part-time work as well to pep up my Social Security benefit. | ||
| So, and I was driven by the concerns that I've already expressed, but there was another one, and that was I raised two children, I and my wife, and I did not want to find myself in a position where I needed to depend on them to make ends meet. | ||
| And that was Walt in Indiana. | ||
| Stans calling from Florida on the line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Stan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hi, Stan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How are you doing? | |
| I want to talk about Donald Trump going after the news stations. | ||
| It's him that's chasing them. | ||
| He wants, he doesn't want, he's a thin-skinned end. | ||
| Everything is up. | ||
| Gas prices are up. | ||
| Food prices are up. | ||
| I don't know what these tarps are killing us. | ||
| The economy is getting worse because of the tarps. | ||
| He says they're bringing them money. | ||
| Yeah, but that's paid by us. | ||
| And the biggest liar ever walked the earth. | ||
| He's making millions of dollars on his crypto. | ||
| He's taking money from Saudi Arabia. | ||
| And we're all getting killed over here because Gass jumped up. | ||
| He said he was going to stop the war. | ||
| They're throwing bombs into Poland. | ||
| No big deal for him. | ||
| That was Stan in Florida. | ||
| Congress will be out. | ||
| They are not in session. | ||
| Next week before they left, they voted on some government funding measures. | ||
| This is from Axios. | ||
| It says the House voted Friday to pass a stopgap measure to keep the government funded through November 20th. | ||
| It says Congress is still far from avoiding a government shutdown with a major fight looming in the Senate. | ||
| It says the CR passed 217 to 212 with only two Republicans, Representative Thomas Massey, Republican of Kentucky, and Victoria Sparts, Republican of Indiana, voting with House Democrats against the bill. | ||
| Representative Jared Golden, Democrat of Maine, was the lone Democrat. | ||
| Yes vote, but bipartisan support will be necessary for Senate passage, and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is preparing for a battle over the inclusion of Democratic priorities. | ||
| That legislation did fail to pass the Senate. | ||
| It was, this is the headline from Politico, the Senate GOP rejects Democratic funding proposal. | ||
| The bills on the floor in both the House and Senate yesterday after the vote in the House, it was Speaker Mike Johnson who spoke to reporters. | ||
| Here's a clip of his remarks. | ||
| In the event of a shutdown, are you open to negotiating with Schumer and Jeffries, or are you just going to wait out to see if they pass? | ||
| I mean, if Chuck Schumer's negotiation is that he wants to add $1.4 trillion in new spending, the answer is, heck no, we're not doing that. | ||
| And we're not going to pay for health care for illegal aliens. | ||
| That's against the law. | ||
| We're not doing that. | ||
| They're not being reasonable at all. | ||
| A short-term CR is not a partisan exercise. | ||
| We could have loaded this up with partisan provisions, but we're not doing that because we're governing it in a responsible manner. | ||
| I hope Chuck Schumer and the Democrats and the Senate will do the same. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So there was some talk about maybe the House leaving after today until after October 1st, the deadline. | |
| Do you plan to bring the House back next week later if the Senate doesn't pass this? | ||
| We haven't made final decisions on that. | ||
| There's a lot of discussion about it. | ||
| The members have a lot of work to do in their districts as well. | ||
| And so we're always trying to balance those interests, work here, and work in the district. | ||
| We'll figure that out. | ||
| But I'll just tell you, if Chuck Schumer intends to shut the government down, I don't see an easy route out of that. | ||
| And there's going to be a lot of pain, and a lot of people will suffer from that unnecessarily think of it. | ||
| We would not be paying our troops at a time of very serious conflict around the globe. | ||
| And we could go down the laundry list of things that would happen. | ||
| And I hope they don't do that to the American people. | ||
| Thank you all so much. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Back to your calls. | ||
| Mark is in Somerville, South Carolina, on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Mark. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| I just got this thing about this trust fund for Social Security. | ||
| In the private industries, if they use their money for pension money for their employees to rule their business, they're going to be going to prison for it. | ||
| And this trust fund, there's no money. | ||
| That $37 trillion of debt they're talking about, it's not even including unfunded liabilities. | ||
| It's a lot higher. | ||
| And they're taking the money out of the general funds. | ||
| I mean, taking it and putting it in general funds. | ||
| So there is no money. | ||
| Only money that's going out to the people collecting Social Security are the workers at this money moment. | ||
| Once they put the money in Social Security, the payroll tax, it goes straight to the pay. | ||
| It's like it's a circle. | ||
| There ain't no trust fund. | ||
| It's IOUs. | ||
| So this is really scary, you know. | ||
| But in this thing about maybe raising the age limit, there's a lot of black folks that don't make it to 65 or whatever, 67. | ||
| And for myself, I got medical issues. | ||
| That's why I took it early because I know I'm going to get my share before they start destroying it and taking more money out and not giving you the benefits you were promised. | ||
| So there's a lot of things going on. | ||
| All these anti-Trump people, you need to get over it. | ||
| He's doing the best he can. | ||
| And when we got to make that these wars, he's doing his best. | ||
| That was Mark in South Carolina. | ||
| Gail is calling from North Carolina on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Gail. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I've got about five points I'm going to make, and I'm going to make them really quick. | ||
| The first one is we're in this big mess with an unfit criminal president because of President Biden and Merrick Narlin's bottom line. | ||
| They waited two years to hold Trump accountable for January the 6th, which was one of the worst days in history when police officers got beat up and injured and people were killed and they came into the Capitol. | ||
| That should have been it. | ||
| Trump should have never been able to run for president again. | ||
| And they waited two years to hold him accountable and then it was too late. | ||
| Number two, we've got an unfit health and human services director who is not a scientist, who is not a doctor. | ||
| He's a conspiracy vaccine theorist, and he's going to make our children unsafe. | ||
| And I don't understand how people can just sit there and think that he's fit to be in charge of our health. | ||
| Number three, Trump is arresting citizens and tearing families apart with his immigration. | ||
| And you don't see a lot of it on the regular news because they don't report it. | ||
| But if you go to some of the factual news that reports it, that has videos of ICE agents going to courthouses and people are trying to do the right thing and they're trying to do exactly what they're told to do to become a citizen. | ||
| They go to the courthouse and ICE comes and they arrest them. | ||
| The other day they arrested a woman and her daughter and sent them back to Guatemala and they've been here 20 or 30 years, never committed a crime. | ||
| Number four, this host can say on air that the homeless people should be killed and nothing is done about it. | ||
| Nobody says anything about it. | ||
