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Washington Journal 09/25/2025

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unidentified		Drug Administration and other related news of the day with FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty McCary and the president of Protect Our Care, Brad Woodhouse, on the Trump administration's cuts to health care and the debate over Obamacare subsidies at the center of the federal budget impasse.
		Also, a look at how to reduce political polarization in the United States with Henry Olson, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
		Washington Journal starts now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
		It's Thursday, September 25th.
		Congress has five days left to pass legislation that would avoid a government shutdown.
		President Trump canceled a scheduled meeting this week with Democratic leaders, saying they were making, quote, unserious and ridiculous demands.
		Democrats criticize the president for refusing to even meet.
		We're getting your thoughts this first half hour of the program.
		What do you think about the funding showdown?
		Are you worried about the federal government running out of money?
		What's your message to lawmakers and the president on this topic?
		Here's how to reach us.
		Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		You can send a text to 202-748-8003.
		Include your first name in your city-state.
		And you can post your comments on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
		Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
		We have this update for you from Politico, and it says this.
		White House to agencies prepare mass firing plans for a potential shutdown.
		In a memo, the Trump administration says the reduction in force plans would go beyond standard shutdown furloughs.
		This was a memo shared with Politico.
		It was released last night to the agencies.
		It says this, the move marks a significant break from how shutdowns have been handled in recent decades, when most furloughs were temporary and employees were brought back once Congress voted to reopen government and funding was restored.
		This time, OMB Director Russ Vogt is using the threat of permanent job cuts as leverage, upping the ante in the standoff with Democrats and Congress over government funding.
		Well, while you are calling in to share your thoughts about the government funding deadline, September 30th, we will talk to Alex Gangitano.
		She's a White House reporter for The Hill.
		Alex, welcome.
unidentified		Hi, thanks for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You wrote in The Hill the headline of your article is GOP hopes to make potential shutdown as painful for Dems as possible.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Talk about that.
unidentified		That's right.
		So we're seeing a lot of rhetoric about from the White House, from the Republican side, that a shutdown would be the fault of Democrats, that Americans should blame only Democrats not wanting to come to the table to pass this clean CR that they're looking for in the event of a shutdown.
		And actually reviewing that ONB memo that you mentioned last night, that criticizes Democrats outright.
		They say that Democrats have broken this tradition of this bipartisan trend, they say, of keeping the government open and instead have decided to make a series of insane demands to keep it open.
		They also said that's important that administration prepares for a shutdown in the event that Democrats are choosing to pursue one.
		So, you know, we're close to a midterm election.
		This is always a big question that comes up when shutdowns are looming of is the president going to be the person that's blamed for this?
		Is the party in charge going to be the person that blames for that is blamed for this?
		And they're really trying to preempt that and say that Democrats are the ones to blame here.
		We also, you mentioned President Trump canceling that meeting.
		He said, you know, it's not worth it to try to sit down with the likes of Schumer and Jeffries because of their, you know, what he claims are insane demands as well, what they're looking for.
		So it's a lot of trying to kind of lay this groundwork for October 1 to veer Americans in a certain direction of how they want them to feel about this.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, how did the cancellation of that meeting come about?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Was because we're seeing reports that it was congressional Republican leadership that asked the president or encouraged the president to cancel?
unidentified		That's right.
		It was actually really interesting.
		The president, he was up in New York at the time, and he said that he posted on his True Social that that meeting was canceled and why it was canceled.
		And just moments, but basically saying that it's not worth it to argue with Republicans or with Democrats.
		But moments before that, we heard from Speaker Johnson on the Hill questioning the necessity of that meeting, saying that yes, he'd be a part of it, but I'm not sure if it's worth having the sit-down.
		But then we later heard that Majority Leader Thune had spoken to the president the night before.
		So he was under pressure from GOP leadership who are basically telling him this is unnecessary.
		The president had agreed to do this meeting after Schumer and Jeffries had asked for one.
		And then he was at this position of he had all the cards in front of him that he could disinvite the Democratic leaders if he so pleased, which is exactly what he did.
		And also another attempt of what we're talking about to say that Democrats are the one holding this up.
		So why should I sit down and negotiate with them?
		So it is all kind of part of that narrative that they're putting out there.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So do the president and Republicans feel like they have the upper hand in this negotiation and why would they feel that way?
unidentified		Yeah, you know, again, that's always the tricky part for both parties is to try to place a shutdown blame on the other party.
		But I think right now, Republicans are putting out that Democrats want these insane demands.
		That's a quote from them in order to keep the government open.
		And they point to a lot of these really partisan matters, including, you know, transgender surgeries and these hot button issues that we've seen Republicans talk time and time again about Democrats really caring about.
		Now I say that to say that a lot of that is not what Democrats are looking for in this bill.
		They're looking for some reversal of the Medicare cuts that we saw in the One Big Beautiful bill, for example.
		But a lot of those, you know, Republicans are equating with some of these more partisan demands.
		So I think just putting that narrative out there, we know the president has the largest bully pulpit in the world.
		And so he's repetitively saying that these are why it's being held up.
		This is why people will be furloughed or perhaps lose their jobs.
		And it's all kind of a messaging campaign at this point.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		In your article, you asked Senator Roger Marshall, a Republican of Kansas, about the shutdown's impact on his state.
		And the quote that you have here is him saying, I'd be much more worried if I were a blue state.
		The president has a lot of discretionary power on what he declares is essential.
unidentified		Yeah.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So is that, does that mean that In the event of a shutdown, President Trump will attempt to withhold government services specifically from blue states?
unidentified		Him suggesting that we found really interesting when writing this.
		And just the fact that he's pointing to the picking and choosing nature of this administration as well.
		In the event of a catastrophic weather event, we have seen the president be more outright wanting to help a red state and put some more parameters around helping a blue state.
		And I think referring to that is just the same kind of this administration can choose if I want to, you know, keep this help a state in a certain way.
		Of course, you can't do much to keep a branch of HHS open or whatever else if there is no appropriated funding for that.
		And so, of course, we are in unprecedented times, how much we read into what kind of skirting the rules there'd be.
		But I think to his point, is there, you know, we've seen, and they're kind of outright saying it, that this White House will have the back of a red state in the event that this shutdown goes on for a long time and states need extra assistance.
		And a blue state would not have that kind of extra support.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Alex, in other news, NBC is reporting that former FBI Director James Comey could be indicted in the next coming days.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Can you give an idea of what those criminal charges would be and what this is all about?
unidentified		Yeah, it's really interesting.
		The president has for a long time called for charges against James Comey.
		He blames him for the investigation into his 2016 campaign and the conversations and meddling of the Russian government, something that the president has said is a witch hunt.
		This comes just days after President Trump went on True Social and issued this really direct call to Attorney General Pam Bondi to indict Comey.
		Last Friday, he also had an attorney general for the Eastern District of Virginia step down because he was not making charges against another Trump foe, who is a New York Attorney General, Letitia James, because that attorney was saying that there's not enough evidence to support allegations against James.
		So it's all kind of this attorney was also overseeing the Comey case, who's now been handed over to somebody else.
		So the groundwork has been laid here for any kind of criminal charges.
		And I think they would pursue it to your question about Comey's testimony to Congress and if there was any lies in that looking for anything they could get on him dating back to that testimony on the 2016 campaign.
		So we're kind of, it sounds like we're days away.
		I think everybody's kind of racing for it and DOJ is prepping what they can for this.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And the statute of limitations is five years.
		So it's right.
		They would have to indict by Tuesday in order to be able to have an indictment against him, I guess.
unidentified		Exactly right.
		They're at this time crunch as well.
		Now's the time.
		The groundwork has been laid, as I mentioned.
		They have this new attorney in place and they have until Tuesday to actually act.
		So again, this is what the president has wanted for a very long time.
		So it makes sense that he's going to try to do something before this statute of limitations is up.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Alex Gangitano, White House reporter for The Hill.
		Her work is at thehill.com.
		But thanks so much for joining us this morning.
unidentified		Thanks for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We're taking your calls on how concerned are you about a government shutdown?
		What's your message to Congress?
		And we'll start with Harold Livingston, Tennessee.
		Democrat, good morning, Harold.
unidentified		Yeah, I'm concerned about it because we're fixing to lose our insurance, our Medicare and stuff.
		Most people are going to lose their job.
		But look at how high inflation and everything already is.
		And if we lay a bunch of people off this country, the whole country's going to suffer.
		But take me, my supplement for, well, it's not really a supplement.
		I have the Blue Cross thing through Medicare.
		And my dental's only been cut $900 this year.
		My premiums are going up.
		If you go out of network, it's going to cost you a lot more money.
		People better bond together because they're going to fix these old people, fix to lose their Medicare and Medicaid stuff.
		And that's really when the suffering is going to take effect.
		And they just need to sit down up there and talk, and surely something can work out and not do this.
		But you take money off of the old people in order to give it to the wealthy people.
		And that's what's fixing happen to my best one more thing.
		Instead of having these people on here like this lady to talk so long, because I know you have a limited amount of time, but you can take callers, and it just really limits the number of callers you can have down.
		I know you have to have somebody on there to talk, but maybe not so long.
		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Appreciate that, Harold.
		We'll take Alex, Silver Springs, Florida, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Hi, thank you.
		I'm calling because this is very concerning.
		This is not just a humanistic attack on all the people who are suffering and who are low class or middle class.
		It affects everybody, and it's a spiritual warfare.
		The people that are doing this to everybody in the world are a satanic cult that's talking into the ear of the president.
		The president has had a back and forth battle, a spiritual battle, and he's being controlled by a lot of Satanists that call themselves Christian.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Alex, let's talk to James Cedar Town, Georgia, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, James.
unidentified		Oh, good morning.
		I'm glad that this is happening.
		Trump is a reflection of these people that voted for him.
		This is a white supremacist agenda.
		And what is actually going on?
		All these people voted for him, just like a lot of these Hispanics voted for him.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hold on, James.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		How is shutting down the government a white supremacist agenda?
unidentified		The Republicans are shutting down the government because they don't care about him.
		These premiums are going up.
		People are losing their Medicare, Medicaid, these food lines again.
		People are getting sick.
		They're not going to be able to go to the doctor.
		They don't care about him.
		They're taking people's rights and everything.
		This is what Ronald Reagan did.
		People keep talking about these wars and things like he's doing Grenada, talking about Panama and different types of things.
		And if you really notice what's going on now, they're regretting that they voted for Trump.
		But a lot of them, they don't.
		They are willing to sacrifice for Trump because of his racism and what he's doing on immigration and things and stuff.
		Sorry.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it, James.
		Let's take a look at House Democratic leader, minority leader Hakeem Jeffries.
		He explains why he thinks the Republican continuing resolution, the CR, is partisan.
		Take a look.
hakeem jeffries ▲ ● ▼		Democrats did not support the spending agreement in March in the House of Representatives and overwhelmingly in the Senate because it represented at the time an attack on veterans, an attack on housing, an attack on nutritional assistance, and an attack on the health care of the American people at the time.
		That's why the bill did not receive support from House Democrats with one exception in March.
		So the legislation that they've put before the House and now the Senate in a take-it-or-leave it fashion is just a continuation of a dirty spending bill that we did not support in March.
unidentified		But, Mr. Leader, this is a bill that would temporarily fund government.
		There are not the traditional writers that we see about policy on it.
		Are you saying it's partisan because Democrats won't support it?
		It's not a circular.
hakeem jeffries ▲ ● ▼		No, no, it's not partisan because Democrats won't support it.
		Democrats did not support it in March.
		We did not support this bill.
unidentified		This is one that would be temporary funding through the end of November.
unidentified		Why is that partisan?
hakeem jeffries ▲ ● ▼		It's partisan because it didn't have the votes in the House in a bipartisan way.
		There was no conversation.
		There was no discussion.
		There was no effort to actually sit down and figure out what type of spending bill would meet the needs of the American people.
		The notion that we're supposed to accept that this is a clean, continuing resolution is a joke.
		It's not.
unidentified		It's dirty for a wide variety of reasons.
hakeem jeffries ▲ ● ▼		I explained it repeatedly, and it continues the assault on the health care of the American people.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Nancy and Walker, Louisiana, Democrat, good morning, Nancy.
unidentified		Good morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think about a potential government shutdown?
unidentified		I hope it does happen.
		That's what Democrats do.
		We're good at it.
		We love shouting things, lying up.
		And the old idiots out in this world will believe it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Are you a Democrat, Nancy?
unidentified		What?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Are you a Democrat?
unidentified		I'm a Democrat.
unidentified		Rest it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Tony in Toomua, Iowa, Republican.
unidentified		Good morning, Chief Stan.
unidentified		Thanks for taking my call.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		I think what they ought to do on both sides, Democrats and Republicans, if you don't get in there, do your job that we hired you to do, they should put them on administrative leave and take all their money for six months.
		Make them hurt that way, both of them, Republicans and Democrats.
		Democrats and Republicans.
		Donald Trump don't take no pay.
		So these people that don't want to work for American people that pay their bills and give them these big salaries, they need to fire them.
		Put them on administrative leave, take the money away from them.
		Donald Trump, don't you?
		I love America.
		I'm a veteran.
		And I love you, Chief Stan.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Tony.
		And this is posting on X from Speaker Mike Johnson who says, reminder, House Republicans have already done the job of passing a clean, bipartisan bill to keep the government open.
		Now it's up to Senate Democrats who have long said shutdowns are bad and hurt people to vote to fund the American government or shut it down because they or shut it down because they want to restore taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal aliens.
