CSPAN - Washington Journal 09/29/2025

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Sept. 29, 2025 07:00-10:00 - CSPAN

02:59:55

Washington Journal 09/29/2025

Participants

Main

john mcardle

cspan 34:15

neera tanden

30:50

rob henderson

28:13

Appearances

brian lamb

cspan 01:38

john fetterman

sen/d 00:52

pam bondi

admin 01:07

Clips

barack obama

d 00:02

bill clinton

d 00:02

dasha burns

politico 00:09

donald j trump

admin 00:09

george h w bush

r 00:02

george w bush

r 00:04

jimmy carter

d 00:03

joe biden

d 00:03

maria bartiromo

fox 00:20

ronald reagan

r 00:01

Callers

jane in washington

callers 00:13

john in missouri

callers 00:04

mel in indiana

callers 00:10

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Along with your calls and comments live, we'll talk about the potential government shutdown and other news.
		First, with former Biden Domestic Policy Council Director Neera Tandon, currently the president of the Center for American Progress, and later with USA Today White House correspondent Francesca Chambers.
		Also, the Manhattan Institute's Rob Henderson discusses how to combat political extremism in the U.S., including why some young men are increasingly being radicalized online.
		Washington Journal is next.
		Join the conversation.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
		It's Monday, September 29th, 2025.
		Here's where we are across the country today.
		In Washington, a federal shutdown is now less than 48 hours away.
		At the White House, President Trump is set to hold a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today to try to broker a ceasefire in Gaza.
		In Portland, Oregon, another federal troop deployment to an American city is imminent.
		And in Grand Blanc, Michigan, a mass shooting at a Mormon church yesterday left four people dead and eight more injured.
		Amid all that, we'll begin our program by asking you, what's the most important problem facing America today?
		Let us know on phone line split as usual by political party.
		Democrats, it's 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		You can also send us a text, that number 202-748-8003.
		If you do, please include your name and where you're from.
		Otherwise, catch up with us on social media on X, it's at C-SPANWJ.
		On Facebook, it's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN.
		And a very good Monday morning to you.
		You can go ahead and start calling in now.
		I want to take you first to the Gallup organization's monthly tracking poll of the most important problem facing America.
		The September report is out.
		The top five answers from those who were surveyed.
		The number one answer at 28% of respondents.
		Poor leadership of the government is the most important problem.
		Followed by those who said economic problems in this country are the most important problem.
		And then immigration unifying the country at 10% and crime and violence at 8%.
		Those are some of the numbers from that report that you can find at gallup.com.
		A little bit more digging into the crime numbers there.
		Gallup noting in its wrap-up of that report that mentions of crime and violence have more than doubled over the past month, rising from 3% in August to 8% in September.
		That's the highest level since August of 2020.
		The uptick comes amid a spate of violent events, including the Minnesota Catholic school shooting that killed two children on August 27th, the stabbing death of a Ukrainian woman on a North Carolina train on August 22nd.
		However, they note most of the increase in crime mentions in this month's poll occurred after Charlie Kirk's murder on September the 10th.
		Those are some of the numbers from Gallup.
		We're asking you what you think the most important issue, the most important problem facing America today is.
		Give us a call.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Independents 202-748-8002.
		As you're calling in, it was Attorney General Pam Bondi over the weekend noting the increase in crime in this country, specifically concerned about a new era of political violence in this country.
		In the wake of that shooting at the Dallas ICE facility, she released this message on Saturday on her social media page.
pam bondi ▲ ● ▼		We're witnessing a new era of political violence.
		Assassins have tried to murder President Trump twice and tried to kill Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh.
		In Minnesota, legislators and even children attending mass were gunned down in cold blood in two separate incidents.
		And an assassin targeted and murdered our friend Charlie Kirk.
		A sniper shot three people at a Texas ICE facility, and now more than 200 violent rioters were at a Chicago ICE facility chanting arrest ice shoot ice.
		At least one had a gun.
		We've seen this before.
		We saw it in Portland and with the LA riots.
		These are not peaceful protests.
		These are coordinated attacks by radical extremists and they end now.
		Anyone who threatens or assaults our federal officers will be arrested and charged federally, not in some liberal state court.
		Same goes for anyone who's funding and aiding these extremists.
		You will be dismantled brick by brick.
		We are taking our country back.
		Make America safe again.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Pam Bondi, with that message released over the weekend.
		This morning, we're asking you about what the most important issue is facing the country today.
		The top issue, according to that latest Gallup report, again, more than a quarter of respondents saying that it's the federal government, it's government and unity is the problem in this country.
		That's the top response.
		Economic responses coming in at second.
		We want to know what you think this morning.
		Michael is up first out of Texas.
		Line for Republicans.
		Michael, what's the most important problem facing the country?
unidentified		Yeah, am I on?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You're on, Michael.
unidentified		All right.
		I think everyone talks about the national issues and stuff like that, but I think more people should be involved in their local issues.
		For example, I live in the city of Katy, and our local leadership is a massive joke.
		I mean, you have the mayor and some council members who have a lack of transparency, and one of them even is an admin on our city's social media page and blocks anybody who even has the slightest disagreement with them.
		Like I say, we, you know, not enough people care about their local issues, and that should be a big priority in America.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Michael, on blocking people who disagree with them, is that a symptom of this political divide in this country?
		That's one of the issues, the number four issue, according to the latest Gallup poll, is unifying the country to bring people together.
		Is the fact that people are being blocked if they disagree with each other?
unidentified		Part of that problem?
unidentified		Absolutely, but it also has to do with certain politicians, especially if they're in power long enough, becoming basically like power-hungry individuals that believe they can do whatever they want without any consequences.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Michael in Katie, Texas.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Monique is here in Washington, D.C. Monique, what's the most important issue, the most important problem facing the country?
unidentified		The most important problem right now is the most my issue is gun violence.
		Let me cut my radio down.
		Most important issue to me right now is the gun violence and the turmoil that's going on in this country and the blaming of the lefties for what I don't even want to call them lefties, social activists, so-called liberals compared to the right wing.
		It's a big difference when you're talking about the rhetoric and the speech and everything else.
		I think it needs to stop because every time I turn around on the T V, on the Facebook, I don't have Instagram or TikTok or anything like that, but it's constantly in my thread.
		The negative rhetoric from the right.
		I mean, you might have a little bit from the left, but it's not as heated as the right.
		It's almost like they hate certain groups.
		And I'm like, just like when it comes to the African American people, all I'm asking is just leave us alone.
		I think if they don't have anybody to pick on, their whole organization would crumble.
		Like, why do they hate black people so much?
		We mind our business.
		We go to work.
		We do what we're supposed to do for our children.
		We don't go into their neighborhoods trying to force correspondence with them.
		We don't go to their colleges to try to start anything with them.
		We're not going into their communities hanging their children.
		So why aren't we constantly, the black person, in their brain constantly?
		I'm confused.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Monique in Washington, D.C. Teresa is in Houston, Texas.
		Independent line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hello.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Teresa.
unidentified		Yes, I'm sorry.
		I'll turn the T V down.
		This is my very first time to ever call in to a station.
		But I don't hear you talking to me.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's okay, Teresa.
		I'm listening to you.
		So it's your first time calling in.
		What do you think the most important problem is?
		And why is this the topic that got you to call in?
unidentified		I've been on this earth a long, long time, and I cannot believe how it's turned out.
		I'm over 80 years of age, and I see what I see, and I'm so disgusted with the way Donald Trump, every time he opens his mouth, he seems to divide us more.
		What is wrong with him?
		I don't understand.
		I don't understand him.
		He's so mean, and he just cuts everybody down, reporters.
		And if you ask a question, they're in the lawn, wherever he is by the helicopter, and he'll just cut you down.
		Well, anyway, I'm just disgusted with Donald Trump.
		I wish that he would just be nice and try to put us together instead of divide us.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So, Teresa, you would put yourself in that category of people who responded to the Gallup poll on the most important problem, one of the options, and it was the number one option and has been for a while.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The government and poor leadership is the biggest problem in this country.
unidentified		That's my number one.
		That's all I have to say.
		I'm just disgusted with it.
		And I hope that we will change our minds and be nicer to each other.
		So, thank you for allowing me to say that.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Teresa, you can call in once a month on the Washington Journal.
		We'll talk to you down the road.
		Yesterday on the Sunday shows, the idea of political extremism in this country was a topic of conversation.
		Once again, John Fetterman, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, was on Sunday Morning Futures on Fox and was asked about political extremism in this country.
		This is what he had to say.
maria bartiromo ▲ ● ▼		We know that there's been real extremists who have tried to hijack the Democrat Party.
		And whether it's policy or the way they talk, and look, you've seen it on the right in some cases as well, all the way.
		But I mean, on the left, you've got such extremes.
		Would you consider switching parties?
john fetterman ▲ ● ▼		No, no, I'm not going to switch.
		You know, but I'm just going to be an independent voice in the Democratic Party.
		I'm not going to be afraid if people, I mean, and if there are groups attacking a Democrat, you know, the last one in Pennsylvania, then that's to me that's part of the problem, you know, in our party.
		And if you want a Democrat that's going to call people Nazis or fascists or all these kinds of things, well, I'm not going to be that guy.
		You know, independent thinking and views, wherever that I happen to believe the truth, regardless if it's the Republican or the Democratic voice, you know, what I think is the truth in this.
		Now, in this truth right now, it's firmly on Israel through this.
		And it's also, it's always wrong to shut our government down.
		And that's where my voice is.
		And if that puts me as an outlier, and that's where I am.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Senator John Fetterman on Sunday morning futures yesterday, talking about shutdown.
		We are less than 48 hours away from a government shutdown, a meeting expected between the leaders of the House and the Senate and President Trump.
		That's expected this afternoon.
		We'll see what happens from that meeting.
		We're expecting at least some images from that meeting, perhaps some questions being taken by the president and the congressional leaders.
		That all happening later this afternoon.
		You can watch on C-SPAN.
		We're expecting around 3 p.m. Eastern, but that could change.
		This is Cindy next out of Norwalk, Connecticut.
		Republican, your next most important problem facing the country.
unidentified		Hi, good morning, John.
		You know, that lovely lady from Washington, it broke my heart what she had to say, because that is not true.
		Republicans do not hate the black community.
		We love them and we want to see them succeed.
		I'm 64.
		I was small when the civil rights movement happened.
		But you know what?
		We've thrown away 50 years of progress because everybody's feeding, I don't know, these things we have in our hands, our cell phones, they're tools of hate.
		I just feel like Facebook is just horrible.
		And all these social media sites are horrible.
		You know, the economy doesn't mean squat if we don't have unity in this country.
		And okay, January 6th, January 6th, we're still hard sick of hearing it.
		You know, it was a violent day.
		It wasn't a good day.
		But look at all that went on the year before.
		I don't think, you know, things were not unified during the Biden administration.
		That's for darn sure.
		I feel like we got more divided along racial lines, along socioeconomic lines.
		I don't know what's going on in this country.
		We used to our youth as hopeless.
		We keep telling them there's no hope.
		They're never going to afford a home.
		It's, you know, kids are too expensive.
		You know, it's horrible.
		Cindy cannot be as we need to tone it down.
		We really do.
		And it's not going to happen.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		On toning it down and unity that you're talking about.
		I wonder what your thoughts on Billy Halliel's column might be from today's Washington Times.
		He talks about Erica Kirk's message of forgiveness at her husband's funeral.
		And this is what Billy Halliwell writes today: the grieving widow who paused as those in attendance and millions at home watching erupted in tears and applause, did something that on the surface seemed unimaginable.
		Rather than wish ill on the assassin, Lambaste, or respond with furor, she understood the essential nature of offering forgiveness to her husband's killer.
		Her response, he writes, offers a blueprint for a beleaguered culture struggling with division and loneliness.
		Ultimately, Ms. Kirk's posture to forgive, love, and offer hope is what our culture needs to get to a place of sanity and peace in this country.
		That's again from the Washington Times today, that column.
		Do you have any thoughts in it?
unidentified		No, that was a beautiful thing.
		And that is not a foreign concept to believing Christians.
		It's what we should do.
		And we need more of that.
		We really do.
		You know, we don't want to tell people how to live.
		You know, we do accept people who are different than us.
		You know, we can't have the Ten Commandments in school.
		We can't have God in school.
		But what has replaced it is also a religion.
		You know, we don't want kids, young kids, learning about any kind of sexual orientation.
		I'm not picking on anybody, but I don't believe that's right.
		We're just dividing.
		It's dividing family.
		And that's, you know, parents do have the right to raise their children the way they see fit.
		And the schools have no business.
		It is a myriad of problems.
		And, you know, if you have a biblical worldview, you know what's happening.
		And I believe things are going to get worse unless we all have some kind of spiritual awakening.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's cynical.
unidentified		Thank you, John.
unidentified		It's heartbreaking.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Cindy Norwalk, Connecticut.
		Eric's next to Out of New York, Line for Democrats.
		Eric, go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning, John.
		I may sound like a broken record, but my experience has been that, in fact, most people are nice.
		You may recall that I called you to tell you that a while back.
		And I've been doing it over the years because I actually walk up to people when they're alone and I do my little personal poll thing.
		And I ask them, you know, I'm taking a personal poll.
		May I ask you for your opinion?
		And I look them in the eye and I ask people of all stripes and economic situation, color, and et cetera, et cetera.
		And I asked them, do you think most people are nice?
		And in a one-to-one situation out there in the public firmament, I get a very different reaction from people than apparently people do when they get the derivative of a person when filtered through media or what people are saying other people are doing.
		And, you know, I hear this phrase that people are getting into my brain.
		And I understand that because when I don't do that, when I don't, when I get a little fearful of what people are like, and I kind of forget my personal experience, putting the dipstick in people when they're alone and looking them in the eye and taking advantage of all those signals that they're sending out and the ones I send out to them naturally, I get a positive experience, like almost every time.
		So there's some kind of disconnect between what people could be responding to their fellow person versus what social media and the manipulation of algorithms, blah, blah, blah.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Eric, how long have you been doing this social experiment of yours?
unidentified		I've done it through three presidents, many moon phases and news cycles, ten years.
		How long?
		I laid off a little bit in the past year and a half.
		But, you know, I went to dad jokes.
		But I'll probably start it up again because, you know, I stopped during the pandemic for a little while and I started feeling that things were changing.
		And I resumed.
		And it hadn't.
		How many people do you think you've asked over the years?
		Oh, it's over 8K easily.
		Over 8,000.
		Yeah.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Eric, let me ask you: you're calling from New York.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Whereabouts in New York are you?
unidentified		I'm in I'm one hour north of New York, but New York is a polyglot.
		There's a lot of people there.
		So when I ask people alone in situations, I ask surgeons, I ask bums, I ask people from other countries.
		You know, I get a pretty good swath.
		And it's, you know, it's like throwing the dice each time because, oh, we're alone.
		Time to ask my question.
		Excuse me.
		Can I ask you for your opinion?
		I'm taking a personal poll.
		Do you think most people are nice?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Eric, before you go, you're north of the city.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What did you think of the news yesterday, Eric Adams ending his reelection campaign?
unidentified		I, you know, I didn't know.
		So there.
		Maybe people need to, just like they do in church, and turn to each other and say, peace be with you, that sort of thing.
		And you'd be surprised what you get.
		I've had wonderful conversations with what I call the product of this country, the people.
		And there seems to be a bifurcation.
		People online behave one way, but in person, they behave differently.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for the call from New York.
		We'll talk to you again down the road, and I hope you keep taking your poll.
		This is Deacon in Washington, D.C., Line for Democrats.
		Deacon, what's the most important problem, the biggest problem facing this country today?
unidentified		Well, first of all, good morning, John.
		I want to say that the country is in a situation where the people are not looking up.
		Everybody's looking down, and the only thing that's down is your feet and the ground.
		The country needs to begin to look up.
		And it all starts from the top down.
		Let's not get it twisted.
		It all starts from the top of our head, and it falls, flows down.
		So we've got a man that's at the top calling people low-level IQ folks and degrading women by saying DEI is this and that, but yet he's got a quarter of his administrative staff is women.
