CSPAN - Washington Journal 09/30/2025

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Sept. 30, 2025 07:00-10:00 - CSPAN

02:59:56

Washington Journal 09/30/2025

Participants

Main

delano squires

24:37

donald j trump

admin 06:11

elie mystal

25:32

mimi geerges

cspan 37:39

Appearances

benjamin netanyahu

isr 00:33

chuck schumer

sen/d 01:05

hakeem jeffries

rep/d 01:27

jb pritzker

d 01:41

john thune

sen/r 00:52

mike johnson

rep/r 01:56

ted cruz

sen/r 01:05

Clips

chuck grassley

sen/r 00:27

dasha burns

politico 00:04

glenn ivey

rep/d 00:04

sean spicer

00:18

Callers

errol darts in unknown

callers 00:05

steve in ohio

callers 00:52

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Show episode speakers

Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Shutdown with the Wall Street Journal's Siobhan Hughes.
		Then Delano Squires of the Heritage Foundation presents his report examining the state of black families in America.
		And federal news network's Drew Friedman discusses how federal workers would be impacted by a government shutdown.
		Also, Ellie Mistahl of The Nation Magazine talks about the indictment of former FBI director James Comey and actions taken by the Trump Justice Department.
		Washington Journal starts now.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
		It's Tuesday, September 30th.
		It's the last day of the fiscal year, and the federal government will run out of funding at midnight tonight, absent a deal from Congress in the White House.
		In about 17 hours from now, federal agencies could start closing and government employees furloughed or working without pay.
		We're getting your thoughts this first hour on a potential government shutdown.
		Here's how to reach us.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		And Independents 202-748-8002.
		If you're a federal worker, we've got a line set aside for you.
		That's 202-748-8003.
		That's the same line you could use to text us your comments.
		If you do, include your first name and your city-state.
		You can also post your comments on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ.
		Welcome to today's Washington Journal.
		Before we get to your calls, we're going to check in and get an update with a congressional reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Siobhan Hughes.
		Welcome to the program.
unidentified		Good to be here.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So there was a meeting yesterday at the White House.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What got accomplished?
unidentified		Nothing got accomplished.
		It was a lot of posturing.
		Both sides were pretty dug into their positions, at least when it comes to The Hill.
		The Republicans saying, look, this is a seven-week CR.
		We need the Democrats to get on board.
		The Democrats saying, we have this alternative proposal.
		From their perspective, the interesting thing that happened was they say they saw daylight between President Trump and Republicans.
		Their perspective is that President Trump was not aware of the timing of the expiration of these ACA subsidies.
		And at least according to Chuck Schumer, the path forward is for Donald Trump to step in and say something has to be done on that front.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, so let's outline what the two positions are and explain the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are going to expire and win.
unidentified		Okay, so the position of the Republicans is let's extend government funding through November 21st, about seven weeks, to buy us a little bit of time to finalize work on our appropriations bills.
		There are three that have already cleared both chambers that are ready for a conference.
		You're getting roughly a dozen or so that they think they might be able to get done.
		And they say we can talk later about these ACA subsidies.
		This will find us a little time to work that through.
		The Democrats say, number one, we don't trust you.
		Your word is not good on the ACA subsidies.
		And number two, here is what we would like.
		Our demand is to reverse the Medicaid cuts.
		Our demand is to permanently extend these enhanced ACA subsidies.
		And furthermore, we would like you to undo these rescissions we've seen coming out of the White House.
		Now, that carries a price tag of well over a trillion dollars.
		And Republicans say that's simply an unreasonable ask and is not going to happen.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So why do the Democrats not trust the Republicans on the ACA subsidy extension?
unidentified		Because nothing has happened so far, because it's very, very easy to say you're going to do an extension, but the devil is in the details.
		There are a lot of curbs and limits Republicans would like to put on the subsidies in terms of maybe setting things like income limits, other technicalities.
		And there is a history in this Congress of having deals blow up on the particulars, on the details.
		And so it is sort of understandable that Democrats would say, we don't trust you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		The Senate is in today.
		The House is not.
		The House was supposed to be in today.
		So what happened?
unidentified		The House is jamming the Senate.
		The House decided to play some power politics here.
		The House said, we have passed our bill.
		You need to take it or leave it.
		And we suggest that you take it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		There was some talk about a one-week extension just to keep the government open and then let's keep talking.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What happened with that?
unidentified		Well, whatever happened with it, it's pretty clear that a lot of progressives would not like that.
unidentified		And Chuck Schumer pretty clearly snuffed that idea out yesterday when he stood up at the mics, was asked about this one-week extension, and said, nope, we're not doing it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So the blame game has started a long time ago.
unidentified		So that is the big question.
		And each party would like the other side to get blamed.
		The history here is that the political party that is demanding, is trying to set a condition on government funding is the one that loses.
		So for example, in 2013, when Ted Cruz said we want to block the Affordable Care Act as a condition of funding, he was pretty much blamed for that.
		Back in 2018, when President Trump said we want border wall money as a condition of reopening portions of the government, he ended up taking the blame for that.
		So the history is you do not emerge a winner if you place a demand on government funding.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So what's the off-ramp?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I mean, assuming that the government does shut down, how do we get it reopened?
unidentified		Well, so that is the big discussion right now.
		What is the exit from all of this?
		There are two primary ones.
		One is that Democrats fold, you know, again, the history of the way these things work and accepts the seven-week CR.
		Another is that Republicans offer some type of credible meet-in-the-middle.
		For example, a one-year extension of these ACA subsidies, possibly combined with some reforms.
		There is this thought out there, and this is not something I've heard on the table, but we do need to be aware of the history.
		President Trump in the past has gotten very frustrated when some of his legislative priorities can't get through, and he has pressured Republican leaders to nuke the filibuster, nuke the legislative filibuster, and just pass bills on a party line.
		And there is this latent conversation about, ooh, is he going to ask for that again?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So that could be the way out of this, that the Republicans just pass it on their own.
unidentified		Well, you can't rule it out.
unidentified		I am not saying it is the most likely scenario by any stretch, but I'm saying, hey, look at this option.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		There's the Rust Vote memo from OMB about we're going to lay off everybody that doesn't go to work starting tomorrow from the federal workforce.
		What are you hearing about that?
		And is there support for that from President Trump?
unidentified		So, yes, we are hearing that that is Rust Vote's plan.
		You are hearing Donald Trump talk very tough and basically say jobs are going to be lost.
		But what you're hearing Democrats say is, you know, it's not really clear that that would stand up in a court of law.
		And don't forget, many federal workers who have been riffed, as they say, subject to these reductions in force and who've challenged that in court, are still on the government payroll.
		They're not going to work, but they are still getting paid.
		And so there's a real question mark about what would happen.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		There was that first, the fork in the road thing where you could resign or whatever it's called and get paid through September 30th.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That's today.
unidentified		That is today.
unidentified		And so now there are a whole lot of federal workers, soon to be former federal workers, who really have a lot of angst and anxiety about their decision to accept that offer when they watch colleagues who maybe filed legal challenges and are now still getting paid.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And there's always a lot of talk about, you know, Congress shouldn't get paid if there's a government shutdown and Congress shouldn't get their salary if they don't do their job of passing a budget.
unidentified		And somebody always tries to introduce a bill to say we will go without our pay if the rest of the government is shut down.
unidentified		But for now, they're getting paid.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		This is Siobhan Hughes, Congressional Reporter for the Wall Street Journal.
		You can see her work at WSJ.com.
		Thanks so much.
unidentified		Good to be here.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we will go to your calls, taking your calls about what you think about the potential government shutdown happening in under 17 hours.
		The lines are on your screens.
		Democrats are on 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		We also have a line for federal workers.
		That's 202-748-8003.
		Would love to get your perspective on this as well.
		Go to the calls now to Joe in Ellergy, Georgia, Republican.
		Good morning, Joe.
unidentified		Mimi, love C-SPAN.
		Been calling your great network for 30 years.
		Mimi, I'm not a bit worried about a government shutdown.
		I think Donald Trump, I'm a big stock market guy.
		I think Trump's the best leader in world history.
		We got the best stock market.
		So we down here in Georgia, we're fired up about Trump and energized, not worried about a shutdown.
		I think the economy is the best in history with Trump, the best stock market.
		So I'm so fired up, I'm having a hard time sleeping because the stock market is breaking everything.
		Every record, Mimi.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Joe, this is what I want to ask you.
		Do you think that a government shutdown, if it's prolonged, would affect the stock market?
		What do you think of that?
unidentified		I don't think that would happen, but no, I think there's so much optimism.
		As you know, the stock market for the past few months has been breaking records every single day.
		So I don't think nothing can stop the Trump momentum.
		And I think, like I said, I think he's the best leader in history.
		Stock market's breaking all records.
		So I don't think anything can stop the momentum of the great Trump administration.
		So I'm fired up and energized and love C-SPAN.
		Y'all do an incredible job for the taxpayers.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Joe.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here's Ray in Aurora, Colorado.
unidentified		You're a federal employee, Ray?
unidentified		I am.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Can you tell us what you do or what agency you work for?
unidentified		DHS.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think?
unidentified		Well, I work for a particular section of DHS that is supported by filing fees.
		So as far as what may happen or not happen in DC, it actually isn't going to directly affect me because we are supported by fees.