		And this is from Representative Mark Pocan who said it's simple.
		Republicans control the House.
		Republicans control the Senate.
		Republicans control the White House.
		If they shut down the government, it's on them.
		Here's Ralph in Lancaster, California, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		The reason why there's been basically no communication between the Democrats and the Republicans is because the Democrats refuse to negotiate regarding Medicare or Medi-Cal or Medicaid for illegal aliens.
		I'm just going to give you a quick example.
		About three months ago, I went to the emergency room.
		I counted 152 people in that room that were from Latino countries, two black people and two white people.
		When I spoke to the nurse, I said, is this normal?
		I waited nine and a half hours to see a doctor, and she says, absolutely, we're being overwhelmed with Medi-Cal people that are from other countries here illegally.
		My doctor's office, I used to get an appointment within two to three weeks.
		Now it's three to six months to get an appointment with a specialist.
		Waiting rooms fill up with 25 to 40 people waiting to see a doctor, all illegal aliens on Medi-Cal.
		So the point is, is that the Democrats continue to say that the Republicans want to take your Medi-Cal or Medicaid away from you.
		It's a lie.
		They want to take it away from people that are in this country illegal so American citizens can use the programs that were put up, set up for them, the people that put money into these programs, the people that worked hard their whole lives, that may have ran into some type of problem where they're not financially able to afford insurance anymore or have to supplement their Medicare with Medicaid.
		So this argument that the Democrats are trying to con the American people with is not going to work this time.
		We need to straighten this out.
		And thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Ralph.
		Stephen is next.
		Republican line, Topeka, Kansas.
		Good morning, Stephen.
unidentified		All right.
		Good morning, C-SPAN.
		Well, the last caller definitely hit it right on the head.
		The Senate Democrats are once again on the wrong end of 2080, 1090, you know, getting benefits for illegals over, you know, we had an election about this.
		We had we voted on this.
		We're in control.
		Let me talk to your Democratic callers.
		The Republicans are in control right now.
		We get to do what we want.
		There's nothing in the Constitution about cloture in the Senate.
		We get to do exactly what we want.
		And you guys have to sit there.
		And you guys would be smart to sit there and take it because the Democrats' poll numbers keep going down, down, down to the worst in history.
		And listen, if you want to shut down, go for it.
		You know, you're going to be in the toilet with your ratings.
		So we have elections in this country, and we're going to legislate and do exactly what we want.
		We have all three branches and the Supreme Court.
		So you can do whatever, call hearings in a year and a half or whatever you want.
		But it's time for us to legislate, and you guys can just be quiet for a while.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's William, Miamisburg, Ohio Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, William.
unidentified		Hi, Mimi.
		This is just an old dumb, almost 90-year-old hillbilly.
		I have no faith in this corrupt government.
		I've said that for years and years.
		And nothing in the world will ever convince me any different.
		The shutdown, sure, they can blame the Republicans or the Democrats.
		They're all crooks.
		And the number one crook is sitting in Washington, D.C.
		It's just a shame.
		I'm so scared from my little 11 great-grandchildren.
		They don't stand a Chinaman's chance of hell to survive because of this dictatorship.
		I'm glad I'm dumb.
		I'd hate to be smart like these friggin' Republicans claim they are.
		Thank you very much, Mimi.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And let's take a look at Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		He was on CNN and he was asked about the president not meeting with Democratic leaders.
unidentified		Well, I think the president, I can't speak for the president, the president draws his own conclusions, but what I've suggested, and I think the president came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be a productive meeting.
		The Democrats' requests are completely unhinged and unreasonable and unserious.
		And if they want to have a serious conversation, I think that I'm sure the president would be welcome or would be happy to do that.
		But at least right now, what they're asking for to keep the government open for seven weeks is over a trillion dollars in new spending and all kinds of policy writers that never go on continuing resolutions.
		Continuing resolution is something that when the Democrats had the majority and Joe Biden was in the White House, they passed 13 times and Republicans worked with them to deliver the votes.
		Those are clean spending, continuing resolutions to fund the government for a foreseeable time in order to allow something else to happen.
john thune ▲ ● ▼		And in this case, we're trying to do this to allow the normal appropriations process to get underway so that we can pass bills the old-fashioned way, which is through the Appropriations Committee on the floor in the Senate, where every senator has an opportunity to make their voices heard.
unidentified		So this is a short-term extension of existing funding, current funding.
john thune ▲ ● ▼		The Democrats are trying to hijack it to get a trillion dollars in new spending.
john thune ▲ ● ▼		And I don't think that's a very good deal for the American taxpayer.
unidentified		And it appears, at least at this point, the president's come to the same conclusion.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Rory in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, Republican line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Two things about the shutdown.
		First, get rid of the environmental stuff.
		In 100 years, when we run out of gas, they can start thinking about that.
		The other is immigrants.
		Trump is going to cut off all money to immigrants for food, shelter, money, except on deep.
		And that should do it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Scott, Roseville, California, Democrat.
		Good morning, Scott.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		Now, from one of the Democratic callers earlier, mentioned the Asian man and what we're dealing with right now.
		There was a wooden shoe in Asia well before the Industrial Revolution.
		It was called the Sabo.
		And when things got so bad that nobody knew what they were doing in China, they tossed their Sabo, their shoe, their wooden shoe, into the gutty works and the gears of the mills and shut down like grain production.
		Hence, that's where the word sabotage comes from.
		And at this point in time, nobody knows what the hell they're doing.
		And so a little bit of sabotage at this point in time.
		It's this country's time to do the same thing that China did.
		And there was revolution by the meekest individuals.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So Scott, bringing us to the government, the possibility of a government shutdown, are you saying you welcome that it's time to shut it down or what?
unidentified		It worked for China.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It worked for China to shut down grain production.
unidentified		Yes.
unidentified		And at this point in time, nobody is anything but a fool.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Calvin, New York, New York, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Calvin.
unidentified		Good morning.
		The reason why Mr. Chunks wants to shut down the government, because all of those people that they laid off with Doge are due to start collecting their unemployment.
		So he has to have someone to blame.
		So he'll probably say, oh, the Democrats did that.
		But it's the Doge from Doge.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's David in Flint, Michigan, line for Democrats.
		Hi, David.
		You're on the air.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		I was just, I had a, wrote a few points down.
		I want the Democrats to stand strong and not vote for this bill no matter what.
		I sent in to the Democratic Party, this is their time to stand up and fight for America.
		They want to take away health care.
		It's a lot of working poor.
		I got godsons that's working poor that can't get health care through their company.
		They want to take away Medicaid for people, older people that's getting put into homes that don't have them, that's not wealthy, that don't have the money.
		It costs about $5,000 a month to stay in a nursing home.
		And most of those people don't have it.
		So that'll end up with a lot of older people.
		I'm a senior citizen.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So are you particularly worried about the Obamacare subsidies running out and not being renewed?
unidentified		Yes, that's going to hurt a lot of people.
		I think Hopland's homelessness under Trump in the next year or two, it'll be double what it is now.
		And the Republicans keep calling in here talking about immigration.
		They got the president.
		They got the Senate.
		They got the Congress.
		They got a bought kangaroo Supreme Court.
		And they still complaining.
		They got immigration.
		They're sending those people over to El Salvador, putting them in prisons, killing them.
		They shipped all over this country.
		The big millionaires are making money off all this stuff.
		And they are still crying every morning on C-SPAN about immigration.
		Why are they still fussing about immigration?
		It's over.
		They got what they want.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, David.
		Let's talk to John in Clifton Park, New York, Independent Line.
		Hi, John.
		You're on the air.
unidentified		Good morning, Amy.
		First of all, I want to issue a great thank you.
		I appreciate everything C-SPAN does.
		Basically, I am concerned about the shutdown, primarily because a continuance with the clean CSR or whatever.
		It's a continuation of the big, beautiful bill, which is projected to be adding trillions of dollars to the deficit.
		Overall, a lot of people this morning spoke about various circumstances concerning Medicare and Medicaid.
		They were right.
		By Republicans not willing to negotiate with the Democrats.
		No one knows really at this point in time.
		Both sides are coming out with their viewpoints, what they're stating and everything.
		Without the two sides meeting together, the continuation of the big, beautiful bill as it is.
		It sets a precedent for the Republicans to continuously be seeking clean bills for the debt.
		Essentially, without the negotiation, you know, nothing's going to be done.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it, John.
		Let's take a look at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
		He was on MSNBC talking about that canceled meeting with the president.
chuck schumer ▲ ● ▼		We're asking something very simple, Joe, for the president to sit down and talk with us.
		You know, he's not the king.
		He can't just dictate what happened.
		He said he doesn't need Democrats.
		Well, then he doesn't know how to count because there are 60 votes in this Senate that you need to pass this, and he's got 53.
		And frankly, when I was majority leader for four years, the last four, we didn't have a shutdown.
		Why?
		Because I sat down and talked with Republicans and we compromised.
		No one got everything they wanted.
		Donald Trump is the first president we're having a shutdown.
		As you saw, Hakeem Jeffries and I just made a simple, easy request.
		Sit down and talk to us.
		We can probably come to some agreements.
		There are a lot of people on his side who are upset about what's happening on some of the areas of healthcare, particularly the ACA, but others as well.
		Just sit and talk with us.
		So he did say yes.
		He didn't tell us, but, you know, his press person said yes.
		And then a day later, yesterday, he says no.
		And he has this rant about radical Democrats.
		Is it radical to want people not to have their premiums go up $400 a month, $5,000 a year?
		Is it radical to tell a mother whose child has cancer that you're not getting treatment anymore and you're going to want your child die?
		No, it's not radical.
		And 68% of Americans think that this big bad bill was wrong on health care.
		And it's all the Democrats, two-thirds or three-quarters of the Republicans, but a third, I mean of the independents, but a third of the Republicans.
		So all he's got to do is sit down and talk.
		It's such a simple request.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we will take a short break and come back to Open Forum.
		So if there's other things that you want to talk about besides the potential for a government shutdown, now's your chance to do so.
		You can start calling in now, Open Forum, 202748-8000 for Democrats, 202748-8001 for Republicans, and 202748-8002 for Independents.
		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 7 p.m. Eastern, former independent West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin discusses his career, political polarization, and the importance of centrism.
		Then at 8 p.m. Eastern, Independent Institute senior fellow Philip Magnus presents his critique of the New York Times magazine's 1619 project, which told the story of the United States with a focus on slavery and its legacy.
		At 9 p.m. Eastern, a conversation about the influence of Karl Marx's work in America, a country Marx never visited with Illinois State University history professor Andrew Hartman.
		And at 10.15 p.m. Eastern, Stephen Grant on his memoir of his year working as a mailman for the U.S. Postal Service during the pandemic.
		Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We're back and it's Open Forum.
		Wanted to hear from you on what's on your mind.
		Public policy-wise, we'll go right to Zephyrillas, Florida, on the line for Democrats.
		Karma, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		I'd like to talk about the Medicaid situation.
		I'm elderly and disabled, and I was just denied my Medicaid that I've had for over 10 years to supplies my medical equipment.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You said you were denied?
unidentified		Yes.
		On what grounds?
		I do not know at the moment.
		I've been trying to get through to the Medicaid Center, and I've been trying to get through to the DCFS, and it's always busy.
		I can't get into my app.
		I've tried everything, and all I can do is just keep calling.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Have you tried your representative in Congress?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Maybe they can help?
unidentified		That was going to be my next move next Monday, as a matter of fact, because I have a surgery coming up, and I don't know what is to expect as far as getting the medical equipment that I need after that once I come home.
		So I'm very worried.
		And I also don't understand how if they say that Medicaid costs a trillion dollars a year and they're going to cut $900 billion from it, that's a lot of people.
		That's a lot of money.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Karma, good luck with your Medicaid Susan in Worcester, Massachusetts, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Susan.
unidentified		Yeah, hi.
		I just want to say to these libcades that call up the show, don't they understand?
		We don't want to pay for illegals.
		We don't want to pay for the people right here.
		Why don't they understand this?
		That's where all the money's going.
		They get better kids than we do for crying out loud, thanks to Biden.
		It's just amazing what's going on in this country.
		We have a president that's trying to do the right thing for America.
		And when he gave that speech at the UN, I applauded.
		NATO and the rest of these countries, they want war.
		That's all they want.
		We have to just stay out of all these foreign wars like Trump wanted to do.
		But he got pulled into it by Biden.
		We don't like Trump doing this.
		We want Trump to walk away from this with Zelensky, one of the biggest criminals ever to walk the streets.
		We're really tough to do.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Susan, what did you think about the strike on Iran?
		That was President Trump's decision to do that.
		Do you think that that was justified?
unidentified		Well, like I just said, Mimi, I love Trump, but I don't think we should be getting involved with anything.
		This is America.
		We should be thinking about me and all these people that are crying and everything.
		You're going to get your Medicaid.
		You're going to get your Medicare.
		It's the illegals.
		And this is what a good job the Democrats always do.
		Oh, you're going to die.
		You're going to die.
		No wonder Trump don't want to talk to these Democrats.
		They're not really good for him.
		They just want to put him down, start screaming like Pelosi did the first term.
		Trump's going to do what's right for us.
		And that's what he's doing.
		And I got some news for you.
		Pam Bondi, which I'm very happy.
		She's going to be getting fired.
		I'm happy about that.
		She's not doing her job.
		When I voted for Trump, I want to see people go to jail.
		That's what I wanted, Mimi.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		People like who, Susan?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Who do you feel like Pam Bondi should be putting in jail?
unidentified		Right now, Call me.
