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C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy. | |
| From Washington, D.C. to across the country. | ||
| And coming up Sunday morning, we'll talk with Clifford Young of Ipsos about his organization's latest polling on public opinion of President Trump's second term. | ||
| And then the Migration Policy Institute's Musafer Chiste discusses the Trump administration's new restrictions to H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers. | ||
| And Laura Blessing of Georgetown University discusses the potential government shutdown next week and its impact on federal workers and agencies. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal. | ||
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This fall, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity. | |
| Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
| Join Political Playbook Chief Correspondent and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns as host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the aisle into a dialogue to find common ground. | ||
| ceasefire this fall on the network that doesn't take sides only on c-span book tv every sunday on c-span 2 features leading authors discussing their latest non-fiction 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. | ||
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| 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. | ||
| This is Washington Journal for Saturday, September 27th. | ||
| This week, James Comey proclaimed his innocence after the Justice Department indicted the former FBI director on two counts. | ||
| And the federal government is inching closer to a government shutdown with the White House and congressional Democrats and Republicans blaming each other for failure to reach a short-term spending deal. | ||
| And Jimmy Kimmel is back on the airwaves across the country after two of the largest local TV station owners reinstated the late night talk show host following a brief suspension over comments he made about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. | ||
| Those are just a few of the stories making headlines, making headlines. | ||
| And for the first hour of today's program, we're asking you, what's your top news story of the week? | ||
| Here are the lines. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can text your comments to 202-748-8003. | ||
| Be sure to include your name and city. | ||
| You can also post a question or comment on Facebook at facebook.com slash C-SPAN or on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Good morning, and thank you for being with us on this Saturday. | ||
| We will get to your calls and comments on the top news, your top news story of the week. | ||
| Just a few minutes, but we'll start with one that I just mentioned, and that is the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. | ||
| This from CBS News says former FBI Director James Comey was indicted Thursday on two counts, marking a major escalation in President Trump's efforts to target his political opponents and use the Justice Department as part of his campaign to seek retribution against his most ardent critics. | ||
| Comey was charged with one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice related to Senate testimony he gave almost five years ago. | ||
| A majority of grand jurors did not approve indicting him on an additional count of lying to Congress, according to court papers, an unusual development since grand juries rarely reject charges. | ||
| It goes on to say in a statement, Attorney General Pam Bondi alleged that Comey, quote, obstructed a congressional investigation into the disclosure of sensitive information and he made a false statement to Congress. | ||
| Quote, Comey stated that he did not authorize someone at the FBI to be an anonymous source. | ||
| According to the indictment, that statement was false. | ||
| Bondi's statement read. | ||
| And it goes on to say no one is above the law, Bondi wrote on X. Today's indictment reflects this Department of Justice's commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people. | ||
| We will follow the facts in this case. | ||
| Following the announcement of the indictment, James Comey responded, posting a video on Instagram. | ||
| Here is that video. | ||
| My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn't imagine ourselves living any other way. | ||
| We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn't either. | ||
| Somebody that I love dearly recently said that fear is the tool of a tyrant, and she's right. | ||
| But I'm not afraid, and I hope you're not either. | ||
| I hope instead you are engaged, you are paying attention, and you will vote like your beloved country depends upon it, which it does. | ||
| My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system, and I'm innocent. | ||
| So let's have a trial and keep the faith. | ||
| Here's a closer look at those charges. | ||
| According to the indictment, it's two indictments approved by Virginia grand jury. | ||
| The statue of limitations on such a case was due to run out next week. | ||
| Comey was expected to surrender to authorities Friday. | ||
| That's yesterday. | ||
| An enrament was scheduled for October 9th before U.S. District Judge Michael Natchmanoff. | ||
| That is a Biden appointee. | ||
| If convicted, Comey faces up to five years in prison. | ||
| That's just one of the top stories that we have covered at C-SPAN this week. | ||
| For this first hour of today's program, we're asking you, what's your top news story? | ||
| We will start with Paul in Idaho, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Paul. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I think the top story is the Comey one. | ||
| This guy ran basically the Department of Justice through the offices of the FBI and they're accusing him of doing something illegal. | ||
| And I'm not shocked. | ||
| Excuse me. | ||
| I'm not shocked that he's been put up for what they're saying he's done. | ||
| But you're innocent and you're proven guilty in a court of law. | ||
| And you can, you can, you know, I'm sorry. | ||
| That was Paul in Idaho. | ||
| Let's hear from Andrew in Millbrae, California, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Andrew. | ||
|
unidentified
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Okay, the biggest story of the week was the autism thing because that was a very, I think that was a very large scandal because there's nothing really that comes of that because autism really isn't a big thing. | |
| So really, RFK is sending billions of dollars to mostly people he has worked with in the past to do research that doesn't really amount to anything. | ||
| So basically, R.K. has embezzled billions of dollars. | ||
| That's a very big news story. | ||
| That was Andrew in California. | ||
| Rob, calling from Port Crane, New York, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Rob. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning, Tammy. | |
| I agree that Comey's story is one of the big ones. | ||
| I hope he's just the first of many arrests and indictments. | ||
| But the biggest story I heard that's going untalked about in the news is how the federal government just arrested a woman they call the devil who lured pregnant women to Mexico, did illegal C-sections and killed these women. | ||
| That was Joe Biden's open border for you. | ||
| I'm so glad they caught another one of these horrible people. | ||
| But, you know, we're going to be paying the price for what Biden's administration did for decades. | ||
| And I'm so glad Trump's throwing these people out finally. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Rob in California. | ||
| Charles is calling from Tennessee on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Charles. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, ma'am. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I don't understand this thing with the fellow they're prosecuting here. | ||
| It's the Democrats working to prosecute him about nine years ago. | ||
| So it looks like they're doing something right. | ||
| But my main topic is this budget thing. | ||
| If they go through this, it's going to cut a lot of people off insurance. | ||
| What do they say? | ||
| 15 million or something? | ||
| This is going to be devastating. | ||
| That is the main topic. | ||
| I mean, this is already done. | ||
| And, you know, this is what we're going to be talking about more and more of this budget. | ||
| Where do we go from here if they do this and cut these people off? | ||
| What happens? | ||
| And how high will the people that have insurance, how high will their insurance go to? | ||
| This is, I mean, this is very critical, but I guess it'll make a lot of sense. | ||
| But that's my big topic of the week. | ||
| Head in the upstate. | ||
| We're going to get back and find out what happened with that. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Charles in Tennessee. | ||
| Charles talking about the potential government shutdown. | ||
| The deadline for Congress to reach an agreement, fund the government, even on a short-term spending deal is Tuesday at midnight. | ||
| Let's hear from Dave, who's calling from Atlantic Beach, New York, Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Dave. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hey, good morning, Tammy. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Good, well, Dave. | ||
| Yeah, Mr. Comey, he was obviously part of a big cabal that were running things in Washington. | ||
| I'll point out his visit to Trump Tower with other big security people, where he mentions that he went there early enough where he knew he could catch the Trump administration, you know, the first administration. | ||
| They didn't know what they were doing, and he could catch them. | ||
| Secondly, he came out and made comments about, you know, nobody would go after Hillary Clinton. | ||
| Well, what's Hillary Clinton doing with all those servers at her house storing information? | ||
| I'll tell you what she was doing. | ||
| She was taking the classified information and keeping it for herself so that when she wrote her next book, she'd have this treasure trove of data and information. | ||
| Otherwise, what is she doing with classified information? | ||
| And secondly, it was very normal for the FBI to feed anonymous sources to the New York Times and the Washington Post. | ||
| So Comey, I don't feel sorry for him. | ||
| He came out with a book recently, and he did that thing with the seashells, 8647. | ||
| So he's obviously corrupt, and he's obviously, you know, wants attention, and now he's got it, and now he can prove himself innocent. | ||
| Have a great day, and I love C-SPAN. | ||
| That was Dave in New York. | ||
| And Dave talking about the indictment of former FBI director James Comey. | ||
| This from The Hill, it says the indictment of former FBI director James Comey marked the first criminal charges to be brought against a political adversary of the president, but many fear they will not be the last. | ||
| It says President Trump has a long list of perceived enemies, and he hasn't been shy about repeating, repeatedly calling for their prosecution, telling reporters in the wake of Comey's indictment, quote, I hope there will be others. | ||
| President Trump was asked about that yesterday by reporters at the White House. | ||
| Here is that clip. | ||
| It's not a list, but I think there'll be others. | ||
| I mean, they're corrupt. | ||
| These were corrupt, radical-left Democrats. | ||
| I would say the Democrats are better than Comey. | ||
| He'll be honest. | ||
| That's my opinion. | ||
| They weaponize the Justice Department like nobody in history. | ||
| What they've done is terrible. | ||
| And so I hope they're, frankly, I hope they're honest. | ||
|
unidentified
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You can't let this happen to a country. | |
| We're taking calls in your comments on social media and via text on your top news story of the week for this first hour. | ||
| Mike in Norwalk, Ohio, line for independence is next. | ||
| Good morning, Mike. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning, Tammy. | |
| Not only should Comey be indicted, we're talking Berner, Clapper, and Obama, Biden, and Hillary Clinton. | ||
| They're the ones that tried to pull a coup on the United States and President Trump. | ||
| It'll all come out eventually, but that corrupt government behind you is dragging their feet, trying to make sure that time runs out to where anybody can be prosecuted. | ||
| This is utterly ridiculous. | ||
| We're no banana republic. | ||
| Trump is trying to clean up Washington and make Washington work for us than themselves and corporate America. | ||
| How much more of this stuff are we going to stand? | ||
| I didn't like Trump in the beginning, but I'll tell you what, I'm behind Trump 100%. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Mike. | ||
| Let's hear from Rick in Los Angeles, California, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Rick. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, good morning. | |
| Yeah, Comey, I was watching an interview with Andrew McCarthy with Maria Bartaromo a couple days ago, and he made a very good point. | ||
| They under charge, the grand jury under charge, Comey. | ||