		So even if I'm considered non-essential, I would still have to report to work.
		But, you know, that means I wouldn't really have to be too concerned about not getting paid, for example, because we're a self-sustaining part of DHS.
		I will say I do remember the two player shutdowns in my federal career.
		First, 2013, I was considered non-essential at the time.
		And of course, I had to stay home.
		And then 2018, I was considered essential that period.
		So I had to show up for five weeks without getting any pay from the government.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And how did that go, right?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Were you able, did you have enough savings to hold over until you got paid eventually?
unidentified		I had enough savings, but I also had a very good I also have a very good credit union where I'm a member.
		So they were able to help with zero interest loans for the time being.
		And by the time the funding passed and the government reopened, I essentially paid it all back and then got the bag pay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And Ray mentioned the previous government shutdowns.
		We'll put those on the screen for you.
		You can take a look going back to 1990 under the first President Bush.
		That was three days.
		The longest was the last one, and that was under President Trump's first term.
		That was 35 days.
		That was over 2018 to 2019.
		That was the last time the government shut down.
		And that was also the longest in history.
		Here's Linda in Texas, Democrat.
		Hi, Linda.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm really tired of these people dinking around with our livelihoods.
		I've got two checks that come from the government, and one that comes on the 1st, and my mortgage payment is due on the 1st.
		So it really messes with my life when they do stuff like this.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What check are you afraid about?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Are you talking about Social Security, Linda?
unidentified		No, my Social Security and my VA pension.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Yes, so I think those will continue to go out.
		The only issue with Social Security is if you need help or if you need to call into customer service, that might get delayed or that you might not find help on that.
		But the checks, we're told.
		The VA, I got to check on that.
		I actually don't know.
		But let's check on that for the VA.
unidentified		Okay, thank you.
unidentified		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Clifford, Hudson, Florida, Independent.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I think what the people have to realize here is you got three actual voting blocks.
		The way last time it was spoken about, it was 30% Republican, 30% Democrat, and then 40% in the middle.
		The middle is going to drive this.
		And as far as the lady was worried about her VA pension, it probably will be funded by management of Office of Management and Budget, but because the pensions come out of what they call mill strip,
		not millstrip, comes out of a residual fund of off of when people go off active duty or go off civil service, there's always that money.
		So they, I think it was yesterday the Office of Management and Budget Director said that there should be enough money to cover 30 days.
		But after the 30 days, then it would probably be the worst case scenario.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		We'll look that up, Clifford.
		But when you were talking about the people in the middle, were you talking about voters for the midterms or were you talking about in Congress?
unidentified		Actually, I was talking about registration.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Registration.
unidentified		Registration of independence has jumped quite a bit.
		I'm an independent going way back to the John Birch Society days.
		I'm 80 years old, and I was a John Bircher back then after high school.
		So independents are really the growing voice because they're considered middle-middle.
		The problem with everybody else, you either have to be middle-right or middle-left.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Clifford.
		And this is House Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday talking about why Republicans are supporting a short-term funding bill.
		Here he is.
mike johnson ▲ ● ▼		The House is getting back to the way the regular appropriations process is supposed to work.
		12 separate appropriations bills passed through the House Appropriations Committee, three off the floor.
		The Senate doing their work as well.
		All this in bipartisan fashion, by the way.
		They passed three bills in the Senate.
		Those bills don't match up exactly.
		So for the first time in years since 2019, you have a conference committee that is being constituted between the House and the Senate.
		This is the way a bill becomes a law.
		They work out the differences.
		All this is happening in bipartisan fashion.
		The problem is we've run out of clock.
		September 30th is the end of the fiscal year, so we need a little more time.
		So what we did in the Republican majority is the right, responsible, simple thing.
		A clean, continuing resolution, a short-term, non-partisan continuing resolution.
		It's only 24 pages in length.
		Leader Thune has a copy if you want to see the exhibit.
		There's nothing partisan in here.
		No policy writers, none of our big party preferences, because we want to do the right thing by the American people and allow more time for negotiation.
		Now, there's a reason that Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have come out here to stomp the feed, saying that they can't go along with this.
		They're trying to bring in extraneous issues.
		They issued a counterproposal.
		You should go take a look at what they requested.
		$1.5 trillion in new spending that is unrelated to the ongoing appropriations process.
		They wanted to, as you said, restore taxpayer-funded benefits, okay?
		Hardworking taxpayers in America, they want to take your funds and give that for benefits to illegal aliens.
		They want to restore that because we got rid of it.
		They want to prop up left-leaning media outlets.
		$500 million they threw in on top of that.
		$1.5 trillion on a seven-week stopgap funding measure.
		We're not going to do that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday outside the White House after his meeting.
		We're taking your calls this morning on a potential government shutdown that happens just after midnight tonight if there is no deal between Congress, Congress, the White House.
		These are the numbers.
		Democrats are on 202748-8000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		And Independents 202748-8002.
		Our line set aside for federal workers is 202-748-8003.
		You can also text or post to social media.
		Here is Michael in Seaverville, Tennessee, Republican.
		Good morning, Michael.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yes, I just think the Democrats should come together with Republicans and try to pay something.
		I believe they've got too much waste, the Democrats.
		That's pretty much been their way, and I just don't agree with them.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Michael.
		And regarding the VA pension checks during a government shutdown, here's what we're able to find.
		This is from the Department of the VA, and it says that it would not be impacted by the shutdown.
		So you'd still have your medical centers, your outpatient clinics, and centers will be open as usual, providing all services.
		Now, VA benefits will continue to be processed and delivered, including compensation, pension, education, and housing benefits.
		Burials will continue at VA National Cemeteries, etc.
		What will be impacted at the VA?
		It says VA will cease providing transition program assistance and career counseling.
		The call centers and the hotlines will be closed.
		VA benefits regional offices will be closed.
		Public affairs, outreach to veterans will cease, including social media, etc.
		No grounds maintenance or placement of permanent headstones at VA cemeteries.
		There's more.
		If you'd like to read what will be impacted by the VA, that's department.va.gov.
		You can see that.
		And this is George in Chicago, line for Democrats.
		Hi, George.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Don't worry about the shutdown.
		We Democrats will save the democracy one more time.
		We play the same song every year: Democracy is in trouble.
		Thank God for our Democrats to save it.
		You know what I'm talking about?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		How do you feel that Democrats will save democracy, George?
unidentified		Well, that's what they're telling us, aren't they?
		Isn't Schumer and everybody else telling us they're saving a democracy?
		Come on now.
		We are the only ones.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Got it.
		And some posts on X for you.
		Here is Leader John Schoon.
		Thune, sorry, we're just one Senate roll call away from keeping the government's lights on.
		If Democrats would only agree, we can pass the bill at any time and spare the American people all the problems that come with a government shutdown.
		This is Senator Marsha Blackburn.
		Last year, Senator Schumer said the American people want to see, quote, both sides working together and for no chaos, no spectacle, no shutdown.
		Now that he's no longer in power, his tune has conveniently changed.
		And this is Sheldon Whitehouse who says, Thune says Republicans are ready to reach a bipartisan funding agreement right now.
		We'll see today, won't we?
		Trump and vote are slavering for a shutdown and spines of foam.
		Republicans do as told, so we'll see.
		Here's Representative Ken Calvert.
		If Chuck Schumer continues to oppose the clean short-term funding bill approved by the House, our government will shut down on October 1st, and our troops will not be paid.
		That's inexcusable.
		Our troops deserve better.
		Let's keep the government open.
		And this is Senator Patty Murray has a quote from Donald Trump in 2011 where he says, I actually think the president would be blamed.
		If there is a shutdown, he's the one that has to get people together.
		And she says, this, Trump is absolutely right.
		He will own a Republican shutdown.
		Right now, Republicans are willing to shut down the government rather than solve the health care crisis they created.
		They want families to go bankrupt, paying for health care.
		And then she says, Republican shutdown.
		Here's Michael in Florida, line for Democrats.
		Good morning.
unidentified		I think the Democrats should hold the ground and let's have the shutdown.
		It's time someone got off their knees and stood on their feet in Washington.
		There's too many people on their knees in Washington.
		It's time to stand up and be men and be leaders.
		This is the time.
		It is now.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Michael, would you are you still there, Michael?
unidentified		Yes.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Would you say that to keep the government closed until the Democrats get what they want?
unidentified		That's correct.
		That's correct.
		Hold their ground.
		This is the time.
		This is the moment.
		It's time to do it.
		No more talking, no more negotiating.
		Stand up.
		Get on your feet and stand up.
hakeem jeffries ▲ ● ▼		Amen.
unidentified		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And let's hear from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who was talking about the need for Republicans to address health care costs.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here it is.
hakeem jeffries ▲ ● ▼		We also made clear in the meeting that any bipartisan agreement by necessity has to have something in the legislation that makes clear to the American people that what we agree upon actually takes place.
		If there's a bipartisan agreement to meet the needs of the American people, it can't be subject to Republicans then undermining that agreement in ways that actually hurt everyday Americans.
		We pointed out that as a result of the Republican one big ugly bill, hospitals are closing, nursing homes are closing, community-based health clinics are closing right now, all across the country, including in rural America.
		And there's an urgency to dealing with that issue right now.
		And so it was a frank discussion.
		It's important that it occurred.