		The one from New York, there's so many of them.
		Joe Biden with the auto pay.
		This is one of the biggest answers we ever had.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it, Susan.
		Here's Ben, Granada, Mississippi, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		You got a caller that called from California, I believe.
		And then this last caller said something about the illegals.
		And the one from California said that 100 was in the hospital, 50 something, something like that.
		I thought that Mr. Trump had got rid of all the illegals.
		Well, most of them.
		So how is it that that many illegals in one emergency room?
		I mean, somebody's lying.
		I wish you would give us some information on how many they think illegals left in the United States because they're getting them here where I'm at.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I mean, we're seeing ICE raids in Mississippi where you are?
unidentified		Yeah.
		So I don't like it because they really, if they're illegal, they don't need to be here.
		I applaud them for it.
		But I keep hearing people saying that all of these illegals taking Medicaid and taking this.
		I can't, I mean, I don't believe that.
		I just don't believe it because how in the world in a country like this, and they'll say it's Democrats that's doing it, but I don't believe that.
		How can this country with all the technology that we got would allow somebody illegal to get on Medicaid or get anything from the government?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Ben.
		Let's talk to Bob.
		Racine, Wisconsin, Democrat.
		Hi, Bob.
unidentified		Hello there.
		See, Stan, you know, I really don't care whose fault it is that they shut the government down.
		Just use logical sick.
		You don't want people that need to go to the hospital stripped from Medicaid or Medicare or whatever.
		Just common sense.
		And the person, we talking about this.
		I heard the lady before me, before the other caller, talking about Biden needs to go to jail.
		This person needs to go to jail.
		Trump needs to go to jail.
		My goodness.
		Just logical.
		You know, the Medicare person that's in charge of health care, he's talking about taking where vaccines.
		Just logical sense.
		What sense does that make?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And Bob, we will talk about vaccines with the FDA commissioner in about 20 minutes.
		He'll be a guest on this program.
		So we will get to that.
		Marty, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Republican.
		Good morning, Marty.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yeah, I was just saying last time the government shut down, I didn't even notice because I pay my own way.
		Pay your own way.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Alan, Knoxville, Tennessee, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Alan.
unidentified		Marty, how are you?
unidentified		Hello.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, you got to turn down your TV because we can hear it in the background.
unidentified		Okay, I'll turn it, Janice.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Alan.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You're on the air.
unidentified		Oh, wait a minute.
unidentified		I think I'm turning it down.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		Okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I'm still there.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead with your comment.
unidentified		Okay, all I want to say is we're all human beings.
		I consider myself independent because I'm disappointed in both parties.
		We've got to, right?
		And my God, I got a Hispanic wife, and we're going through the immigration process of making her have a green card.
		And I just can't believe all this nonsense about how these people are so evil.
		They're desperate, a lot of them.
		They're hardworking.
		I've known a lot of them.
		And that's my comment.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I mean, all right, Alan, let's talk to Deborah next in San Pedro, California, Democrat.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Deborah.
		Go right ahead.
		Yes, you are.
unidentified		Yes.
		Mimi, I want to say this to you first.
		Every time the Republicans come on, you let them go on and on and on and on.
		But as soon as the Democrat come on and make a point, you cut us off.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You know, Deborah, though, I've got Republicans calling and saying the exact opposite.
		So I don't know.
		So why don't you go ahead and say your comment, and we'll hear you out.
		So go ahead.
unidentified		Okay, what I'm saying, talking about the government shutdown.
		Listen, these people ought to know by now, if they read or if they listen, that we as Democrats are not trying to do anything to harm the red state.
		They're the ones that's getting harder the worst.
		He got their vote, and they're mad because he hasn't done one darn thing for them.
		And then they want to go back to President Biden.
		President Biden was a president for all people, red states, blue states, or no matter what.
		Independence, he didn't care.
		And they know it, and in the bottom of their mind, they're trying to justify why we're having a government shutdown.
		The Democrats don't need to sit up there and go along with that vote, that big bill.
		It's because what's in the bill is to cut their Medicare off.
		Their insurance off.
		Don't they understand that?
		And Mimi, maybe you should understand, explain that to those Republicans.
		They are getting their insurance cut off, not because they're the Democrats.
		Then they want to put it on the immigrants.
		I'm just saying, this is the facts, and we need to stick with the facts.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Got it, Deborah.
		David, a Republican in Denison, Texas.
		You're on the air, David.
unidentified		Goodness.
		You need a sedative after listening to the last few calls.
		I'm a Republican.
		I'm a Trump supporter.
		I'm not the type of Trump supporter that called in a few calls ago that was vehemently opposed to Trump's foreign policy.
		I thought his speech at the UN was terrific.
		I thought his threading the needle with getting rid of the Iranian nuclear threat was perfection.
		As far as what he's recent change of direction on Ukraine, I think it's perfect.
		He gave Putin plenty of time, plenty of rope, and it was totally obvious that Putin's not interested.
		At the same time, he's gotten the Europeans to increase their spending from what amounts to practically nothing to a substantial amount and to bring them together in solidarity to agree that they need to do something about their own defense, which has been a reality for almost 100 years that they've been allowed to ignore.
		They're going to get American weapons, but they're going to pay for them, which leaves us the minor detail of being able to take care of China and Asia and maintaining all the sea routes around the world and all the other things that the United States does, not to mention all the military bases and troops that we have all over Europe anyway, which is, you know, given the current threat, it seems to me that it makes perfect sense.
		But the one thing that Trump revealed this week in his speech was the fact that the Europeans are still spending more money buying Russian gas and oil than they're paying to support Ukraine.
		And I knew it started out that way.
		It was much higher.
		In fact, if you recall back many years ago in his first administration, one of the memories that was burnt into my brain was him sitting across the table from the Europeans, Angela Merkel in particular, and he was telling them that they were fools to depend on Russia for their oil and gas.
		And it took them a while to learn it, but they ultimately have, I suppose.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, David, I just wanted to show people the front page of the Wall Street Journal about what you were talking about on Ukraine.
		The headline is Zelensky's Charm Offensive Reverses Trump's skepticism.
		It says, Ukraine's president polishes his praise, spruces up a tire to improve the relationship.
		And here is John in Atlanta, Georgia, Democrat.
		Hi, John.
unidentified		Hey, Mimi, how are you doing?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good.
unidentified		Okay, let me say something, first of all.
		What you're hearing from the Republicans are talking points.
		They're trying to demonize immigrants to say that they're getting health care.
		That's not true.
		That's what they're using.
		And another thing is that we're going into a dictatorship.
		And don't take my word for it.
		If you look at what the Republicans are doing, they're doing the same playbook that Hitler did.
		First of all, they're demonizing the immigrants like Germany demonized the Jews.
		So all I'm saying is that this administration is all for themselves.
		It's all about wealth.
		So people, and the thing that gets me is this, is that Donald Trump is making a lot of money while he's in office.
		And for two years, Comey, I mean, not Comey, but the guy over the Republican council, Comer, spent two years talking about Joe Biden, Hunter Byte, and the laptop.
		And this guy is getting filthy rich off of us.
		And let me say this to the American people.
		It's our money.
		We pay taxes.
		It's our money.
		So we can't let these people constantly do what they're doing.
		And I can tell the American people now what we need to do, get out there and vote.
		That's it.
		That's how we get rid of this stuff.
		And you guys have a great day.
		Appreciate these.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Gilbert, Birmingham, Alabama, Independent Line, you're on the air.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi, and to the C-SPAN audience.
		I'd like to expound on the President's speech before the UN General Council.
		Now, he made a lot of statements about climate control and how he thought it might be a hoax, as if he was some not the world.
		And to his issue about those countries buying oil from Russia, let me say this.
		You have to have energy to move any economy.
		If you think people are going to quit buying oil and stop their own economy and countries like India and such and so forth, he's got to be out of his mind.
		But I want to say this to all the Democrats and the Republicans.
		Both of y'all bore me.
		That's why I'm an independent.
		All this like a chicken with his head cut out.
		Both parties.
		It's time for a third party in this country.
		Have a good day.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is the front page of the Washington Post.
unidentified		Officials will seek to indict Comey.
unidentified		The DOJ will allege he lied to Congress.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Case is revived after Trump calls for charges.
		It says the effort, which was in the planning stage Wednesday evening, comes days after President Donald Trump demanded prosecutors use the criminal justice system to punish his political opponents.
		The investigation centers on testimony Comey gave before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 30th, 2020, about the FBI's missteps in the Crossfire Hurricane Probe, which had delved into possible but ultimately unproven collaboration between Russia and Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
		And it goes on to talk about the statute of limitations being five years.
		So that indictment would have to happen by Tuesday, September 30th, 2025.
		This is Jim in Marietta, Ohio, Republican.
		Hi, Jim.
		You're on Open Forum.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I would like to talk a little bit about why Biden opened the borders to allow so many illegal migrants in.
		Everybody should realize that Biden was trying to destroy all the safety net programs that President Roosevelt put into place by having all the illegal migrants getting Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, SNAP benefits, free housing and everything.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		The legal immigrants cannot get Social Security, Jim.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You know that, right?
unidentified		Oh, they can't.
		Okay.
		I don't really trust anything anybody says anymore.
		There's so much misinformation out there.
		But thank you for correcting me.
		Clear to see that Biden wanted to destroy all the safety net programs put in.
		And what better way to do that than bring 10 million illegal migrants into America?
		They will end up.
		People will lose all these benefits, and they will replace them with guaranteed income.
		You can bet your guaranteed income will be way, way less.
		They will replace the new medical.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		No, so just to clarify on the social safety net, you were talking about all those things.
		So no Social Security, no Medicare.
		There are some illegal immigrants that can get Medicaid depending on the state.
		So the state can offer them Medicaid, but not the federal government.
		Does that make sense?
unidentified		Yeah.
		Yeah, 14 states allow that.
		But if you hear a Democrat telling you about it, oh, none of those do.
		They do.
		And they're going to be like Gavin Newsom.
		They're going to bankrupt their states.
		Of course, they can always blame it on Trump, though, can't they?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Jim.
		Let's talk to Paul next.
		Independent Line, Chesapeake, Virginia.
		Good morning, Paul.
unidentified		Morning, Mimi.
		Yeah, there has been so much on this open forum today.
		I don't even know where to start.
		But yeah, I'm glad just a moment ago that you clarified the difference between Medicare and Medicaid.
		And Medicaid, the states had the chance to expand it under the Affordable Care Act, and it has just been, and the federal government has been subsidizing the states with the Medicaid all this time.
		Now, it was only supposed to last three years, and then it was supposed to become unfunded, and the states were supposed to pick it up from there.
		However, Medicaid, and this is where people are, where they're talking about the cuts.
		And they have increased, from what I understand, Medicaid is to increase three or four percent a year, and over the next 10 years, it's supposed to increase 30%.
		And the Democrat, well, they haven't figured out that when you increase spending, it is not a cut.
		Only in Washington, D.C. can that happen.
		And several other things that, I mean, it's your forums been all over the map today.
		And the thing about Comey, I was just sitting here thinking about General Flynn, how they convicted him over statements, just statements to the FBI, a general.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You mean about lying to the FBI, Paul?
unidentified		Correct.
		Correct.
		And I was amazed when they did that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Let's talk to Bill next, a Republican, Kissimmee, Florida.
		Hey, Bill.
unidentified		Good morning, Mimi.
		I just want to quickly start off checking and tell you that these things that are going on, they say this political virus has got to stop.
		It really does.
		But you got to remember, there was a tremendous hoax played on the man in 2016.
		And it involved a lot of people.
		They've got to be prosecuted.
		It's not illegal.
		You have to take care of a problem like this.
		How can anybody have any, you know, belief that anything is going to be, that the elections are going to be right?
		You have to prosecute these people.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Bill.
		And that wraps up this segment of Open Forum, but we'll have another one later in the program.
		So stay with us for that later.
		Also, we'll have healthcare and future of Obamacare subsidies are at the center of the current federal budget impasse.
		Joining us to talk about it is Protect Our Care President Brad Woodhouse.
		But first, up next, after a break, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty McCary discusses recent actions the agency has taken and related news of the day.
		We'll be right back.
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		This weekend, as America celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2026, join American History TV for its new series, America 250, and discover the ideas and defining moments of our founding.
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		And then historian and author Don Hagist examines the British Army before and during the Revolutionary War.
		Then at 3 p.m. Eastern, legal and constitutional scholars highlight landmark debates and Supreme Court cases in the evolution of the U.S. Constitution.
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		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		We're joined now by the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, Dr. Martin McCarry.
		Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. McCarry.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		Great to be with you, Mimi.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		The president made an announcement that has gotten a lot of news about Tylenol and the links to pregnant women taking Tylenol during pregnancy and that being a potential cause of autism.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to play for you a portion of what he said, and then we'll talk about it.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		So I just want to say acetaminophen is basically Tylenol, essentially, because I noticed that term is used throughout this conference.
unidentified		So it's essentially Tylenol.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		And I just recommend strongly that you don't use Tylenol unless it's absolutely necessary.
		I understand it's maybe 10% of the women that are pregnant are, you know, would perhaps be forced to use it.
		And that would mean you just can't tough it out.
		No matter what you do, you can't tough it out.
		So that's up to you and your doctor.
		But there's a very strong recommendation, maybe stronger from me than from the group because they're waiting for certain studies.
		I just want to say, I want to say it like it is.
		Don't take Tylenol.
		Don't take it.