| All they charged him with was lying on the road. | ||
| That means he gets away with everything that was done, the conspiracy that he started back in 2017. | ||
| There's no statute of limitations with conspiracy, which is what he's to him and all these other cohorts were involved in. | ||
| It's a conspiracy that they didn't charge him with. | ||
| There's no statute. | ||
| They didn't charge him with the third kick because there's a statute of limitations. | ||
| It goes back to 2017. | ||
| If they were to charge him with conspiracy, there is no statute of limitations, and they could have even gone RICO on him, I believe. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Rick in California. | ||
| Also in California. | ||
| It's Rose calling from San Jose on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Rose. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I want to talk about what I have noticed, the story that doesn't get much attention, pharmageddon. | ||
| Pharmageddon. | ||
| And the reason the farmers are in such an alarmed state is, number one, our farmers, since I was a kid, when we used to watch them dumping milk by the thousands of gallons, they would just dump the milk. | ||
| They plow under their fields because the surplus food, the bumper crops they had, were lowering the price on the market, and they couldn't afford that. | ||
| So they would, you know, cut down on their supply to keep their prices higher. | ||
| Well, the government stepped in and started to buy the surplus food that the farmers grow because you cannot predict what you're going to get when you plant the seed. | ||
| And sometimes they just had too much. | ||
| So the government of the USA steps in and buys the food, and it goes to our nursing homes, our hospitals, our school cafeterias, and then it goes to foreign aid as well. | ||
| So it's a win-win situation. | ||
| It's a wonderful thing. | ||
| That was Rose in California. | ||
| Betty is calling from Blackburg, South Carolina on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Betty. | ||
| What's your top news story this week? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, if that man gets off, it'll be because Biden's done, the judge is a Democrat, and he's guilty. | |
| And these other Democrats that's causing all this killing and all the time, it's Chuck Schuber, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Scheer, Max Waters, all of them. | ||
| They're the main players, and there's more of them. | ||
| But they get rid of them. | ||
| All this would stop. | ||
| That's the reason they don't keep on. | ||
| And the ones that come on this program, Democrats, they lie. | ||
| They lie. | ||
| What if it was them? | ||
| What if it was them? | ||
| And just like going after Donald Trump, they've been nice to that man ever since he comes down that elevator. | ||
| Him and his wife. | ||
| They've been nice to them and his wife, too. | ||
| That was Betty in South Carolina. | ||
| She's calling in with her top news story of the week. | ||
| And you can, too, if you'd like to join the conversation. | ||
| The lines Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Another story that C-SPAN has been following is the potential for a government shutdown with the deadline to fund the government, even on a short-term basis. | ||
| Coming on Tuesday at midnight, this is from the Washington Post. | ||
| It says Congress appears to be barreling toward a federal government shutdown with less than five days, in less than five days, with Democrats demanding concessions in exchange for their votes and Republicans refusing to yield. | ||
| Democratic leaders in the House and Senate are holding firm to their vow to oppose relatively straightforward, a relatively straightforward measure to extend government funding past September 30th unless Republicans agree to negotiate on health care. | ||
| It says they did not seem rattled by the release of a memo late Wednesday from the White House Office of Management and Budget threatening to direct government agencies to consider firing employees working on any program not funded by another law if the shutdown occurs. | ||
| It was House leader Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies reacting to that news in that memo on Thursday. | ||
| Here is a clip. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you view the OMB memo as a threat, an effort to get you guys to back down or a bluff? | |
| We will not be intimidated by Rust Vote, who's completely and totally out of control. | ||
| The OMB has been illegally shutting down parts of the government throughout the entire year. | ||
| And the notion that Democrats are going to be intimidated by this guy when all he's done is sent a message to voters in Virginia and across the country that Republicans are determined to hurt the American people. | ||
| Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the presidency. | ||
| If the government shuts down, it's because they want the government to shut down. | ||
| And now the Trump administration has made their intentions clear. | ||
| They want to continue to fire civil servants who are hardworking American taxpayers because throughout the year, they've been firing civil servants who are hardworking American taxpayers. | ||
| We will not be intimidated by these threats coming from the most extreme parts of the Trump administration. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. Leader, I understand that you are not going to be intimidated by the Trump administration, but there are federal workers who don't want to get caught up in a political fight here. | |
| What would you say to federal workers that are just worried about losing their jobs? | ||
| Donald Trump and the administration have been engaging in mass firings that we deem illegal throughout the year. | ||
| We will continue to push back against any effort to undermine federal civil service protections that exist in the United States of America. | ||
| As a negotiating tactic, our response to Rust Vote is simple. | ||
| Get lost. | ||
| More from the Washington Post. | ||
| It says the Senate is planning to take up legislation Tuesday to extend government funding hours before the deadline. | ||
| But the same bill failed last week when every Democrat except one voted against it. | ||
| Republicans who control the Senate 53 to 47 need at least eight Democratic votes to clear the Senate's 60-vote threshold because Senator Rand Paul, Republican in Kentucky, is expected to vote no. | ||
| That again, just one of the stories Eastman has been following this week. | ||
| And we are asking you your top news story. | ||
| You can give us a call. | ||
| You can also send us a message by text or on social media. | ||
| This coming in from Kristen in Portland, Maine, she says the return of Jimmy Kimmel's show that, quote, we the people in our collective voices can push back against the authoritarian moves of this administration. | ||
| Resist. | ||
| And this from Barb in Long Grove, Illinois, top news story of the week is the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. | ||
| It is just surprising that the government waited so long to pursue this case. | ||
| Back to your calls. | ||
| Let's hear from Faye, who's calling from Ithaca, New York, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Faye. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I have a couple of thoughts. | ||
| First, I wanted to say that, you know, this administration is constantly bombarding us with different situations, making it very hard to focus on a particular situation. | ||
| For example, the Charlie Kirk shooting. | ||
| Okay, every time there's a mass shooter, they say we're going to investigate and we're going to look into their background and their email or what they were doing. | ||
| This particular person was involved with gaming, something that I've been very, very concerned about from the very beginning. | ||
| Our children are watching these very, very violent pro gaming, and he was involved with some kind of gaming group. | ||
| Okay, we're not hearing anything about that. | ||
| That's been zero from everybody. | ||
| Okay, so that's very concerning. | ||
| The other thing is that this administration, okay, first of all, we're in a coup. | ||
| Okay, we're in a very serious situation. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| The silencing of media, the silencing of programs that are critical to this administration, it's unpatriotic. | ||
| It's against free speech. | ||
| It's unbelievable what this administration is doing. | ||
| First of all, at the UN, I was embarrassed as an American to hear Trump speak the way he did. | ||
| He is dividing our country. | ||
| He is spewing violence. | ||
| He is taking every situation to avoid the Epstein files, which must come out because he is involved. | ||
| All his friends, now we're learning must. | ||
| Now we're learning this person. | ||
| There's no way he's not involved. | ||
| He's been best friends with this person. | ||
| He is the biggest. | ||
| And please let me say this, and I mean this not with a mean heart. | ||
| He is the biggest scam our country has ever seen, the world has ever seen. | ||
| He is scamming his supporters. | ||
| He is scamming the world. | ||
| He has delayed, you know, going to the Supreme Court before he was president, constantly delaying the trials. | ||
| There's reasons for all this, America. | ||
| Please wake up. | ||
| He is dividing us. | ||
| He is avoiding jail time. | ||
| He and the rest of his administration trying to keep us in the dark, wanting to ban Jimmy Kimmel, who I watch every night because I need to, because I watch so much news and I need to laugh. | ||
| Laughter is very healthy. | ||
| It's very important. | ||
| That was Faye in New York talking about her top stories of the week and mentioning Jimmy Kimmel. | ||
| This is the headline from The Hill Next Star Sinclair to end blackout of Jimmy Kimmel. | ||
| The story says a pair of local TV news providers, a pair of local TV news providers that since last week had preempted Jimmy Kimmel Live over comments the host made regarding the assassination of Charlie Kirk will end their blackouts of the ABC show the broadcasters announced Friday. | ||
| It says Next Dar Media Group and Sinclair both said they would bring Kimmel back on their ABC affiliate Airwaves effective immediately, more than a week after dropping his show before he was suspended by the Disney-owned network. | ||
| This says, quote, our objective throughout this process has been to ensure that programming remains accurate and engaging for the widest possible audience. | ||
| We take seriously our responsibility as local broadcasters to provide programming that serves the interests of our communities while also honoring our obligations to air national network programming, Sinclair said in a statement. | ||
| The broadcaster said it had, quote, received thoughtful feedback from viewers, advertisers, and community leaders representing a wide range of perspectives on the Kimmel saga. | ||
| It was on Tuesday that Jimmy Kimmel, his program began to air again on ABC, on the network. | ||
| It was that evening that he spoke about the suspension. | ||
| Here is that clip. | ||
| Mike Ben Shapiro, Clay Travis, Candace Owens, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, even my old pal Ted Cruz, who, believe it or not, said something very beautiful on my behalf. | ||
| I hate what Jimmy Kimmel said. | ||
| I am thrilled that he was fired. | ||
| Oh, wait, no, not that. | ||
| The other part. | ||
| But let me tell you: if the government gets in the business of saying what you, the media, have said, we're going to ban you from the airwaves if you don't say what we like. | ||
| That will end up bad for conservatives. | ||
| I don't think I've ever said this before, but Ted Cruz is right. | ||
|
unidentified
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He's absolutely right. | |
| This affects all of us, including him. | ||
| I mean, think about it. | ||
| If Ted Cruz can't speak freely, then he can't cast spells on the Smurfs. | ||
| Even though I don't agree with many of those people on most subjects, some of the things they say even make me want to throw up. | ||
| It takes courage for them to speak out against this administration, and they did, and they deserve credit for it. | ||
| And thanks for telling your followers that our government cannot be allowed to control what we do and do not say on television and that we have to stand up to it. | ||
| I've been hearing a lot about what I need to say and do tonight. | ||
| And the truth is, I don't think what I have to say is going to make much of a difference. | ||
| If you like me, you like me. | ||
| If you don't, you don't. | ||
| I have no illusions about changing anyone's mind. | ||
| But I do want to make something clear because it's important to me as a human. | ||
| And that is, you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't think there's anything funny about it. | |
| I posted a message on Instagram on the day he was killed, sending love to his family and asking for compassion, and I meant it. | ||
| I still do. | ||
| Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what it was obviously a deeply disturbed individual. | ||
| That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make. | ||
| But I understand that to some, that felt either ill-timed or unclear, or maybe both. | ||