		And Democrats remain ready, willing, and able to find a bipartisan path forward, address the Republican health care crisis, and avoid a Republican-caused government shutdown.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We're getting your calls on the potential for a shutdown.
		Here's Brian in Maryland, Republican.
		Hi, Brian.
unidentified		Hi, how are you?
		Good.
		Brian, I just wanted to call and say that, you know, I'm a first-time caller.
		And, you know, elections have consequences, and we're overspending.
		And we need to cut spending, not keep just throwing money out there and reduce our budget or deficit.
		That's about all I got to say.
		And, you know, Democrats need to get on board.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Brian, about the affordable care subsidies, what Democrats are saying is a lot of Americans are going to see their health care bills, their premiums go way up.
		A lot of them are not going to be able to afford it anymore.
		Do you think that that's a good question?
unidentified		Yeah.
		I'm sorry.
		Go ahead.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		No, no, no.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You tell me what you think about that.
unidentified		No, I mean, you know, everything we spend, we're paying for in taxes.
		So I don't care if you're paying for it with health care or you're going to pay for it through your taxes.
		I'd rather keep my money and spend it where I need it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Rich, Schenectady, New York, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes.
		Hello.
		I'm calling because I just want to, I just, I'm so tired of hearing from, first of all, I'd like to make clear.
		I'm neither a Democrat or a Republican.
		I am strictly for the truth.
		I don't care what label you want to put on it.
		Now that I clear that up, I just want to say, I am so tired of hearing this Weasel Johnson and that disease in the White House keep spreading that, spreading the lie, the biggest lie that they keep playing over and over again, that this $1.5 trillion that Democrats want for the illegal aliens, that is such a total lie.
		What they're talking about, this one and a half trillion dollars, is for health care, for middle class.
		There's nothing about these illegal aliens.
		That's a Trump thing.
		That's him.
		That's his lie that he goes over and over.
		And he's got all these little soldiers that spread the lie.
		That's all I'd like to say.
		Please, country, wake up.
		Just use your common sense.
		It's common sense here.
		It's so simple.
		Can't you see what's going on in this country?
		Just look at the White House and here's your answer.
		Have a good day, people.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And checking in on social media, here's Representative Ted Liu who says: Republicans have a choice: work with Democrats to stop health care costs from skyrocketing or shut down the federal government.
		We're one day away from a Republican health care crisis and a Republican shutdown.
		And Chrissy Houlihan, a representative, says this: Civics 101, Republicans control all three branches of government.
		It's their responsibility to pass a budget.
		The Republican shutdown will hurt everyday Americans, including 270,000 Pennsylvanians who are at risk of losing penny coverage with skyrocketing premiums.
		Congressman Brian Jack says, as President Trump seeks to achieve historic peace in the Middle East, radical left Democrats are recklessly advocating for a federal government shutdown tomorrow night.
		Last week, the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan solution to temporarily extend government funding as negotiations continue, but Democrat senators have refused to support it unless illegal immigrants are awarded taxpayer-funded health care.
		Senate Democrats are beholden to their radical left base that demands obstruction and refuses negotiation at the expense of millions of Georgians.
		And we did that one.
		Here is Eric in Granite City, Illinois, Independent Line.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hello.
		So I've noticed that a lot of what the Democrats are doing is trying to corrupt our country.
		They've been propaganding lies and made it to where killing anybody who doesn't agree with them is okay.
		And Biden has done it.
		He committed acts of treason by opening our borders, but nobody believes it because they're listening to what the left says.
		They got my grandma believing the same stuff, whereas my grandpa knows better because he was in the military.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here's Tina in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Tina.
unidentified		Hi.
		Let me tell you, how keen Jessica is on the money?
		I hope they do shut it down.
		I know a lot of people are going to be out of work, but we got to stand up.
		We have to.
		The Democrats have to stand up.
		I just heard that gentleman while Go talking about we're famous for shutting down things.
		Well, let me tell you, shut it down.
		Even though I'm retired, shut it down.
		But I have several family members that still work for the federal government.
		And I want them to, hey, we've talked about it.
		And they said, so be it.
		Shut it down.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Tina.
		Here's Bill in Greenwich, New York, Republican.
		Hi, Bill.
unidentified		Hi.
		I just want to say that the Republican Democrats need to get along to get this country in a better place.
		I do not think Democrats should get what they want.
		Republicans need to hold their ground.
		And what do I want to say here?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So you don't think so.
unidentified		The government's not going to close hospitals and everything else.
		The Democrats just want a million and a half or a trillion and a half dollars to pay for immigrants' insurance, health insurance, which is wrong.
		And they shouldn't do that.
		So that's all I wanted to say.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here's Marilyn in O'Fallon, Missouri, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi, this is the first time I ever got on, but I support the Democrats because a trillion dollars in Medicaid cuts have been passed.
		And also, that affects Medicare by half a billion dollars.
		billion dollars and some nursing homes and hospitals are already closing.
		It's a force to say that this is the result of that by, you know, Republicans are saying that this is for illegal aliens.
		The people are going to suffer.
		They're already suffering due to the high cost of prices and it's just more lies and lies.
		I think the people need to read.
		I've been doing lots of reading and I see how it affects the people.
		I pay for my health insurance and I can afford to pay the costs, but a lot of people can't.
		And I think it's about time the Democrats stand strong.
		I vote for Republicans and I voted for Democrats.
		I vote for the truth.
		And I can see Mike Johnson up there lying.
		He got his job by supporting the president.
		The president is a crook, a liar, and a thief.
		He's still tilling billions of dollars with these deals that he's going on.
		And he's a big liar, and the people need to wake up and vote him out, vote these Republicans out, vote for people who would stand for the truth.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Marilyn, and let's take a look at what Senate Majority Leader John Kuhn said yesterday about passing a clean CR.
unidentified		This right here, ladies and gentlemen, is what we're talking about.
jb pritzker ▲ ● ▼		24 pages.
john thune ▲ ● ▼		It's a continuing resolution to fund the government through November the 21st.
unidentified		I don't know where they're saying this is some huge partisan thing.
mike johnson ▲ ● ▼		This is something we do fairly routinely.
unidentified		And when the Democrats had the majority on 13 different occasions, they had the majority.
mike johnson ▲ ● ▼		President Biden was in the White House.
mike johnson ▲ ● ▼		We passed continuing resolutions to fund the government.
john thune ▲ ● ▼		This is purely and simply hostage-taking on behalf of the Democrats.
mike johnson ▲ ● ▼		The Republicans are united.
john thune ▲ ● ▼		House Republicans, Senate Republicans, President Trump.
		The House has passed a clean funding resolution to fund the government until November the 21st.
		It's clean, it is bipartisan, and it is short-term.
		But it gives us enough time to finish the appropriations process, which is the way we should be funding the government.
		So Republicans in the House, the Senate, President United, they've passed the bill.
		This is sitting right now at the Senate desk.
		We could pick it up and pass it tonight.
		We could pick it up and pass it tomorrow before the government shuts down.
mike johnson ▲ ● ▼		And then we don't have a government shutdown.
john thune ▲ ● ▼		It is totally up to the Democrats because right now they are the only thing standing between the American people and the government shutting down.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And before we get back to your calls, just a programming note for you that at 8.15 today, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will be addressing senior U.S. military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia.
		He's expected to deliver a message about his vision for the U.S. military and its path forward.
		President Trump will also attend and is expected to make remarks.
		That gets underway at about 8.15 a.m. this morning.
		You can watch that on C-SPAN 2, also on our app and online at c-span.org.
		Back to the potential government shutdown tonight.
		This is David in Dunedin, Florida, Democrat.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yes, I just wanted to say, I think it's uniquely unauthentic to believe that Republicans care about a shutdown when for the last 40 years they've been the cause of every single shutdown.
		And then, if you're paying attention, they have done this rescission move where the Republicans or the Democrats work for the Republicans, and then they immediately remove all of the things the Democrats wanted.
		So, yes, the Democrats are trying to stand their ground.
		And if I was them, I also want to make the point: when people call in worried about the debt and the deficit, I thought Trump brought in like $17 trillion worth of revenue that he's been bragging about that.
		And then, also, isn't that what the Doge and all these people were supposed to be doing?
		I thought we were like ahead of the game now.
		There's no deficit.
		Trump's been like winning on that.
		And then, lastly, Democrats need to add, insist the Epstein files be released as part of their keeping the government open.
		That's all I have to say this morning.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		On the Republican line in West Virginia, James, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hello.
unidentified		I was just wondering about the shutdown.
errol darts in unknown ▲ ● ▼		Would that affect Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It should not, James.
		You should still get the checks for that.
		There would be if, you know, I mentioned before, like, if you need to call, if there's a problem, you need to call, that might be disrupted because there might not be anybody there to answer the call.
		But the checks are still going out.
unidentified		Okay.
		Well, thank you.
		You're welcome.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Jerry in Mississippi, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, good morning.
		I'd like to say that this is just my thought, but I don't know why they don't pass it short day thing and everybody just try to work together on it instead of just, well, we're going to hold this ground and we're going to hold that ground and the Democrats are going to resist and all this.
		This is crazy.
		I mean, it's a lot of people that will be hurt and, you know, by this if it's a government shutdown.
		It's going to have repercussions.
		And now I'm hearing a bunch of people.
		I lean now.
		I'm an independent.
		I could vote anyway, but I lean a little more Republican now.
		And actually, I think Donald Trump is doing a good job.
		But that's just my opinion.
		And I hope that basically the government don't shut down.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is Fox News reporting this about a cost of a shutdown.
		It says that while the cost of a partial closure this year is unknown, the Congressional Budget Office did an analysis of the cost of the last time the government shuttered in 2019.