		If you just can't, I mean, it's fight like hell not to take it.
		There may be a point where you have to and that you'll you have to work out with yourself.
		So don't take Tylenol.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Dr. McCary, do you agree with that pregnant women should no longer be taking Tylenol because of the risk of autism?
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		Well, as he mentioned, there are exceptions, and he did say it's between an individual and their doctor.
		But look, 27 studies now have found an association between prenatal Tylenol or acetaminophen and autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders.
		We have the giant Boston Birth Cohort.
		Researchers from Columbia, Yale, and Harvard founded an association.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		And the dean of the Harvard School of Public Health says that there is a causal association between prenatal acetaminophen and the neurodevelopmental disorders of ADHD and autism spectrum disorder.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		That's a direct quote from the Harvard School of Public Health.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So you are saying that there is a causal relationship.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		When we have enough suspicion, now look, there are studies that go the other way, but the weight of the studies, the overwhelming majority of the studies show that association.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		There are some studies that go the other way, and the process of science is that more studies may elucidate what the association is and more detail about it.
		But using the precautionary principle, which we should always use when it comes to children, I would say, look, if you don't need it, it's good to avoid it.
		My wife, when she was pregnant, had a low-grade fever.
		They offered her acetaminophen.
		We said, no, thank you.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		So it's one of those things where people should be aware of this information, which is why the FDA is putting the information out there.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Is this new information, or has this always been there and the guidance has changed?
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		So the 27 studies have accumulated over several years, but four weeks ago, a review of those studies by Harvard University and Mount Sinai sort of made a conclusion looking at the quality of individual studies.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		You're always going to find studies to the contrary, but they concluded that the higher quality studies favored an association.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		And remember, we've got an autism epidemic that's expanding and no one has any idea why.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let me show you what the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said in a statement.
		They said this, suggestions that acetaminophen use in pregnancy causes autism are not only highly concerning to clinicians, but also irresponsible when considering the harmful and confusing message they send to pregnant patients, including those who may need to rely on this beneficial medicine during pregnancy.
		Today's announcement by HHS is not backed by the full body of scientific evidence and dangerously simplifies the many and complex causes of neurological challenges in children.
		It is highly unsettling that our federal health agencies are willing to make an announcement that will affect the health and well-being of millions of people without the backing of reliable data.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		Look, they have an opinion.
		They can take it up with the dean of the Harvard School of Public Health and the authors of the 27 different studies that have pointed to an association.
		And remember, it's one of multiple different mechanisms that we believe are out there that may be causes.
		So it's not the only cause.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		There is a new drug for autism that has been announced.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Can you tell us about that?
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		This is, I think, the most exciting part of the announcement that got left out of a lot of the coverage is that the FDA announced we are going to approve a drug called leukovorin for the treatment of autism and it may help 50 to 60 percent of kids with autism.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		What we have learned about autism in our research since we were charged with identifying a cause or the causes of autism is that one of the causes is that the receptor on the blood-brain barrier that allows folate to be transported into the brain is blocked by an antibody.
		In other words, autism may be an autoimmune disease for some kids, and you can test for that antibody.
		So the autoimmune reaction blocks the receptor of folate, starving the brain of this critical vitamin.
		And folate, the drug that we are going to approve, bypasses that blocked receptor.
		And studies have shown that up to two-thirds of kids with a folate deficiency will see an improvement in their autistic symptoms.
		That's exciting news.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So how rigorously has this new drug been tested?
		Because you have rightly made us a little bit skeptical of the existing science and the studies.
		As you said, there's lots of studies out there.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's one clear study that kids with autistic symptoms and cerebrofolate deficiency in kids treated with the leukovorin medicine, which by the way is entirely safe.
		It's been around for nearly a century.
		That two-thirds had a clinical improvement.
		When you've got an epidemic that's expanding of kids with autism, and let's be honest, it's a brutal, cruel disease for some kids.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		They want to talk, they can't talk sometimes, they can't find the words, they know it, they get frustrated, they cry, they get angry.
		It is a cruel disease for many kids.
		And we didn't see this disease a generation ago.
		So, when we see evidence with a medication that's entirely safe, we want to make that available as soon as possible.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, is it appropriate to everyone that might be on the autism spectrum?
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		So, the doctors who have treated thousands of kids with autism with leukavorin say that they will often test for the antibody to the folate receptor.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		And when the antibody is present, then they will go on and treat the child with leukovorin.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		So, no, not for every child.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to ask you about a New York Times opinion that you wrote, and you said that pharma ads are hurting Americans.
		So, this is specific about a new FDA crackdown on direct-to-consumer drug advertising.
		Tell us what that new crackdown is about and why you think it's dangerous.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		So, you watch television tell you, you watch an endless series of advertisements where people are dancing and singing with an impression that if you take a drug, you're instantly cured of all your ailments.
		And we have regulations at the FDA that says an ad must not create a misleading impression about a drug, and that an advertisement must present a quote-unquote fair balance of information.
		So, in the past, the FDA used to send out letters when they believed that the regulations were violated.
		100 letters a year, 130 letters a year.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		Many of these pharmaceutical TV ads were rare back in those times.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		But over time, the FDA has become increasingly lax.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		And in the last administration, there were only a couple letters sent out.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		In 2003, the FDA sent out one enforcement letter, and last year, they sent out none.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		So, what I did two weeks ago is send out over 100 enforcement letters to companies about their ads that violated the regulation and over 1,500 letters to the industry letting them know that we plan to enforce the regulations so that people are not getting a misleading impression about drugs, especially with online pharmacies that may mention no side effects and paid social media influencers.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And you have the capacity at the FDA to actually send out all these letters and follow up with all these letters.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Have you been affected by the staffing cuts in the federal government?
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		Look, we had some cuts where there were duplication of services.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		We had 12 different travel offices at the FDA.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		So, we are streamlining the agency.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		We are modernizing the process by which drugs get approved.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		But no, we are well staffed, and the FDA is strong and will continue to be strong.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		If you'd like to talk to the FDA Commissioner, Dr. Marty McCary, he is with us until about 8:30 Eastern Time.
		So, give us a call.
		Lines are by region.
		So, if you're in the Eastern or Central time zones, it's 202-748-8000.
		If you're in Mountain or Pacific, it's 202-748-8001.
		Regarding these ads, you cite 1997 as kind of a pivotal year, because, you know, for those of us that are older, we do remember that these ads were not on TV before.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		What happened in 1997 is the government said you can put the side effects somewhere else.
		You can put it on a website or in a publication and just refer people to that.
		And that was a loophole.
		It's called the adequate provision loophole.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		It said that if you put side effects somewhere else, that was adequate.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		Well, we're closing the adequate provision loophole.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		If you're going to advertise a drug with side effects, including sudden death, we want that mentioned in the advertisement.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, what impact do you think this is going to have?
		Do you think that pharmaceuticals are just going to be like, I'm not going to advertise anymore, this is too difficult?
		Or will they moderate their ads?
		What do you think?
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		I think we're going to see less ads.
		Now, we believe in advertising.
		We want the companies to exercise the right to free speech.
		But we have jurisdiction at the FDA over claims made by pharmaceutical companies.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		You just can't claim that something is going to cure you of all your ailments and not mention any side effects.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		That is our jurisdiction is around pharmaceutical and product claims.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		I think we're going to, we'll see.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		Pharmaceutical companies spend a tremendous amount of money on these advertisements.
		As a matter of fact, of a pharma company's budget, up to 20 to 25 percent of their entire budget goes to marketing.
		We'd like to see pharma companies use that money to lower drug prices for everyday Americans.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And will the FDA fine them if they're found in violation?
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		We have a lot of tools in the toolbox to use to take action, and we can refer cases to the DOJ when necessary.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I just want to ask you real quick before we take calls about the vaccine recommendations and childhood vaccine changes.
		There's a lot of confusion right now among pediatricians.
		Typically, pediatricians will cite the CDC vaccine recommendations.
		Some of them are saying they're not quite sure what they're supposed to be recommending.
		What do you say?
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		Well, look, we've been an international outlier pushing the COVID booster shot on every young child every year in purpose.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		A healthy six-year-old girl needs 70 more COVID shots in her average lifespan.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		No other country in the world is saying yes to that.
		You go to France, you have to be 80 years of age to qualify for the COVID shot or high risk.
		You go to the UK, you have to be 75 years of age.
		We're the only, we're an international outlier.
		So the ACIP committee has been considering should we get more in line with the rest of the world.
		At the FDA, we just approved three COVID shots, two mRNA and one traditional COVID shots, but we did so for high-risk individuals and anyone who wants to take it outside of that group can take it, but it is considered off-label.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And the hepatitis B vaccine is typically given at birth.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		The president said you can only get it through sexual transmission.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I don't know why the hepatitis B shot is recommended to be given at birth.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		It's a sexually transmitted infection or you're trying to prevent a needle stick transmission of an infectious disease.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		It doesn't matter.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Or you can get it from the mother during childbirth.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so if the mother, all the mothers are tested for hepatitis B, if the mother tests positive, it's a small fraction of the time, then it's considered standard of care to give it at birth to reduce the risk of transmission.
		When the mom tests negative for hepatitis B, there's no urgency.
		It can be given at age 10 or 12.
		But the absolutism that has surrounded the hepatitis B shot to be given on the day of birth and then three shots before age two is an example of where the evidence really doesn't support it compared to later in childhood, but it creates a tremendous amount of distrust because people are smart enough to know you're preventing a sexually transmitted infection.
		Why is there so much absolutism around that?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Can it be harmful, though, given giving it too early?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I mean, do you think kids are over vaccinated in this country?
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		Well, look, you go to Denmark and they get about a third the shots as the United States.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		Do they have mass outbreaks of all these infectious diseases that people talk about?
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		No, they don't.
		So I think we can allow for some flexibility with certain vaccines.
		And I think where public health officials, and we don't recommend vaccines at the FDA, but the CDC does, I think where the public could use some guidance is what are truly the essential vaccines and where can you have some flexibility.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		I've had patients who have said, look, I'm going to use the German vaccine schedule or the Japanese vaccine schedule or the French vaccine schedule or the Danish vaccine schedule.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		And you know what?
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		Maybe that's okay.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		We have more vaccines in the U.S. vaccine schedule than any other country in the world.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Do you worry that some people will just not get vaccinated?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Because some people are saying, I don't trust any vaccine.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		Well, look, that's why I oppose the COVID vaccine mandates.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		I was worried it was going to create never vaxxers.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		When you insist that somebody is fired from their job, a teacher, a firefighter, a soldier in the military, because they didn't get a COVID shot or a COVID booster when they're young and healthy, and the risk-benefit ratio was really tight.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		That creates a tremendous amount of distrust.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		And trust in hospitals and doctors took a massive dive during COVID.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		71% of the public trusted doctors in hospitals in 2019.
		Over the four years of COVID, it dipped to 40%.
		That's a 31-point drop in trust in my profession.
		And I think it was over the dogma, pushing COVID boosters in young, healthy kids, insisting a toddler wears a mask, a cloth mask for three years, or pushing cloth masks as if they truly stopped the spread when we know cloth masks were not very effective.
		And ignoring natural immunity, something that was scientifically, intellectually dishonest, but it was done just to get people to obey with a vaccine mandate.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		That kind of rhetoric and dogma creates distrust.
		And my fear is that that distrust would have a ripple effect.
		And I think it has.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to callers.
		We'll start with Margaret, Washington, D.C. Good morning, Margaret.
		You're on the air.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yeah, I just can't believe what I'm hearing.
		I mean, I'm a nurse.
		What you're saying just goes against so much of what I've been taught and what I practice.
		And it's just, it's just, I feel like you're selling out your MD.
		I mean, unfortunately, you're working under somebody who I consider to be a total quack and doesn't know what he's talking about.
		ACIP, don't be fooled.
		This is the road to discontinuing vaccines altogether.
		Vaccine availability, I need my COVID vaccine.
		You know, we need our COVID vaccines.
		It might not be 70 through the lifetime because who knows in time we'll do more research and we might not need it, but right now we do.
		And my gosh, the president couldn't even pronounce acetaminophen and he was obviously just repeating what somebody had told him to say.
		And finally, I really recommend to people who want to get the true science behind everything called microbe TV, especially their latest one with Paul Offutt, where it's called To Serve Man and it's about RFK.
		Thank you.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		I'm not sure if there was a question there.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned, though, Dr. Paul Offitt, who has been very outspoken about saying that there is no link between vaccines and autism.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Where do you stand on that?
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		Well, first of all, Paul Offitt is massively conflicted.
unidentified		He was the Merck chair of professor at Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		I'm not saying he doesn't know anything.
		I'm just saying that people have to understand there are massive conflicts of interest.
		And when the committee at ACIP was replaced with a new set of individuals, the goal was to reduce pharmaceutical conflicts of interest.
		Now, there are some outstanding physicians on that committee.
		Martin Kulldorf, a top Harvard vaccine epidemiologist, chairs the committee.
		Cody Meisner was head of pediatric infectious diseases at Tufts Children's Hospital.
		These are top minds.
		He served on our VERPAC committee at FDA.
		So look, I believe in a civil discourse.
		I believe that we should have ideas discussed.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		Some people don't believe that.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		Some people think shut down anyone who asks if their child can have the HEP B vaccine later in childhood.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		And it creates this incredible tension.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		We have probably a majority of pediatricians in this country that as a policy of their practice will kick out any child from their practice if they do not follow every single dose and date of the traditional vaccine schedule.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But going back to my original question, do you think that vaccines can cause autism?