		You know, that's what is that hypocritical.
		We need to look at how things are looking in the country.
		That man that you just had on there, that's a man of peace.
		When we speak and engage one another eye to eye, see, the eyes are the windows to our soul.
		We got to go back to the basics, not make America great because that was some crazy stuff that went on in the past.
		But we need to go back to the basics.
		Yes, ma'am.
		No, ma'am.
		Thank you.
		Please, may I.
		And let the next one go first.
		Pay it forward.
john in missouri ▲ ● ▼		All of these things is why grandma is 80 and 90.
unidentified		All of these things is why that's why they are there.
		To give us the example, John.
		America is in a bad way right now.
		Young children are telling their parents what to do.
		They're acting like they have no responsibility here.
		There's no accountability from the top.
		So the child is not going to have responsibility or accountability when he's called upon.
		Let's go back to the basics.
		Get on your knees.
		Stop looking at theology.
		And let's perform some neology.
		See, I'm speaking to you from a Democratic, but I'm an independent place.
		I'm not an independent place.
		I have a voice.
		I have an identity.
		I have a religious spiritual base.
		And it all starts from the top, sir.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Deacon here in Washington, D.C., asking you what the most important issue, most important problem facing the country is today.
		Here's a few of your comments from social media.
		Jack Hudson saying it's the Trump administration's march toward authoritarianism and fascism.
		They're also bent on destroying the economy and the American way of life.
		Here's another one from Don saying the biggest problem is the deporting millions of illegals.
		This is John saying the biggest problem is how quickly AI will take over millions of jobs.
		And Stephen saying it's the loss of faith in democracy among the polity today.
		Looking for your comments on social media, on Facebook, on X. You can also send us a text 202-748-8003 or give us a call like Rick did out of New York Independent.
		Rick, go ahead.
unidentified		Hi, good morning, John.
unidentified		How are you today?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Doing well.
unidentified		Good.
		To me, the most important issue facing the United States today is the two-party system.
		I believe that both the Democratic and Republican parties are doing great damage to this country.
		I think that one of the guys who you had on earlier was talking about how he does his little independent polls and talks to people.
		Well, I kind of agree with the guy.
		You know, I have many friends who are very, very pro-Republican, pro-MAGA.
		I have many friends who are very, very much pro-left, pro-Democrat stuff.
		They're all good people.
		These are my neighbors and my friends.
		And we get along great and we socialize.
		And you realize that what's happening is that a small group of people at the top of the food chain in these political parties, I believe, are responsible for, quote-unquote, stirring up things, making things hyper-political.
		And I don't believe that there are millions of people who are bad or evil.
		I honestly think there's a couple of thousand hyper-political people in this whole country that are making it crazy for would we have about 150 million people vote this last election?
		People are not at the extremes.
		People are in the middle.
		People like their neighbors.
		People get along with other people.
		These political parties are driving people apart.
		And just one other thing that goes along with this thinking.
		I'm not a fan of Musk over this Doge thing that he did a while back.
		But when he was talking about threatening a third party, I thought, finally, something that makes sense for this guy.
		He could conceivably give some strength to a third party because unless we have coalitions, groups of people who must work together to get anything done, we're going to have more of what we currently have.
		I'm very, very sad about the current situation.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Rick, why do these third parties fizzle out or not get the numbers to compete with Democrats and Republican as usual?
		Why do people fall back to the old two-party voting lines?
		Most people, there's plenty of people who do vote for third parties in elections, but not in the numbers that vote for Republicans and Democrats.
		So why is that?
		If you say most of the people in this country are in the middle and they're sick of this, why can't a middle party emerge?
unidentified		Well, I think that there are a couple of things.
		First of all, I think the money that is currently behind the current parties has a huge amount to do with it.
		I mean, when you see elections, or not elections, campaigns that are beginning 12, 14, 16 months before an election, you hear these huge amounts of money going into it.
		I truly believe that these limitless amounts of money being put into the election cycles are contributing to it.
		They vilify these other guys.
		And people do respond to what they see on TV.
		So to me, there's too much money.
		I'm an opponent of Citizen v. United.
		I think that was a terrible decision that contributed to this ability to allow the two parties to dominate the way they do.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Rick, thanks for the call from New York.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Any thought on Eric Adams dropping out of the mayor's race?
unidentified		Well, you know, I saw that happen, and I saw the headlines yesterday when it happened.
		I think that he dropped out because I do believe that the Democrats are getting a little bit nervous right now with Mamdani.
		I don't follow the guy too much.
		The only thing I understand is that he's an excellent communicator.
		And when you think about being an excellent communicator in terms of how he has used social media, he's used conventional media, he's used all the other things.
		That's one of the reasons why Trump has been so effective.
		I mean, when you look at Trump, this guy knows how to communicate.
		I'm not saying I agree with him because I don't with almost everything he does.
		But when you look at communicating, you know, one of the biggest problems we had was the border.
		And the Democrats did a horrible job of communicating what they were going to do with the border.
		And what did Trump do?
		He communicated.
		So Mandami, I believe, has those similar skill sets.
		And I think people were starting to get a little bit nervous about that.
		That's just my guess.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Rick, thanks for the call from New York.
		One more note on the mayor's race of New York City.
		This is the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal today.
		Their piece, Eric Adams drops out too late.
		Can Cuomo consolidate enough support to beat socialist Momdani?
		They ask the people to watch now.
		They write, our U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer.
		So far, they haven't followed Governor Kathy Hochul in endorsing Mr. Momdani.
		They know that if Mr. Momdani takes City Hall, the GOP will make him the symbol of the Democratic Party in the 2026 midterm elections.
		But the party leaders are under pressure from their left to endorse him.
		Some of the strategizing and things to think about in the wake of Eric Adams officially dropping out of the mayor's race yesterday.
		Back to your calls.
		It's just about 7:30 on the East Coast.
		Half an hour left in this first segment of the Washington Journal asking you, what's the most important issue facing the country today?
		Linda, what do you think?
unidentified		Hello.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Linda.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Lake Jackson, Texas, Independent.
unidentified		Go.
		Yes.
		Hi, John.
		Yes, I think violence is right now one of the very most concerning issues for our country.
		Just here recently, a man went into a Mormon church, started just shooting the people, over 100 people there having their Sunday service, and he set the place on fire, too.
		Just starting with that and all of the shootings that we've been seeing occurring and killings, I'm concerned that possibly our president, maybe sometimes when he says it in a joking way, that, oh, you know, just get rid of them all, we could just get rid of these people.
		We wouldn't have, we'd do whatever I needed to do with the country and get it done quick.
		And I don't know.
		I feel like we need to solve and take a lot of concern for mental health issues and making mental health providers pay by our government and have free mental health.
		Maybe we can catch some people before they commit horrendous acts in our country or elsewhere.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And Linda, you're talking about rhetoric among politicians.
		How do you get sort of the sides to step down here from the rhetoric that concerns so many people?
		Is it going to take another terrible incident, or do you think the assassination of Charlie Kirk made people take a step back and think about the words that they use?
unidentified		I think so, but I'm concerned about our president even.
		Sometimes he says things that are kind of really hateful towards people who are not in agreement with him or standing in his way or he considers problematic.
		And he says crass, if not rude, and a scary comment he throws in there, and then he kind of jokes it away.
		And I think we just need to look at our leadership throughout our states and, of course, the leadership of our country and really be careful on how we speak about treating other people poorly.
		You know, our president is totally against Democrats, independents, all the crazy people that didn't vote for him.
		I mean, I'm just, it's concerning from the top up.
		We need to look at that because a lot of violence is occurring in our country and it's very sad.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Linda in Lake Jackson, Texas.
		This is the picture on the front page of the Washington Times, but on the front page of many newspapers today, it's the Associated Press picture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc, Michigan, set on fire during an assault on parishioners on Sunday.
		The gunman killed four people, wounded eight others before he was shot dead by authorities.
		And there's some of the drone video images from that church yesterday.
		This is Lisa out of Pennsylvania.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Hi, how are you doing?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Lisa.
unidentified		Hello.
		Yeah, I think our problem is having a corporate government.
		Corporations pay our politicians off and give them their wish list, and they hand it to them.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So how do you fix it, Lisa?
unidentified		Excuse me.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How do you fix it?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Can it be fixed?
unidentified		Get the money out of politics.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		As simple as that?
unidentified		It'd be a good start.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Lisa in the Keystone State.
		Rob's in Michigan, Independent.
		Rob, go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I think the president's personality is somewhat obnoxious, but that's not going to change.
		But he can have a great legacy.
		He's already appointed a Supreme Court that interprets the Constitution as it was written, not as people wished it would say for their cause du jour.
		His second action could be to promote and get past a bounced budget amendment.
		And if we could leave our country with a future of economic security, not be mortgaging our grandchildren's for things we want today, that would be a fantastic legacy.
		Previous comment or a different subject talked about, is there room for a third party?
		Certainly.
		Now might be the time.
		A common ground party, take it with maybe with Connor Leezer Rice and Joe Manchin.
		I think they would easily win any election.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Rob, did you watch Joe Manchin on this program?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I think it was last Sunday that he came on to talk about his new book, Dead Center.
unidentified		Yes, I thought he had some good points there.
		I'm not going to agree with anything, everything that any politician says, but the idea is that we have to talk with one another, as Charlie Kirk would say, we have to be willing to agree to disagree or find common ground.
		I think there could be a real groundswell there.
		And again, I'm back on the balanced budget amendment.
		I think we've got 40-plus states that have some sort of a requirement, either constitutionally or legislatively.
		I think they would easily pass with the 70% support of the states if we can get two-thirds of the houses to vote for it.
		And it might make politicians' life easier, too, if they said, well, yes, we'd like to give you this pet project and just throw money at it, but we can't legally.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So Rob, how do you get two-thirds of the House and Senate to pass anything, especially a balanced budget amendment when right now the fiscal 2026 budget hasn't been passed and we are less than 48 hours away from the government shutting down if there is no budget?
unidentified		It's going to be tough.
		But if the only thing they could look at as a future is that it gives them an escape clause to not have to play the game of, well, look how much pork I brought home for my constituents.
		That's why you should vote for me again.
		Nobody would be able to offer that as an election campaign topic.
		Everyone would be back on equal pain crowds.
		How do they get them there?
		That's going to be a bigger problem, a bigger hurdle than getting the states to ratify it.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Rob in Michigan.
		This is Lavinia in Baltimore, Independent.
		You're next.
		Lavinia, you with us?
unidentified		Yes.
unidentified		Uh-huh.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Can you hear me?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Yes, ma'am.
unidentified		Yes.
		I'm thinking really that what's facing today is drugs.
		I know they say a lot about mental health, but I think drugs is a predisposing factor to a mental health.
		Just yesterday in the county, I saw gentlemen walking down the street completely naked.
		Most of the time, when you need to go to, when you pick them up, and these young kids, they have drugs in them.
		So it's causing them to have to order this crime in this country.
		And I believe that drugs is the predisposing factor that will cause them that diagnosed to be mentally ill.
		I don't think it's mental illness on its own.
		It's something that's causing it.
		And that's why we're having so much drugs in this country.
		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's Lavinia in Baltimore.
		This is Ken Bend, Oregon, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		My best to Brian Lyon, by the way.
		We're both a product of public affairs from the Pentagon.
		Long time ago.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I'll let him know, Ken.
unidentified		Anyway, listen, I think after what happened to Charlie Kirk, I had to kind of ask myself: do I deserve death for what I believe in?
		Do my family members deserve death for what they believe in?
		Does anybody really deserve death for what they believe in?
		So I think the difference in opinions are really in jeopardy today.
		I think the fighting, insight, even with families and people not being able to go eating Thanksgiving dinner with each other, you know, has really taken its toll in the last couple of years.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Has that ever happened to you, Ken?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Or your family?
unidentified		Yeah, absolutely.
		I originally come from Colorado, and I, you know, a lot of them, a lot of my relatives are very much on left wing.
		The hatred for Donald Trump is really the driving force for most of my family members.
		And when I ask them why, they can't really give me a good reason.
		Hatred has its own properties.
		And there's, you know, when does hatred become the enemy of families and become really a mental illness?
		I know the last lady was talking about mental illness.
		Hatred becomes mental illness.
		And I see that in my own family members.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you see your family much, Ken?
unidentified		Well, I don't see them, but we still kind of text each other.
		I've had a couple of have blocked me from their phones, and that's gone off for a couple years now.
		But some of them still text me, and we just try not to bring up, I guess, any kind of political issue.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Is it Donald Trump specifically?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Did you talk more during the four years of the Biden administration?
unidentified		Yeah, we did, you know, and I don't recall ever having a lot of disputes with them because I just, you know, to be honest with you, I felt sorry for Joe Biden because a lot of us saw what was going on with him.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So in nine months, you've talked to them less since Donald Trump has taken office?
unidentified		Yeah, yeah.
unidentified		Yeah, without a doubt.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Are you going to see any of them coming up on the holidays for Thanksgiving or Christmas?
unidentified		Well, you know, I'm 81 years old and traveling and things like that are pretty, I have to kind of stay close to here in Oregon.
		And my mobility is not real good anymore either.
		But we converse a lot on FaceTime and things like that.
		God bless them.
		I love my family.
		I sure do.
		Sure don't agree.
		But like I said, I just can't say that they deserve death because of what they believe in, nor do I. You know, so I guess that's where we are in this country.
		The enemy has really taken over our minds and a lot of our hearts.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Ken in Bend, Oregon.
		This is Kristen Soltis-Anderson, Republican pollster and a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times.
		Her column today, What Americans Fear the Most.
		And she writes, when Americans are asked today about the biggest threats that they face, they do not feel they need to look any further than their own backyard.
		Even before the killing of conservative leader Charlie Kirk in Utah this month, a sense of alarm about domestic threats was rising, crowding out concerns about dangers from the rest of the world.
		That's because in recent years, Americans have come to see threats as not just the possibility of attack by a foreign adversary, the potential for political violence at home is part of it.
		Along with polarization, corruption, and a sense of cultural dysfunction, Americans increasingly view the survival of the country as being at stake.
		She goes on to say, as alarm grows intense about violence and division inside our own house, voters feel less that we have the luxury of worrying about what's happening elsewhere.
		Indeed, polls show that in recent years, foreign policy and national security persistently rank low among concerns on voters' minds.
		She writes that in the week after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, only 22% of Americans said that the biggest threats to the United States come from outside our country in the form of adversaries such as Russia or China and Iran.
		By contrast, 74% said that the biggest threats to the United States come from within our country in the form of polarization, corruption, in government, or dysfunctional cultural trends.
		Kristen Soltis Anderson writing about her findings in today's New York Times.
		About 15 minutes left here in this first segment of the Washington Journal.
		And we're simply asking what's the most important issue facing the United States today.
		A reminder: here's where we are: the Senate is in at 3 p.m. Eastern.
		President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set to meet before lunchtime.
		We're expecting around 11 a.m. today for at least the greeting to take place at the White House.
		And then later this afternoon, and by the way, they're talking about a ceasefire in Gaza in that discussion.
		This afternoon, the discussion with congressional leaders is going to be about the looming government shutdown.
		A sit-down today between the four congressional leaders and President Trump, and we will see what happens with the shutdown clock ticking.
		Jeff is in Kent, Ohio.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Hey, good morning, everyone.