| That was Jimmy Kimmel talking on his late night talk show on Tuesday following him returning to the airwaves. | ||
| It was on Monday that Disney issued a statement on the return. | ||
| It says, last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. | ||
| It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive. | ||
| We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday. | ||
| Just about 30 minutes left in this first hour of today's Washington Journal asking for your top news story of the week. | ||
| Let's hear from Ben, who's calling from Washington, D.C., on the line for independence. | ||
| Hi, Ben. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| The Jimmy Kimmel situation is, for me, is a very serious matter on a lot of different levels. | ||
| We're in a point now, and I just can't understand why more people don't understand how this administration, this president, is pushing the needle on the First Amendment. | ||
| He's becoming more and more aggressive towards anyone who does not agree with his politics or agenda. | ||
| So, you know, it really is concerning, regardless of whether you agree with these people who will speak against him or not. | ||
| The bottom line is the First Amendment. | ||
| And I'm very disturbed and concerned about where this country is going. | ||
| And I think it's going to get worse. | ||
| The president, in my mind, is somewhat unhinged in some of his rhetoric and some of the things that he's doing. | ||
| He's becoming more and more aggressive towards people who he does not agree with. | ||
| And that's not a good thing. | ||
| So that's my biggest story. | ||
| And it's my concern because it even connects to the former FBI director, too, who took an opposite position to the president. | ||
| And now they're going after them, even arresting people now who he doesn't agree with. | ||
| So I don't know what it's going to take for the people in this country to wake up and see. | ||
| That was Ben in Washington, D.C. Mary Elizabeth is calling from New York, New York, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Mary Elizabeth. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, all. | |
| My stop story was just totally denial of what has occurred. | ||
| We talk about the Epstein files. | ||
| What I'm really concerned with is the current president's FBI file from 1988 to 2015 that caused the FBI and all these people to question his loyalty to the United States. | ||
| And now he's about trying to erase people's abilities to try and find out the truth. | ||
| So I would like to know the truth. | ||
| I want to know who in our government are Americans and who in our government are KGB operatives and what is really happening to our country. | ||
| I would really like my fellow Americans to really think about this whole business and the hatefulness to one another and try and get beyond that. | ||
| And thank you very much for listening. | ||
| That was Mary Elizabeth in New York. | ||
| Jerry's calling from Broadway, Virginia. | ||
| Line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Jerry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| Yeah, these Democrats have awfully short memories when you talk about censoring. | ||
| Look, the executives from all the caste networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, all testified under oath in a congressional hearing that the Biden administration called them up regularly and told them what to report and what not to report. | ||
| They warned them not to mention anything about the southern border. | ||
| And everyone out there listening right now can testify to the fact that they never did. | ||
| And social media was the same thing. | ||
| If anybody said anything critical of the Biden administration or the vaccine mandates, they were taken off the platform for a month. | ||
| Is that censoring, or what is that? | ||
| That was Jerry in Virginia. | ||
| Charles calling from Cleveland, Ohio on the line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Charles. | ||
| What's your top news story this week? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'd like to comment on the lady from New York who talked about the scam. | |
| I think that the Trump administration, in complicity with the media in this country, have worked very hard to try and control the news cycle. | ||
| If it's not the proud boys they're putting in these cities to beat up on immigrants now, because it's not F-signed, anything they can come up with to keep Americans from looking at what Netanyahu is doing in the Middle East, specifically among the Palestinians and killing the people that they're killing on a daily basis. | ||
| Even the prime minister in Italy, that story was never really presented. | ||
| How the people in Italy forced the prime minister to take a position opposed to what Netanyahu was doing. | ||
| And she was forced to do that yesterday. | ||
| It was the United Nations. | ||
| Several delegates of the United Nations turned their back on Netanyahu because people are appalled across this world, across this whole universe about what's happening to those people in Palestine. | ||
| And the media in this Western countries hardly give any credence to because, why? | ||
| Because they are complicit with the scams, just like the lady from New York said. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| That was Charles in Ohio. | ||
| John's calling from West Lafayette, Indiana, line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Top story of the week is Trump's speech to the United Nations, probably the best speech made by an American president at the UN since its founding. | ||
| Straight talk, not the usual political gobbly gook we get from presidents, telling the UN exactly what they need to do, and in particular calling out the Europeans who love to whine about the lack of American engagement in their war in Ukraine While they fund it through the purchase of oil and gas from Russia. | ||
| So I thought it was a brilliant speech, even though part of it was off the cuff because the prompter, for one reason or another, of which I'm very suspicious, was down. | ||
| And the second interesting story of the week earlier, you pointed to an article by the Washington Post talking about the potential government shutdown, and it mentioned that the Democrats voted no because there were, quote, cuts to medical care in the bill. | ||
| Well, the truth is, which they neglect to mention, that the Medical Care cuts were related to funding for illegal immigrants and for the temporary funding, quote unquote, of non-working adult males that were put in place during COVID. | ||
| So dishonest by omission on the part of the Washington Post, and I wish C-SPAN would have been a bit more comprehensive to perhaps even call that dishonesty out in your remarks. | ||
| So thank you. | ||
| I love C-SPAN. | ||
| It's probably the straightest news you can get. | ||
| But I hope going forward there can be a little more depth to the readouts that you bring to the show. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was John in Indiana. | ||
| John and our previous caller, Charles, mentioning the UN. | ||
| It's been this week that the UN General Assembly has been gathered in New York. | ||
| C-SPAN has been covering those events, including President Trump's comments on Tuesday. | ||
| This is a story from Politico. | ||
| It says President Donald Trump blasted the United Nations in a speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday, suggesting that the organization was either ignoring or exacerbating problems around the world that were being left to him to fix. | ||
| It says in a speech that meandered from complaints about losing out on a contract to renovate the headquarters to recounting what he saw as his foreign policy success, the president painted a picture of the UN as outdated, as an outdated, ineffective organization. | ||
| And he said he's worked to end, quote, seven wars without any help. | ||
| From Tuesday, here is a clip of President Trump's speech before the UN General Assembly. | ||
| It's too bad that I had to do these things instead of the United Nations doing them. | ||
| And sadly, in all cases, the United Nations did not even try to help in any of them. | ||
| I ended seven wars, dealt with the leaders of each and every one of these countries, and never even received a phone call from the United Nations offering to help in finalizing the deal. | ||
| All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that, on the way up, stopped right in the middle. | ||
| If the First Lady wasn't in great shape, she would have fallen. | ||
| But she's in great shape. | ||
| We're both in good shape. | ||
| We both stood. | ||
| And then a teleprompter that didn't work. | ||
| These are the two things I got from the United Nations: a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| And by the way, it's working now. | ||
| Just one on. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I think I should just do it the other way. | ||
| It's easier. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| I didn't think of it at the time because I was too busy working to save millions of lives. | ||
| That is the saving and stopping of these wars. | ||
| But later I realized that the United Nations wasn't there for us. | ||
| They weren't there. | ||
| I thought of it really after the fact, not during, not during these negotiations, which were not easy. | ||
| That being the case, what is the purpose of the United Nations? | ||
| The UN has such tremendous potential. | ||
| I've always said it. | ||
| It has such tremendous, tremendous potential, but it's not even coming close to living up to that potential. | ||
| For the most part, at least for now, all they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up. | ||
| It's empty words, and empty words don't solve war. | ||
| The only thing that solves war and wars is action. | ||
| C-SPAN has been covering the UN General Assembly. | ||
| You can find the coverage from this past week online at c-span.org. | ||
| And our coverage will continue today as well, including remarks by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sergei Labov. | ||
| You'll be able to watch those comments online as well as on our networks today. | ||
| We'll go back to calls, hearing your top news story of the week. | ||
| Let's talk with Alan in Minnesota, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Alan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| You know, that guy from Indiana, that's why I don't live there anymore. | ||
| They're everywhere, those mega. | ||
| But anyway, my big topic is to unhinge speaking at the United Nations that he looked like he forgot his pacifier. | ||
| But anyway, he's wonning the Nobel Peace Prize, and then he's trashing every country in the world and every leader. | ||
| And then he's got people on masks, Madhalen people. | ||
| And they're trying to do, they're trying to turn American culture into a mega culture. | ||
| And that's not going to happen because the 280 million people that didn't vote for Trump is not going to take it. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Alan in Minnesota. | ||
| Bob is calling from Ohio on the line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Bob. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, so I just want a few points to make a few points. | |
| First of all, and it's not exactly connected to some of the other, what some of the other people say. | ||
| The whole scientific evidence about Tylenol and all that is not. | ||
| I'm not talking about the science itself. | ||
| Science itself is great. | ||
| You know, it is great that the guy working under Trump who's trying to foist these lies about science, all right? | ||
| Our country has been saved by that. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| By the fact that pregnant women and others, and I'm not even married myself. | ||
| I'm just saying, this is ridiculous. | ||
| These people have been saved by the fact that Tylenol works. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| That's number one. | ||
| Number two, Charlie Kirk. | ||
| Who the hell knew about him? | ||
| But come on. | ||
| The guy just considered he dissed everybody. | ||
| Everybody. | ||
| I mean, the guy was killer. | ||
| That's the truth. | ||
| And third, sincerely, fear, you know, this whole fearless leader thing. | ||
| This guy has tried to enrich himself and others. | ||
| That's all he's done. | ||
| You can hear it. | ||
| And, you know, with this cyber, with the whole new thing with the, you know, I forget what they call it, but you know what I'm talking about. | ||
| This electronic means of enriching themselves. | ||
| That's he's foisting this crap. | ||
| That was Bob in Ohio. | ||
| Elizabeth is calling from Briarcliffe Manor, New York, on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Elizabeth. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning. | |
| Hi. | ||
| I just wanted to make a comment about the Jimmy Kimmel controversy. | ||
| First of all, there are rules when you're dealing with the FCC. | ||
| There's rules and regulations. | ||
| This wasn't a First Amendment issue whatsoever. | ||
| It was an economic issue. | ||
| Ted Cruz mentioned government and censorship interference, which is true. | ||