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		I don't think so.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		It's been studied with the MMR shot.
		I think the cause, there are multiple causes of autism.
		And if you had to ask me in the middle of this big research project that's ongoing to identify the cause, what are the main causes?
		I would say an autoimmune response to the folate receptor starving the brain of a critical nutrient called folate, treatable with leukovorin, mitochondrial dysfunction, which is common with insulin resistance in the modern world, and possibly something related to changes in the microbiome.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		We've ignored gut health in the United States, and there's a strong connection between brain health and gut health.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to JL in Laurel, Maryland.
		Good morning.
		You're on the air.
unidentified		Good morning, Doctor.
		I'd like to say, first, I'd like to start off by saying that I strongly agree with you about the HEP vaccine.
		We have seen people who've gotten, I'm a midwife in Maryland, and we have seen people who've gotten the police called on them or got their children threatened taken for denying certain vaccines or wanting delayed vaccine schedules.
		So I completely agree with you on that, and that's something that a lot of midwives recommend.
		My next comment slash question is if we know that folate and folic acid, if we know that talking about these things earlier could potentially prevent us having to do the bad work later and having to treat with a medication, why are we not introducing more things about the gut cell and about folic acid or checking prenatally to see like if they had the gene mutation and all these kind of things.
		Why are we not addressing these things ahead of time instead of then waiting for something to happen later that we now have to address with other medications?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think it's a great question.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		And in fact, folate has been included in prenatal vitamins and it's generally recognized to be beneficial and important in the diet of pregnant women.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		But only recently are we identifying the fact that perhaps a child either in utero or in early life may have sufficient amounts of folate in their system, but it's just not getting to the brain because of the blocked receptor.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		And leukavorin bypasses that blocked receptor.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		So look, leucovorin is essentially methylated folate, which can go directly into the through the blood-brain barrier.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		So I think this is an exciting area of research.
		I really hope that there will be some therapy for the 2.5 million kids with autism.
		Perhaps, you know, I've heard doctors say 20% of their kids with autism will see some benefit from leukavorin.
		Others say that up to 50 to 60% of the kids will have benefit ranging from a market improvement from to some improvement.
		So this is a new area.
		I hope that it will help many kids.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Janet in Rocky River, Ohio.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Janet.
unidentified		Hi there.
		Listen, I'm going to ask you about the biggest fraud going on in the United States.
		Well, number one, first I'll tell you the reason why I think it's going on is because the TV stations are making by now billions.
		Also, the manufacturers.
		Prevision and Nariva.
		This would be a miracle drill pill.
		This would be a miracle pill if it would help my 80-year-old brain.
		It's a big fraud.
		I contacted a company a couple years ago, or not a company, whatever, about it, and they said there was lawsuits from two states.
		One was New Jersey.
		That went away because they got paid off.
		Prevision and Nariva should not be on the market.
		They say that small print.
		This does not help the brain.
		My doctor laughed when I asked him about it.
		Why is Prevision and Nariva still on the market?
		This is up to your company.
		Get rid of them, please.
		Thank you so much.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, look, I understand your concern.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		As a regulator, I'll pass on commenting on any specific product, but people have to consider.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What kind of product is this?
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		These are products that claim that it can help your memory.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		And so some people feel like memory is a very difficult thing to measure.
		They've tried it, perhaps, and they've thought it doesn't help memory.
		It's not going to, you know, significantly alter the course of age-related dementia or something like that.
		But, you know, some people say even caffeine can help their memory a little bit.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's John in Mechanics, Mechanicville, New York.
		Hi, John.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi, Mimi.
		Hi, Doctor.
		I have three quick questions.
		Beginning with Big Pharma, I mean, specifically a company like the Sackler family.
		I mean, it seems that Big Pharma really dominates in Congress.
		They seem to control.
		There's very little governmental regulation.
		They just flood the airwaves with all these proposed cures.
		And the cost of these things, it appears, just basic medication, we pay tons of money more than they pay in Europe or someplace else.
		So, and, you know, while we get the politicians saying that they're going to do something about it, nothing substantial ever seems to be getting done.
		And piggybacking off that, just as a segue, I think somebody mentioned, may have mentioned the immigration coming into the United States.
		We had about 15 million people unvetted, and there was a measles outbreak.
		Now, I'm not saying that the measles were a direct cause from the unvetted immigrants, but something lingering in the back of my mind indicates that possibly it could have been.
		There could have been other diseases when you get so many people coming in unvetted, and you just simply don't know unless there's a massive outbreak like COVID coming from China, and then you can possibly trace it back.
		And I'll end it with this.
		I'm 78 this coming month, and I taught school for 40 years.
		And I saw a tremendous increase in the number of kids that were kind of listless and distracted.
		I don't know.
		Maybe it could be that, you know, they weren't interested in what I was teaching, but a lot of teachers shared the same thought.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, John, we'll get a response.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		If you look at what we do to kids today, we rattle them in the middle of their sleep at night when it's dark, altering their circadian rhythm.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		We load them with ultra-processed foods that increase their glycemic index and give them a sugar high.
		And then we hit them again at lunch.
		We ask them to sit still at a desk for seven hours.
		And when they can't do it, we medicate and drug our nation's kids at scale.
		We have got to start talking about the root cause of our ADHD, an autism epidemic.
		Is it something in the food supply?
		Is it something in the environment?
		Is it an expectation that we have that is not allowing kids with a high spatial intelligence to be creative because we're confining them?
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		Is there a role for natural light exposure in the normal development of a child?
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		Some kids in school today have less natural light exposure than an inmate in a federal penitentiary.
		So part of this Maha agenda is to look holistically at the health of a child and not just talk about medicating as the only approach to medical science.
		We've got to talk about school lunch programs as much as we talk about insulin.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		We've got to talk about snap waivers so that taxpayer dollars don't go to sugary drinks and ultra-processed junk food.
		And so we've seen the first ever snap waivers in the Trump administration, and we are taking a holistic view at health, looking at all of it.
		And that's why we've done this work on the root causes of autism.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Making America healthy again, Maha, is definitely an admirable goal.
		Do you have any measurable statistics or something?
		What are you looking to measure your success with at the end of your term?
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		Look, we want healthier food for children and more cures for the American public.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		That's my goal at the FDA.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		And if you look at just the Healthy Food for Children goal, we had an announcement last week from one of the largest food makers in the United States, Heysen, that they are removing not just the nine petroleum-based food diets that we've gotten almost the entire industry to remove, but high fructose corn syrup, titanium dioxide, a concerning chemical we've asked to be removed, and BHT, a preservative that we think may have potential harm.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		And so we've seen this tremendous response from the food industry to move our food supply to a healthier, less chemical food supply.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Kurt in Browns Mills, New Jersey.
		Hi, Kurt.
		You're on with Dr. Marty McCary.
unidentified		Thank you, Doctor.
		Thank you, C-SPAN.
		I think Maha, Make America Healthy Again, will go down in history as bringing, being bold enough to actually have a debate and discuss this out loud.
		Hopefully you guys are successful in the debate.
		I have a couple of suggestions for ideas.
		The MRA, the MMR, and the MMRNA are two separate, they shouldn't even be called.
		One is a vaccine, one is a brand new something.
		That's something that should be explained.
		Then there's a test will reveal itself.
		You have Florida.
		They just said, hey, we're going to stop requiring everybody to get vaccinated.
		In time, we'll see if there's less authenticates.
		And bringing up Tylenol, if you take Tylenol when you're pregnant, you should think twice.
		And with that said, Robert Woodson, give him a bigger microphone.
		Thank you.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		There's a study actually out of Johns Hopkins that if you treat a fever in a child's illness, you prolong the duration of illness because the fever may be the body's natural way of ridding the infection.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		So there are multiple reasons to try to avoid acetaminophen or even ibuprofen in a child's illness.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		Now, of course, you don't want a child to be extremely uncomfortable.
		And there are times in pregnancy that the president said, I've said, we've all said, where an individual should take acetaminophen.
		It's between the individual and their doctor.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		But the traditional reaction that a low-grade fever should get acetaminophen as if you're helping the illness, you're not.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		All you're doing is making a number go down, and it has no therapeutic value.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		If anything, it could prolong the duration of illness in a young child.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		He mentioned the MMR vaccine.
		That is now being separated from the MMRV, which is for chickenpox.
		Why separate out vaccines?
		Why not keep them together?
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		There's a concern about co-administration of vaccines creating an inflammatory response.
		Many countries don't require the Varicella vaccine, or they'll offer it at another point in time.
		So it's some individuals, some doctors have concerns about co-administration of four, five, six vaccines on the same day.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Michael in North Attleboro, Massachusetts.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Michael.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		First of all, thanks to C-SPAN.
		Great program.
		I'm a new listener.
		And my question for Dr. McCary, thank you as well, is concerning the Pfizer, Moderna, and Janssen COVID-19 vaccines.
		It's a bit of a two-pronged question.
		First and foremost, here in Boston, we have a researcher formerly of MIT, the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research, now at Medicinal Genomics, Kevin McKernan.
		He has published with a group of international researchers and scientists from around the world the presence of the SV40 promoter and all of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines and its reputation as an ongoing promoter for aggressive gene expression.
		I have about six or seven articles here that have been published from Australia, Japan, Germany, France, Spain, and Canada, and most recently here in the United States in the journal Autoimmunity confirming the presence of the SV40 promoter.
		The other part of the question is researchers, again, throughout the world and here in the United States are finding the presence of nanotechnology biosensors in these COVID-19 vaccines.
		And if and when the FDA, Secretary Kennedy, are going to acknowledge the presence of these nanotechnology biosensors.
		And what do you think that the purpose of these nanotechnology biosensors are doing?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's get a response, Michael.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		Very technical question.
		I appreciate the question.
		Our job at the FDA is pretty simple, and that is we have a charge by Congress to review data presented to us by a company, by a pharmaceutical company or device company.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		And then we are to determine whether or not the claims that they want to make about their product are consistent with the evidence that they are sub with the evidence they are submitting.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		Now, we did ask the companies that it's to go back and do a clinical trial in individuals for the COVID vaccines.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		It's been four to five years since we've had a clinical trial for the COVID vaccine.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		It's a very different time.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		The COVID emergency is over.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		Population immunity is generally extremely high.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		99.9% or so of individuals have been exposed to the COVID virus.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		And the virus is a different virus now.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		It's not as virulent or dangerous as it was when it first came out.
marty makary ▲ ● ▼		So it's a very different time.
		We think it's reasonable to have a clinical trial to check in to answer the question for individuals who are getting the COVID shot each year, should they keep going or not?
		It was a theory that if you get it each year, it would have a benefit.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		That theory has never been tested with a proper randomized control trial.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's start Dr. Martin McCary.
		He's the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
		He's also written a book called Blind Spots, When Medicine Gets It Wrong and What It Means for Our Health.
		Dr. McCary, thanks so much for joining us.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		Great to be with you.
martin a makary ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Later on the program, Ethics and Public Policy Center's Henry Olson discusses how conservatives should attempt to lower heated political rhetoric and vitriol in the United States.
		But first, Protect Our Care President Brad Woodhouse discusses the Trump administration's cuts to health care and the debate over Obamacare subsidies at the center of the federal budget impasse.
		We'll be right back.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		In our last podcast, Ed Luce of the Financial Times told us about his books big for his big new Brzezinski, who he calls America's great power profit.
		In this episode, we're going to feature a book notes interview from April 2nd, 1989 with Dr. Brzezinski.
		He was the first guest for the weekly Sunday evening program that ran till 2005, and that was for 16 years.
		His book at the time was about his longtime prediction that there would be a failure of communism in the Soviet Union.
		The name of Brzezinski's book was The Grand Failure.
unidentified		We revisit an interview with author Zavignu Brzezinski about his book, The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the 20th Century on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host Brian Lamb.
		Book Notes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
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		Then at 8 p.m. Eastern, Independent Institute senior fellow Philip Magnus presents his critique of the New York Times magazine's 1619 project, which told the story of the United States with a focus on slavery and its legacy.
		At 9 p.m. Eastern, a conversation about the influence of Karl Marx's work in America, a country Marx never visited with Illinois State University history professor Andrew Hartman.
		And at 10.15 p.m. Eastern, Stephen Grant on his memoir of his year working as a mailman for the U.S. Postal Service during the pandemic.
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		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		Joining us now to talk about healthcare and the federal budget impasse is Brad Woodhouse.
		He's the president of Protect Our Care.
		Brad, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		Thanks for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So tell us about Protect Our Care.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What's your mission and how are you funded?
unidentified		Well, so Protect Our Care was founded actually in 2016 after Donald Trump won the first time with the goal of protecting the Affordable Care Act from being repealed, which I think people thought was a real long shot with Republican control of the House, the Senate, and the White House.
		But we were successful, and we stuck around after repeal failed in 2017 to continue to protect and strengthen American health care.
		Our main interest is in expanding affordable health care to the American people and lowering costs.
		So we want people to pay lower premiums.
		We want access to health care to be easier for people, easier for them to afford, also lower prescription drug prices.
		So we're out there to protect and enhance the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, Medicaid.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And who funds you?
unidentified		We're funded by individuals, foundations, labor, organized labor.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		The Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, is at the center of the funding fight right now in Congress to avoid a potential shutdown.
		That's five days away.
		Explain what the debate is about and why Obamacare is all of a sudden in the news again.
unidentified		Well, sure.
		So the Republicans earlier this year passed the big, beautiful bill, big, beautiful law, what we call the big ugly bill because of what it did to health care.