| He gets on air and apologizes the next day, but there's no uproar from anybody, from any news source. | ||
| That is ridiculous that we're going to sit there and let Fox News talk about our homeless people and say that they should be killed. | ||
| And number five, the MAGA party is no longer a Republican Party. | ||
| They're the guardians of pedophiles. | ||
| They are no longer the John McCain's. | ||
| They're no longer the Ronald Reagan's. | ||
| The Republican Party is no longer the Republican Party. | ||
| It's either your MAGA or you're not. | ||
| And what we have now with Trump is the same thing, the authoritarian regime. | ||
| If you look at what Trump is doing, just like he's doing, trying to silence people in the news media, he's doing the same thing Hitler did two years before Hitler did all his damage and killed people. | ||
| So I'm just saying people better wake up because our country is not safe anymore. | ||
| That was Gail in North Carolina. | ||
| Let's hear from Ron, who's calling from Cookville, Tennessee, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Ron. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Due to the cost of everything going up and Trump getting trillions and billions of dollars and the cost of living going up, hurting the senior people, did you hear that Trump was going to give the seniors $5,000? | ||
| I've heard that. | ||
| Have you heard it? | ||
| I haven't heard that, Ron. | ||
| I'll see if maybe my producer can find something on it and share it. | ||
| Where did you see it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I've heard this months and months ago, and due to the cost of living and rent going up and groceries and cost of living, people are, some people just getting Social Security and they have to decide whether they're going to get the medicine or getting something to eat. | |
| But besides all this, Trump has done a wonderful job, but he needs to look at the senior citizens that he promised to give the $5,000 to. | ||
| Can you look into it, please? | ||
| That was Ron in Tennessee. | ||
| This is a headline in the Wall Street Journal this morning: House backs GOP-led Kirk resolution. | ||
| It says that House lawmakers adopted a Republican-led resolution on Friday to honor slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, with slightly less than half of the Democratic caucus joining with GOP colleagues to back the measure. | ||
| The vote was 310 in favor to 58 opposed, with 38 voting present. | ||
| All of the no and present votes were Democrats, and 22 Democrats didn't vote. | ||
| Democratic leaders, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, backed the measure, while many progressives, as well as members of the Congressional Black Caucus, voted no. | ||
| It says Democrats said they all supported the resolution's condemnation of political violence, but they were uncomfortable with the selection of extolling Kirk's work, which often included arguments sharply in odds with Democrats' stance on issues ranging from gun violence to gay rights to feminism. | ||
| It goes on to say the resolution introduced by Johnson praises Kirk as a courageous American patriot who personified the values of the First Amendment and did so, quote, with honor, courage, and respect for his fellow Americans. | ||
| The resolution says that the nation's leaders should stand united in condemning political violence and that Americans should recommit to respectful debate. | ||
| Tomorrow is the memorial service for Charlie Kirk. | ||
| C-SPAN will have that live. | ||
| It's tomorrow at 2 p.m. Eastern. | ||
| You'll be able to find it on C-SPAN, C-SPAN now. | ||
| That's our free mobile app and online at c-span.org. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| Jay, calling from Tennessee on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Hi, Jay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Doing well, Jay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I want to talk about the steam bill they're going to, well, trying to pass for the sixth government down. | |
| Schumer, he's trying to put money in for illegals, for Medicare and stuff. | ||
| We shouldn't be doing that at all. | ||
| Well, not B shouldn't even put money for illegals, taking away our money for us American people. | ||
| Now, I got people lives in Illinois. | ||
| Okay, they got a bill up there and right now, well, I already passed it. | ||
| $3.9 billion for illegals, for housing, food, and all that stuff. | ||
| And guess what? | ||
| The citizens in Illinois don't get to take none of that. | ||
| It's only for the illegals. | ||
| But who's paying for it? | ||
| The taxpayers is. | ||
| Now, you think that's right? | ||
| Now, $3.9 billion for illegals. | ||
| And the citizens that he's paying for it is American citizens in that state. | ||
| They don't get the none of it. | ||
| And another thing, back this cool shooting we had at Minnesota, that boy went shot. | ||
| Well, his mother took him down yonder and changed his name from a male to a female. | ||
| She said, I got a daughter now. | ||
| You ain't got no daughter. | ||
| You had a male. | ||
| He was born a male. | ||
| Now, I was just wrong. | ||
| She's got blood on her hands. | ||
| That was Jay in Tennessee. | ||
| Charles is calling from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Charles. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I just wanted to make a couple points. | ||
| We have so many problems in this country. | ||
| I don't think Trump is addressing the problems. | ||
| I don't think he even cares. | ||
| All he wants to do is build a ballroom behind the White House. | ||
| And also, he's tearing up the rose garden. | ||
| And what I see, if I were the new president replacing him, I would convert that ballroom into housing for veterans, disabled veterans, and other homeless veterans. | ||
| And also, hey, they cut me off. | ||
| No, Charles, go ahead. | ||
| You're still on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Homeless veterans and housing people who don't have it. | ||
| All this money being spent. | ||
| I know it's donations. | ||
| Well, these people are so wealthy, they should be donating money to help this country, not to let the country just go down the drain. | ||
| I don't think there's any kind of help going on for the poor people in this country. | ||
| I would just like to see Trump care about the country instead of himself and his family. | ||
| That's all I guess I could say now. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| That was Charles in Pennsylvania. | ||
| And just a reminder to our callers, make sure that once you talk with our screener and you get your online waiting to speak, that you're listening through the phone. | ||
| You have that television down in the background. | ||
| This is a headline from Bloomberg News. | ||
| It says Trump to add a $100,000 fee for H-1B visas in the latest crackdown. | ||
| It says President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Friday, that's yesterday, that would move to extensively overhaul the H-1B visa program, requiring a $100,000 fee for applicants and a bid to curb overuse. | ||
| It says the proclamation requires the payment and asserts that the abuse on the H-1B pathway has displaced U.S. workers. | ||
| The proclamation restricts entry under the H-1B visa program unless accompanied by the payment. | ||
| The move requires a $100,000 payment to accompany or supplement the H-B-1 petitions for new applications. | ||
| That's according to a White House fact sheet. | ||
| The payment would be in addition to current fees, which are more modest. | ||
| Fees directly tied to H-1B visa applications currently include a $215 fee to register for the lottery alongside various filing fees. | ||
| It was yesterday at the White House that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and President Trump spoke about this new program. | ||