| So I hope that we don't lose sight of the fact that there's current revelations coming out about Biden and the Biden administration actually pressuring Facebook, Google, and Twitter to put out their messages during COVID. | ||
| And we also have to talk about bias in the media. | ||
| I hear a lot of rhetoric from some of your callers about some of the unhinged talking points that they hear. | ||
| But I also wanted to comment about the unhinged rhetoric coming out of the left, which is leading to violence and violence against our law enforcement and ICE agents and others. | ||
| I mean, that's what's unhinged. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Elizabeth in New York. | ||
| Dale is calling from Columbus, Ohio, on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Dale. | ||
| What's your top news story this week? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you very much. | ||
| I was so glad that you played that video on him talking about the escalator and everything. | ||
| I did a lot of research on the Republicans. | ||
| We're not even only Republicans, just the Trump family and what have you. | ||
| Come to find out, I Googled, they talk about the golden escalator. | ||
| Well, the first thing I said, well, is the escalator in Trump Tower real gold? | ||
| Come to find out, it's not even real gold. | ||
| It's painted gold. | ||
| It's so surprising the lies that he comes up with. | ||
| And all these Republicans, I mean, I would love for you to read is it real gold? | ||
| It's online. | ||
| It's not real gold. | ||
| And everybody thinks it's gold. | ||
| I'm just so surprised of the research that I found out about Pittman having so many lawsuits. | ||
| In three decades, he's had over 4,000 lawsuits. | ||
| When he was being on charge and when he was asking him different questions, when he was on the crime, he said some about he had 405 fifths. | ||
| I pleaded fifth 405 times. | ||
| And I just can't see how people believe this. | ||
| You know, understand the things that he does. | ||
| Our intelligence says Russia was involved, and he goes along with the enemy, Putin. | ||
| And how can somebody support this man? | ||
| The escalator is not real gold, and it was one of the top stories. | ||
| And I really appreciate all of that. | ||
| And then even when January 46 happened, not one time these police officers were getting beat up, and not one time he never said, hey, I appreciate what y'all did. | ||
| And then, as soon as he gets in office, he pardons all the thousands of them. | ||
| You know, people there also said they were guilty. | ||
| So, how can anybody believe this man? | ||
| But I would love for people to check out about this golden escalator. | ||
| It's not real gold. | ||
| Thank you very much for having us today. | ||
| That was Dale in Columbus, Ohio. | ||
| A couple callers bringing up President Trump's remarks on Tylenol earlier this week. | ||
| This is a headline from Reuters. | ||
| It's from yesterday. | ||
| It says, Trump repeats Tylenol and vaccine claims, defying medical community outcry. | ||
| It says that U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday repeated his calls for pregnant women and young children to stop using popular pain medication Tylenol, defying widespread criticism from medical groups and offered further health care advice not backed by science. | ||
| It says in an extraordinary news conference at the White House Monday, Trump linked autism to childhood vaccines and said the taking of Tylenol by women when pregnant elevated claims not backed by scientific evidence to the forefront of U.S. health care policy. | ||
| It says in a Truth Social post on Friday, the Republican president again called for the measles-mump-ribelli combination vaccine to be split into separate shots for children not and for children not to get the hepatitis B vaccine normally given in the first 24 hours after birth before the age of 12 years. | ||
| It was on Monday that President Trump made those initial comments at the White House about Tylenol. | ||
| Here is that clip. | ||
| So I just want to say acetaminophen is basically Tylenol, essentially, because I noticed that term is used throughout this conference. | ||
| So it's essentially Tylenol. | ||
| 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 have to work out with yourself. | ||
| So don't take Tylenol. | ||
| Of the medical groups responding to those remarks made by President Trump was the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologist and statement. | ||
| They said, 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 peoples without the backing of reliable data. | ||
| Just a programming note later this morning, we will be talking more about this issue. | ||
| Until then, we are continuing to take your calls on your top news story of the week. | ||
| You can also send us messages on social media and via text. | ||
| This is coming in from Melvin in Normal, Illinois. | ||
| It says, top story is Russ Vote is using federal employees as hostages in federal shutdown negotiations, threatening mass firings if Dems do not accept Trump's term. | ||
| Mafia style governance. | ||
| This is from RR on X. | ||
| It says, my top news story is 100% tariffs that is going to be put on pharmaceuticals made outside the country. | ||
| And this FB from Chicago, Illinois, says, top story of the week is the Epstein files. | ||
| Release them. | ||
| Let's hear from Richard, who's calling from Louisville, Kentucky, on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Richard. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| The top story, of course, is the traitor James Tomey, director of the FBI, while with Trump, how he pushed the Russia gate and had his communist minions try and all the lies and everything about what Trump did. | ||
| And if found guilty for treason for trying to overthrow a duly elected president of the United States, that is treason. | ||
| And I'd like to know what the penalty is for being a traitor to the country. | ||
| But there's a tidbit of a story that I don't know if anybody talked about Trump when he said it had to do with Ukraine and the war in Ukraine. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And he said to the Associated Press and the others in the old office: if you want to fight the Ukraine war, I'm going to get out of the way. | |
| And you go ahead and you just back Ukraine. | ||
| If Ukraine wants to try to get back those grounds, those at land and everything from Russia, you go right ahead. | ||
| Now, we're talking about a man that wanted to try to stop the war, and instead they fought him left and right. | ||
| All those European countries and everything, and all these nut jobs over here in America that love war and want to see battle. | ||
| He's going to let you do what the heck you want to do. | ||
| Now we'll see what these countries like France and Germany and now that they're going to have to step up because Trump is getting out. | ||
| It's all up to you now. | ||
| Those are the two main stories of this week. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Richard in Kentucky. | ||
| And Richard, just so you know, after the break, we will be talking more about President Trump's comments about Ukraine and the policy shift there. | ||
| So stay tuned. | ||
| Let's hear from Cindy in Lake City, Florida, line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Cindy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| And good morning to America and everything. | ||
| I just wanted to say I think it's really sad that's what's happening to America, the demise of it. | ||
| And I wish people would start opening it up and, you know, and see what's going on with the, you know, with America. | ||
| I'm not American. | ||
| I'm Canadian. | ||
| I'm a permanent resident alien. | ||
| I'm not allowed to vote in U.S. elections, which, in a way, I'm kind of glad that none of this is any cause of my voting and stuff. | ||
| I just wish Americans would start voting for their interest instead of against their interest. | ||
| Just like what just happened with this big beautiful bill they're talking about. | ||
| The main, you know, that was the most transferred of wealth in America history from the poor to the bottom. | ||
| All your civil servants are, you know, getting fired. | ||
| You know, nobody's working for you. | ||
| And, you know, and everybody up top is blaming everybody else for the problems that's going on here in America instead of, you know, blaming the leadership and what they're doing. | ||
| I just don't understand. | ||
| It's kind of like I'm hoping that this bad movie will change its course and to be a better ending. | ||
| But the way it's looking for America, America is not going to wake up. | ||
| And they're just going down the wrong path that we need here in the world. | ||
| That was Cindy in Florida. | ||
| Loretta is, or I'm sorry, Loretta is calling from Houston, Texas. | ||
| Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Loretta. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am, and thank you for taking my call. | |
| And it's not about a Democrat or Republican party that I'm calling about. | ||
| It's about a national issue. | ||
| Here we have a president that's been doubtfully taught as one of the 15 persons. | ||
| And if that is so, this is a national problem because our president is being ridiculed that he's part of it. | ||
| And then that if he's president and I'm president and I have authority to have him release, release them. | ||
| Now, why? | ||
| Why is he not saying releases? | ||
| Is he part of it? | ||
| Is it part of all the people that he's bringing into his cabinet, part of it? | ||
| All the people that he's bringing in from left and right that never had any legal experience on what they're doing. | ||
| Are they part of his pageant? | ||
| People, wake up. | ||
| Wake up. | ||
| That is Loretta in Texas. | ||
| John is calling from Searing, Wisconsin, on the line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes, the Jimmy Kimmel episode there was terrible. | ||
| He's a comedian. | ||
| And what is worse, talking about Haitians killing pets in Indiana, the Dominion voting machines, Fox News got slapped on the wrist. | ||
| Those people did not get fired. | ||
| They're in his administration now. | ||
| I mean, they're a news agency spreading lies. | ||
| And what is the United States coming to? | ||
| My tax dollars are going to whippings for Israel to commit genocide in Palestine. | ||
| These people have nowhere to go. | ||
| It's really a sad day in America, and we have no ethics and morals. | ||
| And the UN speech was another just terrible speech for the Republicans. | ||
| And that's all I have to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was John in Wisconsin. | ||
| Karen's calling from Tampa, Florida. | ||
| Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Karen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Oh, just to Richard, the one who's talking about Trump passing the buck to the UN, that means nothing. | ||
| It just means that Trump's a loser. | ||
| But my point is: Trump and the Republicans in my state say they're going to eliminate your property taxes. | ||
| That means you're going to be raped of your money and your freedom. | ||
| It does not mean they're doing you a favor. | ||
| Our governor is trying to make each county lose their control of their handling of their own individual property taxes. | ||
| And that's their decisions of their schools, their roads, etc. | ||
| While ignorant DeSantis would control each county instead, and by raising sales tax to 12%, mind you, 12% in Florida, that would remedy his insanity. | ||
| So we must vote out every Republican at every special session this year and especially next November. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That was Karen in Florida. | ||
| Kevin is calling from Lindbrook, New York, on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Kevin. | ||
| Oh, we lost Kevin. | ||
| Kevin was going to be our last caller for this first hour. | ||
| Later this morning on Washington Journal, we'll talk with Center for Autism Research Excellence Director Helen Tagger Flesberg about efforts to increase awareness and understanding of autism and related disorders. | ||
| But next, after the break, Christine Berensky of the German Marshall Fund joins us to discuss President Trump's shift on Ukraine policy and his suggestion that the country could win back areas occupied or annexed by Russia since 2014. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
American History TV, exploring the people and events that tell the American story. | |
| 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. | ||
| This week, we'll explore the creation of the Continental Army in 1775 with Duquesne University professor and former U.S. Army officer Holly Mayer. | ||
| And then historian and author Don Hagist examines the British Army before and during the Revolutionary War. | ||
| Legal and constitutional scholars highlight landmark debates and Supreme Court cases in the evolution of the U.S. Constitution. | ||
| On the Civil War, historians talk about Robert E. Lee as a complex figure whose legacy has evolved over time. | ||
| And on lectures in history, when Kentucky became a state in 1792, it had a choice: keep slavery or abolish it. | ||
| University of Kentucky professor Melanie Gohn teaches a class on the state's decision and its unique relationship with the institution of slavery until the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. | ||