		And it eliminated health care for 15 million people over the next few years, a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid.
		And then there were opportunities in that bill to extend the ACA premium tax credits that were passed several years ago, and they chose not to.
		And now people are getting notices of premium increases.
		States are setting premium increases.
		And next year, people are going to pay much higher premiums.
		On average, 90% more for premiums under their plans on the marketplace.
		So Democrats have decided that in the instance of passing the Big Beautiful bill, they didn't need Democratic votes.
		They did it.
		They decided that they wanted to take money out of American health care and fund tax breaks for the rich.
		They wanted to extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts that mostly go to millionaires and billionaires.
		And this time they need Democratic votes.
		They need Democratic votes to fund the government.
		They need 60 votes in the Senate.
		So Democrats decided that the crisis of American health care wasn't important enough to bring Republicans to the table, but Republicans won't come to the table.
		Trump canceled a meeting this week.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But how did these federal subsidies for the ACA get expanded in the first place?
unidentified		Well, they were expanded in the Biden administration.
unidentified		They were expanded where they were expanded as part of an effort to get people more health care in the aftermath or in the middle of the pandemic.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And so now that COVID is over, shouldn't those go away?
unidentified		Well, look, they have proved so successful.
		During the Biden administration, when he left office, we had the lowest uninsured rate this country has ever seen.
		So we have more people.
		Look, more people having American health care, more people having coverage, more people sharing the risk, a healthier population.
		That's in everyone's benefit.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And so when you say more people, how many people are we talking about?
unidentified		We're talking about millions.
unidentified		I mean, we nearly doubled the enrollment.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Enhanced subsidies.
unidentified		From the enhanced subsidies.
		Well, so if you take away the enhanced subsidies, there are 20 million people that will see their premiums rise.
		There are another 4 to 5 million people to see their health care.
		They just won't be able to afford the premium increases.
		So there are 25 million people.
		But this debate and what Democrats have put on the table as part of this discussion about funding the government is not just the premium tax credits.
		They've asked for the restoration of the Medicaid cuts.
		I mean, a trillion dollars in Medicaid cuts.
		And we're tracking 417 hospitals that either have closed, said they're going to close, are at risk of closing, or have started to roll back services.
		Maternity wards are closing.
		Some emergency rooms are closing.
		This is all because they can't afford these Medicaid cuts.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Brad Woodhouse is with us from Protect Our Care.
		If you'd like to talk to him, you can go ahead and start calling in now.
		The lines are by party.
		Democrats are on 202-748-8000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Independents 202-748-8002.
		Let's go back to the Medicaid cuts.
		Did you say 417 hospitals?
unidentified		417, or no, 471 hospitals that we have a map that tracks.
		So there's a lot of these are at risk.
		So they haven't closed yet, but they have said, they've said publicly or the analysis has said that they are at risk of closing because of a trillion dollars in Medicaid cuts.
		There are dozens of hospitals that have already made the decision to close because they can't plan to remain open knowing that these Medicaid cuts are coming.
		In other places, Planned Parenthood clinics have closed.
		And in some places, they're making the decision that, well, they'll close a maternity ward, but try to keep the rest of the hospital open.
		And remember, these places don't just serve Medicaid patients.
		There are many of them in rural areas.
		They serve anyone who comes in the door.
		It might be someone with private insurance that's bought insurance on the marketplace, that has Medicare, that has TRICARE, or that has no health care at all.
		But Medicaid is a big driver in these rural areas.
		Medicaid patients are a big driver of income.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So explain that because the supporters of the bill are saying we're going to get out the fraud that's in Medicaid and we're going to get off the illegal immigrants who should have never been on Medicaid.
unidentified		Those are talking points.
		I mean, they've never shown any proof or evidence that those are real problems in Medicaid.
		I mean, look, we want to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse everywhere.
		There's not a trillion dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid.
		I mean, that is laughable.
		I mean, a trillion dollars is going to devastate Medicaid.
		I mean, people are going to have to leave nursing homes.
		Families who have in-home care for disabled children are going to lose that.
		It means that they won't be able to go to work.
		I mean, there are, and we're tracking all these stories, I mean, of people who know that they're going to have real devastating consequences as a result of these cuts.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, in the Truth Social post that the president put out canceling the meeting, he said that Democrats want to force taxpayers to pay for transgender surgery for minors.
unidentified		Well, I mean, this is just, this is just, there's no truth.
		There's no truth to that.
		I mean, that is, look, this is their one trick pony since the last election is to try to smear Democrats with the issue of transgender, to smear us with, you know, illegal or undocumented, undocumented immigrants.
		But it's all talking points.
		I mean, this is, they're trying to find their way into issues that divide, that are wedge issues.
		What they don't want to deal with is the reality.
		Look, they went out and tried to sell their cuts from the big ugly bill in August, and they said all these things, that they had strengthened Medicaid and that they were trying to root out waste, fraud, and abuse.
		No one believed them.
		And then they came back and they had a big effort to rebrand that bill because no one believed that Republicans were trying to strengthen Medicaid.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, if there is a shutdown, what happens to people that are already on Medicare, Medicaid, and government-funded health care?
unidentified		Well, in the past, when there's been a government shutdown, people that get those essential services, whether it's Social Security checks or Medicare or Medicaid, continue to have those benefits.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Would you see any impact to that care at all?
unidentified		Not that we're aware of.
unidentified		We tracked this the last time there was a government shutdown in 2018, and those services, people being able to access Medicaid, access Medicare, access, for example, their Social Security will continue.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Just those employees that might be involved in sending those checks or approving they will not be paid.
unidentified		Well, correct.
unidentified		They're usually some of those that are still on the job as essential employees.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's talk to callers, starting with Michelle Annapolis, Maryland, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Michelle.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I would just like to make one clarification on the use of the word subsidy.
		These are actually tax credits that hardworking middle-class American families who pay taxes are utilizing their tax credits so that they could purchase their own health insurance.
		So it's not a freebie.
		It's their tax credits that they are using to be able to provide health insurance for their families.
		Yeah, well, that's absolutely correct.
		I mean, and look, there are a lot of things in the tax code that benefit the American people.
		And I would just remind you that when they decided not to extend tax credits for people to purchase health care, they did it in a bill where they were extending tax breaks to the richest Americans in the country.
		And they told the American people it didn't cost anything.
		They used a device that said, well, since these are already in the budget, they don't cost any additional money.
		They could have done the same thing with these credits.
		It was a tax bill.
		It's what it was.
		They decided to cut health care, to fund tax cuts.
		They could have extended these tax credits in a tax bill.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to William in Norcross, Georgia, Republican line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, William.
unidentified		Good morning, Mr. Woodhouse.
		I'd like to point out that first off, number one, the federal deficit last year was $1.9 trillion.
		We just cannot continue to run these kind of deficits.
		Two, much of the Medicaid money goes for providing care for illegal immigrants.
		Again, why should American taxpayers provide medical care for illegal immigrants?
		We should stop this.
		The states that provide Medicaid to all their population do so also for illegal immigrants.
		Again, we don't need to provide money for illegal immigrants.
		And third, a point, as I looked up your organization, and I know that one of the people involved in the organization, what you call your board of advisors, happens to be with the SEIU, which is the government employees.
		Why do you have such a person?
		What does government employees have to do with providing medical services?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, let's get an answer for you, William.
unidentified		Well, so first of all, he's right that we have a deficit situation in this country, and it is exacerbated by the fact they just passed trillions of dollars in tax cuts, and the only way they decided to pay for those was to cut American health care.
		Look, investments in health care, they pay for themselves.
		And by the way, if you just cut people, if you just eliminate Medicaid, if you just cut Medicare, which this bill does, or if you eliminate the Affordable Care Act, everyone still gets health care.
		They get it when they're sicker.
		They get it when it costs more money.
		They get it when they have to go to the emergency room.
		And then those costs are passed on to people who are paying for their own insurance or on employer plans, and those costs are passed on to the state.
		You don't save any money by cutting American health care.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Even to undocumented immigrants, if you were to take all those people off of Medicaid, that's provided by the United States.
unidentified		Well, There are state policies related to who gets Medicaid.
		There's no federal policy to provide Medicaid to undocumented immigrants.
		And it is a fraction of what we're talking about in terms of 15 million people losing American health care.
		I mean, you really talk about, you really talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Betty next, Democrat, Illinois.
		Hi, Betty.
		You're on the air.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just want to say the gentleman is so right.
		My daughter was working at the reception at the Simon College office, and he laid all three of them off that he wasn't accepting Medicare anymore.
		Yeah, look, it's a problem.
		Hospitals, clinics, a lot of community health centers are looking at cuts.
		And some of them will go out of business because Medicaid patients are what pay the bills.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Jennifer, who is calling from Belmar, New Jersey on the Republican line.
unidentified		Good morning.
		How are you today?
		Good morning.
		Doing fine.
		I'm calling from New Jersey.
		We're a blue state, obviously, and we're a sanctuary state.
		I do know for a fact that if you can get a driver's license as an undocumented citizen, that you can go ahead and get other benefits, if you will.
		Most times it is Medicaid.
		Now, Medicare is one thing.
		Medicare, I think, is a necessity because there are people who are in the workforce.
		They've retired.
		They need to have some sort of health care.
		So Medicare is there for them.
		But Medicaid is really there for the person who can't afford any insurance at all and pretty much isn't even holding a job.
		So in my situation, my brother is one of those people.
		He's an able-bodied man.
		He could work.
		He's just a drug addict.
		So now he gets on the Medicaid system.
		There's other people who don't hold a job.
		And here in New Jersey, you can get a special auto insurance policy, which is called SAP, which makes them just have medical, but they have no liability.
		So now they're out driving around on the road and they crash you.
		You can't be made whole again by collecting under their insurance because they technically have none.
		I just think the Medicaid program is good for some people, but it really needs to be weeded out because there are people on there who clearly should not be on there.
		And I think that's really what the conversation needs to be about.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think, Bob?
unidentified		Well, I mean, look, I think there are a lot of these arguments that Republicans have put forward that are meant to advance their cause.
		Their cause is to cut Medicaid so they can fund tax cuts for billionaires.
		So they'll take an extreme case, they'll take a single case, they'll take a minor case, and they'll make it.
		You talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.
		There are millions, there's 75, 80 million Americans that benefit from Medicaid.
		So we're going to destroy it all because in some states, undocumented immigrants get access to Medicaid.
		And by the way, if they didn't get access to Medicaid, you'd be paying for their care at the emergency room.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is Bob, who's in Naples, Florida.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Independent line, you're on with Brad Woodhouse.
unidentified		Yes, good morning, sir.
		My only comment in regards to what you're talking about is that think back four years ago when the Biden administration opened our borders and let in millions and millions of people, where did they get their health services from?
		They're almost crashing our system, basically, at this point.
		That's all I have to say.
		I mean, it's the immigrants, the illegal immigrants that have caused major problems in this country.
		Thank you.
		There's not a trillion dollars that needs to be cut out of Medicaid to deal with that issue.
		And let's be clear, Medicaid was not targeted for cuts because some undocumented immigrants or some drug addicts have access to Medicaid.
		It was targeted for cuts in the same bill that they extended trillion dollars in tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Does your organization also support lowering health care costs for people on private insurance?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So high premium, high deductible plans?
unidentified		Well, I mean, we would like to see lower, we'd like to see lower costs across the board.
		And, you know, what we're, you know, we're focused on expanding and enhancing the Affordable Care Act.
		We're focused on expanding and enhancing Medicaid.
		And we'd certainly like to see lower, one way to get lower costs across the board would be to lower prescription drug costs, which is another thing that we fought for.
		And we, you know, during the Biden administration, they passed a law that said that Medicare had to negotiate for lower drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.
		And there's some drugs now that they are negotiating for lower prices, but a lot more could be done.
		One of the biggest drivers of cost in the health care system is the high cost of prescription drugs.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And what is the Trump administration doing in that sense?
unidentified		Well, I don't think they're doing much.
		I mean, President Trump has talked about, you know, has talked about this.
		He's talked about the high costs of drugs here versus internationally.
		But he hadn't actually done anything.
		In fact, he's going to place tariffs on some drugs.
		They're going to make drugs more expensive here.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Neil, Silver Spring, Maryland, Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		My question is, Carmen, with all the cuts in the health care that is possibly going to take place, and based on what you stated earlier, a lot of royal hospitals are going to be cutting back services are shutting down.
		I was curious to know, do you have stats on which states are willing to come in to cover that difference?
		I want to know the stats between red states and blue states.
		I'm just curious to know, because a lot of states claim they don't need federal help.
		And now I'm going to get federal help.
		So I'm just curious to know what states are willing to cover this difference for their constituents or their residents in their state.
		I'm just wondering, Neil.
		Yeah, I don't think we know yet.
		And I think that's going to be a really important, really important question.
		I mean, this law just passed two and a half months ago.
		So I think it's going to be really interesting to see the burden on states and which states decide to come up with a plan to cover people who are losing coverage and which states let them go out on their own.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		On the Republican line in Wellsville, Missouri, Willie, you're on the air.
unidentified		Yes, I would like for you to list all of the demands that the Democrats are wanting for the budget.
		That hasn't been talked enough about what all they're wanting and why the Republicans are refusing to cooperate.
		Thank you.
		Well, so we're in an interesting situation here where as long as I've been here and been involved in politics and health care, these funding bills usually have bipartisan solutions.
		Back in March, Republicans didn't talk to Democrats.