| Here's a clip. | ||
| The company needs to decide, do they want, is the person valuable enough to have a $100,000 a year payment to the government, or they should head home and they should go hire an American. | ||
| The whole idea, it's annual and it's for total. | ||
| It can be a total of six years. | ||
| So $100,000 a year. | ||
| So either the person is very valuable to the company and America or they're going to depart and the company's going to hire an American and that's the point of immigration. | ||
| Hire Americans and make sure the people coming in are the top, top people. | ||
| Stop the nonsense of letting people just come into this country on these visas that were given away for free. | ||
| President is crystal clear, valuable people only for America. | ||
| Stop the nuts. | ||
| And remember, the country would rather not have to pay $100,000. | ||
| But they'd rather, how do you do that? | ||
| You hire Americans. | ||
| So there's an incentive to hire American. | ||
| But there may be instances where it's better off doing it through expertise or whatever it may be. | ||
| Jim is calling from Mart, Texas, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Jim. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am. | |
| A couple of those lines as I'll bring it up. | ||
| First of all, if Donald Trump run for, if the election was held again right now, he'd win by even more. | ||
| According to the poll, he'd win by even more. | ||
| He got 77 or 78 million votes November the 5th. | ||
| He'd get more if he rushed to run right now. | ||
| Y'all just think he got beat bad November the 5th. | ||
| He'd get beat even worse now. | ||
| So, I mean, now, as far as this shooting thing goes, you got several trials and investigations going on. | ||
| One trial is Lewis Mangioni. | ||
| He's a radical left that murdered the CEO. | ||
| You got Tyler Robinson, who murdered the young Kirkboy. | ||
| You got Ryan Ruth, who tried to murder Trump. | ||
| And then you got the Crooks investigation that shot Trump. | ||
| And all of them are radical lefts, every one of them. | ||
| And yet the Democrats, they don't, just like yesterday, they don't even, you know, they don't even want to recognize that the young boy was murdered by a radical left. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They don't want to step up and take ownership of it. | |
| Just like these other people I just named off, Mangioni and, you know, and Ryan Ruth and them. | ||
| Every one of them is radical left. | ||
| That was Jim in Texas. | ||
| Maddie's calling from Minor Hill, Tennessee, on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Maddie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I have a question about policy. | ||
| Are they not required, Congress, to pass a budget? | ||
| And isn't it mandatory that they meet a deadline? | ||
| How can they go on vacation without a resolution? | ||
| You know, I can't call my creditors and say, hey, I'm out of money, but I'm going on vacation, and we'll talk about it when I get back, maybe. | ||
| How does that work? | ||
| That was Maddie in Tennessee. | ||
| We had a caller earlier asking about a check for seniors to set a $5,000 check. | ||
| This is the headline that our producer, Patty, found. | ||
| It says, temporary senior bonus tax deduction offers savings for older Americans. | ||
| Here's who qualifies. | ||
| It says a new temporary tax deduction for older Americans dubbed the senior bonus is now in effect. | ||
| But financial experts say eligibility depends largely on your income. | ||
| Signed into law last month. | ||
| This article is from August. | ||
| It says signed into law last month as part of President Donald Trump's called Big Beautiful Bill. | ||
| The measure introduces a separate standard deduction for taxpayers age 65 and older. | ||
| It says it empowers seniors to have a little bit more money, hopefully, to put back in their pockets. | ||
| That's according to Joseph Edelman, president and founder of the Sacramento-based Town Point Wealth. | ||
| It says the deduction is worth up to $6,000 but phases out gradually based on income. | ||
| To qualify, you must be 65 years or older. | ||
| By the end of the year, your modified adjusTedros income must be under $175,000. | ||
| It says for individuals earning more than $75,000 or couples making over $150,000, the deduction begins to phase out at a rate of 6%. | ||
| It disappears entirely at incomes above $175,000 for single filers and $250,000 for joint filers. | ||
| About seven or eight minutes left in this open form. | ||
| Let's hear from Jerry, who's calling from Pennsylvania on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Jerry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I call them about the Democrats. | ||
| When they say legal, they should say unlegal immigrants. | ||
| They don't say that. | ||
| They said legal immigrants. | ||
| Did they say immigrants? | ||
| They should change their wording so the regular immigrants don't get scared. | ||
| And the Social Security should stop paying, I think they stopped paying the unlegal immigrants. | ||
| That's where all the Social Security going to pay for the lodging and all that. | ||
| That was Jerry in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Sheila's calling from Youngstown, Ohio. | ||
| Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Sheila. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning. | |
| I just wanted to talk about health care for older, for seniors. | ||
| Trump's big, beautiful bill, so-called, is going to take $1 trillion away from Medicaid. | ||
| And for people who don't understand, they think, oh, that's not going to have anything to do with me. | ||
| But Medicaid is what pays for seniors' nursing home care. | ||
| So if your father gets Alzheimer's and he has to go into a home or something, there won't be money for him. | ||
| Also, it's very clever how the Republicans have done it. | ||
| There are a lot of cuts that won't take effect until after the election. | ||
| So they're also going to have automatic cuts to Medicare coming. | ||
| And so basically, when you don't have Medicaid, to help people go to nursing homes, the Republicans have another plan for you, though. | ||
| Brian Kilmead, if you could play this, what he said on Fox News. | ||
| He said, if you are homeless, you should have to take an injection, a euthanasia injection, that would kill you. | ||
| So this is the plan that they have for you. | ||
| And remember, if you're a young person, you have parents. | ||
| You want them to live. | ||
| And there won't be, I mean, everybody's health care premiums are going to go up because of these cuts to Medicaid and Medicare. | ||
| And you may not think, you may have a lot of money, but when your parent falls ill, I think you should care about them. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And that was Sheila in Ohio. | ||
| Pete is calling from Surprise, Arizona on the line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Pete. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I wrote a tribute to Charlie Kirk, and this is sung to Charlie Kirk's theme song. | ||
| It's called American Braveheart. | ||
| Defended from Highland Heroes who fought the rule of tyrants. | ||
| He had the spirit of Scotland, the brave. | ||
| He led the fight for freedom to save the rights God gave us. | ||
| He spread the gospel and brought light to the world. | ||
| Armed with the Holy Spirit, he took on every challenge amidst the battle. | ||
| He stood tall, unafraid. | ||
| Like Paul and Martin Luther, he spoke the truth to power, a man of conviction and a true man of God. | ||
| So spring wide the gates of heaven. | ||
| God's love is overflowing. | ||
| Our Bonnie Charlie, rest in peace with the Lord. | ||
| Pete, you're not far from Glendale, where the memorial service for Charlie Kirk is happening. | ||