		Listen, to the nice lady that called a little bit ago that tried to connect this horrific shooting in this church that took place yesterday to President Donald J. Trump.
		Get a grip on yourself.
		To all of you out there that are trying to make a connection to violence in our streets, to Donald J. Trump.
		I'm a lifelong Democrat, but you've got to stop this.
		Get a hold of yourself, America.
		This is not why these things are happening.
		And the fact that we've got a straight shooter, somebody that, when you get done listening to him, you know what he said.
		Okay?
		Get with the program.
		You have the right to disagree.
		But he got up in front of the UN the other day and he made it very clear: listen, you want me to put these sanctions on Russia and engage even more in this Ukrainian conflict, and you're still buying gas and oil off of this guy.
		And, you know, I mean, he just comes right out and says it.
		And as far as what's the most important issue facing our country today, well, it's got to be education.
		I don't know.
		We've got people getting out of college with degrees that are worthless, that they owe tens of thousands of dollars for, or even more.
		We've got high schools that have people thinking that if you're not good at advanced algebra, that you're going to be a failure in life.
		We've got to revamp our educational system so that people can feel good about being in the trades.
		People don't all have to be doctors and lawyers.
		They can be many things that our country needs, and we need them.
		And last but not least, for people who think that we can bring in over 10 million people in a three and a half year period and not have utter chaos, well, I don't know how to do that.
		And just ask the people that are being affected by this.
		And again, I am a lifelong Democrat.
		I'm a Kennedy Democrat.
		I love this country and I love my fellow man.
		But you cannot assimilate that many people in that small period of time and do it effectively.
		What you end up with is chaos.
		I thank you so much.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You're a lifelong Democrat of the three races in which he's run.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How many times did you vote for Donald Trump?
unidentified		I voted for him twice.
		I did.
		And listen, and I really mean that.
		I know you get people calling in that, you know, I'm a lifelong Democrat.
		Well, you know what?
		They're not.
		But I am.
		I'm a Kennedy Democrat.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Jeff, do you still consider yourself a Democrat?
unidentified		I'm still registered Democrat, but I'm not sure.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What's the case for Democrats right now in the 2026 election?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What's the pitch you would make for returning Democrats to power in the House and or Senate?
unidentified		There's a common ground.
		We've always had it.
		There's a common ground.
		We need to have immigration.
		We just can't take 10 to 12 million in three and a half years.
		We need immigration in this country.
		I also think our common ground is: look, we know that men shouldn't be in women's bathrooms.
		Okay, this is a given.
		And we know that if you're born male, you are a male.
		Now, listen, you may have gender dysphoria, and God bless you.
		It's a problem, and people can help you with it.
		But when you start to force people to address you in a certain way, when you're obviously something different, it's just problematic.
		I would ask everybody this morning: look, take a big, deep breath.
		The president didn't have anything to do with those people getting shot in that church.
		And right now, he's somewhere, he's trying to figure out how to keep the rest of these people down in Gaza from getting killed while they eliminate an obvious Hamas is a violent, vile organization.
		And there's no good answer.
		There's only maybe a better, bad answer.
		And so, again, I just think that the American people need to take a big, deep breath and look at their neighbor and say, you know what?
		I got to get along with you.
		I know we disagree.
		So that's all I have, John.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Jeff in Kent, Ohio.
		That meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu coming this morning, a day after the Gaza Health Ministry put the Palestinian death toll in the war in Gaza at some 66,000 Palestinians.
		That's the headline today from the Associated Press.
		This is Melinda in Arizona, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		I have kind of a request.
		Could you just replay everything the last guy said?
		I agree with him totally on everything that he said.
		I was going to call in and say that I felt the biggest problem with TDS and the quest for power.
jane in washington ▲ ● ▼		And TDS, as most people know, is Trump derangement syndrome and the quest for power over people from both parties.
unidentified		But I've just replayed that guy.
		You know, when I listen to Trump, I laugh at a lot of what he says.
		I know it's hyperbole, and he's way out there, but I find it humorous.
		And yet, I have friends, or pretty much they're now ex-friends, who take everything literally that he says and almost foam at the mouth.
		I've had the F-word thrown at me for voting for him.
		And I, too, was raised a Kennedy Democrat.
		But I have nothing to do with Democrats anymore.
		I don't understand them.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Melinda in Arizona.
		Just about 10 minutes left.
		Here's a few more of your texts and social media posts.
		This is Steve from Tampa.
		The biggest issue in the U.S. today is a lack of respect for other people's opinion and total lack of communication if your politics doesn't agree with the other person.
		We live in an influencer society, Steve writes.
		The Amish proverb: when you're looking for something, you find what you want to see, leads the individual to follow those in the media that espouse what they already believe and their failure to seek the truth.
		And this is from social media.
		This is from Chris in Ozark, Missouri.
		The problems are: one, a lack of civility, and two, a failure of leadership.
		And Kristen, in Portland, Maine, poor leadership is setting a chilling tone for our country.
		We have a president who says over and over again that he hates Democrats and we're all scum.
		He's stoking civil discourse, and that's very dangerous.
		Kristen writes, Dorothy, Wilmington, Delaware, Independent, good morning.
		You're next.
unidentified		Good morning, how are you?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I'm doing well, Dorothy.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Just speak into your phone for me so we can hear you.
unidentified		Okay, can you hear me now?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Yes, ma'am.
unidentified		I think that the biggest issue that we're facing right now is poverty, the drugs, and the guns.
		There's too much of it everywhere.
		So I think that somebody needs to take more responsibility, whether it be the White House or wherever, because you find people that still sleeping in cars with infants.
		People are doing other businesses, but yet still you're building parking lots.
		What about people that are living on the streets?
		The guns.
		These children didn't make the guns, so apparently the guns were brought into the United States just as well as everybody, you know, every other country.
		When it comes down to mental health, mental health is an issue that people get when they're coming up, have family issues.
		Maybe that's why these children are out on drugs.
		Maybe that's why these children turn into violence.
		Open up some more churches.
		Start having prayer more often.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Dorothy in Wilmington, Delaware, heading across the Potomac River to Alexandria, Virginia.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is Stephen, Republican.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning, and thank you very much.
		I want to say that I'm a proud supporter of C-SPAN and in a financial sense, so I hope everybody will put some money behind their words.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Appreciate that, Stephen.
unidentified		And I'm also a voting Republican.
		I've always been a Republican, and I have a lot of trouble with the Democratic principles, Democratic Party's principles, and I will remain that way for quite some time.
		But at the same time, I want to answer Ken and tell him, who called in previously and said he couldn't understand why his family members didn't like Donald Trump.
		Well, let me tell you, it happened on January 6th of 2021, and Donald Trump basically incited a riot and attempted to interfere with the smooth transfer of power.
		I see that, and again, I'm speaking as a voting registered Republican.
		I see that as a traitorous act, and I believe that Donald Trump is a traitor.
		That's not derangement syndrome.
		That is simply a statement of fact.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So, Stephen, I assume you did.
unidentified		I think one of the major problems in the United States, I think one of the things that's a major problem is our $37 trillion of debt.
		And not just the debt, but the fact that nobody, I don't believe, in this course of this conversation this morning, has brought it up as a problem.
		We're ignoring it.
		It's going to get to us.
		But those are the two things I wanted to respond to.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Stephen, I assume you did not.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You did not vote for Donald Trump in 2024?
unidentified		So, Stephen, Do you like radio silence and a response to that?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		As a registered Republican, as somebody you say you've been a Republican your whole life, what is the case for Republicans holding the House and Senate in 2026?
unidentified		It is an attempt to address the creep towards severe socialism on the part of the Democratic Party.
unidentified		The Bernie Sanders, the many others in the cadre of people who are just not understanding political and economic realities.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you think if Zoran Bomdani wins in New York and the mayor race, that that is something Republicans should run on in 2026 to say this is the poster of the Democratic Party.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is the future of the Democratic Party.
unidentified		Oh, absolutely.
		I mean, I think it would be the destruction of, I don't think it would be the destruction of the Democratic Party, but I think it would be something which the Republicans could play into very strongly.
		And I suspect that they will do this.
		And this is, and I have, I, anyway, I suspect that the reason for Adams dropping out was basically so that Mandani could become the poster child for the Democratic Party.
		And that was an effort, a conscious effort on the part of the Republican Party or some of the Republican leaders.
		But I'm sorry, I don't mean to take up more time.
		I would like to have more callers and get more people's opinions.
		So thank you very much for the time.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for the call from Alexandria.
		This is Ronald out of Miami, line for Democrats.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yep.
		Good morning.
		I think that fascist wing of the white nationalists, the white Christian nationalists, I think that is the most important thing that's facing America now.
		And I also think that that string that started over right after World War II in Germany, they actually went underground and want to connect.
		I guess it's to say that we need somebody to work for us.
		That's what it seems like to me.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's Ronald in Florida.
		This is Jeff Hyattsville, Maryland, Independent.
		Good morning.
		We'll try Jeff on line nine.
		There we go.
		Go ahead, Jeff.
unidentified		Good morning, Cease Man family.
		I just want to say something just to remind the American people.
		And I also want to say something that may be a little of a chastisement relative to the American people.
		At this point, I don't think Donald Trump is the major problem in this country.
		I don't think the Democratic Party is the major problem in this country.
		What I believe is the major problem in the United States is the American people.
		And I say it for this reason.
		Donald Trump has done enough in this country during his first term to let every American know that he's not fit for office.
		That's number one.
		He has given one example after the other, 30,000 lives told this first term.
		Now in his second term, this is what he does that's counter to what the American people need.
		It went against the American people's desire.
		He cut, with Congress' help, $800 billion for Medicaid.
		He made sure through trickery that $1.75 trillion permanently now, every year, is going toward big business.
		Every American voter should be outraged.
		And it doesn't matter what party you're from, the independent Democrats, Republicans.
		It doesn't matter.
		We have to be smarter than letting ourselves be put in categories and vote your heart and conscience.
		Vote for the children's future.
		Stop letting yourself be duped.
		That's what seems to be happening to the American people.
		And you can't blame Donald Trump for making a sucker out of us.
		You can't blame him for that because we are falling for it.
		We fell for it.
		That's how he got back in the second time.
		It's through trickery.
		We have to wake up and stop letting things just fall willy-nilly in front of us and we just run after it like goats.
		We can't be that ignorant.
		We can't do this to ourselves.
		We're going to hurt the country.
		Think about this, people.
		I want you to know this.
		Lastly, that Donald Trump, as we speak now, as I speak now, is plotting, planning with his lawyers to try to get a third term.
		He's not going to come out in front of television and say, hey, hey, guess what, y'all?
		I want a third term.
		He's plotting and planning because he does not want to relinquish power.
		And we need to get him out of office when that time comes so that we can get young, fresh political minds in office that think about our children.
		We got to do this.
		If we blow this, it's not on him and it's not on Congress.
		It is on us as the American people.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Jeff in Hyattsville, Maryland.
		Last caller in this first segment of the Washington Journal.
		Stick around.
		Plenty more to talk about this morning, including a little later, it'll be Manhattan Institute's Rob Henderson discuss concerns about radicalization of some young men in the United States.
		But first, nearest Handin joins us from the Center for American Progress.
		We'll discuss the potential government shutdown.
		Stick around.
		We'll be right back.
dasha burns ▲ ● ▼		I'm Dasha Burns, host of Ceasefire, bridging the divide in American politics.
unidentified		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.
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		Washington Journal continues.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And we welcome Nero Tandon back to our desk, Current Center for American Progress President and CEO, former Biden Domestic Policy Advisor.
		Neera Tandon, we are about 40 hours away now from a government shutdown.
		Do you see a way out of this?
		And if not, how long do you expect this to go on?
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		I think there's a very easy way out of this, actually, which is the government, our leaders can do what they usually do, which is try to find a compromise.
		When I was in the Biden White House and we needed to get Republican votes for something, we talked with the Republicans weeks ahead of the deadline, understood what they needed, tried to find some compromise.
		The real problem then was that Mike Johnson couldn't muster a majority of Republicans to vote for government funding.
		So he basically turned over power to the minority.
		But we engaged in conversations, you know, for, you know, behind the scenes for weeks and weeks and weeks.
		So, you know, I think it's a reasonable request to say if you want Democrats to vote for a piece of legislation, that you should have a discussion about what they need or what they want.
		And I think the fact that premium tax credits are expiring, and just to say what that means is, is there's around 24 million Americans who are in the Affordable Care Act marketplaces.
		And there was, there's basically there's the prospect of their premiums shooting up by on average 75%.
		That means some people will get 100%, some people will get 50%.
		And that's going to happen this November.
		So I think Democrats basically are saying we should avoid that.
		And that's what we would like to vote for this bill.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Why is the potential for a government shutdown a legitimate way of having that negotiation?
		When shutdowns have come up in the past under Joe Biden, Democrats have said shutting down the government is irresponsible.
		Democrats need to, or members of Congress need to do their job, keep the government open, and then we can have these negotiations.
		But the threat of a shutdown is irresponsible.
		Why is that okay now?
		Or is that what Democrats are saying?
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		Well, we wouldn't, there's no need to shut down the government.
		They could have, I mean, President Trump offered to have a meeting last week.
		He pulled that back.
		If they had that meeting last week, they could have talked about the premium tax credits.
		A few Republicans would like to do this.
		And I think, you know, what's very different about this shutdown, this debate over a continuing resolution, is that the way Washington was working now is just very different from any previous era, right?
		So the whole idea of what the CR is about is basically the government is deciding what it's going to pay for.
		And usually that's Congress is deciding what is appropriated, what is funded.
		But what's very different about this situation is that Democrats and Republicans can pass CRs or budget deals however they like.
		But then President Trump comes around and will ask for a rescission.
		That only needs Republican votes.
		Or even kind of more starkly, he just won't spend the money.
		So it's like my analogy of what's happening is, you know, let's say you, you know, you want to get your house fixed and you pay a contractor a certain amount of money.
		You make a deal with a contractor.
		I'll give you this money.
		You fix my house.
		You give that contractor the money and then that contractor's partner decides he's just going to fix half the house.
		And so I think that's like the whole idea of a deal here is just odd, right?
		You basically need a negotiation with the president to understand what's going to happen.
		And that should have happened weeks ago.
		I mean, I don't really understand why the president chose to ask for a meeting and then cancel the meeting.
		And what's interesting about this situation, there are plenty of Republicans who would like a deal on the premium tax credits.
		And I think that's why John Thune has said, Senate leader John Thune has said, you know, we'll discuss that or we'll have a negotiation of that like three months from now.
		Why not just have it now?
		I mean, we've all known these deadlines are coming.
		We all know the premium tax credits are expanding or expiring.
		Just, I don't know, do your job.
		Why haven't you been planning this for months about this moment?
		And it's not like Democrats just said yesterday, we're concerned about this.
		They've been talking about it for months.
		And so I just think it's kind of highly irresponsible that these leaders don't sit down, talk it out.
		And if they want Democratic votes for something, just make some compromises.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That meeting with Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate set to take place today at 3 p.m. Eastern, that's according to Punch Bowl News.
		We'll see what comes from that meeting.
		But if the government does shut down come very early on Wednesday morning, does that simply hand the keys of the federal government to Rust Vote and the Office of Management and Budget to fire, not furlough, federal employees to cut more from the federal government?
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		It actually does not.
		And here's the truth is, the Center for American Progress just put out an analysis of this yesterday.
		The law is that actually workers at agencies cannot be fired.
		In fact, the law is that they can be furloughed in which they get back pay, but the law specifies that you cannot make employment decisions to fire people in a shutdown period.
		Now, I appreciate that we are not, the Trump administration perhaps does not strictly follow the existing law.