		And Democrats, you know, enough Democrats in the Senate eventually went along with funding the government from March until September 30th.
		Again, Republicans are refusing to meet with Democrats.
		I don't know all what you would call the Democratic demands, but one thing that Democrats want to be on the table is restoring the Medicaid cuts that were made this summer and extending permanently the Affordable Care Act tax credits.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So we'll actually put that on the screen for you, Willie.
		Now, this is the Senate Democrats government funding bill.
		So this is what Senate Democrats have proposed.
		And here it is from Punch Bowl News.
		Funds the federal government through October 31st, permanently extends Obamacare premium tax credits, reverses Medicaid cuts in the GOP's One Big Beautiful bill, ends billions of dollars in unilateral spending rescissions by the White House, and restores public broadcasting funds that Republicans have eliminated.
		That's in the Senate Democrats funding bill.
unidentified		It's a handy graphic.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We had it ready.
		Debbie in New York, Line for Democrats.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		When the Trump administration was looking at waste, fraud, and abuse, I didn't see much search into providers.
		This is going back.
		My husband had a surgery in 2009, and I happened to look at the bill, and they were charging Medicare for two doctors.
		I'm sure it's a lot more now, it was $16,000 each for two surgeons.
		And when I called up the provider, I said, Who's the other surgeon?
		And they mentioned the name.
		I said, he's a PA.
		And then I called Medicare, and they rescinded the money from the provider with $16,000, and then they gave the PA $2,300.
		And when I called the provider again, she goes, We always bill like this.
		So there's a lot of overpaying providers, also in hospitals.
		I had to hire an aide to watch over my husband.
		He's disabled.
		And I said, tell me when PT comes in because I want to see how they work with my husband.
		Then she called me.
		She said, they walked in and they walked out.
		And they put down 45 minutes of service.
		So I had to call the hospital, and the hospital called the PT and they went back in the room and worked a little longer with him.
		But there's a lot of overpaying of the providers.
		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And all right, let's get a response going.
unidentified		Well, look, I think we need more people like her.
		I mean, she should be a healthcare auditor.
		I mean, look, there's no doubt that there are problems in the system.
		I mean, look, I think if we went back and built American healthcare from scratch, we probably wouldn't build it that way.
		And this is why it would be so important if Democrats and Republicans could come together on reforms to the health care system.
		Unfortunately, going back 15, 20 years at least, it's been almost a completely partisan exercise.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And I think that's all the time that we've got.
		Brad Woodhouse is the president of Protect Our Care.
		You can find more about them at protectourcare.org.
		Thanks so much for joining us.
unidentified		Great.
unidentified		Thank you so much for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Up next, Henry Olson of the Ethics and Public Policy Center discusses how conservatives should attempt to lower heated political rhetoric and vitriol in the United States.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We'll be right back.
unidentified		This fall, C-SPAN invites you on a powerful journey through the stories that define a nation.
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		Among this season's remarkable guests, John Grisham, master storyteller of the American justice system.
		Justice Amy Coney Barrett, exploring the Constitution, the court, and the role of law in American life.
		Famed chef and global relief entrepreneur Jose Andres, reimagining food.
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		The books, the voices, the places that preserve our past and spark the ideas that will shape our future.
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jimmy carter ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is always an unfinished creation.
ronald reagan ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is worth dying for.
george h w bush ▲ ● ▼		Democracy belongs to us all.
bill clinton ▲ ● ▼		We are here in the sanctuary of democracy.
george w bush ▲ ● ▼		Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies.
barack obama ▲ ● ▼		American democracy is bigger than any one person.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected.
unidentified		We are still at our core a democracy.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.
unidentified		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		Joining us now is Henry Olson.
		He is the senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and he also hosts a podcast called Beyond the Polls.
		Henry, welcome to the program.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Thank you for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to start with an opinion piece that you wrote in the Washington Post.
		And you wrote this before Charlie Kirk's memorial service out in Arizona.
		And you said this is the rights moment to forge a super majority.
		What do you mean by that?
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		What I mean is that what's been happening for the last decade is over-the-top vitriolic attacks on conservative politicians, conservative people, conservative personalities that in some way contributed to the murder assassination of Charlie Kirk.
		Most Americans are against political violence.
		Most Americans are against that sort of vitriolic rhetoric.
		But too many, as we see from the reactions online on the far extreme left, are not.
		And what I meant by that was that this is a moment to say, we are against this.
		We are against this sort of vitriolic rhetoric that excites passions and drives mad, unstable people to murderous acts.
		And you should be with us.
		And what that does is it forced mainstream people on the left to disown those activists, which you've seen very many of them are unwilling to openly do.
		And that's something that can work to the right's benefit and to America's benefit.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to play you a portion of Vice President JD Vance's remarks when he talked about the causes of political violence, and then we'll discuss it.
unidentified		Sure.
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		When Democratic politicians incur doxing, when they encourage us to unmask ICE enforcement officers, what do you think is going to happen?
		When the mayor of Los Angeles encourages violent protesters to get in the face of our law enforcement, what do you think is going to happen?
		What's going to happen is political violence and political violence has gotten out of control in this country.
unidentified		We got to stop it.
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		We got to condemn it.
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		And that starts, unfortunately, at the very top of the Democratic Party.
unidentified		If you want to stop political violence, stop attacking our law enforcement as the Gestapo.
		If you want to stop political violence, stop telling your supporters that everybody who disagrees with you is a Nazi.
		If you want to stop political violence, look in the mirror.
		That's the way that we stop political violence in this country, and we got to do it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		He very clearly blames the left for political violence in this country.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What's your reaction?
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, let's put it in the context.
		He's talking about the attempt yesterday, the murder of people outside of the ICE office.
		And the fact is, you did see Governor Newsome, as well as others, who called ICE agents Gestapo.
		I see people on my Facebook feed who are my friends, but they're progressives, who draw analogies between the number of ICE agents and the number of Gestapo agents.
		Yes, that absolutely does encourage, again, unstable minds to take things into their own hands.
		And if you want the unstable minds to stop doing those things, you need to stop having the rhetoric that pushes them over the edge.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And what role do you see from the right in bringing down the temperature in this country?
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think the right needs to also bring down the temperature.
		But let's be clear that there's been no assassination attempt on a Democratic presidential candidate.
		There were two presidential assassination attempts last year on President Trump.
		There's been no crazed shooter who is attacking California police officers or Los Angeles police officers for trying to do what they do.
		There have been people who have attacked ICE agents who have, now we know, yesterday murdered people.
		So yes, I think the right needs to not be engaging in huge rhetoric that incites and potentially pushes unstable minds over the edge.
		But the political violence in the last few years has been disproportionately, overwhelmingly on the left.
		And that means you take the beam out of your own eye before we take the moat out of ours.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		In your opinion, in your column, you did say that Charlie Kirk's funeral would be a chance for the right to do the right thing.
		It was a huge platform.
		And Charlie Kirk's widow, Erica, did do that.
		She said the answer to hate is not hate.
		It is love, and it is always love.
unidentified		She forgave the alleged shooter.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What did you think of President Trump's comments at the funeral?
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think that most of the media has picked up on Mrs. Kirk's comments, which I think is the right way to take.
		I think the president should not have said what he said about he disagrees with her and with Charlie about loving your enemies.
		He hates his enemies.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And he does not wish them well.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		And he does not wish them well.
		Look, the president has a responsibility to lead.
		And I think the right way for him to lead is to do things like what we just heard Vice President Vance say, you know, which is to say, you camp down the rhetoric which is causing this violence, but you should also not engage in the sort of rhetoric that means that the mainstream left, the mainstream person, is also beyond the pale.
		And the president crosses the line sometimes, and I think he ought not to cross the line.
		I think things like what Secretary of State Rubio, what Vice President Vance, what Mrs. Kirk did, strikes the right balance between rightly calling out the left's rhetoric, but not jumping the shark and moving into a similarly extreme rhetoric that has yet to, but could very well, have violent circumstances, violent reactions.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		If you've got a question or a comment for Henry Olson, you can start calling in now.
		He's a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
		The lines are bipartisan.
		So Democrats are on 202, 748, 8,000.
		Republicans are on 202, 748, 8,001.
		And Independents, 202748, 8,002.
		Former First Lady Michelle Obama famously said, when they go low, we go high.
		But you say that some conservatives are taking a different mantra, which is when they go low, we go lower.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, no, first, yes, she said that, but I think we've seen in the last 10 years that that's advice that many, too many on the left, both the mainstream left and the extreme left have not taken.
unidentified		They have gone low, they have gone lower.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		I have friends who have lost jobs, who have received death threats and so forth, all spurred by the hateful rhetoric of people who did not take the First Lady's advice.
		But the fact is there are people on the right who are basically saying we're in a war and what that means is that it's a total war and any means are necessary.
		And I don't think that's a democratic solution to a democratic problem.
		Democratic, I mean small D, not big D.
		That what we need to do, people on the right, needs to say, look, America needs to come together around certain principles.
		We believe these are our principles.
		We are not Nazis.
unidentified		We are not authoritarians.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		And if you call us that, you are not only beyond the wrong, you are beyond the pale.
		And that has happened too often.
		Anyone who turns into the view can see that on a daily display.
		And that needs to stop.
		Because again, when you are engaged in that, when you tell people that there is no difference between Adolf Hitler and the man in the Oval Office, you should expect diseased minds to take that seriously.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Henry, what are the words that you would say should be completely off limits?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You mentioned, obviously, calling somebody Hitler or a Nazi, but what about the word authoritarian?
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Authoritarian or tyrant.
		These are often used political words that don't have the emotional connotation.
		Certainly Republicans attacking Franklin Roosevelt called him things like that.
		It's something that the right engages in with respect to calling people like President Obama un-American or beyond the pale.
		But it's when you're basically making a claim that the existence of America is at stake and these people are so evil they can be compared to and in fact are no different than the worst mass murderers in world history.
		That ought to be beyond the pale.
		And if it's not considered to be on the pale, I suggest you look at your own soul because if you believe that's true.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What about the word fascist?
unidentified		I think the word fascist ought to be beyond the pale.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		I also think on the right that the word communist ought to be beyond the pale.
		Is that to say Zoran Mandani is a socialist?
		He is not a communist.
		Many people on the right are extreme, but I don't know a single person who would be anywhere close to being considered fascist if you actually know what the word means.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let me show you the statement by DNC Chair Ken Martin on the Dallas shooting at ICE.
		He said this.
		Let me be clear.
		It will take all of us, not just one side of the aisle or the other, to quell this epidemic of violence, which has no place in our democracy.
		Democrats remain committed to resolving differences through debate and elections, not with weapons.
		We also remain committed to enacting common sense solutions to curb gun violence all across the country.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, again, what would be very nice is to have somebody on the Democratic side with authority say Donald Trump is not a fascist.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Donald Trump is not a Nazi.
unidentified		I disagree with him.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		I think he's taking the country in the wrong place.
		I think he's eroding democratic norms.
		But let's say what he's not.
		He's not these things.
		And we can win with democratic means and democratic persuasion.
		We are not on the brink of an authoritarian dictatorial takeover that will throw people in camps.
		I have literally been in rooms with progressives when they wonder when will they be thrown in the concentration camps.
		That's insane.
		It's utterly insane.
		And it's aided and abetted by the constant drumbeat of people in authority, institutionally, politically, telling them that.
unidentified		That must stop.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is George Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You're on with Henry Olson.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I'd like the guests to respond to this sentence that I see in today's USA Today.
		The sentence is, a study earlier this month by the libertarian think tank Cato Institute found terrorists motivated by extreme right-leading ideology killed six times more people than those on the opposite side of the political spectrum between 1975 and September 10th of this year.
		That's the sentence.
		No, I mean, I have not read the study.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		I don't know how they're defining that, but I don't know any person who is politically motivated from the right who has attempted to kill a leading Democratic politician.
		There's no, you know, we had a man who was politically motivated on the left who tried to get into Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's home to kill his family.
		There's no one who's getting into Ketenji Brown Jackson's home wearing a MAGA cap or affiliated with the Proud Boys.
		There was a man who was a Bernie Sanders supporter who took an automatic weapon to the congressional baseball practice in 2017.
		And but for the presence of a member of the House Republican leadership who has security, whereas at that time the average member does not, he would have murdered 10, 20 Republican congressmen because it was only the presence of that security that saved those people's lives.
		And Steve Scalise almost lost his life and was in the hospital for a long time recovering from his wounds.
		There is no one who is taking an automatic weapon to kill Democrats at the Democratic baseball practice or something similar.
		Again, take the beam out of your own eye before you take the moat out of the right.
		I'm not saying the right is innocent.
		I said in my article that we should not on the right go down the path of saying that we should go lower.
		But the fact is political violence directed against political figures has come exclusively from people motivated, warped as it is, by someone on the left for the last few years.
		And that must be called out for what it is, both by people on the right, which we heard Vice President Vance do, and by responsible leaders on the left.
		That if you believe this, you are not my friend.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is what George was referring to.
		So this is the article.
		It's dated September 17th, updated on the 18th.
		It says, study showing far-right extremists have committed more violence has been removed from the DOJ website.
		And here is Akiva in Clifton, New Jersey, Republican line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Amy.
		Good morning, Mr. Olson.
		I have two questions for you, but I have to just say that before Charlie Kirk died of his gunshot wound, but after he was shot, Gabrielle Giffords posted on text that she was praying for his recovery.
		Anyways, my first of two questions is, you know, we had Frank Lobiondo here in New Jersey serving in Congress, and he says, I'll be driving in the car and I'll turn the radio and the people on the radio will be saying things that did not happen on Capitol Hill.