| Tomorrow, are you planning on going? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I want to go to church and watch it on TV. | |
| That was Pete in Arizona. | ||
| Candle is calling from Chicago on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Candle. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Yes, I have a suggestion. | ||
| I'm tired of hearing all these Europeans out here talking about the port and Mexican illegal hypocrites. | ||
| I have a suggestion. | ||
| Well, I have two of them. | ||
| One, won't they deport themselves? | ||
| And two, I want y'all to know, is America great again? | ||
| That's it. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Leo is calling from Sterling, Connecticut on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Leo. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I just want to say that I don't like Donald Trump, and I'm embarrassed to be a Republican at this point in my life. | ||
| I'm calling in just to basically say that I think all of us should pay the Social Security tax regardless how much we make. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, when I was working, I paid off my Social Security obligation in two months every year. | |
| Okay, so I think it really should be that people who are making the higher incomes should be paying more into the Social Security. | ||
| The second thing is, I think that we should take a look at Section 230 regarding holding platforms on the internet culparable for fake news. | ||
| I mean, magazines, newspapers, your programs are held accountable for the truth in what you put out there. | ||
| And I see so much fake news coming out of these platforms that are held harmless. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I don't think that the average American can discern what is true and false. | |
| And that's a big problem in our country. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| That was Leo in Connecticut. | ||
| And our last call for this open forum is Edna. | ||
| He's calling from Illinois, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Edna. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I hope that Pope Leo will say something to Father Nolan in New York who compares Charlie to Paul in the Bible. | ||
| There's no way. | ||
| Listen to what he's saying about Martin Luther King and what he said about the Supreme Court Justice Chitana Jackson. | ||
| You can't use racial things and then compare yourself to Jesus. | ||
| Thank you so much for letting me say this. | ||
| That was Edna in Illinois. | ||
| Our last call for open forum. | ||
| Next on Washington Journal, we'll talk with Stat FDA reporter Lizzie Lawrence about recent Trump administration actions to crack down on direct-to-consumer drug advertising and reaction from the medical community and pharmaceutical industry. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
| I was initially very skeptical about embarking on a full life biography of anyone, let alone a figure as big as big. | ||
| Edward Luce is talking about President Carter's former National Security Advisor, Zbignud Brzezinski. | ||
| Mr. Luce is the Financial Times chief commentator and columnist. | ||
| Luce is a native of Sussex, England, and has spent close to 20 years in the United States since the mid-90s. | ||
| He is an Oxford grad. | ||
| Zbignud Brzezinski was born in Warsaw, Poland, got his PhD at Harvard, spent time in Canada during the time his father was posted as Polish Council General in Montreal. | ||
| Brzezinski was National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Author Edward Luce with his book, Zabig, The Life of Zbignud Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet. | |
| On this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb. | ||
| BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| In 1945, the United Nations was founded in the aftermath of World War II. | ||
| C-SPAN marks the 80th anniversary of the UN. | ||
| We'll dig into the C-SPAN archives for historic speeches from U.S. presidents and world leaders delivered at the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York. | ||
| Monday, at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 2, we'll feature Ronald Reagan in 1988 urging the Soviet Union to open up and embrace democratic reforms. | ||
| George H.W. Bush in 1990 declaring a new world order after the fall of the Soviet Union. | ||
| And Bill Clinton in 1995 making the case for U.S. enforcement of the Dayton Peace Agreement in Bosnia. | ||
| Watch the 80th anniversary of the United Nations all next week at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 2. | ||
| America marks 250 years, and C-SPAN is there to commemorate every moment. | ||
| From the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the voices shaping our nation's future, we bring you unprecedented all-platform coverage, exploring the stories, sights, and spirit that make up America. | ||
| Join us for remarkable coast-to-coast coverage, celebrating our nation's journey like no other network can. | ||
| America 250. | ||
| Over a year of historic moments, only on the C-SPAN networks. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss the Trump administration's efforts to crack down on drug advertising is Lizzie Lawrence. | ||
| She's an FDA reporter for Staten News. | ||
| Lizzie, thank you for joining us this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for having me. | |
| We'll start by having you explain what direct-to-consumer drug advertising means. | ||
| What does it look like? | ||
| Where is it found? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So direct-to-consumer advertising, this is a type of advertising and marketing that drug companies do to try and sell their products directly to consumers, to patients, so that they will go to their doctors and seek out these drug companies' medications. | |
| And you can see them. | ||
| I mean, they're pretty ubiquitous. | ||
| They're in print, magazines, TV, especially radio and online. | ||
| And these advertisements are regulated under the FDA. | ||
| The Trump administration is trying to crack down on these. | ||
| Explain what's currently allowed and when and why they were allowed to advertise these to begin with. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so this kind of started in the 60s. | |
| The FDA was given the authority to regulate drug advertisements. | ||
| But really, it started with advertising to doctors, to providers, to the people who are actually ordering and prescribing these drugs. | ||
| It was in the 80s that drug companies kind of started experimenting with advertising to consumers. | ||
| And so, even though this came under FDA purview, it was sort of this big regulatory question. | ||
| Well, how are we going to, you know, this is kind of a more, you know, vulnerable audience. | ||
| These are people that, you know, we're not medical professionals. | ||
| They, you know, we want to have the balanced information about the risks and benefits of a product. | ||
| So in the 80s, it started kind of becoming a thing. | ||
| And then what really made these advertisements blow up was in 1997, the FDA decided, you know what, it used to be that you had to list the entire safety profile in The time of the advertisement, which made buying TV ads sort of too expensive for drug companies to really pursue that. | ||
| In 1997, the FDA decided, you know what, actually, as long as you give an adequate provision, you know, if you link to an external source that provides the full information, you can run your ad. | ||
| And so that led to, you know, what we think of as drug advertisements today with, you know, kind of a happy montage of people running and audio listing some side effects, but then telling people, directing people to a certain number to talk to your provider. | ||
| So that's how it works now. | ||
| And this started in the 60s and 70s. | ||