		But the reality is, and we should acknowledge this, that the president has been shutting down various agencies for months now.
		So it actually is that people have greater legal protection.
		Federal workers have greater legal protection in a shutdown.
		And just other side facts, people who would terminate people, like HR offices, are usually shut down.
		So it's like a little bit harder to implement.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So if that happens and people are fired under a government shutdown that happens, you are confident that the federal courts would step in here and federal employees would get their jobs back.
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		I mean, in fact, many federal workers, as you know, have gotten their jobs back from litigation.
		And we actually think the precedent is much stronger in a government shutdown.
		So I think this is basically, honestly, kind of an extortion tactic, which is we are going to go fire all these people.
		And just think about what's happening here.
		The president does not want to negotiate with Democrats.
		So Rust Vaught, you know, over stopping people's health care premiums from going up 75%.
		He would prefer that those premiums go up 75%, I guess.
		And instead of having just a negotiation on that, their decision is to threaten that they'll just fire people willy-nilly, innocent victims and all of this, right?
		I guess I just think that's, if you just think about what's happening, that seems kind of horrifying that basically they're using the federal workers as like an extortion tactic against Democrats who are really just trying to protect people's health care.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Near attendant with us from the Center for American Progress taking your phone calls, as usual, phone line split by political party.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Independents 202-748-8002.
		As folks are calling in.
		Let me come back to the March potential shutdown that didn't happen.
		And Senator Schumer and Senate Democrats agreeing to a continuing resolution then to keep the government open.
		Did you agree with that decision at the time, Senator Chuck Schumer's decision then?
		And if so, why was it the right decision then and not now?
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		I did not agree with that decision.
		I thought at the time that if the president wanted Democratic votes, that he should, you know, make decisions.
		He should have an actual negotiation with Democrats, as every other president has done with the opposing party.
		And again, I was in the Biden administration.
		There's plenty of discussions back and forth with Senate and House Republicans about what they needed and what could be accomplished, et cetera.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And what were some examples of that where you came to an agreement and came to a negotiation?
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		Well, the big challenge, honestly, in the Biden administration was that Mike Johnson could not produce Republicans to vote for government funding.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		No matter what the deal was.
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		No matter what the deal was.
		So, you know, like he basically would ask for various, you know, social issues.
		And, you know, at the end of the day, they passed government funding with some, you know, there was some limitations on Pentagon funding, on some issues related to LGBTQ rights and other things.
		But fundamentally, the big challenge back then is that he couldn't produce enough votes to pass the bill.
		So he relied on Democratic votes.
		But that didn't stop us from engaging and having conversations back and forth.
		And there were like compromises, compromises that we didn't like.
		There were compromises on LGBTQ rights and other things that we didn't love.
		But at the end of the day, you know, you have to kind of even get something here because Democrats couldn't pass the bill on their own.
		So they needed some Republican votes.
		So there's like a good back and forth on those issues.
		I guess I just, and my overall take is we should also understand that we've had a lot of learning since the CR.
		I mean, things have happened, right?
		So when that CR happened, you know, everyone was going around thinking that if you like, if Congress appropriates funding for an agency, then that will actually get spent.
		But in the intervening months, we've learned that even when the federal government passes a CR or funds an agency, Russ Vaught on his own decides just not to fund it, right?
		We've seen massive impoundments, and that's just another way of saying decisions not to spend money that has been appropriated by Congress.
		And just to say, the Constitution specifies that Congress has the decision of appropriating funds, of funding agencies.
		It is not Rusva's.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So where have the courts been on that?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The courts that you're confident will rehire federal workers on a different issue, but where have the courts been on that issue?
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		Well, the courts have given President Trump pretty expansive powers on these issues.
		The courts have also made the federal government, made the Trump administration rehire agents, rehire federal workers.
		That's happened multiple times.
		So we don't know where the courts will be, but I guess I would just say for the people who believe in constitutional principles and even original intent of the Constitution, it is pretty clear right in Article 1.
		And again, it's Article 1.
		You know, it's not Article 2 or Article 3.
		It's Article 1.
		Congress is supposed to have supremacy over appropriations.
		That has been ignored by this administration.
		I find that, and I think the reason why that affects all of this is that you actually, you know, Democrats who vote for a clean CR, they're not voting for a clean CR because they don't know what will ultimately happen.
		So I think that's why it's important to have a conversation.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Plenty of callers for you already.
		Sandy is up first out of Alabama Independent.
		Sandy, you are on with New York Tandon.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I just want to say how just astonished I am at the hypocrisy of the Democrats as far as shutdowns.
		Number two, I want to say founding fathers never intended for government employees to not be fired.
		The worst thing that ever happened to the federal government was for federal employees to get protection from being fired.
		We always know where that has gone.
		And number three, I want to know why they are telling the lie that the insurance premiums that the Congress wants to take away are for just law-abiding taxpaying citizens.
		The money that they want to remove is money for insurance for illegal aliens, people that are not qualified for insurance.
		And it's also pre-COVID paying.
		They approved, the Biden administration approved all this money during COVID, and that's what they're trying to take away.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Sandy, let me bring up those issues.
		You bring up a lot of issues.
		Maybe start on that third issue first.
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I'm so glad this has been raised because ultimately, it is totally false.
		In fact, in the Affordable Care Act, and people should go back to the debate, it was heavily litigated.
		It is literally specified that illegal aliens, undocumented people, whatever you'd like to call them, cannot get health insurance.
		This is literally just a lie that people are repeating.
		And I feel so badly that Sandy has been misled by this total lie because it was a very famous issue in 2015.
		It was a famous debate back and forth about illegal aliens getting health care.
		And it is specified in the law that these premium tax credits, particularly, cannot go to anyone who is undocumented.
		What happened, and you know, and just let's, I'd love to just go through a bunch of these things because they are, it's good to just clarify what the truth is.
		We live in a world with a lot of lies, so it's important to say, number one, no undocumented legal aliens get access to the Affordable Care Act tax credits specified in law.
		And no one's giving any evidence.
		There's no examples anywhere of someone who's gotten it illegally.
		So I think that's number one.
		Number two, this argument about COVID.
		I will say the premium tax credits were expanded in 2022, 2023, actually after we were going.
		They started in 2020, 2021, but they were actually expanded again or continued, not expanded again, but continued as we're coming out of COVID.
		So that's a second point that's really important.
		Federal workers.
		The Trump administration is firing federal workers.
		I think the truth is, you can argue that federal workers should be able to be fired if they do a bad job, sure.
		But the willy-nilly firing of veterans, 80,000 veterans being fired, I think most Americans disagree with that.
		But that's really not the issue in the shutdown.
		The issue in a shutdown is people get furloughed, and that's how shutdowns have been operated.
		There's a new issue for the president, for a Republican or Democratic administration to say, as an extortion tactic, we're going to just start firing workers because we just believe that you care about those workers more than I do.
		I think that's kind of a little bit of an odd notion, and I think most Americans think it's kind of abhorrent.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What about her first point on hypocrisy?
		Who people who watch these and think when they change sides here, they just change the songbooks, that shutdowns can never happen, and that shutdowns is a legitimate negotiating tactic.
		And then it just matters who's in power, who's the president, who's leading the Senate, and who's not.
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		I guess my view of this is that we've had, like, there is one, there is one consistent in all these debates, which is shutdowns have always happened when you've had House Republicans.
		The issue here is just a negotiation.
		I guess my take on this is the idea that we are going to talk about shutdowns as if this budget negotiation is the same as any other budget negotiation strikes me as just really weird.
		I'll say why, okay?
		I served in three administrations.
		I served in the Clinton White House.
		I served in the Obama administration.
		I served in the Biden White House.
		There were obviously negotiations back and forth.
		We had never experienced, we've never experienced in my time, in the history of this country, a situation where the administration in power is already shutting down various elements of the government.
		George Bush didn't just say unilaterally, I would like to close the Department of Ed.
		Or George Bush didn't say unilaterally, I would just like to eliminate USAID without any discussion with Congress.
		So that, and nobody ever said before, we refuse to negotiate because we're just going to fire everybody, in my view, and I think a lot of lawyers view, illegally.
		So I just think this is like an odd universe to say what really matters is precedent, because as I pointed out earlier, it is not even clear what Congress is negotiating over, since the fact is that the president goes around Congress completely and just starts cutting agencies and people.
		So I think that's why Democrats are a little bit like, what are we even agreeing to?
		We need to have a negotiation.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		To our line for Democrats, Carl is in Vermont.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You're on with Nira Tandon.
unidentified		Hi, guys.
		How are you doing today?
		Doing well.
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		My question is: if we were to win both the House and the Senate in 2026, what could we do better than we did last year or two years ago to prevent the extremists,
		the Republicans and Trump's buddies, from getting rid of our health care, getting rid of our insurance, Medicaid?
		You name it.
		What could we do differently to prevent the extremists on the left?
		I mean, the right, sorry, the right.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Well, Carl, I think we got your question.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Niratandon.
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		So thank you for the question.
		First and foremost, if Democrats were in charge of the House and Senate, they would not have passed legislation this summer that takes away health care from 16 million people.
		So just in addition to the ACA premium tax credits, there are millions of people who are going to lose their health care because of the Medicaid cuts.
		Medicaid cuts were in the legislation, and the funding from those Medicaid cuts are being used to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
		Billionaires, in fact, are getting significant tax cuts through OBBBA.
		So I think there is a very stark difference.
		Of course, Democrats would say, let's not pass legislation like that.
		And I think that's part of the reason why President Trump sped that process along because he's very much worried about Democrats retaking the House.
		And I will also say, you know, it's deeply concerning that the president is demanding mid-decade redistricting, very unprecedented and very unprecedented redistricting in order to avoid accountability because I think he is worried about having a Democratic House.
		But I also think we will, if there's a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate, that you will have real accountability.
		So, you know, if the agencies aren't spending money, you know, there'll be consequences to perhaps White House funding.
		You know, there's a lot of tools and techniques that Congress has.
		If the president were, say, Russ Vought were to decide that he did not want to fund agencies, and, you know, the Congress could decide, well, we're not going to fund OMB and Russ Vought.
		So, you know, I think you just have a lot more power to kind of stop the extremeness that we are seeing in the administration.
		And I think Democrats have to be very strong on those issues.
		And also, you can put ideas forward to really address a whole range of problems in the country.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		If you get a Democratic House and Democratic Senate after the 2026 elections, do you support a Speaker Hakeem Jeffries and a Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in January of 2027?
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		I think, you know, this is a decision up to members, but, you know, I think if you actually win those, win back the Senate and win back the House, people should strongly consider re-electing those people.
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		It's really up to candidates, though, to decide, or up to members to decide.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you think Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer should endorse Zorhan Mamdani in the New York City mayor's race?
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		You know, the greatest part of my job is that I am not in New York City every day, so it's not my place to really relitigate, litigate what they are doing.
		I guess I would say about Zorhan Mamdani, you know, I'm here in D.C., so I'm not like super focused on everything he's saying.
		I think there's a lot of pluses to his understanding of cost of living as a real concern to Americans.
		We are seeing that cost of living is as high today as ever.
		I also think, you know, he's moved on some issues like police funding and others, but I also recognize people, there are people out there who have legitimate concerns about, you know, his experience and also some of his concerns, some of his attitudes in the past about various communities in New York.
		So I think, you know, it'll be a robust primary.
		Let's see what happens.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The Wall Street Journal editorial board today on that lack of endorsement so far from Jeffries and Schumer saying that they know that if Mr. Mamdani takes City Hall, the Republicans will make him the symbol of the Democratic Party in the 2026 midterm elections.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that's likely?
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		I mean, I think that's kind of absurd, right?
		I mean, how effective has it been for Democrats to use Marjorie Taylor Greene against all Republicans?
		It hasn't been effective because people see that people are very different people.
		So my take on this is I think if Zoran Mandani wins, he has to govern effectively.
		He has a lot of onus on him.
		He has not had that much experience governing.
		So there will be a lot of onus on him.
		He does seem to recognize that in some of his interviews.
		On the other side, I just think like, I'm sorry if you have Sherrod Brown running in Ohio.
		It's very easy for Sherrod Brown to say, not really a big fan of Zoran Mandani if he wants to.
		So I just think that doesn't work as I think that's a scare tactic and not a legitimate, Will not have a legitimate impact.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		To the Peace Garden State.
		This is Lenny in North Dakota, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		Thanks for having me on.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You're on with your attendance.
unidentified		Neera, I'm just wondering.
		Hi.
		For a lot of us, you know, you were saying that the illegals don't receive health care, and it's hard to believe that there's 10, 20, 30 million people who are in the country illegally, and none of them are going to the emergency rooms or getting health care.
		And another thing I would like to hit on is I think a lot of people don't understand why it's so expensive at the hospital.
		You go to the hospital and a lot of times there's no doctors there.
		RNs are acting as doctors, delivering babies, doing things.
		And it's the price of health care that bothers people.
		Surgeries, hundreds of thousands of dollars.
		A buddy of mine had a splinter out of his palm of his hand.
		It was $10,000 to take the splinter out.
		The cost of health care and what people are paid for being there is one of the biggest issues I feel are not being discussed.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Lenny, we'll discuss it now.
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		Thank you so much for that, for saying that.
		And, you know, I really hear you, and I think this is a really broad frustration for a lot of Americans.
		The truth is that the American healthcare system is a lot more expensive than other countries.
		You have a surgery, it's more expensive here.
		You get a shot, it's more expensive here.
		And I think it's very complicated, but we have a lot of concentration in the healthcare system in the United States.
		You have pharmaceutical companies that have basic monopolies.
		You have hospital systems that fundamentally operate as kind of monopolies in their community.
		You know, there's a lot of concentration even amongst doctors' groups.
		So I think that it's really vital that we have ideas how to reform the system so that consumers are not like the last person.
		And I completely hear your anxiety about that.
		I actually think it's a problem with the system that, you know, we haven't gotten lower health care costs overall.
		I was really proud to work on Medicare drug negotiation in the Biden administration.
		That was legislation that was delivering 50, 60% less costs for drugs because for the first time, the power of the government was being used, the power of Medicare was being used to finally actually negotiate drug prices down.
		And we saw that it had impact.
		You know, the top 10 drugs were going down, as I said, 50, 60, 70%.
		Now it's up to the Trump administration to implement that.
		And we have some signs that they are more favorable to the drug companies.
		I hope that doesn't meet out.
		On the issue of illegal aliens, it is the case that in the United States, people who come to the emergency room get care.
		You know, that's true actually around the world because doctors take a Hippocratic oath and they basically, if someone is dying or needs urgent care, they get covered.
		They get covered by, you know, they will get that treatment.
		But I just want to say the whole question of whether it's insured is another question.
		And the Affordable Care Act provides insurance to people.
		It doesn't specify what hospitals do in emergency rooms.
		And in the Affordable Care Act, it was very clear that we are not paying for the insurance of people who are undocumented or illegally in the country.