		I was there.
		I'm a congressman.
		So is the media trying to over-exaggerate what's actually going on in Washington, D.C., you know, Capitol Hill?
		And my second question for you is, you know, Tom Dashall and Trent Lawt wrote a book called Crisis Point nine years ago in 2016, and they write, they mention that the media used to be the referee, and now they are the participant.
		And so my second of two questions for you is, did the media decide that in order to boost ratings, excuse me, rather, it'd be better for us to boost ratings and cover conflict every single night on cable news or on ABC News.
		And therefore, we won't cover how life is getting better and how Congress actually gets most things done on a bipartisan basis.
		What is the media trying to do by lying to us?
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		I think there are strong elements of the media that do not engage in partisanship.
		I'm on one network or entity that does that, but too many do.
		And I think it's very clear.
		I'm old enough to remember when the bias that one might claim would be slight inflexes or slight preferences as opposed to the very slanted opinions that one gets from cable news or even many mainstream reporters.
		And it's a bias that comes from almost all one direction, which is not to say it is only one direction.
		I mean, certainly I can point to certain elements on the right, which is every bit as biased as things that we will see on the left, whether it's in print or whether it's on new media or whether it's on cable.
		I do think that what responsible voices in the media should want to do is go back to the idea that they are there to inform rather than to rally, rather than to be partisans.
		And that is something that's very hard to do, given that people have political passions.
		But if your role is to be a reporter, you should report.
		If you want to be an activist, there are many ways to do that, and that includes writing and persuading.
		But that's different from the mantle that people in the media have cast upon themselves that many people, left and right, now say is just not being upheld by the vast majority of people who report on the news.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Guy in Sigler, Oklahoma, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Hey, good morning, Nini.
		You look very nice today.
		And Henry, this is a great topic.
		I'm glad that you're on the show today.
		Back in the 70s, I was a very high-ranking intelligence officer, and I was recruited in 1980 to go to work for the CIA.
		I've worked for every agency over the last 40 years, except for the NSA and the DEA.
		Been a contractor, DOD, SCI, SAP.
		And what we're seeing, in my opinion, is we're seeing tape-no-prisoner politics run by the Democratic Party with a disintegrative warfare outcome.
		They are willing to do anything to destroy President Trump.
		Indictments, impeachments, trying to bankrupt him.
		This is all the propaganda we're seeing, fascist, Nazi, bigot, racist, all these things are so disintegrative.
		The Democratic Party has taken this from the Nazi Party in 1929, where the Nazi party was coming into power.
		And how did they turn the German people against the Jews through propaganda and hate speech?
		And that's what we're seeing.
		And they did it in four years, from 1929 to 1933.
		Joseph Goebbels told Hitler this will work.
		Hitler didn't believe him.
		And they put it to the test.
		And they turned the whole German population against the pillars of their society.
		The Jews were business owners, doctors, lawyers.
		They were the pillars of their society.
		And of four years, they turned him.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, we got that point, Guy.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's get a response.
unidentified		Yeah.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Look, what the caller says is not the Nazi part, but with respect to the Democratic Party, it's a very widespread view among the right.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		And it's widespread among people who are average citizens and people who are prominent, people who actually get called fascist, Nazi, get the death threats, get deplatformed, and so forth.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But, Henry, what do you think of, you know, we've talked about not calling somebody Hitler, not calling somebody a Nazi, but like what Guy just said was this comes out of the Nazi playbook.
		This is what the Nazis did.
		And we're hearing that on both sides.
		Well, Democrats will call and say what Trump is doing now comes right out of the 1930s.
		This is what Hitler did when he took power.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think that's.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Should that be off the table?
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Should that be off the table?
		Unless there is a real element of truth to it.
		Yes, it should be off the table.
		I mean, just because somebody engages in verulant speech doesn't mean it's out of the Nazi playbook.
		Just because somebody is making a particular stance on immigration doesn't mean that immediately we have a reductio ad Hitlerum.
		This shows a paucity of historical understanding and a paucity of understanding of what's actually at stake.
		Hitler was an evil man.
		The Nazi Party was an evil party.
		It was outwardly and expressly against liberal democracy from its foundation.
		There is no element of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party that is seriously engaged outwardly in saying liberal democracy must end and the dictatorship of one group must succeed.
		And I don't think we should encourage people to believe things that simply aren't true.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Gary, a Republican, Odenton, Maryland.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Gary.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Hi.
		I'd like to ask the guest if he would put, I'm going to ask, can you be just a little stronger on your side?
		I'm a Republican, and I'd like to say when we say, look at what the rhetoric is producing on the left, and then they say, like the host said, well, what about the right?
		And you said, well, we're not perfect ourselves.
		The challenge with saying that is we're out to, in a Christian way, decipher the truth about what is going on in our world right now.
		All of us, left and right, we all have friends, family, we love on both sides.
		But there's something that has to be peeled back to see the actual truth of what is going on.
		It's 30,000 feet up in the air, and it gets manifest on big media, big tech, etc.
		And it does have something on all of us.
		So if you listen and look at Trump, he seems very much, he was devastated.
		He said, yes, I have to, you know, he was honest.
		He said, I, yeah, I kind of hate him because of all of what's been done to him.
		And if the media would show and run the specific details and stories about the backgrounds of what was done to him already, and he's got to peel it back now.
		But when you're in your position, I don't think we need to peel back the truth when we call out the truth.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That's what I'm saying.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Look, I wrote a piece about eight years ago called The Flight 93 Decade.
		You can find it online.
		And I bemoaned the possibility that we were moving towards exactly the situation that we were in.
		And that I said that this is something that is coming from both sides.
		What has happened since then is that one side, which holds the commanding heights in terms of communication and institutional support, which is not the right, has intensified its rhetoric, and it has done so in a way that has actually caused, as I documented both in my article and on the show, numerous actual attempts at political murder.
		I called out January 6th.
		After January 6th, I called it out repeatedly in print saying that the election lies were lies, that Joe Biden won fairly, and that we ought not to be walking down that path.
		But when what we have is an attempt to silence the criticism of the left by saying, isn't it both sides?
		If we're involved in a dispute with somebody that we care about, it is much easier to say, I apologize if the person who threw the first punch, the punch that landed, apologizes first.
		Let's hear the apologies from the leading forces of left to say, we are wrong.
		Voices who are encouraged to vote for Democrats who take extreme views are wrong.
		Ronald Reagan said repeatedly, you know, I'm for states' rights, but if you are somebody who believes in racial inequality or the Ku Klux Klan, you have no role in my party.
		You are not my supporter.
		I do not accept your support.
		Let's hear that from the Democrats about their extreme left, as small as it is.
		It is vocal.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But to be fair.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear them apologize first before people say, well, let's move on from what happened by having you apologize.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		President Trump also never disavowed any of the Klan, the United States.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I think he did, but it wasn't as quick.
		Yeah, if you go back, I watched those things, and he has, but you would have wished that he had done it more readily and unambiguously in the way that Ronald Reagan did.
		But he did.
		I followed that controversy rather closely.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And he also is the first modern president to say, I hate Democrats.
		I hate my opponents.
		This is half the country, Henry.
		Well, you know, and when you say, well, I would like to see a Democrat say that in power, there's nobody in a higher power than the President of the United States.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		And again, that's just a false equivalency, is that, yes, there are people who are, we had a president, Joe Biden, who was the highest power, who used a presidential speech, not a political speech, a presidential speech to accuse his political opponents of wanting to end America.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		That's what the Philadelphia speech in 2022 was.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Wanting to end America.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's essentially what he said.
		I wrote a column about that and called it out in the Washington Post after he made it.
		But there was the attack on the Republican Party, the MAGA-Trump Republican Party, that called them anti-democratic, called them what you will, and had the dark, ominous red background against Independence Hall.
		Come on.
		Apologize for that, okay?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's talk to George.
		Fayetteville, Georgia, Independent Line.
		Hi, George.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		Just a couple of points real quick.
		Leadership does not take sides when leading the nation.
		Leadership at the very top, whether it be the president, whether it be Congress, all those leaders should be speaking on behalf of all Americans, not running to a political party and saying they versus them.
		Second, when you start a conversation by calling names, nobody's listening.
		Nobody's listening at all.
		All the name calling is for performative conversation only.
		It's not about getting things seriously done.
		And then lastly, I would ask the gentleman here to write an article, just write an article asking everybody, everybody, don't even put a party in there, just to ask all people in places of leadership to bring it down.
		Don't say you did this, you did that, and before you did this, and you did that, and you apologized first, and then I'll apologize.
		That's what children do.
		Those are children games.
		Adults see that the house is on fire, and they call the fire department to put it out.
		You, sir, can be the fire department.
		Help put the fire out.
		Thank you.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		I have written many articles calling you.
		Again, I would ask you to go back and look at the Flight 93 decade, which I wrote in 2017, which basically does say, look, we don't want to walk down this path.
		Both sides, we do not want to walk down this path.
		In the moment, I am not going to surrender the position that what has to be done is the people who are doing the shooting need to stop having cover given to them by people who don't share their violent ends, but share their deepest fears or encourage them to have those deepest fears.
		And as respect for the president being somebody of all the people, that may be, that is an element in which they have, but I'll turn you to the idol of the modern Democratic Party, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who in his Madison Square Garden speech in 1936 talked about the people who are opposing him.
		And he said, they are united in their hatred for me, and I welcome their hate.
		That's what Franklin Roosevelt said in the 1936 election, because he was engaged in a political warfare.
		And he did not shirk from, he did not shirk from political rhetoric that we would consider to be inflammatory.
		He always divided average Republicans from what he called a small group of selfish businessmen and Republican leaders, which is something I would wish that President Trump would emulate as a political matter.
		But the fact is, what has caused the death of Charlie Kirk?
		What has caused two assassination attempts on President Trump?
		What has caused attempts on Brett Kavanaugh's life?
		What has caused actual attempts, the 2017 baseball crisis shooting?
		This is a thread that now goes back eight years.
		It is a poisoned well that comes from a poisoned source, and part of the poisoned source is people outside the well saying things that run downstream and turn into poison.
		And they need to say, okay, we hate Donald Trump.
		We hate what he's doing.
		But our side has to move first.
		You know, as Michelle Obama said, maybe it would be nice to see the Democrats in this moment go high to encourage Republicans to follow suit.
		And I would encourage Republicans to follow suit if I could see Democrats follow and taking the first step.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That's Henry Olson, Senior Fellow at Ethics and Public Policy Center.
		He also hosts a podcast called Beyond the Polls.
		You can find him at ePPC.org.
		Henry, thanks so much for joining us.
henry olsen ▲ ● ▼		Well, thank you for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And up next, we'll finish off the show with Open Forum.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		can start calling in now, and we'll be right back.
unidentified		In 1945, the United Nations was founded in the aftermath of World War II.
		This week, C-SPAN marks the 80th anniversary of the UN.
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		We'll feature President Trump's 2018 speech to world leaders at the annual gathering, laying out his argument against globalism.
		Then a 2022 speech from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky calling on the United Nations to create a special tribunal to punish Russia for its aggression against Ukraine.
		Watch the 80th anniversary of the United Nations all this week at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 2.
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		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		We are monitoring the UN General Assembly meeting.
		We're expecting the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to be speaking, and we will bring that to you live right here.
		So that is expected shortly.
		But in the meantime, we will be taking your calls for open forum until that gets underway.
		Here's Maria, Greensboro, North Carolina, Independent Line.
		Good morning, Maria.
unidentified		Good morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go right ahead.
unidentified		Yes, you know, people in this country are scared.
		We have so many shootings.
		We have so many discussions about the left, the right.
		But what's happening is there's a lot of hate, and it's coming from the White House.
		Our president has most of the time 95% of what comes out of his mouth is a lie.
		People are scared with the tariffs, what's going on within the world.
		And in times like this, we should have a unification of the country.
		Not, oh, the last did this, the last did that.
		No, people should gather together and unify this country.
		Because unification before it goes to hell.
		Because right now, the situation is getting worse every minute.
		We have more shootings.
		We have more discourse.
		We have people going against each other.
		And all we hear about our leaders is: oh, the left did this, the right did that.
		And then we have our leaders in the White House.
		Oh, the Democrats are evil, this and that, and that and this.
		And that's just adding more fuel to the fire.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Got your point.
		Chuck Kingston, Washington, Democrat.
		Good morning, Chuck.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I would like to call and talk about Mr. Olson.
		Kept mentioning about the right or Republicans being harassed and all that.
		He never mentioned this couple in Minnesota, part of the Senate, that were gunned down.
		That man had a Democratic list of people.
		He did not mention about Nancy Pelosi's husband or the fact that Don King Jr., or excuse me, Donald Trump Jr. had a picture and a costume of a person with a hammer.
		I mean, I would like to see both sides represented.
		It's always one-sided.
		Everybody wants to talk about the left doing this, the left doing that, the right doing this.
		It's both sides.
		I get it.
		That's a lame argument because nothing ever gets settled upon that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it.
		And Woody and Providence, Rhode Island Independent Line.
		Woody, we may run out of time if you could be brief.
jimmy carter ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, of course.
unidentified		Thanks for having me.
		A perfect segue for the last one.
		I just wanted to say: does anybody remember the 1960s, all the assassinations?
		Does anybody remember OKC?
		The history of political violence goes back quite a ways.
		We have to be honest about it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we are monitoring the third day of the UN General Assembly.

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