| You just said fast forward to now 2025, the Trump administration wants to crack down on this advertising. | ||
| Why? | ||
| What are the concerns? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The concerns are that the advertisements can mislead consumers. | |
| That, you know, if people see an advertisement full of, you know, like I said, happy people running around, that this drug will solve all their problems, that consumers will seek out unnecessary medications and not really have the full context of what risks the drug may have. | ||
| And so this is something that is actually pretty bipartisan. | ||
| It's been, you know, it's something that Democrats on the Hill have been pursuing and Senator Durbin especially. | ||
| But the Trump administration and Secretary Kennedy have really made this a priority. | ||
| And so what they've done, so they announced that they, a couple weeks ago, that they were sending about 100 enforcement letters to companies, you know, telling them that their ads were misleading and ordering them to either remove them or alter them, which was just a huge deal because this is not something that the FDA has really done. | ||
| They'll send enforcement letters, but at a very, you know, I think they sent ground three last year. | ||
| So they sent out this, they had this massive enforcement. | ||
| And then the other thing that they're pursuing is trying to remove this rule that I mentioned that the FDA crafted or decided in the 90s, which is that you can direct consumers to an external source. | ||
| They want to, the Trump administration wants to remove that so that drug companies will have to list everything in the ad. | ||
| Our guest for the next 30 minutes or so is Lizzie Lawrence. | ||
| She's an FDA reporter for Staten News. | ||
| She's joining us for a discussion on the Trump administration's efforts to crack down on drug advertising. | ||
| If you have a question or comment, you can start calling in now. | ||
| The lines for this segment broken down a little bit differently. | ||
| If you are in the Eastern or Central time zone, your line is 202-748-8000. | ||
| If you're in the Mountain North Pacific time zone, it is 202-748-8001. | ||
| And if you're a medical professional, you can give us a call at 202-748-8002. | ||
| Lizzie wanted to talk to you about those warning letters that were sent out to these drug companies. | ||
| You talked about the number that were going out and what they're asking. | ||
| Exactly what kind of companies received those letters, what kind of medications are being targeted. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so it was a wide range of drug makers that received these letters, and there were two types. | |
| There were warning letters that they sent out, which is kind of a more for more serious violations. | ||
| And that was sent mostly actually not to your traditional big pharma drug makers like AstraZeneca, et cetera. | ||
| That was sent to online pharmacies selling compounded versions of drugs. | ||
| And then there were the other letters were sent to kind of a wide variety of drug makers. | ||
| There was one, yeah, AstraZeneca received a few for a flu mist commercial and Boehringer Ingelheim for a type 2 diabetes drug. | ||
| There was a nasal spray ad. | ||
| And the concerns kind of were, yeah, were wide, a broad number of concerns that the FDA had. | ||
| So something that kind of came up a lot is the FDA claimed, you know, you have distracting scene changes, compelling visuals that viewers, so viewers can't really understand the benefits and risks of this drug. | ||
| Or they felt, you know, maybe actors looked too healthy, which doesn't accurately portray how a person with a, you know, more debilitating disease would act or what their life would be like while taking this drug. | ||
| And it was, you know, there was a Pfizer ad that had like a little monster running around. | ||
| They said, you know, that little mon, that's distracting. | ||
| That's, you know, there's, this is not okay with us. | ||
| So it's interesting. | ||
| It's, I think, you know, the types of concerns that drug makers have not encountered or they've encountered before, but not at this level. | ||
| We have callers waiting to talk to you. | ||
| We'll start with Bill, who's calling from Florida on the line for medical professionals. | ||
| Good morning, Bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| This is a topic that I've been interested in for many years. | ||
| I think in the United Kingdom, they're called pull-through ads and that they have banned these for a long time. | ||
| But they come under the realm of commercial speech, which you have to be selling a legal product. | ||
| And to think that the government is now going to ban the advertising of a legal product. | ||
| I mean, I can't go on television and advertise cocaine. | ||
| But if this is a legal product, that's where I come down. | ||
| I understand where they're doing it because most of these drugs that are advertised are extremely expensive drugs, at least $1,000 or $500 to $1,000 a month. | ||
| But if you could just talk to the First Amendment issues, which I think are huge, and the medical establishment never talks about it. | ||
| The government has clamped down on information that drug reps can give me in my office. | ||
| I can't really ask questions about, you know, are they seeing this or anybody? | ||
| I mean, there's been a wet blanket on this thing for a long time. | ||
| And I hope somebody talks about the free speech stuff because it's a big time deal. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, that's a really, really good point. | ||
| And I think it's what has prevented the U.S. from banning direct-to-consumer drug ads altogether. | ||
| Even though, yeah, like you said, I think the U.S. and New Zealand are the only two countries that allow these types of advertisements. | ||
| That's what I think this comes down to is the FDA has shown that it means business. | ||
| It sent out all these letters. | ||
| It's working to change this rule. | ||
| And will the industry fight back on the grounds of free speech? | ||
| This is something that In general, I think in the past, the Supreme Court has been more on the side of protecting commercial free speech. | ||
| But who knows what would happen? | ||
| And I think it'll also be interesting to see if the effect, because Secretary Kennedy has made it clear that he doesn't want these ads altogether. | ||
| He's been in favor of a ban for a long time. | ||
| So is the goal of this administration to kind of just make it not feasible for drug companies to buy these ads, or is the goal actually to make the ads more informative and be able to provide more information for patients? | ||
| So, yeah, I think we'll have to see how things play out. | ||
| Ilan is calling from Patterson, New Jersey. | ||
| Good morning, Elon. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| The ads that really bother me are psychiatric drugs. | ||
| Because, you know, life is stressful and people have a lot to deal with. | ||
| And I can understand why they feel a pill would help them get through their lot. | ||
| But also, the other thing I don't like about psychiatric medications are they're not really sure how these things work. | ||
| I mean, these SSRIs, supposedly these medications work with the neurotransmitters, you know, serotonin or dopamine. | ||
| And I find that these ads very distressing. | ||
| Would you speak on that? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| I think that one of the things that the FDA has really made clear in their ads is that they are made clear in the letters is that they want these ads to really reflect the data that these drugs have produced. | ||
| And, you know, often I think there are, it's not super clear-cut the way that a drug, you know, it's you know, a way that a drug may help you. | ||