		So, you know, I totally understand the frustration that costs have gone up.
		Those costs are rising.
		I just want to say, like, we should acknowledge those costs are rising when we have large swaths of illegal aliens in the country, when we have low swaths of legal aliens in the country.
		That insurance cost has been going up and up and up, and it is a real problem.
		And I think Democrats have to offer ideas of how to reduce those costs.
		But the first thing we need to do is ensure that they don't go up by 75% this November.
		So that's step one.
		And I hope Republicans join Democrats in saying they want to put an end to that.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's 8.30 on the East Coast, about 15 minutes left with Neera Tandon of the Center for American Progress.
		President Trump is set to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu this morning, seeking a ceasefire in Gaza.
		What should he tell him?
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		What should President Trump tell Prime Minister Netanyahu?
		I'm hoping he tells him that the world is concerned about what's happening in Gaza, that it is absolutely the case that we need to free the hostages.
		At the same time, the deaths of children, of women and children, of families that are not Hamas soldiers, you know, we're talking about tens of thousands of people, is wrong and needs to stop.
		And I would say that for President Trump, who has talked incessantly about the various wars he's ended, I think this is a war that needs to end.
		So I hope he is strong and affirm.
		And I'd say the fact that we are in a place in our relations with Israel where they are deciding to go and bomb another country like Qatar without even giving us real notice or collaboration on the decision is, you know, is, I think, honestly, just basically an affront to the Trump administration.
		So I'm hoping that out of his want of more respect in the relationship, he will be pretty tough with the Prime Minister.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Felicia in Texas, Republican, good morning.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You are next.
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Felicia.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Felicia, you with us?
		Got to stick by your phone, Felicia.
		Then we go to Jack in Grayson, Kentucky.
unidentified		Democrat, go ahead.
		As we all know, is a shutdown is in the U.S. Constitution.
		If it ever does shut down, does it affect Social Security and VA benefits?
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		Yes, those are great questions about a shutdown.
		You know, a shutdown isn't in the Constitution or really not in the Constitution.
		I mean, what's mentioned is, as I said, in Article 1, Congress is in charge of appropriating the funds.
		So really, a shutdown happens because the appropriations have run out and they have not further appropriated or they've not further funded.
		So that's really what's happening.
		And a great question.
		Social Security checks are not affected.
		Veterans workers in the VA will be affected, but benefits themselves are not broadly affected.
		So, I mean, there is some impact on hospital systems, but the veterans, like your actual ability to get a benefit at a community hospital, are not really affected.
		So The truth is in a shutdown that emergency services and services directly to people are often considered emergency services are not stopped by a government shutdown.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So outside of this city, per se, where will people feel a shutdown first?
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, this is like a fascinating question, right?
		So you would feel it in the park services, right?
		Now, park services, maybe if you need to get a passport, things like that, you may feel it.
		But this is like an interesting issue to me because, you know, over the weekend, the administration said, well, you know, law enforcement will be affected and people at DOJ will be affected.
		But, you know, they didn't say that the president has already kind of unilaterally cut lots of people in law enforcement in the Department of Justice.
		And there's been, there have been famous firings, but a lot of people have been sort of moved out of the department.
		So it's not even clear to me that you would have more people, I don't even know the answer to this, so that you'd have more people who would be affected in a shutdown than have already been fired.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Tony's next in Michigan Independent.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You're on with Neera Tandon.
unidentified		Yes, I have a question on the undocumented alien health care.
unidentified		So how many documented aliens do we have?
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		Do you mean I don't know what you mean by a documented alien?
unidentified		Well, I mean, you said that their health care, none of that money is going to go towards undocumented aliens.
unidentified		Well, are there documented aliens in this country?
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		I guess the way to think about this is there are people who are here illegally, right?
		They cross the border illegally.
		And then there are people who like are, you know, the immigration system, they wait in line for a long time.
		They have a green card or they've been, you know, they've become citizens.
		They used to not be citizens.
		They've gone through the system.
		They become citizens.
		Those people, you know, that's the distinction.
		So people who are like crossing illegally, who don't have any status here, like, you know, those people cannot get the premium tax credits.
		And actually, it's really quite hard to get the premium tax credits if you're not here legally because it kind of works through your IRS system.
		And most people aren't paying those kinds of taxes if they're here legally.
		So it's actually illegal to provide premium tax credits to people who are not here legally, but it's also very difficult to do.
		So that's the distinction.
		I mean, I'm not really making it, I don't really know who's a documented alien.
		I don't think that exists, but I'm just making a case for people who are legally here versus like who crossed the border illegally, who didn't wait in line to come here through our normal legal immigration systems.
		Those people are, those are not, cannot receive health care through the ACA premium.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		There's another category of people here legally, those who have made asylum claims and have been allowed in this country on asylum claims.
		Another category of people who the Trump administration is taking a stronger look at.
		Can you explain what happened with asylum claims during the Biden administration, the numbers of people who came in claiming asylum and were granted asylum versus those who weren't?
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so a lot of people came into the United States.
		And the Center for American Progress has put forward a plan to fix the immigration system.
		And it really does acknowledge a lot of the problems in the Biden administration, which I will be the first to say should have been solved faster.
		So what happens, what happened is that people would come to the border.
		A lot of people would claim asylum.
		They would, you know, they would be granted sort of an initial assessment that it's possible that they were, that they would get asylum.
		Like they had enough, they had enough to sort of get through the first phase of decision making.
		And then they would essentially be allowed to be in the country, and they would have to make their asylum claim.
		And then the, and then they would be, it would take, there was a giant backlog, so it took too long for people to get an adjudication and of that claim.
		Ultimately, people who went through the system, you know, it was like 25% would get, would receive asylum so that they could get on a pathway to legal status.
		But and so, but they would often be here for a long time with a sort of quasi-legal status.
		Now, I do not think those people actually get the Affordable Care Act, but I would have to check just to make clear about that.
		But I think that system was definitely broken.
		And so I will say at the Center for American Progress, we have basically said that people should be adjudicated at the border.
		You should raise the asylum standard so people are adjudicated at a high level.
		Like basically, you have to prove that you should be subject to asylum at the border.
		People should not be able to go into the country, and then they should be quickly repatriated if they do not are not subject to, if they do not receive asylums.
		Instead of having people come into the country, make those decisions essentially at the border.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		By the way, should note the website AmericanProgress.org is where folks can go to check out a lot of these reports that you do at the Center for American Progress.
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		And our immigration plan is there.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This is James, Indianapolis, Maryland, Republican.
		Good morning.
		You're on with Neor Tandon.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Kind of frustrating here for the last 58 years listening to the same rhetoric from one side and then from the other.
		And meanwhile, the hamsters are still on their wheel providing an unfettered amount of cash for federal programs and benefits and privilege.
		It sure seems to me like the people who are defending either blue or red aren't actually understanding the federal unfunded liability levels in addition to the fiscal debt.
		As a business operator, debt is something I can manage.
		Unfunded liabilities are the existential threat to my business, but our federal government doesn't seem to care about that.
		Could you expand on federal unfunded liabilities globally, put an estimated number on it, and explain how anybody is going to see those benefits paid, considering the cost for one and then the continued support as number two with such a divided government.
		And then my last comment is this: our country was founded on the idea of a melting pot.
		Melting pots only exist in an assimilated environment.
		Otherwise, they just become slop.
		Our country is falling apart because we stopped caring about the ingredients, and all we do is provide negative feedback to everything there is.
		You are a bad representative of what America wants.
		And John, we need term limits in every form of government.
		They should get the same Social Security benefits that we get, not federal pensions.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		James, you bring up a lot.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Let me let Nirtana jump in.
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
		I guess I would say that first and foremost, I would agree that the debt is a significant problem in the country.
		I will get to unfunded liabilities, but I will first start with the debt.
		And that is the debt has dramatically grown even in this first year.
		The cuts to Doge are nickels and dimes compared to the level of debt, $3 trillion added to the debt from the quote-unquote One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
		So for those people who are concerned about debt, and I think it is a deep, it should be a concern that we are simply expanding the debt and passing it on to all taxpayers and including our children.
		The fact that the debt has exploded even in the first year is, I think, a deep concern.
		In terms of unfunded liabilities, I hear you.
		I think it's wrong to have unfunded liabilities.
		I imagine some of the unfunded liabilities you're thinking about are rules and regulations.
		And I think we should absolutely take into account the impact of those liabilities on small businesses, individuals, et cetera.
		I also think we should take into account not just the impact of rules and regulations, but all policies of the federal government.
		So for example, when the President of the United States decides to put tariffs on countries, we should also understand the unfunded liability that is to small businesses who have to rely on imports from those countries and what that means to people.
		I really don't think the issue of unfunded liabilities is unique to one party.
		I think it is a real problem across the board.
		And when we hear of small businesses closing because steel that they rely on has increased 25, 50%, or soon we may hear of housing construction declining because cabinets have a 25% increased tariff out of nowhere.
		Not really clear why we are all of a sudden experiencing a 25% tariff on cabinets other than President Trump decided he wanted to implement it.
		You know, I think that is an unfunded liability and we should all recognize that as well.
		Tariffs are taxes.
		We pay them.
		That is a problem.
		I think people who want to be principled conservatives around these issues should be opposing tariffs just like they oppose income taxes and other forms of tax.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Just a minute or two left, Naritan.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Did you read Kamala Harris's book?
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		I did not.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		A lot of attention in that book to her comments about Joe Biden seeking re-election.
		This was the quote from it that got most of the attention.
		Quote, it's Joe and Jill's decision.
		We all said that like a mantra, as if we'd all been hypnotized.
		Was it grace or was it recklessness?
		In retrospect, I think it was recklessness.
		Was it recklessness to leave the decision to Joe and Joe Biden to run for re-election?
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		I think that the consequences of that decision are quite profound.
		I will leave it to history.
		It was the president's decision, but I think was a decision you supported well Well, I mean, I was in the administration.
		I had deep anxieties about the election.
		My job was not politics.
		My job was domestic policy.
		But in retrospect, you know, we should have done everything.
		Everyone should have looked at that as an existential decision.
		And I think the president's advisors should have had like a candid conversation about where we were.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Naira Tannen is the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress.
		AmericanProgress.org is where you can find her and her team's work.
		Thanks so much for your time.
neera tanden ▲ ● ▼		Thanks so much for having me.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Coming up a little later, a discussion on combating extremism in the United States will be joined by Rob Henderson of the Manhattan Institute.
		But first, in its open forum, any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, now is your time.
		Phone numbers are on the screen.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		ahead and start dialing in and we will get to those calls right after the break in our last podcast ed loose of the financial times told us about his books big for his big new brzezinski who he calls america's great power profit
		In this episode, we're going to feature a book notes interview from April 2nd, 1989 with Dr. Brzezinski.
		He was the first guest for the weekly Sunday evening program that ran till 2005, and that was for 16 years.
		His book at the time was about his longtime prediction that there would be a failure of communism in the Soviet Union.
		The name of Brzezinski's book was The Grand Failure.
unidentified		We revisit an interview with author Zabignu Brzezinski about his book, The Grand Failure, The Birth and Death of Communism in the 20th Century.
		On this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
		BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
jimmy carter ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is always an unfinished creation.
ronald reagan ▲ ● ▼		Democracy is worth dying for.
george h w bush ▲ ● ▼		Democracy belongs to us all.
bill clinton ▲ ● ▼		We are here in the sanctuary of democracy.
george w bush ▲ ● ▼		Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies.
barack obama ▲ ● ▼		American democracy is bigger than any one person.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected.
joe biden ▲ ● ▼		We are still at our core, a democracy.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.
unidentified		Videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights.
		These points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos.
		This timeline tool makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in Washington.
		Scroll through and spend a few minutes on C-SPAN's points of interest.
		Washington Journal continues.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's time now for our open forum.
		Any public policy, any political issue, any state issue that you want to talk about, now's the time for you to lead this program.
		It is 202-748-8000 for Democrats to join the discussion.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		Independents, 202-748-8002.
		As you're calling in, it's a busy day in Washington.
		Here's some of the big events that we're watching at 11 a.m. Eastern.
		President Donald Trump is set to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House at 3 p.m. at the White House, another high-profile meeting.
		President Trump expected to lead to meet with the House and Senate Democratic and Republican leadership to avert a potential government shutdown.
		We are now less than 40 hours away from that government shutdown.
		The government would shut down at 12.01 a.m. on Wednesday, and we are ticking down the hours and watching what would happen if the government did shut down.
		There's been plenty of posturing and positioning ahead of that shutdown, and the Capitol building there will be the focus of the attention.
		Also today at the Capitol at 3 p.m. Eastern, the Senate is set to come in.
		You can watch on C-SPAN 2 gavel-to-gavel coverage.
		And we are in our open forum for about the next 30 minutes here on the Washington Journal.
		Andrea is in Charlotte, North Carolina, line for Democrats up first.
		Good morning.
		What's on your mind?
unidentified		Good morning.
		I was a little bit frustrated with the last guest.
		Actually, she forgot to mention something that is so important.
		If you don't have papers in this country, you cannot have access to any health insurance.
		Obviously, if you go to the emergency room, if you're dying, if you have a heart attack, whatever, doctors are not going to say, I'm not going to take care of you.
		You're going to die because you have no papers.
		Now, what seems like to me, and I'm having this feeling, that some people hate brown people so much.
		They want, they don't care if they lose their health insurance.
		If people who don't have papers don't have health insurance.
		But what you have to understand is this.
		First of all, if you don't have any papers, you cannot have access to any health insurance.
		Everybody knows that.
		And second, if you, if you lose your health insurance, this is not going to change brown people's lives.
		So what seems like to me, people nowadays are so racist that they really prefer to see others suffer because they are suffering more than you.
		It's unbelievable.
		And racism is really going to destroy this country.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's Andrea in North Carolina.
		Roberta is out in San Diego, Republican line.
		Good morning.
		It's open for you.
unidentified		Well, first off, I would like to say that what she had to say about brown people and black people, it's disgusting.
		I am white, and my grandchildren are brown.
		I pay for them.
		I paid for them to have their children because they couldn't afford to have children.
		She talks hate.
		She is hateful.
mel in indiana ▲ ● ▼		I am sitting here watching as the state of California is having an election, which California, John, is broke.
unidentified		So we're going to pay for an election, which the booklet was set to something like 20 million homes or whatever.
		They had no money to print it.
		They had no money for the ink.
		They had no money for any of this.
		But we're going to prove to the rest of the country that we're better than anybody else.
		And California is broke.
		It's a hellhole.
		And my city, which was America's finest city for a very long time, is not America's finest city.
		It is ran by Democrats.
		They can't find their way out of a paper bag.
		As usual, they blame somebody else for all the problems.
		So I don't even know what to say, John.
		I paid eight credit cards off and $70,000 by myself.
		I didn't go down and claim bankruptcy.
		I didn't have somebody else pay my debt.
		I paid every single solitary dime of it myself.
		I ran it up.