| Exploring the American story, watch American History TV every weekend and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/slash history. | ||
| book tv every sunday on c-span 2 features leading authors discussing their latest non-fiction 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. | ||
| I'm Dasha Burns, host of Ceasefire, bridging the divide in American politics. | ||
| Ceasefire premieres October 10. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Washington Journal continues. | |
| Joining us now to discuss President Trump's shift on Ukraine policy is Christine Berzina. | ||
| She is a geostrategist, North American manager, managing director at the German Marshall Fund. | ||
| Christine, thank you so much for joining us again on the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Great to be here. | |
| We'll start with having you talk about the German Marshall Fund. | ||
| Explain to our audience the mission and who you work with. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So the German Marshall Fund of the United States, we have a very long name. | |
| We are a nonpartisan organization here in Washington, D.C., but also in various offices across Europe. | ||
| And we speak to facilitate transatlantic cooperation. | ||
| We have come from the tradition of the Marshall Plan. | ||
| In the 70s, the organization was founded in a way as a living memorial to the Marshall Plan, and we still work in the transatlantic space today. | ||
| The transatlantic space also includes NATO, and it was NATO and the UN, and it was President Trump who attended the UN General Assembly taking place this week in New York after he had a meeting with Ukraine President Zelensky. | ||
| He posted a statement on Truth Social and for those who may not have seen it, I want to read it and then we'll get your reaction to it. | ||
| This is the post. | ||
| It says, after getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine-Russia military and economic situation and after seeing the economic trouble it is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, in a position to fight and win all of Ukraine back in its original form with time, patience, and financial support of Europe and in particular NATO, the original borders from where this war started is very much an option. | ||
| Why not? | ||
| Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years, a war that should have taken real, that should have taken real military power less than a week to win. | ||
| This is not distinguishing Russia. | ||
| Russia, in fact, it is very much making them look like a, quote, paper tiger. | ||
| When the people living in Moscow and all of the great cities, towns, and districts all throughout Russia find out what has really been going on with this war, the fact that it's almost impossible for them to get gasoline through very long lines that are formed, and all of the other things that are taking place in their war economy where most of their money is being spent on fighting Ukraine, which has great spirit and is only getting better. | ||
| Ukraine would be able to take back their country in its original form. | ||
| And who knows, maybe go even further than that. | ||
| Putin and Russia are in big economic trouble. | ||
| And this is the time for Ukraine to act. | ||
| In any event, I wish both countries well. | ||
| We will continue to supply weapons to NATO for NATO to do what they want to want with them. | ||
| Good luck to all. | ||
| Donald J. Trump, President of the United States. | ||
| Your reaction to that post. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, this was a very large piece of news in the transatlantic security space. | |
| Since the beginning of the Trump administration, and this time around, there's this huge question. | ||
| Well, what does Trump really think about who's responsible for the war in Ukraine? | ||
| How much will the U.S. try to help Ukraine win? | ||
| Who's going to pay for it? | ||
| And now in the second half of this year, so many of those pieces have fallen into place. | ||
| Right there in that post, there is a allusion to the fact that it isn't the U.S. giving free weapons to Ukraine anymore. | ||
| Now the Europeans, the NATO allies, are purchasing those weapons from the United States and offering them to Ukraine. | ||
| But it isn't an example of Trump sidling up to Putin. | ||
| Instead, it's showing in very strong language that Trump is on the Ukrainian side at the moment and he doesn't think that Russia has good cards here. | ||
| And I think that's such a difference from where Trump was when he told Zelensky he didn't have the cards just in the winter. | ||
| So this is a really an incredible example of an evolution of President Trump's thinking on this war. | ||
| The question that we don't know though is, well, what comes next? | ||
| And you mentioned President Trump making those remarks, the no-cards remarks. | ||
| That was in February, that heated office Oval Office exchange that people may remember. | ||
| February to now. | ||
| What's changed? | ||
| Why this potential flip in policy? | ||
|
unidentified
|
A lot of things have happened since February on policy. | |
| One thing is specifically the how question for U.S. engagement in the transatlantic security space, the U.S. help to Ukraine. | ||
| Again, is this a gift? | ||
| Is this charity that the U.S. gives? | ||
| Or is this a part of an also economically advantageous package for the United States? | ||
| And that has been taken care of throughout the summer and the creation of this approach for the Europeans to be purchasing these weapons from the United States. | ||
| That's one. | ||
| And then Russia has not been able to take significantly more land in this year. | ||
| Russia also is suffering economically. | ||
| And you see very long lines across Russia in order to get gasoline. | ||
| The Ukrainians using their own drones have hit about half of the refineries that exist in Russia. | ||
| And so the availability of fuel is really significantly limited. | ||
| And this is something that Ukraine is doing on their own with things they build in order to do this. | ||
| So this is showing Ukraine coming up with a way to have a very significant impact without the support of its allies and its partners. | ||
| And then we also look at the bigger picture of Russia has been going full steam ahead on a war in which they haven't made significant territorial gains in a few years. | ||
| And in this war, they are fueling their entire economy around the war. | ||
| And yet now they need to borrow. | ||
| They're increasing taxes. | ||
| So the general tax for things is going to go up. | ||
| They're going to have to borrow more. | ||
| And they don't have the oil to sell. | ||
| And so when you look forward, how much longer can Russia go? | ||
| Could go for a while, but it's going to hurt ever more. | ||
| So is this a smart thing for Russia to be doing? | ||
| They're not going to get more of what they want, and it's going to hurt the country a lot. | ||
| And that is what Trump is alluding to here. | ||
| And that is what is different right now in September versus where we were in February. | ||
| You mentioned that Russia hasn't been able to make much headway recently. | ||
| We're now three and a half years into this war. | ||
| Talk more about the current state of the war, where the two sides currently stand, what they each have going for them and against them. | ||
|
unidentified
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So when you look at the front lines, they haven't changed much. | |
| Russia has been taking a few more miles here or there all along this very long front line, but they haven't made any major breakthroughs. | ||
| They have not taken any major cities. | ||
| It's really a slow grind. | ||
| If you look historically, it's more of a World War I situation for those who are more history buffs who are watching today. | ||
| It's just a tiny bit, a tiny bit, a tiny bit more. | ||
| Ukraine pushes back. | ||
| Russia has a lot more people that it is throwing at this war effort. | ||
| So Russia is a much bigger country. | ||
| They have a lot more soldiers at its disposal, and they are putting them onto those front lines, but they're also suffering tremendous casualties. | ||
| Yes, Russia has more, but Russia is losing more. | ||
| And again, at which point does something along those lines become too much? | ||
| Our guest for the next 35 minutes or so is Christine Berzina. | ||
| She is with the German Marshall Fund, and she is joining us for a discussion on President Trump's shift on Ukraine policy. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for her, you can start calling in now the lines. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independence 202-748-8002. | ||
| Wanted to ask about the response to President Trump's statement that was made. | ||
| A senior White House official said that the post was maybe a negotiation tactic. | ||
| Could that be effective for Russia? | ||
| And how has Russia responded to those remarks? | ||
|
unidentified
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Russia has been very insulted by these remarks. | |
| And the way that you look at the language that Trump used, calling Russia a paper tiger, I mean, you saw folks from the Kremlin say, tiger, we're not a tiger, we're a bear. | ||
| Why are you calling us a tiger? | ||
| And then a paper tiger. | ||
| And so there is this notion of having been slighted by President Trump through these remarks. | ||
| And that isn't something that they are very used to, certainly not from Trump. | ||
| About a month ago, we had that big summit between Trump and Putin in Alaska. | ||
| And that was such a celebration. | ||
| It was a feting of the Russian president. | ||
| And now they're a paper tiger. | ||
| So I think that this is a big expression of how unhappy Trump is with Putin right now. | ||
| And Russia is a little bit uncertain, I think, of what to do next. | ||
| They've been trying to actually dial up some of their muscularity by doing more air funny business in Europe, drones into Poland, violating airspace and NATO. | ||
| But that's not going to change the reality in Ukraine. | ||
| So it's a question, how much is Russia actually able to change those realities without doing something dramatic, right? | ||
| Funny business, maybe the best description of the Russian airspace and using drones that I've heard. | ||
| We have callers waiting to talk with you. | ||
| We'll start with Lee, who's calling from Indiana on the line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Lee. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes, good morning to you, too. | |
| This still about he's supposed to be on Ukraine's side now. | ||
| I mean, he wants to help Ukraine in all this. | ||
| Well, he's so vindictive. | ||
| How can I believe that he's for Ukraine when he's after all his enemies here in the United States? | ||
| When he was on TV, the Ukraine guy, him and J.D. Vince made fun of him, talked about his clothes and everything, and the man's country was being torn apart. | ||
| And all he believed in, democracy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And you really want me to believe now that Trump's on Ukraine's side when he's after when Trump's after all his enemies here in the United States? | |
| Any response for Lee? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, thank you for the question. | |
| I think that it's a full-time job for many people to try to understand where Trump stands on a lot of these global issues. | ||
| And I think that you can't look at all elements of this administration's policy as being part of one coherent whole. | ||
| His policy towards Ukraine has really been one of zigzagging. | ||
| He has been incredibly tough on Ukraine and then even insulting to Zelensky in the Oval Office. | ||
| And now instead, he has shifted back and been very pro-Ukrainian. | ||
| You can see where things are in any particular moment, but that doesn't guarantee that in one week's time or in one month's time, it's going to be exactly the same. | ||
| Although in recent months, the Ukrainians have been very successful at making sure that their view on the situation has a good perception also in the White House. | ||
| Something you talked about was the ability for Russia to continue financing a war now three and a half years in. | ||
| Some of the funding for that coming from oil, gas, energy sales. | ||
| That's something that President Trump has talked about this week, not only with the Turkish president, but also at the UN. | ||
| Want to play a clip of his remarks there and get your response? | ||
| China and India are the primary funders of the ongoing war by continuing to purchase Russian oil. | ||
| But inexcusably, even NATO countries have not cut off much Russian energy and Russian energy products. | ||
| Which, as you know, I found out about two weeks ago and I wasn't happy. | ||
| Think of it. | ||
| They're funding the war against themselves. | ||
| Who the hell ever heard of that one? | ||
| In the event that Russia is not ready to make a deal to end the war, then the United States is fully prepared to impose a very strong round of powerful tariffs, which would stop the bloodshed, I believe, very quickly. | ||