| It may be that it's reduced symptoms only slightly or there's very specific kind of bounds on a label kind of showing who will this drug work for? | ||
| You know, what can you reasonably expect as far as how it'll help you and how some of the side effects that it might come with. | ||
| So I think, you know, you're right, it's important to kind of have all of that information. | ||
| And yeah, for psychiatric drugs especially as well. | ||
| Lizzie, a lot of these ads targeted at consumers directly to consumers. | ||
| How do doctors feel about the advertisements that are currently seen and what has their reaction to these Trump administration's actions been? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so I would say generally, I think medical professionals, doctors, public health experts have not been a huge fan of these ads. | |
| They felt that they haven't represented the full picture of medication. | ||
| So I think they're encouraged by this. | ||
| It's, you know, it's something that it's sort of a gray area that they've wanted FDA to sort of exert more force for a long time. | ||
| And I think the hope is that consumers will be more informed. | ||
| And yeah, so I think that people are, yeah, doctors are, you know, because it's some people have, yeah, doctors have talked about, you know, my patient is coming in, asking for this medication that they don't need, I think is way too, you know, won't work for them or it's unnecessarily expensive. | ||
| I can point them to this cheaper generic. | ||
| But it depends. | ||
| I mean, we had Ray a caller who said, you know, it's maybe this is tamping down too much on the information and it would be helpful to have consumers learn more about drugs and kind of come to me and talk about it. | ||
| So I think it depends a little bit. | ||
| Jeff is calling from Bayville, New York on the line for medical professionals. | ||
| Good morning, Jeff. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you very much. | ||
| My critique of the commercials that we see, the encouragements for pharmaceuticals, is that they're very disingenuous in the sense that they fulfill their obligation to read side effects, | ||
| for example, but while doing so, they show the viewer these idealized, happy, unrealistic lifestyles that hundreds, if not dozens of people are living in some kind of community of this drug, as if they're so happy that they have it and how wonderful their life is. | ||
| While they're reading these dire side effects that are possible, that's not informed consent. | ||
| If a doctor had done that in his office or her office, we would say that's malpractice. | ||
| In other words, the consumer is not getting the full informed consent that is supposed to be given with these drugs. | ||
| That's my comment. | ||
| It's a really, really good point. | ||
| And I think the FDA would agree with you, absolutely, based on their letters. | ||
| That came up as a common theme across them. | ||
| And I looked through all of them to kind of see what specifically the FDA was having problems with. | ||
| And this idea, yeah, that this drug will make your life look like, you know, this happy montage of joyful people running around, that is something that they are really not a fan of. | ||
| And so it'll be interesting to see, you know, now that drug companies have received this warning from the FDA about exactly what you're talking about, what will the drug ads of the future look like? | ||
| Will they be a lot more kind of sober and staid and have less catchy jingles and colorful fuzzy creatures and all of these things that we're used to seeing from drug companies at this point? | ||
| So this may really have an effect on what you're talking about, this kind of weird juxtaposition of the severe side effects. | ||
| And then meanwhile, people look like everything's great. | ||
| Lizzie, some of the pharmaceutical companies have received these warning letters. | ||
| How have they responded? | ||
| What are they saying about the potential for compliance or lawsuits? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so I think that the industry, this is not entirely unexpected. | |
| As I said, Secretary Kennedy and FDA Commissioner Marty McCary have talked about how they wanted to tamp down on these ads for a while. | ||
| But I still think it was jarring and they're all a little bit confused. | ||
| I mean, I will say that, like I said, the concerns in the letters really were all over the place. | ||
| And so one that stood out to me is the FDA, I think for a nasal spray, ours pharmaceutical said something like, goodbye, hello, said goodbye to rainy days or something, or goodbye, something negative. | ||
| And the FDA interpreted that as good, goodbye means that you're saying that this seizes all symptoms, and that's not true. | ||
| So there's a lot of interpretations that I think are maybe more subjective legally on, you know, can the FDA actually is this actually a problem. | ||
| And so I think it'll, I think there'll be probably a lot of compliance. | ||
| I think industry, you know, doesn't want to pick a fight with the FDA unnecessarily. | ||
| But I think if the agency really does pursue this policy rulemaking to change that language, as I said, that kind of lets drug companies point to an external source, we might see more legal action. | ||
| But also, this is, you know, drug companies, there's definitely loopholes for them as well. | ||
| Like they can run things called disease awareness campaigns, which are more kind of vague and less about the specific product, but still kind of helps them sell these products because more people know about the disease. | ||
| And Lizzie, what we're talking about is a crackdown, some changes to how drug manufacturers advertise their products. | ||
| This is a question coming in from Jimbo in Bakersfield, California. | ||
| Says he's an independent voter. | ||
| He says, does Ms. Lawrence know if there are any plans by the Trump administration to outlaw pharmaceutical advertising on network and cable television? | ||
| Only the U.S. and New Zealand allow this form of advertising. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So no plans to fully outlaw. | |
| This is their way of trying to make these ads less common or less feasible, especially on TV broadcast ads. | ||
| If drug companies are no longer allowed to point viewers to an alternative source that lists the full information, they will have to buy a lot of airtime to list all of the information about the drug. | ||
| So that might be prohibitively expensive for them. | ||
| And then the effect is kind of a ban, at least in that medium. | ||
| As far as social media, the FDA has pointed out, you know, acknowledged we are trying to tamp down on social media ads as well and kind of paid influencers who are promoting ads. | ||
| But that is an area where they're kind of still figuring out how best to regulate. | ||
| Andy is calling from St. Paul, Minnesota. | ||
| Good morning, Andy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Just in terms of some numbers, there are 193 countries that are members of the United Nations. | ||
| 191 of them ban pharmaceutical advertising. | ||
| Those two that don't, we're one of them. | ||
| And I was wondering if Lizzy could speak to the role of what RFK calls regulatory capture, the expenditures by the pharmaceutical industry on lobbying in Washington and the open door policy, | ||
| the revolving door really, between former FDA employees and the pharmaceutical companies and what role that might play in influencing the fact that we are one of two countries in the world that allow this type of advertising. | ||
| Thank you so much for that question. | ||
| I think it's a really important point and has been an issue for a while that there's, yeah, there is kind of regulators will start at FDA and then go to industry or certain industry and go back. | ||
| It's difficult because I do think that these people who work at FDA and there's only kind of so many their area of expertise is kind of in this realm. | ||