		No one else had to pay for it.
		But we don't have Democrats who stand on their own two feet.
		They want to do chain migration.
		They want to do all this.
		And maybe you can explain to them what chain migration is.
		That's an extremely devastating problem in this country because I don't know.
		I'm here.
		My auntie needs to come here from wherever.
		And my uncle needs to come here from wherever.
		And my uncle's distant cousin is.
		We can't leave that person out.
		So you want to tell me, please, John, how well the Democrat Party runs this hub?
		Because I don't see them doing anything for ourselves.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Roberta in San Diego.
		This is Russell in Cooperstown, New York, line for Democrats.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Good morning to all the listeners here.
		I'm very concerned.
		I'm 72 years old, and I don't see this country going in a good direction at this point.
		Unfortunately, people have been somehow turned against one another.
		The Christianity has come into this in such a perverted way that I don't know where we're going, except I will say we have a president that suffered through many bankruptcies, and maybe he didn't suffer at all.
		Most of us would.
		Myself, I was a self-employed plumber, worked with my hands all my life, and went to college and did all the things he should do.
		But still, I don't see anything getting any better for anyone here.
		And my, I hate to say this, looks to me that we're heading into World War III in a hurry with this.
		We have a president that's failing.
		I myself have some animals, and the farming industry here in central New York is in trouble.
		Thank you very much.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Who are you concerned about going to war in World War III?
unidentified		Who?
		I mean, we got pretty much everybody in the world against us right now with this tariff business.
		And I mean, that's going to kill us financially from within.
		And retired people like us that have saved and worked all our lives to get out of debt.
		And by the way, I voted for Trump on the first election.
		No sooner than he got in office, about a month into it, I said this was a big mistake.
		And because of that, I've changed my party, but I don't believe in what the Democrats are doing either.
		It feels like the working people are not being represented.
		Anyway.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Russell in Cooperstown.
		This is Darrell, East Point, Michigan Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, John.
		Thank you very much.
		And your screener for letting me get in.
		This will take two and a half, maybe three minutes at the most.
		But I'm going to take this convert a conversation that has been in the press release.
		The comets Atlas and the Comet Swan.
		All of astronomers are keying up on these, and you're going to tie up behind the sun late October.
		We don't know what they involve, but I see four possibilities.
		Number one, it'll come out from behind the sun, both of them, and just go on your merry way.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Darrell, I guess I'm sorry, I'm not following you.
		Maybe I missed it.
		So what are you talking about?
unidentified		I'm talking about the comets that are coming in our sky right now, swan and Atlas.
		They're in the news.
		Every day I'm surprised that we're not getting more from mainstream.
		But here's the thing: at the end of October, nearly the end of October, they're both going to be behind the sun in a blind spot so we know we could monitor them.
		After they come out of the blindness of the sun, they have four options.
		Option number one is they come out with no orbit changes and straight out of our solar system.
		Number two, brought up by Loeb of Harvard University.
		They could be foes or friends.
		I go with the opinion that they will not be foes.
		They will not be friends, but they will be friends with conditions for Earth.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So, Darrell, and I got a lot of other people waiting.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So, this is something you're watching very closely.
unidentified		Absolutely.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I've been watching since thanks for putting it on my radar.
		This is Ray in Fayettesville, North Carolina.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, sir.
		How are you doing?
		I just don't understand.
		These people are calling in supporting Trump.
		What are you watching?
		You're not watching facts.
		This man said, I am your retribution.
		Don't believe what they say.
		Believe what I say.
		You understand?
		You understand?
		Now, you have people to call in talking about illegals getting health care.
		You know, that's, you know, it's not happening.
		You know, every lie that comes out of his mouth, they believe.
		That's the problem.
		That's the whole problem here in the United States.
		Now, I'm a 79-year-old African-American, Vietnam, combat veteran.
		I paid my dues.
		Do you understand what I'm talking about?
		You know, I just don't get it.
		You voting against your own interest.
		Do you know that y'all, some of y'all, more than half of you, health care is going to be cut off.
		Do you understand that?
		What is wrong with you people?
		I don't get it.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Ray in North Carolina.
		Tony is in St. Petersburg, Florida, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I would just like to say that everybody needs to be fired.
		Everybody needs to have term limits.
		It just got politicized all the way around, including the Supreme Court.
		The way they acting there is unbelievable.
		And a lot of things that Trump brought to the forefront, it reared his head.
		And it shouldn't have reared his head.
		People hating other people.
		The compassion is gone.
		It's more individual.
		So with that being said, thank you for letting me give my two cents.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Tony, St. Petersburg, Florida.
		Go ahead and keep calling in on phone lines for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.
		As you're calling in, we're going to take you to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
		We are joined by Francesca Chambers of USA Today, White House correspondent.
		Francesca Chambers, the headline above the fold in USA Today, Trump and lawmakers to meet on the shutdown.
		What have you been able to find out about that meeting that's set for 3 p.m. this afternoon Eastern Time?
unidentified		Yes, well, both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue will be converging right here at the White House behind me later today at 3 p.m. when President Trump is set to meet with both GOP leaders and Democratic leaders at the White House.
		You might recall that previously there had been a meeting that was scheduled, but then President Trump last week called it off.
		He's now put it back on the schedule as Republicans and Democrats try to come to some sort of an agreement to keep the government open beyond tomorrow evening.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Of the four leaders that will be sitting down with the president, who are you watching most closely?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What will you be watching for?
unidentified		Well, we might not be able to see anything because we currently expect that it will be closed press, but often what we see Afterwards, is that leaders either come outside to the White House and talk to reporters, or they do so on Capitol Hill.
		But in particular, Hakeem Jeffries, who wasn't in power, he was not leading the Democratic Party rather in the last Trump administration.
		He'll be having his first big meeting with President Donald Trump when he sits down with him today.
		But you asked about what we expect coming out of this meeting.
		It's entirely unclear whether or not there is a new deal to be had here, whether or not the president will be sitting down with leaders in order to have what Republicans have previously described as a good faith negotiation, or if he's merely inviting them over to tell them that, look, this continuing resolution that would fund the government through near the end of November is your only option here, so you can take it or leave it.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		This late in the game, when it comes to these potential shutdowns, how unusual is it that we don't even know if there's a deal that's going to be had and we are less than 40 hours away from that shutdown happening?
unidentified		And that often happens here in Washington, right?
		When we get very close to the end of the fiscal year or very close to the end of when a continuing resolution is about to expire.
		So certainly anything can happen in the next two days.
		But with respect to what's on the line here, Democrats say that they see this as their real opportunity to have the conversation about the health care subsidies that are due to expire.
		Republicans say pass the continuing resolution, and that's a conversation that we can have as part of the regular order later this year.
		So they're definitely at a standoff right now.
		And it's unclear, given that the White House now says that they're going to furlough federal workers and then not bring them back ever, not give them that back pay, whether or not that is something that will be enough for Democrats to say that they want to kick this can down the road further in this debate.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Let me move from shutdown to foreign policy.
		Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set to be at the White House in just a couple hours here around 11 a.m. Eastern is at least the last that we heard.
		What are you hearing about that meeting and the potential for a ceasefire deal in Gaza?
unidentified		Right, it's a very big day on both domestic policy and foreign policy here at the White House.
		With respect to Benjamin Netanyahu and his meeting with President Trump, this could play out a little bit differently than what we've seen recently with foreign leaders.
		We're not currently expecting that we'll have one of those oval office sprays where we see questions on any manner of issues be shouted at them.
		They're set to have that be closed, but of course with President Trump, that could always open up.
		They also have a leaders' meeting immediately afterward, a lunch.
		Then they're set to have a press conference.
		Now, you might recall that the last time they had one of those large sprawling press conferences here at the White House earlier this year, that is when the president first said that he wanted to have this plan for Gaza in which they would redevelop and potentially remove Palestinians and put them in other Arab countries while they tried to rebuild the Gaza Strip.
		Now, we have not heard much about that since.
		Now, the U.S. says that it's got a 21-point peace plan that they plan to talk about with the prime minister at this meeting today.
		Not much is known about what is entirely in the peace plan, but one thing that White House officials have said is that it includes the fact that Hamas would have to return all of the hostages living or deceased, and also that Israel would have to agree not to have further strikes in Qatar.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And then to look ahead to tomorrow from the White House as well, President Trump planning to join that gathering of military leaders that has been convened by his Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth.
		Explain what you've heard about what's going to be happening at that meeting.
		Do we know anything more about what the president is going to say to his military commanders at that event?
unidentified		In a round of interviews yesterday, President Trump said on the phone to reporters that he just wanted to give them a pep talk, essentially, and talk about how great the military is.
		Now, that was not the original plan for this event, as you were noting.
		Originally, this was supposed to be Pete Hegseth bringing in generals to give them a speech essentially about military ethos.
		Then, after this became a very big news and people wondered what they were going to be bringing all these generals in, which could potentially cost millions of dollars to even bring them to Washington.
		The president decided that he wanted to go too.
		So, now this has become a much bigger event in terms of security, but also in terms of what we could hear from the president of the United States.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And then, finally, we know that's happening tomorrow.
		What else do we know about the schedule, the president's schedule this week?
		If there's a shutdown at midnight tomorrow, where is he expected to be on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday?
		Is he going to stay in Washington or is he going to take his message on the road?
unidentified		Well, at this point, I think all of those things are in flux with respect to the president this week.
		And again, we don't know whether or not there is even going to be a shutdown.
		But one other thing I would draw your attention to that's happening this week at the White House is the president saying that he is going to introduce new tariffs on October 1st as well.
		Those would be on furniture as well as bathroom vanities and author finishings.
		So, there is no shortage of big news coming out of the White House this week.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And no shortage of work for a White House reporter Francesca Chambers covers it all with her colleagues at USA Today.
		It's usatoday.com, of course, to see her work.
		Thanks so much for your time this morning.
		We'll let you get to it.
unidentified		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Back to your phone calls in Open Forum.
		Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, phones are yours.
		This is Patrick, Alabama, Republican.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, buddy.
		I wasn't going to waste my phone call today, but I had to.
		Too many people talking about this insurance stuff.
		The sanctuary cities, they're furnishing insurance, food stamps, and housing, and then they're getting their money back from the government.
		That's just a Democrat scam.
		So they're lying about they're not helping them.
		But now, these ain't migrant field workers.
		You need to look.
		It's many countries there, and none of your callers are talking about what our most dangerous situation to the citizens is facing.
		They talk about a civil war is coming, but it's not between the Democrats and Republicans.
		It started with Obama eight years ago.
		This Muslim Brotherhood is radicalizing teachers and students with Islamic faith and Sierra law.
		A lot of the college kids is taking up this Sierra law.
		Patrick Western countries.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You think this country is on track for some sort of religious war?
unidentified		Yes, sir.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How do we avoid that, Patrick?
unidentified		It's going to be dangerous.
		I mean, if you would do a show like right now in Unite Kingdom and Italy and all of them, all of the immigrants coming in, they're not the field workers and the Mexicans everybody's talking about.
		They're recruits for these Muslims and they're trying to take it over.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		All right, that's Patrick in Alabama.
		This is Eric in Duluth, Minnesota.
		Line for Democrats.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I think the issue of our day is motive force.
		And it has been for thousands of years.
		How do we get commerce moving?
		How do we keep the great society moving?
		Well, it's oil.
		And the oil is shepherded by a couple of major entities, one of whom is Putin.
		And then you have the oil cartels.
		In the old days, we needed the people.
		We needed the motive force of people.
		Slavery happened as a way to kind of ensconce that people power and move our machines, move our factories.
		And then when slavery ended, we did go to immigration because we needed those field workers come in and they were our motive force.
		Well, in the current economy, it's all oil.
		And that's because we've gone to mass production, which is operated by oil.
		So we've got about 50 years of oil left.
		And during that period of time, we see kind of a desperate grab for the last drop.
		And all the people are shoved off the side because they're not important.
		They will be important at such time as the motive force needs to come back from the people.
		But right now, we've got a president who has done what?
		He's shut off the green technology development.
		I don't think that's smart.
		I think it's hugely ignorant because the oil, again, is finite.
		And motive production, you know, our mode of production and motive force needs to be maintained.
		And we need that green technology, which will be brilliant when we have our best minds put at it.
		But Trump has cut it off.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Eric in Minnesota.
		This is Barbara in Asheville, North Carolina.
		Republican.
		Barbara, go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, thank you.
		I just want to express my gratitude to President Trump.
		He is an economic genius long needed for this country.
		He is stimulating enterprise and the private sector in our country, and he's doing it fourfold.
		He's doing it by enacting tariffs on long, long-needed foreign imports.
		And he is stimulating our economy by also enacting a meritocracy for immigration, which will provide more expertise and more professionals and bigger, bigger business and enterprise for our country.
		I am so thankful for this man.
		And people have not been able to appreciate a man who is educated at Fortin, who understands all of the principles of economics.
		And he is just a great godsend for this country.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Barbara, can I ask you before you go?
		You're in Asheville, North Carolina.
		We're pretty much on the anniversary of that terrible flooding in Asheville.
		How's Asheville doing right now?
unidentified		Well, we had some great assistance from Samaritan's purse.
		Many private citizens whose homes were completely destroyed were able to contact Franklin Graham, and they were quickly assisted.
		We were just amazed.
		And we had lots of people from out of town from New York, many of the rescuers from Melville, New York, and many sectors who just were wonderful.
		We had some great assistance.
		There is still struggling in some of the very rural areas.
		I think we were well assisted.
		I am not familiar.
		I do understand that the FEMA was able to put here many of the large tanker trucks in neighborhoods to supply water.
		And we were able to drive down just not very far from my home and pick up this water on a daily basis.
		They were wonderful.
		These people owned their own trucks, but they were financed heavily by the government and helped to acquire their business.
		So we were very thankful for that.
		But the terrain has changed, and there's been much struggling.
		And I don't feel that I can speak for the welfare of every citizen and their circumstance here.
		But I know there's been great serving, especially in areas like Chimney Rock and over into Spruce Pine where the mineral resources were.
		They were very hard hit.
		But it's been quite an ordeal.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Asheville flooded just about a year ago today.
		Barbara, thanks for the view from Asheville.
		This is Eric in New Jersey, Independent.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi, this has to do with the government shutdown.
		Come on, guys.
		Start acting like human beings and not talking out.
		Imagine if you guys had to leave because of the government shutdown.
		What would you do?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Eric, C-SPAN would be here despite a government shutdown, no government funding for C-SPAN.
		So we'll be covering it all if and when that happens.
		And we'll be covering the government if it doesn't happen.
		Robert is in Cincinnati.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I would like to know why do President Trump have the audacity to petition the Supreme Court trying to eliminate the article, one of the articles of Article 14 about the birthright.
		What is the purpose of that?
		He's going to start trying to deport American citizens.
		What is the purpose of it for?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Robert in Cincinnati, and this is Keith, Richmond, Virginia, Independent.
		Good morning.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Hey, John.
		Good morning, John.
		This is Keith in Richmond, and I just had to dust aisle in just listening to you all.
		I just wanted to say that I wanted to speak to all of America today and this morning and just remind us all that we are all American citizens, okay?