		That report found that shutdowns saw roughly $18 billion in federal spending delayed, which led to a dip in that year's first quarter gross domestic product of $8 billion.
		So the GDP went down by about $8 billion, and it says that the report noted roughly $3 billion of that would not be recovered.
		It also found that federal workers who received delayed payments and private businesses were the hardest hit.
		It says some of those private sector entities will never recoup the lost income.
		That's on Fox News.
		And this is Andrea in Hutu, Texas, Independent Line.
unidentified		Yes, I want to talk to the Republicans.
		This is an example of how Americans get amnesia really fast.
		Last year, or not last year, a couple months ago, the government, the Republicans, not the Democrats did not, well, they did, you know, went with what the Republicans was going to say, and everybody got upset with them, saying that, you know, they shouldn't have went with them, et cetera, et cetera.
		Now they're trying to do what we said, or people said that they wanted them to do, which is hold their ground.
		To the Republicans.
		You know, the squeaky wheel always get degrees.
		You guys are worried about getting some money.
		Let me just tell you, you're not getting no money.
		And don't believe me, believe the big beautiful bill.
		None of that was for you.
		And I want you guys to hear yourselves.
		I know you're not going to do it, but I wish you would.
		I'm going to pray that you do.
		Go back and listen to Washington Journal, what people are saying, what you are saying, what the politicians are saying.
		You are saying the same thing that they say.
		You don't even know what they're saying, but you're saying it.
		If that makes any sense.
		You don't even know what they're saying, but you're saying it.
		So you're not getting no money.
		So stop thinking that if you go with the Republicans, you're going to get some money because you're not.
		If you were, the big beautiful bill would have gave you some money.
		They did not.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Andrea.
		A lot of people have been calling about Social Security in a government shutdown.
		CBS News has an article specifically about that with the headline, How Would a Government Shutdown Affect Social Security recipients?
		It says it starts this way.
		Even if the U.S. government shutdown begins October 1st, the 74 million Americans who collect Social Security will continue receiving their monthly checks, although some services could be disrupted due to a potential halt in federal activities.
		Social Security benefits are covered by mandatory spending, which means that the funding for the program has already been approved by Congress without an expiration date.
		As a result, Social Security recipients, including retirees, disabled Americans, and the dependents of deceased workers, wouldn't see an interruption in their monthly payments if the government shuts down.
		However, other Social Security services could be impacted by a shutdown.
		It says the Social Security Administration's working budget requires approval from Congress with lawmakers currently at loggerheads over funding.
		And here is John in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania on the line for federal workers.
		Good morning, John.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I work for OPM and I process the federal employee health insurance claims.
		So I'm accepted from the shutdown.
		I still have to show up for work, so it doesn't really affect me, to be honest with you.
		I don't think the Democrats' wish list, I don't think the president is going to budge on that.
		$1.7 trillion.
		They think they're going to win this one.
		I don't think they will.
		And instead of really hurting federal workers who are already from the layoffs through Doge, lost their jobs.
		Now, some more will be let go.
		The Democrats need to have more common sense in how to negotiate this.
		And this is not going to work in their favor.
		And I think the Republican Party is going to use the nuclear option to get this clean CR pass.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You think they're going to do away with the filibuster?
unidentified		I think so.
		They need to.
		If it's going to affect it, if the shutdown happens for more than seven days, they're probably going to do it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, John, you said that you're accepted, which means you have to go to work anyway.
unidentified		You're not going to get paid, though, correct?
		No, I'm still going to get paid because ICE processed the federal employee health insurance claims for OPM.
		So OPM is, I guess, will be funded by capital funds or some other way.
		Just like the Defense Logistics Agency gets paid through the capital funds, you're not really affected by government shutdowns.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And here's Diane Key West.
		Democrat, good morning, Diane.
unidentified		Morning, morning.
		So it's said all the time when we come to this agreement to balance the budget, it's not been planned in time.
		I think everybody should just stop, sit down, breathe.
		You know, it's not important if it's the Republicans or the Democrats at this point.
		It is the health care that I'm worried about.
		And the price is, I'm 66 years old.
		I need my Medicare.
		I need the affordable, people need the affordable health care.
		Already hospitals are closing down.
		You know, I hear the excuse from one side of the party that says the illegal immigrants soak up all the money, but they're going.
		They're going out of this country, so you can't use that excuse anymore.
		But it's amazing when the president sends National Guard to cities that don't want them.
		It costs money.
		When they travel these so-called illegal immigrants to other countries, it costs money.
		They should take money to fund the affordable health care and Medicare and Medicaid from the military because that is a huge budget that is not necessary.
		But everybody should stop fighting for their party because now it's really going to hurt the Americans.
		Spend the money on Americans, on what we need, and everybody needs health care.
		Thank you very much.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And we got this from Richard in Las Vegas by text.
		It's clear that the Democrats will decide whether or not to force a shutdown.
		I hope they do, and I hope that leads to further downsizing of our government.
		There are many like me who have already swung away from supporting the Democrats.
		And a shutdown now would show that the Democrats don't credit our last election or the reasons why there are so many like me.
		And this is Govigzek on the layoff plan.
		It says layoff implementation work is exempted from shutdown.
		Trump administration says it says shutdown layoffs could be undone when funding is restored according to new guidance.
		It says while the Trump administration is threatening mass layoffs in the government if the government shuts down, it is leaving the door open to those plans to be revised once Congress restores agency funding.
		Last week, OMB issued new guidance instructing agencies to, if annual spending does lapse Tuesday evening, considering issuing reductions in force notices to all employees whose work is funded by regular appropriations and does not align with President Trump's priority.
		And here is David in Crab Orchard, West Virginia, Independent Line.
		Good morning, David.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yeah, I support both the Democrats and Republicans.
		Stand your ground and please, please shut down the government and Democrats force the Republicans to go nuclear and do away with Congress's lying insurance, that filibuster that the Senate's been using, so that both parties can promise everybody everything.
		We're on the longest continued resolution this year, the whole year, continued resolution.
		We've played this game every year.
		Normally it's been about six months, two or three times.
		And we just play this game over and over.
		Nobody getting Social Security, veterans benefits ever lose their checks, even the 35-day shutdown.
		People call in, are fooled that people say you're going to lose your check, which isn't.
		People that are going to be able to do it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So David, what did you mean by doing away with the filibuster would get rid of the lying insurance?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you mean by that?
unidentified		That's all that 60 thresholds have ever been is for the Senate to be the lying insurance for Congress.
		So both parties in the House and Senate can promise everything.
		40 acres, a million dollars, promise this and that, but knowing that it's never going to happen because they're going to stop it with their stupid filibuster, 60 thresholds.
		You know, do the nuke.
		And in the future, the party in charge, they pass it, body dotted.
		They don't have to play this game every year.
		Thank you.
		You have a nice day.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Republican Rex, good morning.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		I just wanted to voice my opinion.
		I think there's some good points maker this morning, but the most key thing is taking money away from the American people.
		And if we're worried about Medicare and Social Security, the money for health care for the illegal immigrants is that one of the main reasons why the Republicans should stand their ground and because eventually that money is taken out of our Social Security and out of our funds.
		And if one reason only would be to shut down the government, it would be for that reason.
		And then the Democrats would have to take that back to their districts and live with that.
		And they're not going to win a reelection.
		And I think it should be just shut down.
		And the people that are going to probably lose their jobs that, you know, are laid off.
		And that ought to be the main concern.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Let's hear from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
		He spoke yesterday after that meeting at the White House.
		Here he is.
chuck schumer ▲ ● ▼		We have very large differences on health care and on their ability to undo whatever budget we agree to through rescissions and through impoundment, as well as pocket rescues.
		And I think for the first time, the president heard our objections and heard why we needed a bipartisan bill.
		Their bill has not one iota of Democratic input.
		That is never how we've done this before.
		When I was leader, we negotiated four times with Republicans, and we never had a shutdown.
		And so it's up to the Republicans whether they want to shut down or not.
		We've made to the president some proposals.
		Our Republican leaders will have to talk to them about them, but ultimately he's the decision maker.
		And if he will accept some of the things we asked, which we think the American people are for, on health care and on rescuions, he can avoid a shutdown.
		But there are still large differences between us.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was Senator Chuck Schumer yesterday.
		And we're taking your calls for the next 10 minutes on this topic.
		Jimbo in Bakersfield, California.
		Independent, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Hey, I was just trying to think about how difficult it must be to negotiate with someone who is just a habitual liar and breaks written negotiated contracts on a routine basis.
		So that's a serious problem.
		You're negotiating with someone who, as past practice, has no good faith in any negotiation.
		If I were the Democrats, I would simply get on airplanes and go home, talk to your constituents, explain to them, ask them point blank, how do you negotiate with someone who will break written negotiated contracts, legal contracts, as a regular routine, and also will not negotiate in good faith in any way, shape, or form.
		Again, here's what's going to happen.
		If the ADA additional funds are not granted, then literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans will no longer have health care.
		All right.
		Then we have the other issues dealing with the recessions and the empirments, which are outrageously unconstitutional.
		When the president impounds money that has already been approved and signed into law, that's a clear congressional violation.
		Those things need to stop.