| So, there's only so many jobs they could pursue, I suppose. | ||
| But it's an issue, and I think it is, you know, definitely there's kind of underlying conflicts of interest that exist when you have a situation where it's a very fluid, you know, fluid exchange of people between industry and the people regulating industry. | ||
| As far as that relates to direct-to-consumer ads, I think it's, yeah, I mean, I can't say for sure, but I think it's possible that, you know, yeah, like you said, Pharma is a very powerful lobby. | ||
| And I think that this is something that they've successfully lobbied on for many years. | ||
| I think they've also had the First Amendment issues on their side. | ||
| And, you know, I've spoken to former FDA regulators of these ads. | ||
| And I do think that that is something really top of mind for the agency and why they have been so kind of timid and cautious in the past to send out warning letters or to really crack down. | ||
| They're concerned about legal challenges. | ||
| The Trump administration now is, you know, has gone ahead, and I think we'll have to see what happens and if this sticks. | ||
| But yeah, it's definitely true in the past, the FDA has not enforced the regulation of these ads as strongly as they could have. | ||
| Lizzie Lawrence is an FDA reporter with Staten News. | ||
| She's joining us for a conversation on the Trump administration's efforts to crack down on drug advertising. | ||
| She's with us for about another 15 minutes. | ||
| If you have a question or comment, you can give us a call. | ||
| The lines for this segment are broken down regionally. | ||
| If you're in the Eastern or Central time zone, your line is 202-748-8000. | ||
| If you're Mountain North Pacific, it's 202-748-8001. | ||
| And if you are a medical professional, there's a special line for you. | ||
| That is 202-748-8002. | ||
| Let's hear from Ron, who's calling from Dearborn Heights, Michigan. | ||
| Good morning, Ron. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Hey, real quick, just my question is kind of not so much for the pharmaceutical, but here in Michigan, we see a lot of signs for cannabis and other things since it's become so popular. | ||
| How is it that years ago when I was a kid, cigarette ads on the highways were forced to be taken down along with alcohol, but then also it's okay for cannabis? | ||
| And that's the extent of my question. | ||
| That's a great question. | ||
| And I think the cannabis area, that, yeah, it's a really, I'm not positive. | ||
| I would assume, so I think the way that the regulation is broken up typically is the FDA regulates prescription drugs and products and medical devices. | ||
| And then the FTC regulates the over-the-counter drugs and supplements. | ||
| And cannabis, I guess it's different in each state, right? | ||
| You know, you can use it, you know, for medical marijuana or, you know, in some cases, it's just legal over-the-counter. | ||
| So I think that split between the regulators, where some of it is FDA, some of it is FTC, can make it kind of a wild west of advertisements. | ||
| And so it's interesting. | ||
| Yeah, I wonder, you know, you've been seeing these ads pop up in Michigan. | ||
| I'm not, I can't say for certain I know which agency is in charge of that. | ||
| And I would imagine this is something, because it's so newly legal, it's something that regulators are kind of still trying to figure out what are we going to allow as far as letting cannabis manufacturers, makers, sellers advertise. | ||
| So yeah, that's super, that's interesting. | ||
| I definitely want to look more into that because I'm not really sure about the regulation there and how that works. | ||
| Ken is calling from Virginia. | ||
| Good morning, Ken. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thanks for letting me voice my opinion. | ||
| I have one comment. | ||
| I'll throw the question out there. | ||
| Is there any, do they keep track? | ||
| Is there any way of knowing how much these companies, pharmaceutical companies actually spend on their advertisements? | ||
| Assuming it could be spent better elsewhere. | ||
| And the comment is these corporations, they're not individuals, so they probably should not have First Amendment rights. | ||
| I mean, that needs to be revisited. | ||
| That's the bane of a lot of our issues lately. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Great question. | ||
| There is some data out there on how much the pharmaceutical industry spends on these ads. | ||
| I believe last year there was this advertising firm that kind of put together some of that. | ||
| Last year they spent around $10 billion. | ||
| So they put a lot of money into these ads for sure. | ||
| And yeah, as far as commercial free speech, yeah, I think it's a thorny area. | ||
| And like I said before, it's something that typically the Supreme Court has protected. | ||
| But who knows, maybe that is something that could get revisited under this administration. | ||
| Lizzie, we've talked about the Trump administration, some of these departments. | ||
| You just mentioned the Supreme Court. | ||
| Where does Congress come into when we're talking about regulating advertising for pharmaceuticals? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So Congress can make explicit certain authorities that the FDA has. | |
| And there have been efforts, especially to, I think I mentioned Senator Durbin has been working on this, and I believe Senator Marshall, but has been working on trying to get the FDA, make explicit the FDA's authority to regulate, I think I mentioned before, like compounded drugs, | ||
| which are not made and sold by drug manufacturers, but are sold by pharmacists and their version of a drug that's not FDA approved. | ||
| And we've seen a lot of compounded drugs, especially of GLP-1 weight loss drugs. | ||
| And companies like telehealth firm HIMS and HERS have had these huge media campaigns advertising these drugs. | ||
| And the FDA did send him hers and some of these other firms warning letters. | ||
| But as far as in the past, I don't think that it's been super clear if they have the authority to regulate these ads because the drugs technically are kind of outside of FDA regulation. | ||
| So that's really interesting space that Congress is working on. | ||
| And yeah, and they also, I think parts of that bill also address social media influencers and trying to figure out a way, you know, that's really a free speech issue. | ||
| You know, anyone can share their opinions on drugs on the internet, but if you're being paid by a pharmaceutical company to present a certain narrative, that's something that the consumer should know about. | ||
| And so I think there's some legislation kind of figuring out how best FDA can monitor, if FDA can play a role there in tamping down on undisclosed influencers who do not have disclosed payments to pharmaceutical companies kind of promoting certain drugs. | ||
| John is calling from Woodstock, Georgia. | ||
| Good morning, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Morning. | |
| I have two things, and then I'll let you tell us about it. | ||
| The off-prescription use of some of these drugs is becoming widespread, and it's the ones that are advertised on TV that's most, I guess, doing it more. | ||
| And the other thing is at the bottom of the screen, you'll see these small print warnings. | ||
| And the warnings are always so small you couldn't read them if you had to. | ||
| And a lot of times the background behind them is deliberately colored in such a way that it blurs the image that you're looking at. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, it's a really good point. | ||
| I think it's very hard. | ||
| You know, your brain kind of inherently, you know, you see an ad, you focus on the bright colors. | ||