		And so speaking to us as a group of people on this line, I wanted to just say to C-SPAN this morning, I wanted to just recall 9-11 for a minute because that was the last time when I believe this country was actually unified at its best and its most, all political part.
		We were under attack and we suffered a lot.
		And America came together in a way that we haven't seen in a long time.
		And so my question to you all, America, this morning, and I ask C-SPAN to maybe put this up as a discussion one morning.
		What will it take for Americans to come together again?
		I mean, I think time is running out in our lives.
		And we need to find a way that we can start.
		I mean, America, God bless you all.
		I love you all.
		But we need to find a way that we can come together.
		We've got to stop disputing and arguing.
		We've got to find that common thing that's going to keep us.
		And last time it was 9-11, and that was a sorrowful thing, guys.
		I don't want us to see us go through a war or even a, God knows there could be another civil war in this country with the way the politics we could turn on each, we can turn on each other.
		We don't have to worry about Russia and China.
		We can turn on each other, my brothers and sisters.
		But we've got to find a way to figure out a way.
		What will it not Democrats?
		It's not the Republicans.
		It's not Trump.
		Look in the heart that God gave you and figure out and help us C-SPAN.
		Help us C-SPAN.
		Put this question out there.
		And ask America, what will it take to bring us together before it's too late?
		Okay?
		And that's all I just wanted to share with you all this morning in Jesus' name.
		And I hope you all have a blessed week.
		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		That's Keith in Richmond, Virginia, our last caller in this open forum.
		Stick around, about 45 minutes left this morning.
		In that time, we'll be joined by the Manhattan Institute's Rob Henderson.
		We'll discuss concerns about the radicalization of some young men in the United States.
		Stick around.
		We'll be right back.
dasha burns ▲ ● ▼		I'm Dasha Burns, host of Ceasefire, bridging the divide in American politics.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Ceasefire premieres October 10th.
		In our last podcast, Ed Luce of the Financial Times told us about his books big for his big new Brzezinski, who he calls America's great power profit.
		In this episode, we're going to feature a book notes interview from April 2nd, 1989 with Dr. Brzezinski.
		He was the first guest for the weekly Sunday evening program that ran till 2005, and that was for 16 years.
		His book at the time was about his longtime prediction that there would be a failure of communism in the Soviet Union.
		The name of Brzezinski's book was The Grand Failure.
unidentified		We revisit an interview with author Zabignu Brzezinski about his book, The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the 20th Century.
		On this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
		BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
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		Hear our live call-in program, Washington Journal, daily at 7 a.m. Eastern.
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		Listen to C-SPAN programs on C-SPAN Radio anytime, anywhere.
		c-span democracy unfiltered have been watching c-span washington journal for over 10 years now This is a great format that C-SPAN offers.
		You're doing a great job.
		I enjoy hearing everybody's opinion.
		I'm a huge C-SPAN fan.
		I listen every morning on the way to work.
		I think C-SPAN should be required viewing for all three branches of government.
		First of all, if you say hello, C-SPAN, and how you all covered the hearings.
		Thank you, everyone at C-SPAN, for allowing this interaction with everyday citizens.
		It's an amazing show to get real opinions from real people.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Appreciate you guys' non-biased coverage.
unidentified		I love politics, and I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices.
		You and C-SPAN show the truth.
		Back to universe for C-SPAN.
		to see one essential news network.
		Washington Journal continues.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Brob Henderson joins us now for a conversation on radicalization and political violence.
		He's a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who studies social division and psychology.
		Good morning to you, sir.
rob henderson ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, John.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So what concerns you the most from what we've learned so far about Charlie Kirk's shooter, the online trail that he left behind, what we've learned about his background so far.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What sticks out to you?
rob henderson ▲ ● ▼		Well, there are a couple of things that stand out to me about Charlie Kirk's alleged assassin.
		So one, of course, is this ongoing discussion about radicalization of young people online.
		So what you seem to see is often young men are the ones who are carrying out the violence.
		And then you see a lot of celebratory comments and videos and so forth posted on social media.
		Many of those videos seem to be posted online by young women who themselves have been radicalized in some way.
		Of course, women are less likely to carry out physical acts of violence relative to young men, but all of it is disturbing this online radicalization.
		The second thing is this ongoing discussion around political anger, these political divisions versus hate.
		And you see this word hate thrown around, but as you mentioned, I study psychology.
		And one of the interesting things that psychologists have recently arrived at is that there's an important difference between anger versus hatred.
		Anger is an emotion that evolved in order to bargain for better treatment.
		So if you're angry at me for some reason, you will either inflict costs or withhold benefits.
		You know, you could verbally be hostile to me in some way, perhaps physically hostile.
		You could also withhold benefits, giving me the silent treatment, cutting off contact.
		But all of this is aimed at changing the nature of our relationship so that I treat you better.
		That's the purpose of anger.
		Hatred is very different from anger.
		Hatred is you are, I perceive you as being so costly to my well-being.
		I see you as such a significant threat that it's better if you no longer exist and therefore it's okay to extinguish you.
		Hatred is a much more dangerous emotion than anger.
		And you see this word hate thrown around a lot.
		And I think that this is also something to be concerned about.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How do you measure hatred?
		Are we in some moment in 2025 where there's more hatred of each other today than there has been in past in times like 1968 or even going farther back to a civil war happening in this country?
		How do you quantify the amount of hatred in this country right now?
rob henderson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so that's a difficult thing to do of quantifying hatred, especially sort of over multiple decades and so forth.
		It's unlikely.
		So as far back as psychologists, political scientists, social scientists have been measuring this kind of thing.
		This didn't exist back in the Civil War.
		But even as far back as the 1960s, if you ask people, representative samples of Americans, how much do you like the party that you're affiliated with?
		How much do you dislike the opposing party?
		And what you see is this consistent pattern.
		Up until very recently, the last 10 or 15 years, most Americans said they liked their party much more than they disliked the opposing party.
		The reason why Americans voted is because they believed in the values of the party that they supported and their dislike of the other party wasn't especially pronounced.
		What you're seeing in the last 10 or 15 years is that this is reversed, where people don't really have much fondness for their own political party.
		Rather, they have a lot of dislike for the opposing party.
		And this has been growing over time such that now people aren't voting because they support the values of their own party affiliation.
		Rather, they are voting because they are so angry.
		They're so resentful and so on.
		They really don't like the opposing party and that this is motivating increasing numbers of people to get involved in politics.
		And I think another part of this that's fueling this is: we mentioned social media earlier, that people are increasingly exposed to bizarre and outlandish content online.
		There was this conversation maybe eight or 10 years ago, this conversation around echo chambers, that one thing that is giving rise to this political polarization, you go online, you see your own opinions reflected back at you.
		Maybe the algorithm feeds you more and more extreme content that reinforces your own pre-existing worldview.
		But more recently, psychologists have suggested that the opposite might actually be fueling the polarization.
		In other words, when you go online, often you see the most extreme and outlandish versions of people you disagree with.
		So, in other words, you're not saying, oh, this is what I like, this is what I agree with, and you're just seeing that over and over.
		Rather, often what people are seeing, especially people who are online for political reasons, they're consumers of political content, they're being exposed to the worst of the other side.
		And this is warping their worldview such that they think, oh, everyone, the other half of the country is like that.
		They take the, you know, cherry-picking the worst examples of the party that you oppose.
		And then you think, oh, that's representative of every single person.
		And this is also dangerous because it causes people, I think, to write off half of the country.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So how do we expose ourselves more to the best of the other side?
rob henderson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, I think that would be, it would be worth first getting off of social media.
		At least it's more and more part of our lives.
		So it may not be realistic to completely delete everything.
		But one thing that people could do is be more mindful of the content that they're exposed to, spend more time reading long-form content, more programs like this where people are interviewed, people are allowed to share their opinions at greater length and in a more nuanced fashion.
		One thing to keep in mind with platforms like X or Twitter is that 2% of the users of Twitter or X produce about 80% of the posts.
		So in other words, you're not seeing representative opinions online.
		That same pattern holds for the other platforms, by the way.
		You're seeing a very active, small numerical minority of people who tend to be more exhibitionistic, more narcissistic, more self-centered, more opinionated.
		And they are flooding your feed with their views.
		And a lot of people walk away thinking, oh, that's representative when it's really not.
		So I think it's worth engaging in other forms of content, reading more essays, books, long-form interviews, that kind of thing, and a little bit less, these bite-sized, outrageous statements you see online.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Come back to the first thing you talked about, online radicalization.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Is that an easier nut to crack in terms of trying to prevent that?
rob henderson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but that is easier to track in terms of, you know, you can just give people questions directly of, you know, how much do you support political violence, celebration of political assassination, and that kind of thing.
		And you are seeing these numbers creep up, especially with people under 30 years old in the United States that historically there's been this widespread agreement that you can have disagreements, you can have disputes, but we can settle these arguments with words.
		But over the last maybe 15 years or so, there's been this rise in support or at least a sort of a tacit condonement for political violence or for celebrating political violence.
		There was a shocking survey that was released by YouGov the day after Charlie Kirk's death, and it showed that young people, you know, something on the order of 20, I think 23%, 25%, something like that, said that sometimes it was okay to celebrate the assassination of political figures you dislike.
		And you see that pattern too for hypothetical scenarios.
		If you pose questions to people about assassinating political leaders or influential figures you disagree with, you're seeing more and more people say, you know, maybe it wouldn't be so bad if someone took them out.
		And I think that is fueled by what we were talking about before, this polarization, this increasing resentment of the opposing political party being exposed to increasingly distorted and warped cartoon versions of the other party online.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		From a recent column you wrote after Charlie Kirk's shooting, quote, right-wing extremism is real, but the left-wing version is just as dangerous and far less studied.
		It also appears to be getting worse.
		Explain.
rob henderson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		So right-wing extremism is something that has been studied by psychologists for a very long time.
		You know, this dates back even in the 1950s, there was this trailblazing psychologist, Hans Isaac, who wanted to study both versions of extremism.
		And when he floated this idea of studying left-wing extremism, a lot of his colleagues in the intelligentsia, they didn't like that he was interested in that question because of their, at that time, their fondness for the Soviet Union.
		And so this idea of left-wing extremism went underground despite the fact that we had many historical incidents of left-wing extremism, of Fidel Castro and Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin and so forth.
		But it's only within the last decade or so you're starting to see more and more psychologists study left-wing authoritarianism, left-wing extremism.
		And they're seeing that they're just as likely to hold extreme and violent personality traits of narcissism, elevated traits of psychopathy, sadism, Machiavellianism.
		And these are a constellation of traits that predict impulsivity, anger, proneness to violence and outbursts, dislike and disregard for other people.
		And those traits, right-wing extremists have elevated levels of those traits.
		And now psychologists are finding that people who identify as being very far on the left also hold those traits as well.
		And this is important to study because most people are aware of right-wing extremism.
		We're aware of history and so forth, where that can lead.
		I think fewer people are educated about left-wing extremism.
		And this is something that scholars are attempting to explore and to explain more and more to the public.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		On the extremism trend, this is the next graph from that same story, the same column you wrote.
		This trend is not happening in a vacuum.
		It's being shaped in the very places where young people learn what is acceptable, including college campuses.
rob henderson ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		Well, this, you know, I thought there was a kind of a grim symbolism that Charlie was killed on a college campus because those are the places where young people are supposed to learn how to think and to persuade and to engage with other people, explore ideas in a peaceful way, even ideas that you might find contentious or repellent.
		Part of the process of higher education is learning to deal with uncomfortable ideas and to reason your way through them to discover what you really think.
		And increasing numbers of academics report self-censoring their opinions.
		There was a recent survey that I read in Inside Higher Ed, which found that 80%, or rather 81% of undergraduates say that they regularly self-censor their opinions on campus for fear of reprisal.
		And this is up from about 60% 10 years ago.
		So this is a rising trend where both students and professors are withdrawing and holding their opinions, holding their tongues.
		And that's the very place where you don't want that to happen because the university environment is to communicate and to learn to be, to sit with uncomfortable ideas.
		And that's, you know, young people are passing through these institutions and they're learning that actually there are opinions that should be taboo.
		And that if someone expresses those taboo opinions, then that's tantamount to violence.
		This idea that words are violence, that didn't come from scholars of the legal system.
		That came from university campuses.
		And now you're seeing it spill out into the broader culture: this idea that if you say something that offends me or makes me uncomfortable, that's a tantamount to violence.
		And then, of course, the natural next step is: well, if you're using violence against me, then I can use violence against you.
		And that is a very dangerous road to go down.
		We have to make this distinction between words that are offensive or uncomfortable versus physical violence.
		Those are very different things.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Rob Henderson is our guest of the Manhattan Institute, a senior fellow there.
		Manhattan.Institute is where you can find his work.
		And he's taking your phone calls until 10 a.m. when we end this program.
		202-748-8000 for Democrats to call.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Independents 202-748-8002.
		First question, though, from Melody in Kansas, who writes in, as you've been talking, Mr. Henderson, please explain the book behind you on the shelf.
		Some of us actually do read books, Melody says.
rob henderson ▲ ● ▼		Well, this is a memoir that I wrote that came out last year.
		It's called Troubled, a memoir of foster care family and social class.
		And I basically trace my unusual trajectory through higher education.
		So I was born in foster homes in Los Angeles.
		We had a very unusual and challenging upbringing.
		I fled as soon as I could, enlisted in the Air Force when I was 17, then went off to Yale on the GI Bill and then University of Cambridge to get a PhD.
		And the original plan was to be a professor.
		But, you know, as I was explaining before, there are things that are going very wrong in higher education that I was disturbed by.
		And that led me to take an alternate path to think and communicate ideas and so forth.
		But the book is essentially this meditation on social class in America through my own personal experience.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You say I had a very unusual upbringing.
		There's a lot behind that.
		Do you want to explore that a little bit more?
rob henderson ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
		Well, I mentioned the foster homes, the reason why I landed in the foster care system in Los Angeles.
		So I was born in LA.
		My mother was severely addicted to drugs.
		I never met my father.
		And when I was three years old, up until that point, we were homeless for a time.
		We lived in a car.
		Eventually, we settled in this slum apartment in Westlake, which at that point in the early 90s was a pretty run-down part of LA.
		And some neighbors saw the squalor that my mother was attempting to, well, raise me in and called the police.
		And social workers arrived.
		And then from there, they saw that my mother was not in a position to care for me and placed me in the foster care system where I lived in seven different homes all across Los Angeles.
		Eventually, I was adopted by this working-class married couple.
		We settled in this dusty blue-collar town in Northern California called Red Bluff.
		And then from there, I got this front row seat into kind of witnessing the tragedies and the often self-defeating behaviors of a lot of people in run-down, impoverished, crime-ridden areas of the country.
		My adoptive parents separated.
		My adoptive father stopped speaking with me.
		There was a lot of drama and chaos and financial disasters and so forth that I document all throughout.
		And this really, you know, emotionally, I had a lot of issues both from not knowing my father, all the foster homes, losing contact with my adoptive father.
		I was really kind of angry, wayward kid.
		And fortunately, I made this half-impulsive decision after barely graduating from high school with a 2.2 GPA.
		I decided to enlist.
		And this was 2007, kind of at the height of the war on terror.
		We were at war in Iraq in Afghanistan.
		The military was just a more salient, well-known option for young people to choose if they were not on a path to college yet.
		And I certainly wasn't.
		So the military really helped me to turn my life around.