| But for those tariffs to be effective, European nations, all of you are gathered here right now, would have to join us in adopting the exact same measures. | ||
| I mean, you're much closer to the city. | ||
| We have an ocean in between. | ||
| You're right there. | ||
| And Europe has to step it up. | ||
| They can't be doing what they're doing. | ||
| They're buying oil and gas from Russia while they're fighting Russia. | ||
| It's embarrassing to them. | ||
| And it was very embarrassing to them when I found out about it. | ||
| I can tell you that. | ||
| But they have to immediately cease all energy purchases from Russia. | ||
| Otherwise, we're all wasting a lot of time. | ||
| President Trump saying that those countries that are buying gas and oil, those NATO countries, are funding the war against themselves. | ||
| Is that accurate? | ||
|
unidentified
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There are countries in Europe that are still maintaining significant energy ties to Russia. | |
| The European Union, NATO is not a monolith, and there are different countries that set their own policies. | ||
| There are also rules that are EU-wide about what can and cannot be done. | ||
| But for the EU to pass the sanctions, all of the countries have to agree. | ||
| And this has been really tough. | ||
| The vast majority of countries are happy and would like to not have any more energy ties. | ||
| But then there are a few friends of Russia in the European bloc. | ||
| And if you look at Hungary and Slovakia, for example, these are countries that still have a supply of fairly affordable Russian energy resources. | ||
| And they're not going to be very inclined to give that up. | ||
| And in many ways, President Trump is right that this doesn't really make sense. | ||
| How can it be that the NATO countries are spending so much money to help Ukraine, and yet some of them are still helping Russia make this war effort possible financially? | ||
| But what is the pressure that is needed to make sure that Hungary and Slovakia are able to say, you know, we're going to step back from it right now, because the Europeans by themselves haven't been able to get their neighbors to do this since the beginning of the war. | ||
| John is waiting on the line. | ||
| He's calling from Florida on the line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, ladies. | |
| As far as buying oil from Russia, we know India is a big buyer as well as China. | ||
| But I'd like to push back on that. | ||
| It's just those two little European countries, Hungary and Slovakia, that are buying oil from Russia. | ||
| They might be doing out in the open, but we all know that the rest of the European countries are buying oil from India, who also buys oil from Russia and then sells it to the Europeans at a higher rate because they get it cheaper from Russia. | ||
| So, we know a lot of European countries with their green energy that's not going so well are buying tons of oil from India, which is fueling the war effort for Russia. | ||
| Also, I'd like to talk about the Eastern Front. | ||
| Russia controls pretty much all of the Eastern Front at this point, and I don't see how that land is ever going to be going back into Ukrainian hands. | ||
| It seems that this war is almost at a stalemate, although Russia is advancing every day, little by little. | ||
| And I don't see how Ukraine's ever going to be able to take that land back without some kind of superior air power, which they do not have. | ||
| If you can answer me on those two points, I'd appreciate it. | ||
| Thank you so much for those questions. | ||
| So, you are absolutely right that it isn't simply the direct sales that are a problem. | ||
| There are many sales that are a problem, and having the strict enforcement of any sanctions regime and trying to find and eliminate the loopholes is incredibly important. | ||
| You can even look at the way that washing machines or other machinery is going into Central Asia and then winding up re-exported to Russia because chips are very important also for Russia. | ||
| So, there are various mechanisms, both that money can get into Russia and that the kind of hard tools they need are also getting into Russia. | ||
| And this is something where the Europeans should be tightening down and saying, look, if we're serious, we're going to have to make sure to cut off and turn off these faucets of resources that are going into Russia. | ||
| And there, again, this pressure is good. | ||
| There's a lot of hard feelings across Europe from a lot of Trump's rhetoric. | ||
| At the same time, that a lot of the things that Trump points out are actually very necessary. | ||
| And on the Eastern Flank question, how do you get it back? | ||
| So, this is, I think, that the question of what is negotiation? | ||
| How does Ukraine actually get back that territory? | ||
| We also have to understand how much mining there has been, as in landmines put down where these front lines are. | ||
| It would be a tremendous task for Ukraine to get this land back. | ||
| Probably some kind of massive weakness or event in Russia would have to open the doors for Ukraine to regain this territory. | ||
| I mean, there have been various cataclysmic moments in Russian history, but at the moment, it does not appear that Ukraine will be able to. | ||
| But for Trump to even open the door to that and to say, we're not necessarily going to make the line we're at today permanent, that already is a massive shift in policy. | ||
| And, John, to our collar, Christine had mentioned that there were a handful of European countries that are buying gas and energy from Russia. | ||
| This is from Fox News. | ||
| It says Hungary, Slovakia, France, Belgium, and Spain remain Europe's top importers of Russian energy. | ||
| Notes that while Hungary and Slovakia continue to purchase Russian oil, France is the second largest European purchaser of Russian energy and continues to import liquefied natural gas. | ||
| And wanted to go back to what you were saying. | ||
| This is a related, this is a question coming in by a text. | ||
| It says to your guest, what targets can Ukraine go after in Russia to get Putin to see that this war may end up causing Russia more damage than good should Ukraine hit targets in Russia hazards? | ||
| That is from Dean in Kentucky. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think this is a really good question because it comes at the strategy of what Ukraine should be doing next. | |
| When we look at this question of the high energy prices in Russia for Russians, then this is a result of the significant attacks that Ukraine has made against refineries. | ||
| Ukraine is continuing in this strategy. | ||
| But Zelensky in the last week, or so it is reported, has asked President Trump for Tomahawk missiles. | ||
| These are far longer range missiles that the United States has. | ||
| Even having them in Ukrainian hands would already change the calculus for Russia. | ||
| Because at the moment, the big military facilities, the bases that Russia has that are more inland, are really well protected from any kind of Ukrainian attack. | ||
| You've had swarms of drones or other novel technologies that the Ukrainians have been able to use. | ||
| But at the same time, they also are not able to use the kind of big missiles that any of the big countries would be using. | ||
| If the U.S. were to even give those to Ukraine, the threat of being able to attack a major Russian base would mean that perhaps a calculus would be different on the Russian side. | ||
| Let's hear from Oliver, who's calling from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the line for Republicans. | ||
| Hi, Oliver. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, ladies. | |
| If the Russian military is so bogged down in Ukraine, why are they messing with Finland and Poland? | ||
| If they can't handle Ukraine, how are they going to handle more than one country? | ||
| All right, thank you. | ||
| I think this is that, so we have a question here about why Russia can't just take care of the one thing they're trying to take care of, and instead why Russia is looking at other spaces. | ||
| And that is because Russia doesn't want to be considered just a regional power and wants wherever possible to remind NATO countries and remind the United States that it is a global power. | ||
| And in Alaska, Trump called Russia number two when it comes to nuclear powers. | ||
| And so it does not want to be seen as this, quote, paper tiger, as Trump called Russia. | ||
| And instead, Russia is trying to get Trump and the world to see Russia as still the number two, not far behind the United States power. | ||
| And if it can flex, meaning provide threatening situations in Europe, all across the border, but honestly, anywhere globally, this allows Russia to feel itself stronger. | ||
| So when it gets really close to Alaskan airspace, when it causes trouble in Africa, when it seeks to interfere in affairs in Libya, it had a massive base enroll in Syria. | ||
| It is everywhere in the world because it wants to show everyone else that it can be everywhere in the world. | ||
| It wants to be able to stir the pot, effectively, and that's what gives it a sense of power. | ||
| Victory is calling from Madison, Wisconsin on the line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Victory. | ||
|
unidentified
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victory are you there i am i got a new tv now oh ready Go ahead. | |
| Okay, yeah, the point is that as a substance of the United States, we the people are not by the people. | ||
| That's the Dr. Trump, Sir Trump, whatever. | ||
| He is mirroring us. | ||
| We are the problem. | ||
| That is why democracy should have never been, because it says in the Bible, foundation of the country, currently a company, that we should not have democracy. | ||
| It leads to where we are. | ||
| Now, relative to what Ukraine is doing, we're doing. | ||
| It's hypocrisy all across the world. | ||
| This is not where we should be. | ||
| That's why I'm independent, because I spent too much time studying the Republic to see this going on. | ||
| The search one needs to be consistent for the people, not for revenge. | ||
| I'll leave it there. | ||
| Well, I think that America's political leaders, as well as Ukraine's political leaders, are very much interested in helping their people. | ||
| In each country, there are many perspectives about what that would mean. | ||
| But that link between voters and the leaders, the sense of responsibility, the sense of protecting interests is something that is quite common. | ||
| And I think that part of what we see in the United States and in Ukraine, but we don't see in a country like Russia, is this question of, well, how important is human life? | ||
| If you look at President Zelensky and how concerned he is about his people and about the losses he has on the front lines, in many ways, this is similar to the way that Donald Trump is also incredibly concerned about the use of the American military and the value of the American service members' lives. | ||
| This is that link. | ||
| And this is a community of countries, of leaders, that understands that value of their people. | ||
| And yet, on the other side, you have leaders who are interested actually in using people for military benefit in the way that we would use dollars. | ||
| And that is a big difference and a problem. | ||
| President Trump was asked about potential U.S. involvement this week while he was in New York. | ||
| Want to play the clip, and then we'll talk about it on the other side. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, do you think that NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft if they enter their airspace? | |
| Yes, I do. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Would you back up NATO allies? | |
| You said that you thought that they should shoot down the Russian aircraft. | ||
| Would you back them up? | ||
| Would the United States help them out in some way? | ||
| Depends on the circumstance, but we're very strong toward NATO. | ||
| What did you hear there from President Trump and what could U.S. involvement look like? | ||
| What could backing up NATO look like? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So thus far, we've had the situation where Russia has been sending drones or its aircraft, its MiGs, either into NATO airspace or a little too close to NATO airspace. | |
| And we have the situation where we don't understand exactly whose drones caused the paralysis of Scandinavian airports also in this last year. | ||
| So what do you do about it? | ||
| And Trump is saying, yeah, you can shoot them down. | ||
| But here's the tricky piece. | ||
| What happens next? | ||
| And who can shoot them down? | ||
| So when we come to Baltic airspace, so the three Baltic countries, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, when they joined NATO, they did not have big air forces. | ||
| And you have a rotational presence of other NATO countries who are up in the air. | ||
| So when the MiGs entered Estonian airspace, it was the Italian plane that was scrambled and was trying to get it out of that airspace. | ||
| So which country is going to be able to do this? | ||
| What are the repercussions? | ||
| And does the U.S. have the Europeans' back when that happens? | ||