		So if I were the Democrats, I would recognize that if this is their budget, let them live with it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So how do you get out of this, Jimbo?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What's the solution here?
unidentified		The solution is that Democrats simply have to understand that any of the threats that they're making about the thousands of jobs that were going to be cut, they're going to do that anyway.
		They're absolutely right.
		That's a false pretense.
		They're going to cut those jobs anyway.
		What they have to understand is that, as Lincoln once told us, with the additional help of the people behind you, anything is possible.
		Without the support of the American people, nothing is possible.
		What the Democrats have to understand is that they have to take their message directly to the people.
		If they are in Washington right now, they're doing a thing called wasting their time.
		They have to go straight to the people.
		If you're a senator, you go back to your people and you explain what's going to happen with people who are on the Affordable Care Act.
		You need to explain to them how their premiums are going to be twice as expensive.
		Explain to them the unconstitutionality of impounding money that has already been appropriated and how that just makes it impossible.
		And also, ask the American people, how do you deal?
		How do you negotiate with someone who, as a business practice, breaks contracts routinely that have been negotiated?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We got that point, Jimbo.
		Let's go to John in Reading, Pennsylvania, Independent Line.
		Good morning, John.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm a former state government employee who was involved with the distribution and eligibility of Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP or food stamps.
		I get a little tired of the Republicans keep bringing up the point that the illegal aliens are getting medical assistance.
		That is an emergency situation.
		And most of the illegal aliens that we were giving it to were individuals who actually were forced by the hospital to get it.
		This is a Republican farce that all the money is going to legal aliens.
		SNAP and Medicare and Medicaid are citizen or green card recipient programs.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But John, there are some states that give some of the state funding to undocumented immigrants for Medicaid.
unidentified		There's very few of those, okay?
		And I'm in a blue state, but I worked under Republican governors for most of my career in Pennsylvania.
		Okay?
		This is a fallacy that the Republicans are forcing down.
		As far as the government situation with the shutdown, I feel sorry for the government employees and the services being used.
		I had to contact Social Security for a friend of mine.
		It took me 10 hours to get through Social Security.
		And with these shutdowns, it's only going to make it worse.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is Barbara in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Democrat.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		It's Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Cape, say again?
unidentified		Cape Girardeau.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Cape Girardeau.
unidentified		Got it.
		Go ahead.
		My thoughts are Republicans would rather shut down the government rather than work with the Democrats to save Medicaid benefits and prevent Americans from losing ACA insurance premium subsidies.
		They want to keep the government open so that they can shut down Medicaid for people who need it.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And here's Woody in Augusta, Georgia, Republican.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Woody.
unidentified		Hi, Woody.
unidentified		Hey, how you doing this morning?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good.
unidentified		Good.
		Hey, listen, the whole key to the matter is they need to stop BSing up there.
		They need to get out and write a real budget, one that'll last 12 months at a time.
		The problem is nobody don't want to do nothing.
		They want to patch and patch.
		And then at the last minute, everybody try to shove everything in there.
		Well, that's what's been getting us in trouble where we are now.
		Everybody getting out and bringing these bills at 50,000 pages.
		Give us a line item bill.
		That way we can see line upon line, pre-step on pre-what are we buying?
		And all these people hollering about affordable care and these people that they saying getting snapped and everything.
		I did 25 years in the military.
		I lost my sight.
		Yeah, they won't give me no snap.
		I can't get it.
		I don't get nothing free like that.
		I served 25 years and had a fight with the VA for all of our benefits.
		So where's all the free stuff going?
		And we're not Canada.
		We can't afford to give everybody free because we let everybody in.
		These companies who give it, these countries who give everything free, they don't let everybody in.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, and this is on X from Lisa, who says, it's a nothing burger.
		Dems will capitulate now or later.
		It will take less than three weeks, probably much less, and no federal employee will miss a paycheck.
		They'll essentially get a paid vacation.
		I expect a crowded Gulf Coast next week.
		And this is on Morning Consult, who did a poll on the shutdown, and they found that more voters say they'd blame Republicans than Democrats for a shutdown.
		It says, here's the top line, 45% of voters said they'd blame Republicans in Congress for a government shutdown, while only 32% say they'd blame Democrats in Congress.
		And it says Republican voters are more likely than Democrats to say their own party would be at fault.
		Here is Christopher in Madison, Illinois, line for federal employees.
		Hi, Christopher.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I just got something quick to say.
		Both of them need to get their act together because I actually have vacation this weekend for me and my wife's anniversary, and I'm trying to go.
		Other than that, have a good day, guys.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here is Elizabeth, Jersey City, New Jersey, Independent Line.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		And I just wanted to say that with the second Trump administration, this country is now being run by the Oligars and billionaires and golfer friends and the top CEOs of all the countries.
		And they're going to get more relief with the big, beautiful bill.
		You know what's going to happen to the Democrats who try and hold the line because they're going to take away the health care.
		They're going to bring down all the hospitals.
		They're trying to take over how we've been living according to the Constitution.
		And now with the gerrymandering, which is illegal, they're pushing that through, they're trying, Democrats don't have any way of fighting back.
		They don't fight back now.
		Okay, that's it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Elizabeth.
		And that's it for this segment.
		Later in the program, we'll have the nation's Ellie Mistal on actions by the Justice Department, including the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.
		But first, the Heritage Foundation's Delano Squires on new research looking at the state of the black family in the United States.
		We'll be right back.
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		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		We are discussing a report on the state of the black family with Delano Squires.
		He's a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
		Delano, welcome to the program.
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		Thank you for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So before we talk about the report, talk about what your interest is in this subject of the black family and how you came to it.
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
		So I mean, part of it is just personal experience.
		My parents have been married for over 40 years.
		And growing up in New York City, my friends and I, we would often wonder why our experiences, and this is in early to mid-90s, why our lives look so much different than our peers, kids we went to school with, played basketball with, hung out in the neighborhood with.
		And eventually we came to the conclusions that our parents were married.
		Our fathers were in the home.
		Not only that, but we had a community of men around us, men we knew from, mainly from church, and that our parents were sort of impressing their spiritual values, their Christian faith and beliefs on us at an early age.
		And it was at that point that I realized that family structure actually matters.
		I didn't think of it that way because I was still fairly young.
		But all throughout my life, I've carried that with me.
		And not just, obviously, for black families, but for all families, that family matters.
		Children do best when raised by a married mom and dad in a loving, low-conflict household.
		So that's really the genesis of it.
		That's where it starts.
		And then from there, my other personal experiences and professional experiences, I first got my start writing with a website called Black and Marry with Kids.
		I was actually the only single writer at the time.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Which is a weird place for a single guy to be writing.
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		This is true, but I would write things like, do nice guys really finish last?
		And five things every man needs to know before he gets married.
		But the, the creators of that website, Ronny And Lamar Tyler Um, wanted to provide more positive images of black families, so I shared that vision and so, from there I just I saw the the need for this particular, you know, area of research and, I should note, I met my wife at their third documentary screening.
		So um, there's a personal benefit to me as well.
		So yeah, so it was a mix of personal and professional that made me interested in this.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk about the report itself, and i'll read you a quote from your report where you say this, put simply, the black family is in a state of emergency and there are only two choices about how to respond.
		The first is to accept the disappearance of marriage and two parent homes as the norm, both now and in the future.
		The second is to marshal the resources and capital needed for reconstruction.
		Yes, elaborate on that, sure I?
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		I think oftentimes you hear in politics, you know, 70 of black children are born to unmarried parents, and that is true and it's been that way for the better part of almost 30 years.
		But one of the things that doesn't get discussed as much is that this norm has just been accepted, has become the status quo, and if if people believe that fathers are important, then they have to believe that marriage is important, and if they believe that, then the only responses to the status quo is one, as I said, to leave it as is and just allow marriage to be obsolete and fathers to be optional, or to do the hard Work of rebuilding.
		And when I talk about marshaling resources, I'm talking about political capital, social capital, cultural capital, financial, spiritual capital that has to be marshaled first and foremost within the black community and particularly within the black leadership class.
		And then to harness all of that and to point it right back at this particular problem if we want to see anything change over the next three generations.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to ask you about why this is, but first let's go through some graphs.
		And this is from the OOJP.gov, and this is about living arrangements of children living in the United States.
		So this is a government website.
		And this has a graph going back to 1971.
		And these are the percentage of children living in two-parent homes.
		This top line here, the dark one, is white kids.
		The one in the middle here, the light blue, is Hispanic.
		And then this bottom one, the red one, is black.
		It goes here from 1971.
		The black line is at the bottom.
		But it does, I mean, starting in about 2008, it looks like it is trending back up.
		So first explain why it's so low to begin with and why you think it might be trending back up.
unidentified		Sure.