		There were some hiccups and some missteps along the way.
		But eventually I got into Yale, surprisingly, after taking some my classes at a community college.
		I finally took the SAT.
		And after this process of stability, of learning how to become an adult and develop all the inner resources necessary to become self-disciplined outside of the military environment, finally went off to college at age 25.
		And yeah, from there, things got a lot better.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The book, again, is Troubled, a memoir of foster care, family, and social class.
		Taking your phone calls with Rob Henderson this morning.
		Carolyn is in Ohio.
		Democrat, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, and thank you, Robert, for your service.
		My father was a retired colonel in the Marines, and I miss him.
		And anyway, what I wanted to say is that I watched the Charlie Kirk funeral and was deeply moved by his wife saying that she forgave the person that killed her husband.
		And unfortunately, two of my brothers were killed by a drunk driver, and I'm not to that point yet, but it's only been four years, so I'll get there with prayer and everything.
		But I did hear President Trump's message, and I was a Democrat just recently, and I'm a senior citizen and was a Republican for most of my life.
		And you were talking about, you know, whether you love your party or whatever.
		And I do.
		I mean, I loved both.
		I just wanted, I thought it was time for a woman president, and I thought the Democrats had that.
		So I guess my question to you is: even though Trump said at the funeral that he hated Democrats, I love you, Mr. I love you, President Trump.
		And I thought he did great during his first term with the COVID and having that go so smoothly with the help of everybody.
		But what is your suggestions?
		What are your suggestions for this climate on having a president that hates my party?
		I happen to love it.
		But I was a Republican and I love that party too.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Carolyn, let me take your questions with Rob.
rob henderson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's interesting.
		I think that we could make more of an effort to bridge those divides, learn about other people.
		I totally agree that that kind of inflammatory rhetoric and comments from public figures of demonizing the other side, words do have an effect.
		We have to hold both of those ideas in mind that on the one hand, words do influence people.
		Words can incite people to violence and to kind of make the contributing to making the collective atmosphere more tense and hostile.
		Other hand, acknowledging that words are very different from from actually carrying out the violence.
		But you know, public figures, I think, do have a responsibility uh, to be um, especially in, you know, moments immediately after an assassination.
		Um yeah, I too was moved by by Erica's uh remarks about already forgiving uh the the shooter um, and you know, in in a similar way, you know, I thought that last year uh uh then uh, you know, when Trump was running uh and and he um, there was an assassination attempt carried out on him.
		He could have used that moment to really rapidly escalate um feelings of anger in the country, but instead he took that moment to calm things down.
		This time he's behaving very differently after the death of Charlie Kirk, but I I wish more people would take that more sort of um you know cooler, more rational, level-headed approach, understanding that for vast periods of history, political violence has been the norm um, you know, either sort of these rival factions sniping at each other, or having an authoritarian regime, uh enforcing a certain way of living, that kind of rigidity, um having a,
		a society where we can communicate, disagree peacefully, understand that we don't all have to agree on important issues, but it's important that we keep speaking um, you know that can very quickly uh be lost, so it's important to keep that in mind.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Spoken Washington, Laura Republican line.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You're on with Rob Henderson.
unidentified		Hi Rob um, thanks for your time this morning.
		I'm you're very helpful, but what I have a problem with is that when I turn on the tv and I see one of these political people in the Democratic Party calling America fascist and hate-filled, and they've got all these organizations like Antifa and Hamas that go out and cause problems and riots and violence and hatred and stalk ice agents and and all this, and I wonder where,
		where is the accountability for that and where and how can we resolve it with these people who appear to just hate our country?
		And that's my question.
		I'll take my answer offline, thank you yeah well, you know the the accountability question.
rob henderson ▲ ● ▼		That's an interesting one because again, you know, we don't have uh, in my view, it's a good thing we don't have hate speech laws in the?
		U.s.
		You know you can, there's a lot of leeway for what you're allowed to say um, and this cannot be, you know, punished by the government or penalized.
		But, at the same time, if we we, we enjoy that freedom to to speak our minds, but we should also exert a bit of self-restraint ourselves um, you know, and and not uh, continually demonize the other side.
		You know I, I think a lot of people they're walking this tightrope.
		Uh, on the one hand, you want to, you know, stir up a bit of uh uh excitement uh and, and get people a little bit riled up, because this can motivate people to go out and vote and so forth.
		You know oh, the other party, they're doing this, that and the other, and this can motivate people to go out and and uh to to, you know, join political demonstrations To vote and so on, and get more active and involved.
		But if you veer too far into demonizing the other side, then some number of people will receive those messages of demonization and think, okay, well, for example, Charlie Kirk's alleged assassin, he was texting his partner something like, I'm sick of Charlie Kirk's hate and someone needs to stop him.
		And so he was led to believe that, well, if Charlie Kirk is spreading hate, then it's okay to hate him and therefore take him out.
		And that kind of rhetoric, again, I don't think it should necessarily be punished by the government, but we should all attempt to collectively agree on this norm and crystallize this norm of we're not going to go so far that we're inciting other people to violence.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		A question from MLB on X.
		We must be doing at least a few things right.
		Can you please give examples of those things and encourage people to expand on those things?
		We get better by focusing on what we can use for positive change.
rob henderson ▲ ● ▼		So one thing that I thought was, you know, gave me more optimism was that political leaders across the board condemned the shooting of Charlie Kirk.
		So, you know, unsurprisingly, perhaps Republican leaders immediately and unequivocally condemned it, but so did the Democrats.
		You know, they also agreed that this was something that you shouldn't do.
		Political violence is unacceptable in this country.
		You saw that opinion expressed by leaders everywhere.
		And of course, some people can respond by saying, yeah, okay, the Democrat leaders were doing this, but you saw kind of lower level people who aren't public figures posting things in support of it.
		I think things could get a lot worse.
		People don't understand.
		Maybe this is something else we could be grateful for: is that as bad as things are, there have been periods that have been much worse in history.
		If you, for example, saw immediately after that shooting that public figures started coming out and saying, we need more of this, things today, I think, what is it, two and a half or three weeks after the shooting, things would look a lot worse.
		So it's good that we have generally rational political leaders who are responding to violence in an appropriate way.
		And hopefully we can keep that norm in place.
		And what public figures, political elites, what they say, it does matter.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		James in California, Independent.
		Thanks for waiting.
		You're on with Rob Henderson.
unidentified		Good morning.
		For centuries in this country, lynchings came with entire communities celebrating black people being murdered for political reasons.
		What made this situation different other than skin color?
rob henderson ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's a lot of reasons, of course.
		There's no sort of government sanctioned, the way that there was in the Jim Crow South, for example.
		Those were, what is it, de jure laws and norms around active prejudice and mistreatment.
		That is not, you know, we don't have that same situation for political commentators, public figures, conservative voices on various topics and so on, people like Charlie Kirk.
		The violence itself, violence, murdering someone, that's perhaps the only real parallel.
		And obviously, in both cases, it's abhorrent and should not be tolerated, condoned in any way.
		But I'll leave that there.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		I want to come back to radicalization and some of your writings and podcasts since the death of Charlie Kirk.
		One early step on the road to radicalization, perhaps, that you talk about is isolation of young people today and the factors that impact isolation among young people today.
		One of the ones that you talked about that was interesting was the idea of the death of boredom in this country.
		What did you mean by that term?
rob henderson ▲ ● ▼		Yes, well, I think that this death of boredom issue is giving rise to a lot of interesting social patterns that we're seeing.
		So up until the invention of social media, smartphones, widespread digital technology, and so on, boredom was a fact of life, particularly for young people.
		When you have, you know, young people tend to have more free time on their hands.
		You know, as you get older, you have jobs and obligations and families and so on.
		But when you're young, being bored used to be a fact of life, and people would come together and get into trouble and kind of form activities to occupy their time.
		And because of cheap entertainment accessible through the form of smartphones and tablets and devices and so on, today when young people feel bored, they can just pick up their phone.
		So in other words, say 20 years ago, you have a teenager and he or she is bored.
		So they call up their friends.
		Back when people still had landlines, they call their friends, they'd get together and hang out.
		And there was an upper bound.
		There was a limit in terms of how much extremism, for example, you would be exposed to.
		If you had five close friends, that's five people.
		There's not much of a range in terms of how extreme those opinions will tend to be.
		Gather any five people.
		There's going to be a limited kind of restriction in the range of political opinions.
		Fast forward 20 years and you have the smartphone, you're bored.
		Instead of calling up your friends and hanging out with them, you pull up the phone and look at your favorite influencers and videos and posts and so on.
		And now you're in this portal into this space of many thousands, many millions of people.
		And the range in terms of opinions you can be exposed to is so much greater.
		You know, the difference between five people versus 50 million.
		Of those 50 million, the likelihood that you'll identify as some extremists is much higher than you would if you just choose five people.
		And those are the people, as I mentioned earlier in the discussion, people who have extreme personality types post a lot more online.
		They're more interested in attention seeking and validation and shoring up their own self-gratification and so on.
		And so they post a lot of content online.
		And that's what people are exposed to.
		So I think this kind of the death of boredom is leading to more people just scrolling on their phones, this feeling of boredom doesn't really exist anymore in the same way.
		You have this cheap entertainment system and suddenly you're exposed to these kind of radical ideas.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		To the Buckeye State, this is Helen Line for Democrats.
		Good morning.
		Thanks for waiting.
unidentified		Hello.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead, Helen.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You're on with Rob Henderson.
unidentified		Oh, thank you.
		First, I want to commend Mr. Henderson for his very, very acknowledgeable speech and well talk and that book.
		I'm very interested in getting it because everyone should try to find out some kind of way so we can be united.
		And with him saying 81 over 81% of undergrads that are afraid to speak up, this is going to be our future generation.
		These are the people that are going to have to keep America together and keep it united.
		I don't know what has happened.
		I'm 85 years old and I've lived through over 14 administrations and I have never ever in my life seen everything wasn't peaches and cream back in the 50s naturally, but I have never seen our country such a laughing stock.
		We are the butt jokes for China and Russia and we're falling right into their hands.
		And one of the most deplorable things that I cannot get off and I cannot understand was J6.
		I will never get over that.
		And as the presidents, our former presidents would say, I'm president for all people, for all of the Americans, not just a selected few.
		And as the gentleman also spoke about anger and hate, we do need to differentiate the two and come together.
		Or if not, we are a doomed country and we are a very sad country until we come together and learn to be as united.
		That's about it.
		I have so much more, but I know your time, my time is limited.
		But I do want to thank Mr. Henderson for his very interesting book and also keep up the good work, sir.
		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Rob Henderson.
rob henderson ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		Yeah, it's yeah, I appreciate those kind words.
		And yes, I fully agree.
		Reiterating the point of distinguishing between anger and hatred and coming together.
		And this question of what will unite Americans.
		There was that old line, I think it was from Ronald Reagan decades ago about how the only way you'll unite all of humanity is if the aliens invade.
		And he was getting at something interesting about human nature there that Americans, we tend to come together in terms of crises.
		So the one that everyone will point to, of course, is shortly after 9-11, the country came together.
		Interestingly, there was also this period in very kind of early 2020 during the initial days of the COVID outbreak and pandemic that something like 85% of Americans,
		this is sort of a record high number, at least over that past decade, of Americans agreed with statements like we're all in this together and so on, that basically in the early days of the pandemic, the country did come together and we didn't need a human enemy or a wartime scenario in order to rally people together.
		In that case, we had the enemy of this deadly disease and we were all attempting to take steps to protect ourselves and our loved ones from this.
		But then that quickly became politicized, of course.
		And then, you know, all of the political upheavals of 2020, we kind of started the year very strong and then ended it much worse.
		But to me, there was a kind of a message of hope there that we don't, you know, obviously we don't want another pandemic.
		We don't want wars and so on.
		But there can be ways, I think, to unite people without the need for bloodthirst or violence or this feeling of vengeance.
		But we just maybe need to do more work to think how to get there.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Time for just a few more calls with Rob Henderson this morning.
		This is Marcy in North Carolina, Republican.
		Thanks for waiting.
unidentified		Yes, thank you for taking my call.
		We're in a spiritual warfare.
		It's not a warfare with each other.
		It's people intentionally pinning us against each other.
		We've given our children over to a radicalized educational system.
		When you have doctors and nurses and teachers and people in our positions that are supposed to be caring about people's health and they're rejoicing over the death of someone that was just trying to have conversation with people and share his beliefs.
		And if you listen to his debates and speeches in full, you'll find a totally different conversation than the one-sentence cuts that are taken out of context.
		There was a congressman on shortly after his death that said he didn't agree with anything Charlie Kirk said.
		Now, when you can say you don't agree with anything, you're saying that you don't believe in family because family was the most important thing past God with Charlie Kirk.
		So he's saying he disagreed that this was the, we live in a, we're blessed to be living in a country, the best country in the world.
		And Charlie also believed that people had opportunities in this country that weren't given to other countries.
		So if he's saying he didn't agree with anything Charlie Kirk said, those are the things he's saying he didn't agree with.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Got your point, Marcy.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Rob Henderson.
rob henderson ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I mean, I understand the point here.
		You know, often, you know, people, public figures, when they're speaking off the cuff, especially when they're speaking to their political supporters, they engage in a bit of hyperbole.
		I would imagine I don't know the individual you're speaking about specifically, but if you put those direct lines to this person, I would be surprised if they literally disagreed with all of the things that Charlie Kirk had ever said.
		And to your other point about Charlie Kirk, yeah, I agree.
		The celebration of his death by professionals, by people who, by all intents and appearances, they appear normal, functioning, ordinary people who you would run into every day.
		The shooters in these cases are often disturbed and sometimes visibly disturbed once you kind of get to know them and learn more about their stories.
		But when you have people who seem, at least they present as typical everyday people and they are celebrating that, that's in some ways even more disturbing.
		But I met Charlie Kirk two weeks before his death and I saw a different side of him.
		And I think this is something to keep in mind for everyone, that when you see your favored political party, the influencers you follow and so forth, they often have a tendency, again, to cherry pick the other side.
		You can take someone who has thousands of hours of content online, cherry-pick the worst things they've ever said, and then make that into a cartoon caricature of who that person really is.
		But for almost every American, it's almost a certainty that you have someone in your family who agrees more than disagrees with most of Charlie Kirk's ideas.
		And to keep in mind, this is a human being.
		There are many more layers to them than whatever you're seeing on your screen of whatever cherry-picked clip that someone has chosen to share online.
		And that, you know, that kind of violence, you're taking out someone who's more than just that cartoon character.
		There's a whole other side of their humanity that we're often not exposed to.
		And so we need to keep that in mind whenever we see these short little sensationalistic clips.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Henderson, I wanted to end with the question we began our program with this morning in our first hour.
		We asked viewers to respond to a different question about the news or the world.
		The question we asked this morning is, what's the most important problem facing this country right now?
		How would you answer that?
rob henderson ▲ ● ▼		The most important problem facing this country.
		Oh, wow.
		Well, I guess I could tie this back to some of the points that I make in Troubled about the importance of family.
		Previous caller had mentioned, you know, family being important.
		You know, I wrote a book about the importance of having those close personal relationships, especially as a young child.
		You know, the relationships you form in childhood form a template for all future relationships.
		You know, we could go for another 45 minutes just on the topic of how I think the deterioration and fragmentation of family has also given rise to a lot of the online radicalization and polarization that we're seeing online, You know, growing numbers of people are growing up in unstable and chaotic environments,

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