| Because what does it mean for Russia to say, we're going to be really strong, in some ways really actually threatening against NATO? | ||
| And then is the response a national response? | ||
| Is it that the Estonians need to be strong or the Italians whose plane it is need to be strong? | ||
| Or is there a big U.S. backstop there? | ||
| And we don't actually know all of those details. | ||
| There's a lot that we don't know publicly, and there are plans at NATO about exactly how things would go. | ||
| But a lot of this is testing resolve. | ||
| And for Trump to say, no, I think that you shouldn't basically be meek in response to this kind of incident shows the fact that there is political backing. | ||
| But that will have to have a role also in terms of the U.S. posture. | ||
| Where are U.S. troops? | ||
| How involved will the U.S. be? | ||
| Is it just the nuclear backstop that's at play? | ||
| And those things are not super clear right now. | ||
| And Russia has been flying drones in NATO ally airspace. | ||
| This is a headline from the Associated Press. | ||
| From yesterday, Russian warplanes detected flying near Alaska. | ||
| For ninth time this year, U.S. military says, what do we know about this and what Putin may be doing here? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What is Russia? | |
| So often there's this notion that Russia is simply a problem for a legacy of Russian imperial or USSR imperial countries in Europe or in the Caucasus or in Central Asia. | ||
| Russia, again, doesn't want to be seen as this isolated regional power. | ||
| And the fact is that Russia is a neighboring country to the United States. | ||
| It also cooperates significantly with China in the Pacific. | ||
| So for Russia to send its planes close to Alaska when Russian warships cooperate with Chinese, maybe in the Pacific, this is not about being regional. | ||
| It is not about how many meters Russia can get in Ukraine. | ||
| It's about being the biggest threat or biggest neighbor to the United States in the Pacific, in the Arctic. | ||
| And Russia does not want the U.S. to forget that. | ||
| John is calling from Illinois on the line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi there. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I appreciate the input from your guest. | ||
| She sounds very sincere. | ||
| Just give me about a minute to make some points. | ||
| I love calling in when people come on the show touting the Ukraine war and how we need to keep going ahead. | ||
| Trump did say a lot of interesting things the other day, but he says a lot of stuff. | ||
| Many non-mainstream analysts have said, yeah, Trump's saying, yeah, we'll sell you all the weapons you want. | ||
| You guys go for it. | ||
| Because the fact is Europe cannot defeat Russia. | ||
| As far as sanctions go, sanctions have basically, that were started under the Biden administration, have done one main thing. | ||
| They have pushed Russia into an alliance with China, North Korea, Iran, and even India now says to the U.S., well, we're going to buy whatever we want. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You can't really tell us what to do. | |
| So that really sanctions have not actually hurt Russia. | ||
| It's actually made them stronger. | ||
| Russia may not be great, but it's in better shape than Europe and probably the United States. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just a couple more quick things because I'll do a lot of reading on this stuff and your guest can respond to whichever point she wants. | |
| Ukraine in 2014, our great Victoria Newland went over there to foment an insurrection to overthrow a neutral government so we could put in place a U.S. lackey that could move closer and closer to Russia's borders, which basically Russia has said that's a red line. | ||
| We don't want NATO on our border. | ||
| Nobody talks about this. | ||
| C-SPAN doesn't have people on like Professor John Mearsheimer, Jeffrey Sachs, John Ritter, not John Ritter, Scott Ritter. | ||
| There's so much information. | ||
| All I can tell listeners is please don't buy the mainstream media take on this. | ||
| Do some independent research online, non-mainstream sources, and you'll find out a lot of different things from what you're hearing this morning. | ||
| And I thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Thank you for your questions. | ||
| Ken, let's get a little bit about the Russia-China partnership, because I think that there is something to get into there. | ||
| So Russia and China set up a no-limits partnership before the full-scale invasion. | ||
| You have this, Russia preparing the ground for a different kind of role globally before this invasion. | ||
| This means that it isn't really the West that is pushing them together. | ||
| It is a kind of strategic bet that Russia is making. | ||
| Russia had all of the things that in many ways the West is offering or could offer after the war. | ||
| Russia was a member of the G8. | ||
| It had a flourishing and actually ever more diversified economy. | ||
| Its people could travel globally. | ||
| They could purchase, they could anything, anywhere, they could study, they could set up businesses. | ||
| And yet Putin decided he didn't want that anymore. | ||
| And instead, he is looking for partnership with a country that is seeking a very long-term, also century trajectory for its power. | ||
| It is a building block towards something that is anti-American and anti-Western and disruptive. | ||
| So I'd say don't see this partnership and the threatening behavior in the Pacific as something that is because of support for Ukraine. | ||
| In fact, it precedes that. | ||
| This is a strategy that Russia seeks to put into place. | ||
| And on the NATO border question, well, Russia has had NATO on its borders and the USSR hasn't had NATO on its borders since the creation of NATO. | ||
| Look up in the north and the Norwegian-Russian border. | ||
| Yet now you have more with Finland also joining. | ||
| The Baltic states and Poland have also been now since 2004 NATO members. | ||
| And so a red line or a tipping point, I think that's the, I don't necessarily buy that. | ||
| And why? | ||
| I mean, who is creating this desire for NATO? | ||
| When I talk to Ukrainians, this isn't something that is coming from above, but instead is a question of choice, of desire, of not wanting to be held hostage by Putin and trying to be dragged back into a previous century, but a question of how they want to track their trajectory forward. | ||
| They absolutely want to join NATO. | ||
| That's not really up to them because all the other NATO countries have to give it a thumbs up before that can happen. | ||
| But they want to say that they don't want to be living in an autocratic country, but instead want to have greater choice and innovation and they want to flourish. | ||
| It is a wonderful technological innovative country where you saw a lot of growth and Putin didn't like that and we got to an invasion. | ||
| David is calling from Flemington, New Jersey, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, David. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and thank you to you both. | |
| I just wanted to compliment Romania, but before that, I would like to caution listeners to a hint of what I heard in the previous caller from Illinois, whose comment was latent with the conspiracy theories that the U.S. and neocons left over in our State Department deliberately, along with George Soros, | ||
| who's sprinkled around like salt, deliberately provoked Russia, deliberately provoked ethnic Russians, | ||
| even conspiracy theories that the worship of the Russian Orthodox was deliberately limited by a concoction of U.S. and Ukrainians going to Istanbul to encourage the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church to limit the worship of the Russian Orthodox. | ||
| One has to be very careful about all this neocon, deep state, Victoria Newland stuff that we are deliberately trying to create a war with Russia based on neocon philosophy. | ||
| I do want to quickly compliment Romania, which has steered an amazing path from the likes of a Viktor Orban and the likes of our own country. | ||
| Their memories of Ceaușescu were burned into their brains, but their memories of being under the Soviet Union are burned into their brains. | ||
| And the greatest weapon of Russia has been computers more than weapons. | ||
| And they invaded the Romanian electoral process. | ||
| The Romanians stopped the process. | ||
| They avoided electing a Trump type or an Orban type. | ||
| And they've elected one of the finest leaders on the planet. | ||
| So a shout out to Romania and thank you both. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| There are a lot of really long memories about what happened in the Cold War if you were on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain behind the Berlin Wall. | ||
| And in many places, this is a decisive factor for political choices today. | ||
| You also have a legacy of big business and high-level ties with Moscow. | ||
| That casts a shadow. | ||
| And in some ways, there's a push and pull between society's memory of the significant harms caused by that era and some of those lubricating ties and money and business with Russia. | ||
| So there's a push and pull really across the board. | ||
| But you don't have to look back at what happened in the 40s or what happened in the 60s with the Prague Spring to see what is at stake. | ||
| If you look at the fact that Ukrainian children are being stolen and sent into Russia, I mean, this is a reminder about what can happen. | ||
| This is a way where people today look at what's happening in Ukraine and the parts that have been taken by Russia and say, we don't want that, but then you have to be willing to do something about it. | ||
| Murphy is calling from Grants Pass, Oregon, Line for Independence. | ||
| Good morning, Murphy. | ||
|
unidentified
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Before taking the call, I would like the honored guest to comment on the impact of oil sales from Russia to India. | |
| Of course, if India decides not to buy oil from Russia, it will affect Russia's ability to finance this war going forward. | ||
| So please comment on what percentage of Russian oil sales go to India. | ||
| And then if India stops buying it, what's going to happen to that oil? | ||
| Is anybody else going to buy that? | ||
| Hopefully not. | ||
| And also, India also supplies defined products of oil in the form of diesel and salt to Europe, if I understand it correctly. | ||
| So the question is, and also what will happen to the price of oil in the markets if India doesn't buy these oils? | ||
| So it's how it is sustainable. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Well, I think the aim is for this not to be sustainable for Russia, for Russia to find that the ongoing war effort creates a situation in which its petroleum products are not as desired on the world stage, and therefore the ability to maintain defense spending at the level that it is is not something that was tolerable by society. | ||
| The India piece of this is important and in many ways it is the frontrunner for what Trump can do elsewhere. | ||
| There is a piece of, well, is it fair? | ||
| Trump could simply create new sanctions, as many are calling on Russia, rather than in some ways penalizing India in order for it to have a different kind of relationship with Russia. | ||
| That, of course, is a complicated dynamic, but then Trump says that he would want the Europeans to stop all their direct sales before Trump would make that measure. | ||
| So there are a lot of things going on, and it isn't simply a question of India, although it is important here. | ||
| India has really significantly increased its purchases from the Russian energy sector since the beginning of the war, and I think that is what is alarming as well. | ||
| India has had significant economic and even friendly political ties in the Soviet bloc era and since with Moscow, but also good ties with the United States. | ||
| And this middle-of-the-road approach, I think, is one that is confusing. | ||
| Are you an ally? | ||
| Are you a partner? | ||
| Are you a friendly country? | ||
| Are you not? | ||
| How are you playing in the world stage? | ||
| And yet, India is trying to keep as many options open as possible, and that is creating frictions. | ||
| What happens with the oil? | ||
| A lot of it just literally floats around. | ||
| Some of it is not being then extracted. | ||
| And I think it's going to be a mixed bag. | ||
| I think you'll have oil that will have to get offloaded somewhere. | ||
| But I think the question is: what happens in the broader supply chain? | ||
| What happens further up, literally, a pipeline? | ||
| And does the demand for that Russian oil become smaller over time? | ||
| We are almost out of time, so we'll end with this question. | ||
| Steve from Tampa, Florida, sent us in a text along the same lines: Does the guest believe that the imposition of very stringent secondary sanctions on Russia, including on all of the oligarchs in Russia, will have a significant impact on Putin and his desire for expansionary efforts? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it's really hard to say what the influence would be of additional measures against oligarchs because right now we're getting into an ever more personalist regime. | |