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		So today about roughly about 45% of black children are raised in a two-parent home and about 45% are raised by a single parent.
		Those numbers have ebbed and flowed over the years.
		To your point, there's been a slight uptick in the last decade or so.
		I think the numbers are lower because starting in the 1960s, when the original Moynihan report came out, we started to see the traditional black family structure begin to unravel.
		Now I would certainly argue that the traditional black family has always been on a weaker footing and this is where Moynihan and I in some of my writing would point to the legacy of slavery, where you have two institutions that are fundamentally incompatible.
		So there's always been some challenges there, but starting in the 1960s, you start to see this explode and you can see how even when poverty was higher, more black children were born into, you know, born to married parents.
		So since then, over the last 60 years, what you've seen is that marriage rates have completely cratered in the black community, have declined significantly.
		About 35% of black adults today are married.
		And with that, what you have is a decrease in the number of children raised by two parents and an increase in the number of children raised by a single parent.
		Now, why the uptick?
		Could be several things.
		I think cohabitation plays a role.
		So more children are raised in homes with two parents, even if they are not married.
		But still, only about six or seven percent of black households are households where there are two parents who are cohabiting.
		So part of this could be cohabitation.
		Part of this could be remarriage.
		So a mom who has children from one relationship could either get married for the first time or remarry so that her children are now seen as being raised in a two-parent home.
		And part of it, my hope, is that there's a resurgence, even if small right now, a resurgence in the number of children being raised by their married biological parents.
		But yes, the numbers have declined significantly, and now we're on a slight uptick.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I'll just show a couple more graphs.
		This is from your report at heritage.org about black non-marital and poverty rates.
		So poverty rates for black here is going down over the years.
		This is since 1960 to 2020.
		And this is non-marital birth rate up here.
		And then this is living arrangements for black children.
		So how many black children, percentage of black children living with just a single mother as opposed to two parents?
		It really kind of switched over here in 1980 and at this point is about even.
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		Correct.
unidentified		Yeah.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Why do you think that is?
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		So as I said, I think that slight uptick, My hope is that it's a sign that that trend will continue.
		Correct, that more children will be raised by two parents.
		But when you go back to the other graph in terms of non-marital birth rates, and when you see those two lines diverging that way, I call that the poverty paradox.
		Because in 1955, in 1959, excuse me, the black poverty rate was about 55%.
		It declined steeply over the next couple of years, but it was still fairly high.
		But at that point, fewer than 25% of black children were born to unmarried parents.
		And what you see over the next few generations is that poverty continues to decrease down to 18% in 2023, while the non-marital birth rate continued to increase.
		And as I said, crossed over 50% in the 1970s and has been at or around 70% since the 1990s.
		So many people will assume that non-marital birth rates or non-marital births are caused by, you know, that the root cause is poverty.
		Well, parents don't have enough money.
		But what you can see is that even as poverty decreased, the number of children born out of wedlock has increased.
		So it's hard to say that there's one particular reason for the uptick.
		But as I said, there are many factors, including cohabitation and remarriage, multi-partner fertility, where parents may have more than one child with more than one partner, that could point to that slight increase over the last few years.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So let's take a look at Harvard sociologist Christina Cross.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		She is an author and she talked about the role of economics in this topic.
unidentified		It is true that when black children grow up with both parents, they tend to experience advantages and they do tend to have improved outcomes.
		It is also true, unfortunately, that they still lag behind their white peers in the same family structure.
		And my findings indicate that much of that has to do with these wide gaps in economic resources.
		And so if we really want to turn the tide, we need to be thinking about how to bolster family resources instead of making cuts to key social safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP and children's health insurance program.
		We could be thinking about ways to help families to stay afloat during these challenging times by increasing that amount of aid.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you think?
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		I'm familiar with Dr. Cross and her work.
		I completely disagree with it in terms of the emphasis on the gaps between children and different family structures, the interracial gaps between different family structures.
		I'll put it plainly.
		There's nothing that any sociologist or economist can do to make a black family white or a black child white.
		But there are things that our institutions can do to encourage marriage.
		So whether black children, and I don't even know sort of all of the research she's citing, but assume, I'll grant that everything she says is correct.
		Whether a black child grows up with two married parents to me is separate from whether they have the same exact outcomes as their white peers.
		I'm not comparing black families to white families.
		Comparing black families to what they could be in terms of their full potential.
		The other thing I'll say is this: the notion that you help the family by giving more government aid and more government programs, and this is typically, she didn't say it this way, but this is typically an argument about doing more for single moms and their children is part of how we got into this problem in the first place.
		Starting in the 1960s.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I believe they got became dependent on it and said, I don't need a man anyway.
unidentified		Correct.
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		Correct, correct.
		And the two key cultural shocks that happened in the 1960s, each one affected both, you know, each member of the household.
		The expansion of government welfare displaced men from their rightful role as providing for their families.
		And then the rise of second-wave feminism convinced women that marriage was oppressive, the home was a prison, and that men were toxic.
		So what you have is a dislocation of both parties, because any change in large sort of family outcomes is going to deal with one of three elements: a man, a woman, or the institution of marriage.
		And in the 1960s, you had the rise of two, as I said, cultural shocks that disrupted the balance in the household.
		And part of it has been that idea that if we just take care of women and their children, then the entire family will do better.
		And obviously, we've seen that hasn't been the case.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Our guest is Delano Squires, a research fellow at Heritage.
		We're talking about the state of the black family.
		If you'd like to join us, you can.
		Our lines are regional this time.
		So if you're in the Eastern or Central time zones, it's 202-748-8000.
		If you're in Mountain or Pacific time zones, you can call us on 202-748-8001.
		I want to ask you about some of the recommendations in your report.
		We'll put that on the screen and we'll go through it.
		You say the first recommendation is to make marriage revival and family restoration a priority for black leaders.
		Who are those black leaders and how would they go about doing that?
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		So some of them, and I named them a few times in the report, are the legacy civil rights organizations.
		So I'm talking about the NAACP, I'm talking about the National Urban League, I'm talking about the National Action Network.
		The organizations that claim that they care about the social outcomes of the black community should be at the front of the line when it comes to reviving marriage and rebuilding the family.
		I'm not saying it's only them that should respond, but if you were the type of organization that says, for instance, the NAACP a few years ago had a PSA campaign where they partnered with a handful of actors in Hollywood, they were all white, to say that they take responsibility for racism.
		There's no reason why they can't do the same thing with even with married black actors, Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, to say we take responsibility not only for our families but for our community.
		So the problem is that none of these organizations have family restoration as a top priority.
		And I know this because I've gone through their agendas at their national conferences, on their websites.
		It's not something that's on their radar and it has to be put back on their radar if this particular issue is to change.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You also write here to anticipate resistance from quote allies.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Who are these quote allies?
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		So in the report, I talk about people in several groups.
		So when I say the large, the easiest way to describe the allies are people in the center-left progressive political movement.
		So specifically, feminist groups will say that an emphasis on marriage and intact homes ultimately is trying to roll back the progress on women.
		And they'll say that, you know, people like me are trying to control women's bodies if we're talking about ensuring more children are born within the bounds of marriage.
		There will be LGBT groups who will say that my definition of marriage, one man and one woman for one lifetime, is insufficiently inclusive and doesn't include their family structures.
		There will be anti-racist groups that say, even though the racial disparities in terms of non-marital birth rates are probably larger than any other social issue that they confront, they will say that there's not enough emphasis on toppling white supremacy in this particular report.
		And really, if we got rid of white supremacy and systemic racism, then all the other problems will correct themselves.
		And then you have what I call functional atheists.
		And some of these are African-American Christians who embody what it is that I'm promoting in this report, who will agree with me in private, but publicly will say, well, we don't want to impose our views and our values on other people.
		So these are all people who call themselves allies of the black community, but either will not be publicly supportive or in some respects be resistant to this marriage revival movement.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So I want to show you what Anthony sent us on X.
		He says this, government is the biggest contributor to the state of black America.
		Our quality of life is directly related to policy.
		None of these parties will address our humanity.
		No one party is interested in reconstruction.
		And he says, also, with all due respect, family makeup isn't anyone's business.
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		And again, this is the same type of idea that's gotten us to where we are.
		One other group that I didn't mention in terms of the quote allies are the paternalists.
		These are the people who believe more big government, more social programs, more welfare programs are the key to ensuring people have a higher quality of life.
		And what I would argue is that a scenario where more black children are born to married parents with a mom and a dad who love one another and all their children would do far more for the social and economic outcomes of the black community than more government programs.
		And I can prove this actually with data.