| And I think, yeah, often the important information about side effects that consumers should know about is sort of obscured or, yeah, not really super visible. | ||
| So that's something that the FDA is definitely very focused on. | ||
| Clyde is calling from Lawton, Oklahoma. | ||
| Good morning, Clyde. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| No, I agree with the guy. | ||
| I mean, they're advertising, you know, marijuana stuff on about everything. | ||
| I mean, you know, I think they need to crack down to stop it because, you know, I mean, some of them, you know, will the cure to naturally hurt person. | ||
| And, you know, nothing's not good. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| No, I think it's very important that people get the right information. | ||
| And yeah, whether that means these, you know, would it be, would it have a better public health impact to not have these advertisements altogether or would it be better to have advertisements that are just really strictly regulated where it's really clear, there's all the helpful information you need in them. | ||
| And I don't think we know what the effect is going to be quite yet, but yeah, we'll see. | ||
| Lizzie, the administration has just started these crackdown efforts. | ||
| What are you expecting to see next? | ||
| What are you going to be watching for as this plays out? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm definitely going to be watching for them starting to craft this policy to roll back that kind of lax rule that lets drug companies point, you know, shorten their ads and point viewers to an external source. | |
| I think that that's something that will have a huge impact if it happens. | ||
| And, you know, it's kind of a longer process. | ||
| You have to write a draft of the policy, get public comment, then write a final version. | ||
| And, you know, something else I wanted to point out, the office in the FDA that regulates these ads, they were hit pretty hard by the layoffs earlier in April across the federal government and in HHS especially. | ||
| So right now, this office does not have there, it used to have lawyers and social scientists working and vetting all of the letters and writing policy and kind of making sure that everything the FDA did in this realm was legal and was grounded in science. | ||
| That's what the social scientists were kind of focusing on researching audience comprehension and things like that. | ||
| So I'm interested to see, and I heard this, this was a common thread in sources I have, just how will the agency back up this aggressive campaign? | ||
| And if companies push back, will the agency have the resources to really fight back in full force? | ||
| We'll give you a break there for a second as we hear from James in Newport Ritchie, Florida. | ||
| Good morning, James. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Yes, I have a situation. | ||
| Well, I'm not a situation. | ||
| I have dry eyes. | ||
| I went to an eye Institute, and the doctors looked at me and they said, you got dry eyes, and you need is my bowl. | ||
| So they give me a prescription, and I go home and they're all over the television, all the channels about my bowl, my bowl. | ||
| Anyway, I give it to the drugstore, and they say, Your coverage don't cover this. | ||
| It's so expensive, they don't cover it. | ||
| And I have terrific coverage with the union, the teamsters, and everything else. | ||
| Never had them turn down a prescription, but they said this my bowl is so expensive, they won't okay it. | ||
| Now I go back to the institute and I hear the doctors talk, and they say wanted to come back from Europe, and my bowl in Europe is an over-the-counter drug prescription for your eyes. | ||
| The same exact thing, my bowl, over-the-counter, no, no, whatever. | ||
| So, in other words, in Europe, it's over-the-counter, and over here, you've got to pay absorbent fees for the same thing. | ||
| It's crazy here. | ||
| They get away with murder. | ||
| And every time, one more thing, every time I go to the doctor, I'm in my 90s, and I go to a lot of doctors, and they keep prescribing now over the internet. | ||
| They don't give you written prescriptions, so they keep pumping in these prescriptions to the drugstore who they work hand in hand with, and then the drugstore calls you up and says, You have a prescription, but they won't tell you what it is. | ||
| So, now you finally get to the drugstore and you find out just that's something you don't even want, but you're paying for it. | ||
| Somebody's paying for it. | ||
| But anyway, that's about it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, thank you for those comments. | ||
| I think that it's a big frustration for a lot of patients that we pay more for drugs in the U.S. than we do in Europe. | ||
| And there's discrepancies, as you said, and over-the-counter and prescription drug pricing. | ||
| So, that's something the Trump administration has also wanted to tackle. | ||
| I think it'll be interesting to see there hasn't been a specific policy yet, more kind of a suggestion to, or, you know, kind of trying to get drug makers to voluntarily lower prices. | ||
| So, that's definitely an area that I'll be following as well. | ||
| Lizzie Lawrence is an FDA reporter for Staten News. | ||
| You can find her work online at statnews.com. | ||
| Lizzie, thank you so much for your time this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much for having me. | |
| This was great. | ||
| That does it for today's Washington Journal. | ||
| We'll be back tomorrow morning with another program at 7 a.m. Eastern and 4 a.m. Pacific. | ||
| Until then, enjoy your Saturday. | ||
|
unidentified
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C-SPAN's Washington Journal, a live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington, D.C. to across the country. | |
| Coming up Sunday morning, radio talk show host Eric Erickson covers political violence, free speech, and news of the day. | ||
| And former West Virginia Independent U.S. Senator Joe Manchin discusses his new memoir, Dead Center in Defense of Common Sense and Rising Political Polarization in the U.S. C-SPAN's Washington Journal. | ||
| Join the conversation live at 7 Eastern Sunday morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-SPAN.org. | ||
| What happened to Charlie Kirk was horrific and a tragedy. | ||
| What happened, as you mentioned, to the state legislators in Minnesota, that is horrific. | ||
| It is a tragedy. | ||
| And there are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. | ||
| The central premise of our democratic system is that we have to be able to disagree and have sometimes really contentious debates without resort to violence. | ||
| And when it happens to some, buddy, even if you think they're quote-unquote on the other side of the argument, that's a threat to all of us. | ||
| And we have to be clear and forthright in condemning it. | ||
|
unidentified
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Barack Obama on the recent cases of political violence, including the assassinations of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk and Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, the former president talked about a range of topics, including the state of democracy in the U.S., the role of mass media, and the potential dangers of artificial intelligence. | |
| You can watch that conversation today at 5.30 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, and online at cspan.org. | ||
| Tonight, President Trump will speak at the American Cornerstone Institute Founders Dinner, an organization led by his former Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Ben Carson. | ||
| From Mount Vernon, Virginia, watch it live at 7:50 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org. | ||
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| This is Washington Journal for Saturday, September 20th. |