| In the boom days for the Russian economy and for the Russian business world, and you think about purchasing soccer teams and other major luxury items around the world, this was driven by a big cohort of oligarchs. | ||
| But their acquiescence or their opposition isn't really important right now. | ||
| If Trump wanted Putin to be more businessy, he would have already been able to achieve that, right? | ||
| But Putin isn't businessy right now. | ||
| He's thinking about a map. | ||
| He's thinking about what in 300 years someone's going to look back in an atlas and say, you know, Russia circa 2025 looked like this. | ||
| And he wants that spot on that map to be bigger. | ||
| So more sanctions and more actions against the oligarchs. | ||
| I think maybe he thinks they have enough helicopters as it is. | ||
| Instead, it's about something different. | ||
| If it was possible to have this kind of effect, then I think Trump would have a far easier time through the question of oligarchs, through the question of business, to get Putin at the table and back into a more money-making role globally. | ||
| Christine Berzina is Managing Director of Geostrategy North at the German Marshall Fund. | ||
| You can find the organization and her work online at gmfus.org. | ||
| Christine, thank you so much for your time this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Next on Washington Journal Center for Autism Research Excellence Director Helen Tagger Fleshberg-Flusberg joins us to discuss efforts to increase awareness and understanding of autism and related disorders. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
| I'm Dasha Burns, host of Ceasefire, bridging the divide in American politics. | ||
|
unidentified
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ceasefire premieres october 10th this fall c-span invites you on a powerful journey through the stories that define a nation From the halls of our nation's most iconic libraries comes America's Book Club, a bold, original series where ideas, history, and democracy meet. | |
| Hosted by renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein, each week features in-depth conversations with the thinkers shaping our national story. | ||
| Among this season's remarkable guests, John Grisham, master storyteller of the American justice system. | ||
| Justice Amy Coney Barrett, exploring the Constitution, the court, and the role of law in American life. | ||
| Famed chef and global relief entrepreneur Jose Andres, reimagining food. | ||
| Henry Louis Gates, chronicler of race, identity, and the American experience. | ||
| The books, the voices, the places that preserve our past and spark the ideas that will shape our future. | ||
| America's Book Club, premiering this fall, Sundays at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| American History TV, exploring the people and events that tell the American story. | ||
| 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. | ||
| This week, we'll explore the creation of the Continental Army in 1775 with Duquesne University professor and former U.S. Army officer Holly Mayer. | ||
| And then historian and author Don Hagist examines the British Army before and during the Revolutionary War. | ||
| Legal and constitutional scholars highlight landmark debates and Supreme Court cases in the evolution of the U.S. Constitution. | ||
| On the Civil War, historians talk about Robert E. Lee as a complex figure whose legacy has evolved over time. | ||
| And on lectures in history, when Kentucky became a state in 1792, it had a choice, keep slavery or abolish it. | ||
| University of Kentucky professor Melanie Gohn teaches a class on the state's decision and its unique relationship with the institution of slavery until the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. | ||
| Exploring the American story, watch American History TV every weekend and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us now to discuss autism research and efforts to increase awareness and understanding of autism and related disorders is Dr. Helen Tagger Flesberg. | ||
| She is Boston University's Center for Autism Research Excellence Director, as well as founder of the Coalition for Autism Scientists, Dr. Tagger Flesberg. | ||
| Thank you so much for being with us this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Oh, it's my pleasure. | |
| We really do greatly appreciate your time. | ||
| Can you start by telling our audience about the Center for Autism Research Excellence, the mission, and who you work with? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, so we're a research center at Boston University on the main campus. | |
| We collaborate in our research with many other institutions, Harvard Medical School, Boston Children's Hospital, University of California, Los Angeles, and other groups. | ||
| And our research focuses primarily on very early development, early biomarkers, whether we can see differences in the brains of children before they show the signs of autism or other developmental delays. | ||
| And we also focus on trying to understand why about a third of the population of autistic children don't acquire spoken language. | ||
| So we do a wide range of different kinds of research studies at the center. | ||
| Autism research is the topic that you have dedicated your career to. | ||
| Just so our audience has a better idea of your background, can you talk about your work and your background in this area? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I began my research in this area about 50 years ago. | |
| And I was interested in language in autism because at that time, it was thought that language was the underlying area that led to the difficulties with social engagement that led to some of the other behavioral features of the disorder. | ||
| But trying to understand language and autism has been the unifying theme of my work over five decades. | ||
| But we've branched into so many different areas. | ||
| I've collaborated with people in the field of genetics to understand the genetic causes of autism. | ||
| I've collaborated with neuroscientists looking at differences in the way the brains of autistic people at different ages process information and so forth. | ||
| So over the years we've done a wide range of research. | ||
| And I think one of the things to remember is what propels the field forward, and this is true across medicine, is the creation of new tools, new approaches, not just new ideas, but new ways of being able to investigate new ideas. | ||
| So when I began, we had very limited ways of looking at how the brains of autistic people process information. | ||
| And now we have a wide array of tools to be able to do that. | ||
| And for those who may not have a full understanding of what autism is, can you give us that kind of explain what it is and what we know about it and what we don't know about it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| So autism is typically defined by clinician on the basis of difficulties in processing social information, communication, some behavior differences, and in many cases, difficulties processing different types of sensory information, showing sensitivities, for example, | ||
| to sounds or touch. | ||
| So it's diagnosed on the basis of behavior, And these features emerge primarily during the second year of life. | ||
| It is a developmental disorder. | ||
| But there's a huge variability in the expression of those core characteristics that define autism, as well as many other aspects of the disorder that we can see. | ||
| Our guest for the next 35 minutes or so, talking about autism research and efforts to increase awareness and understanding of autism and related disorders is Dr. Helen Tagger-Flesberg. | ||
| She is the director of Boston University's Center for Autism Research Excellence, as well as the founder of the Coalition of Autism Scientists. | ||
| If you have a question or comment for her, you can start calling in now. | ||
| The lines for this segment are broken down regionally. | ||
| If you are in the Eastern or Central time zone, your line 202-748-8000. | ||
| If you're mountain or Pacific, it's 202-748-8001. | ||
| And we also have a line for those impacted by autism. | ||
| You can call in at 202-748-8002. | ||
| And Dr. Tagger-Flesberg wanted to get your thoughts on President Trump's remarks about the link between autism and Tylenol that he made on Monday. | ||
| We're going to play the SOT and we'll talk about it on the other side. | ||
| So I just want to say acetametophen is basically Tylenol, essentially, because I noticed that term is used throughout this conference. | ||
| So it's essentially Tylenol. | ||
| 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. | ||
| President Trump connecting the active ingredient, acetaminophen in Tylenol, with autism. | ||
| Your reaction to those comments. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I was completely devastated to hear the president express his opinion, and it was an opinion because it is not based in what we know of the science of acetaminophen and its association with autism. | |
| I was devastated, but that's nothing compared to the havoc that this announcement has created among pregnant women, women who have had children with autism. | ||
| The community, the clinical community, not just in this country, but in fact around the world at this point, is reeling from this. | ||
| And the most important point that is missed here is that women take Tylenol during pregnancy for a reason. | ||
| They have fever. | ||
| They have an infection. | ||
| They have severe pain. | ||
| And what we know from the science is that those aspects of functioning during pregnancy, having an infection poses a significantly higher risk to the fetus, the developing fetus, than does taking Tylenol to reduce the fever and to get rid of the infection much faster than would otherwise happen. | ||
| So I think the advice not to take Tylenol is simply wrong. | ||
| And most physicians understand where the science is. | ||
| All the major medical associations are trying to now counter this strong but anti-science message that we heard on Monday afternoon. | ||
| We have callers waiting to talk with you. | ||
| We'll start with Keisha, who's calling from Fairfield, California, on the line for impacted by autism. | ||
| Good morning, Keisha. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I have a five-year-old son that has autism. | ||
| I was confused, didn't know what was even happening with him until he was three. | ||
| He wasn't talking. | ||
| And the president's comments were hurtful to me because I deal with the impacts of autism every single day. | ||
| It made me feel that Tylenol was somehow responsible for my son's illness, which is even more scary. | ||
| And there are no answers. | ||
| Like, I don't know why my son has autism. | ||
| And once I heard what he said, it just made me feel like Tylenol is responsible or did they know that this could have caused it? | ||
| And I know that his statements are ignorant, but it still, you know, affected me. | ||
| And dealing with a child with autism is really, really hard. | ||
| And not understanding the disease is hard for a parent that's never gone through it. | ||
| I didn't even know what autism was till I had a child with autism. | ||
| And I think that his comments were quite intensive and ignorant, and most of his comments are. | ||
| So I would just like to know from the researcher, what solid information can you give me to let me know that Tylenol has not impacted my child? | ||
| Well, in any particular case, we really don't have a good sense of why your particular child does have autism. | ||
| I agree with you completely. | ||
| The president spoke about autism without any kind of humanity or empathy or just the remotest understanding of the impact of autism on a family, but also the joy that autistic children bring. | ||
| It's certainly a challenge. | ||
| I don't want to minimize that, but it is indeed a challenge. | ||
| What we do know from the science is that genetics plays a very significant role in the underlying causes of autism. | ||
| And it may be that it's something that actually runs in the family. | ||
| And I don't know whether you may have relatives who maybe they never got diagnosed, but now that you have some understanding of autism, perhaps you can see some of the characteristics in other family members, or something happens to create, you know, what I would call a mistake in the DNA of the developing fetus. | ||
| And that's what leads to it in the majority of cases. | ||
| Now, we do know that environmental exposures, exposures like medications, but more importantly, other features also are important, but often they're playing out as they interact with the genetic predisposition. for autism. | ||
| So many of us may carry the genes that would confer a predisposition, but perhaps without the environmental exposures or with some protective factors, our children don't have autism. | ||
| So we can't tell in any individual case, but we know a lot about what those risk factors are. | ||
| But of course, there are gaps. | ||
| There are gaps in what we know. | ||
| And most importantly, there are still many gaps in what can we do to best support autistic individuals over the course of the lifespan to ensure that they can achieve the highest quality of life that's possible for them. |