		So with respect to median household income, the order from highest to lowest of the four major ethnic groups, Asian, white, Hispanic, black, follows the order of marriage rates.
		So Asian Americans, number one, and then whites, then Hispanics, then blacks.
		Asian American families, about $121,000 in terms of median household income.
		For black families, it's about $56,000.
		But for black married families, the median household income is about $110,000.
		And for married families under 65, it's actually right at the same mark for all Asian families, about $121,000.
		So what people attribute to bad government policy and oftentimes racial discrimination is really a function of family inequality because our family structures are not the same across all those groups.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to callers and we'll start with William and Quantico, Virginia.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, William.
unidentified		Yes, I'd like to ask your guest, did he see the study that the CDC did in 2006 through 2010 saying that although black men in a lot of cases are not married to the wife, they spend more time interacting with their children than other whites and Hispanics.
unidentified		And I like to respond to his answer.
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I'm very familiar with that study.
		It came out in 2013.
		And to your caller's point, it tracked father involvement over the course of years, and he's absolutely correct.
		Across the ethnic lines and across activities, black fathers tended to be more involved in the lives of their children.
		And this speaks to the complexity of this particular issue.
		Anybody who's familiar with the black community who lives in a black neighborhood can see, and as I've seen, I'll see dads doing 35, 40% of drop-offs in the morning at daycare or at schools.
		But what that study also showed is that the difference between fathers who lived with their children and fathers who did not live with their children was far greater than the differences between ethnic groups.
		So for instance, for fathers who had children, young children, toddlers, who lived with those kids, they were obviously much more likely to bathe them and read stories and eat with them every day.
		We're talking, you know, 70% did those types of things.
		But for fathers who did not live with their children, the percent who did those things every day drops to single digits.
		So I'm very familiar with the study and it's often cited to make the case that black fathers are involved, which they are.
		I'm not saying that that's not the case.
		But the differences between ethnic groups are differences in degree.
		The differences between those who live with their children and those who do not live with their children are differences in kind.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is an article about that at CBS News.
		It says, black dads more involved in children's lives than other groups.
		That's at CBS.
		And this is Newman calling from San Antonio.
		Good morning, Newman.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		First of all, I would like to say to the gym, you don't know how you're sitting up there insulting single-parents hold home.
		I know parents that have both parents in the house and children are nothing but monsters.
		You know, it hurts me to see you sit there, because you really, to me, you insulted my mama this morning.
		Because I grew up in a single parent's house.
		My mother, she taught me the good things about life.
		Worry, stay out of trouble.
		I ain't have no dad in the household.
		I grew up where?
		What I did when I went out there in them streets, being having a daddy and a mama up in my household ain't had nothing to do with what I've done in that world.
		Stop blaming sitting there.
		You don't realize how you disgracing black people this morning, man.
		With that crap you up there talking.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Newman, what happened to your father, if you don't mind me asking?
unidentified		He was abusive.
		He was abusive blame.
		My mama got rid of him.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, let's get a response.
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		And this is one of the things that I think makes talking about these issues challenging, is that people will take my advocacy on behalf of marriage and two-parent households as a slight against, in his case, his mom who raised him.
		I'm doing nothing of the sort, right?
		But I'm speaking to the norm, not the exception.
		And anyone, black or otherwise, who wants to make the argument that the outcomes from being raised in a single parent home and being raised in a married parent home are exactly the same, one, is defying what the data actually say.
		But two, they're making an argument that I'm not sure that they would say in plain words, which is that dads don't really matter, that men don't matter.
		So the father is basically the appendix of the household.
		It's good if you have one, but he's not particularly necessary.
		The argument will never come out of my mouth.
		I've been married to my wife for 13 years.
		We have four children.
		There's not an amount of money that you could offer her that would make her say, well, I don't need my husband anymore.
		And I'm sure my children would suffer if I was no longer in their lives.
		So this is not a knock to the caller or to his mom or to the millions of people in this country, black or otherwise, who've been raised by a single mom.
		But what I'm saying is across the board, children do best when raised by married parents in a loving, low-conflict household.
		And our personal experiences do not change that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Unwar, who is in Washington, D.C. Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		Earlier in the interview, your guest mentioned the Moynihan Report.
steve in ohio ▲ ● ▼		As I recall, the Moynihan report said that unless the government invested heavily in the black family, that we would never get out of the situation that we were in based on racism.
unidentified		Also, if he I'm sure I'm assuming he knows that.
steve in ohio ▲ ● ▼		Also, what about all the money that black families have lost based on racism?
		And I mean based on redlining, based on the higher money they have to spend on loans, based on the higher amount of money they have to spend for their insurance and everything else within their community, that has been tallied up into the billions.
		So instead of him asking or talking about what black families should do, maybe he should look at what the government isn't doing.
unidentified		Biden had money for students and took, well, not students, I should say, families and children, excuse me, who he gave funds to, and 50% of children out of poverty, he lifted them out.
		And of course, the government decided we couldn't do that.
		So again, in my last question to him, since he's a member of the Heritage, he's also, I guess, a promoter of the Project 2025.
		And I would ask him, are you a DEI hire for Heritage, since that seems to be what you're doing?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Anwar.
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		Let me.
		Let me answer the second question first, right?
		In terms of being a DEI hire.
		There's no part of me that believes that.
		I have the respect of my colleagues.
		My work stands for itself.
		As I said, I've been writing about these issues and thinking about these issues since I was 15, but even in an official capacity for over a decade.
		But it's interesting that some of the same people who say that black folks need DEI and celebrate DEI will use DEI as a way to insult black people with whom they disagree.
		I find that actually odd, quite interesting.
		But to the substance of his question, again, we come back to the same issue, which is the notion that Uncle Sam, the government, is a suitable replacement for a father in the home.
		So it's always, well, why isn't the government doing more to support families?
		And again, most means tested welfare programs do not go to married couples.
		So whenever someone is making the argument for more government aid to help families, they're making the argument that elected officials and unelected bureaucrats are a suitable replacement for a man in the home.
		That's a position that I cannot and will not take.
		And to his point in terms of government, bad government policy, I'm not making the argument that government policy has always helped the black family.
		What I am saying, again, is that when racism was overt, more black children were born to married parents.
		And in addition, what I'm saying is that regardless of what government policy is enacted or who is in office, I would much rather have 75% of black children born to married parents than to have 70% born to unmarried parents.
		So even in that scenario, regardless of, because other communities are facing issues with public policy, but there will be no uplift and there will be no more positive outcomes if we cannot get the most important institution right, and that institution is the family.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Mark in Fredericksburg, Virginia sent us a text.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		How can the black church help young men and young women get married and stay married?
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		One of my other recommendations, excuse me, is to harness the power of key institutions.
		And chief among those is the church.
		The church should be affirming God's design for humanity, for man and woman, for marriage, and for family.
		How that takes place, churches can offer not just premarital training and premarital education, but they can also do events for singles, to create an opportunity for people within the same church or same community to meet one another.
		My wife and I actually took a post-marital class at a large church in our area, and it actually benefited us greatly.
		So the church can be doing more in terms of its teaching and its doctrine, and particularly the traditional black church should be doing more, just like I mentioned the legacy civil rights organizations.
		Many churches today in black neighborhoods spend far more time talking about DEI, talking about Project 2025, and redlining and AI and health screenings than they do talking about the state of the black family.
		So part of it is to raise the issue as one that's important.
		Part of it is to help couples improve their relationships.
		And part of it is as an institution to promote the goodness of marriage so that we can create a culture of marriage and strong families in the black community.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Damien in Lake George, New York says this, this guy's living in a different world.
		He doesn't realize that marriage is going down in all races and socioeconomic groups.
		Is that true?
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		It is.
		Marriage has declined for basically every ethnic group except Asians over the course of the last 30 years.
		So he's right.
		In 1950, about 75% of American households were married couple households.
		Today it's about 47%.
		But again, the declines over the last 60 years are much greater in the black community.
		So I understand that we're in a different age now.
		I understand that there are voices in the manosphere who are telling young men that marriage is a bad deal.
		They're telling young men that in an age where women have more cultural, economic, and social power, that it's not wise for you to marry a woman who will then divorce you and take half of your things.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Zelda in Delaware said throughout this entire conversation, why is the assumption that in a single parent household, the mother has the child?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You said that people are implying that women don't need husbands, but aren't there single fathers too?
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		There are, but the percentage of children across race who are raised by a single dad, within that single parent category, the percentage that are raised by a single dad is extremely, extremely small.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Linda, Jeffersonville, Indiana.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Linda.
unidentified		Hi, and thank you, C-SPAN.
		I love C-SPAN, and I love this topic.
		I want the guests to know I strongly agree with you that it is sad.
		I look at my granddaughter, black young women, college-educated women, where it looks like marriage is not going to be in their future.
		I agree that it's sad that so many black children do not grow up with married biological parents.
		I think that would be wonderful if it happened in the future.
		But I have to disagree with you first with the caller just before.
		The big issue is marriage and married couple families are declining overall, except for Asian Americans.
		You're right.
		But something broader is happening to make marriage not what it was in terms of its benefit.
		And I have to ask, what about marriage has never, even when it was more common in the black community, it didn't benefit black women especially as much as it did other races.
		So I wonder if she might address that.
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		So I'm not, she didn't explain what she means by it didn't benefit.
		I've heard, I think, a similar argument before that the institution really isn't particularly important.
		And one of the things that I think culturally that is fairly common is I'll hear many black women say that their moms raised them and loved their sons.
		So this is, again, a fairly common idea that black moms raise their daughters and love their sons.
		And what has happened over the course of the last 60 years has been a consistent message to all women that you should be career-minded and then supplement a career with a family.
		And I think this is, again, a broader American message.
		And this is why what you've seen over the last, again, 60 years is a decline in marriage rates and an increase in the age of first marriage.
		So in 1980, median age of first marriage was about 24 for a man, 22 for a woman.
		Today it's closer to 31 and 29.
		Everyone is waiting longer.
		I do, to the caller's point, I don't believe that the institution is seen the same.
		Obviously, divorce over the course of the 70s and 80s went up.
		It's come back down now, but part of that is that fewer people are getting married and marriage is being concentrated among college-educated and upwardly mobile Americans in such a way that it is disappearing in low-income and working class communities.
		So I'm not sure what she means in terms of marriage didn't benefit everyone.
		I think there's a notion that traditional gender roles were oppressive to everyone and particularly to black women.
		I don't agree with that because what we have replaced it with doesn't seem to be benefiting anyone.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		One more call for you.
		Here's Donna in Baltimore.
		Donna, you're on the air.
		Donna, are you there?
unidentified		Yeah.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Go right ahead.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		You're on with Delano Squires.
unidentified		Hi.
		I believe in marriage.
		But my question to you is, you made two comments.
		Earlier, you said something about, I'm paraphrasing, something about women's lives destroyed something.
		I wanted you to elaborate on that.
		Like, what was wrong with women's lives?
		Number two, you quoted something about racism when racism was overt, as if it's not in plain sight anymore.
		Can you elaborate on that as well?
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		So the first comment, the first question was around my comments around second wave feminism.
		And yes, I do argue that second wave feminism, and again, this is women across the board, pushed women to question what it means to be a woman, question their relationship with men, question their relationship to marriage and their roles in the home.
		I've read the Black Woman's Manifesto, which came out in the 1970s, and one of the things that the women who wrote it were saying at the time is that black women should not try to model the same sort of two-parent married relationships that white women had, because at the time they were looking at white feminists who were displeased with that.
		And one of the authors said that being, basically, I'm paraphrasing, but being a stay-at-home mom, reading stories, bedtime stories to your children just isn't going to make it.
		But she was also making an argument about revolution.
		And part of my argument is that any political ideology that foments contention between the sexes cannot, by its very definition, lead to better relationships between men and women or lead to stronger families.
		So yes, I do, as I said, in the 60s, you had the rise of big government and the rise of second-wave feminism that I believe disrupted relationships in the home.
		And the second question was on overt racism.
		Again, we don't live at a time where people are used to seeing signs that say, you know, blacks need not apply or colored entrance only.
		Restrictive housing covenants are illegal.
		Discrimination in the real estate market is illegal.
		I'm not saying that these things never take place, but what I'm saying is we have a completely different culture today.
		So the notion that life in America in 2025 is the same as in 1925, well, for some people, 1825, I believe is just a patent denial of what actually is going on in our country.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, that's Delano Squires, research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
		You can find his report that's called Moving Beyond Moynihan, A New Blueprint to Revive Marriage and Rebuild the Black Family at heritage.org.
		Delano, thanks so much for joining us.
delano squires ▲ ● ▼		Thank you for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Later, we'll discuss the actions of the Justice Department with Ellie Mistal.
		But first, we'll return, we'll have open forums, so you can start calling in now.
		The lines are on your screen.
		Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		And Independents, 202-748-8000.
		2. We'll be right back.
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elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		This is outrageous.
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mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Cohen, welcome to the program.
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mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It is not funded by the government.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you mean?
unidentified		Well, I thought you didn't get any money from the government at all.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		No, not at all, and we never have.
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		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to Washington Journal.
		We are in open forum.
		Whatever you'd like to talk about regarding public policy, obviously the big news is the potential government shutdown starting just after midnight tonight.
		And also in the news is the potential peace deal between Israel and Hamas.
		Here is the front page of the New York Times with a picture of Prime Minister Netanyahu with President Trump.
		This is at the White House.
		It says, President Trump said that if Hamas refused the deal he and Netanyahu reached, he would back Israel's continued attacks.
		There's also this on the Wall Street Journal.
		Trump outlines plan to end Gaza war, threatens Hamas.
		It says president offers 20 points telling militants to accept in 72 hours or face annihilation.
		Let's take a look at what President Trump said yesterday about this peace deal.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		If Hamas rejects the deal, which is always possible, they're the only one left.
		Everyone else has accepted it.
		But I have a feeling that we're going to have a positive answer.
		But if not, as you know, Bibi you'd have our full backing to do what you would have to do.
		Everyone understands that the ultimate result must be the elimination of any danger posed in the region and that danger is caused by Hamas.
		The tyranny of terror has to end and this is again something that we're looking for.
		This is eternity.
		This is for forever.
		To ensure the success of this effort, my plan calls for the creation of a new international oversight body, the Board of Peace, we call it the Board of Peace, sort of a beautiful name, the Board of Peace, which will be headed not at my request, believe me.
		I'm very busy, but we have to make sure this works.
		The leaders of the Arab world and Israel and everybody involved asked me to do this.
		So it would be headed by a gentleman known as President Donald J. Trump of the United States.
		That's what I want some extra work to do, but it's so important that I'm willing to do it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That was yesterday at the White House.
		And what's happening right now is Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is in Quantico, Virginia, addressing the generals and admirals of the U.S. military.
		Here's the Washington Post with live updates.
		Hagseth pledges to fix decades of decay in the military Trump to follow.
		We've got live coverage of that going on right now on C-SPAN 2 of those remarks.
		You can also watch it later on our website, c-span.org.
		The president is expected, as just mentioned, to give remarks, and we are watching that.
		Once that gets underway, we will take a look and show you some of those remarks here on the Washington Journal.
		Glenn in Philadelphia, Republican line.
		Glenn, you're on Open Forum.
unidentified		My favorite narrator, Mimi.
		I would really like for people to find out about the Heritage Foundation.
		They believe that the President should be a unitary executive.
		They go back to 1973 when Richard Nixon said the president can do no wrong because he's the president.
		I just really would like you to bring people in to realize how anti-American the Heritage Foundation is.
		And thank you very much.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So this is the unitary executive theory.
		It says proponents cite Article 2 of the Constitution, specifically the vesting clause, which says the executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States.
		And the take care clause, the president shall take care of that the laws be faithfully executed.
		That's called unitary executive theory.
		And this is Jeanette, Fairfax, Virginia, Democrat.
		Hi, Jeanette.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I think it's a very interesting rewriting of history as we approach the anniversary of the United States.
		We were founded and left England so that we could have freedom of voice, freedom to act and live.
		The Constitution says we, the people of the United States.
		And I don't understand how it can be ignored that certain groups of people are continued to be marginalized and oppressed, segregated, whether it's subtle at first or obvious and overt second.
		We are getting so far away from the vision that our founding fathers had for this United States, not unitary states.
		And it's frightening.
		And I wonder if the Germans, as Hitler was rising to power and other authoritarians were rising to power, if the middle class was just saying, gosh, that's terrible, or that's kind of odd, or that's kind of overreaching.
		And then they woke up and it was a different world.
		The president and then Yahoo cannot ignore hundreds of thousands of starving people piled up on beaches with nowhere to go and talk pleasantly and politely about them eradicating Hamas.
		It's just sad and disappointing and not becoming of who America sounded to be.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Jeanette.
		And the Guardian actually is reporting, this just came out, that it says, Netanyahu says he did not agree to Palestinian state as part of Trump-Gaza plan, and IDF will remain, quote, in most of the territory.
		It says the Israeli prime minister says we turned the tables and isolated Hamas, while Qatar says it will hold talks on the proposals with Hamas and Turkey later on Tuesday.
		That's The Guardian.
		And we'll just show you what Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said yesterday about the peace plan.
benjamin netanyahu ▲ ● ▼		Now, if this international body succeeds, we will have permanently ended the war.
		Israel will conduct further withdrawals linked to the extent of disarmament and demilitarization, but will remain in the security perimeter for the foreseeable future.
		I think we should understand that we're giving everybody a chance to have this done peacefully, something that will achieve all our war objectives without any further bloodshed.
unidentified		But if Hamas rejects your plan, Mr. President, or if they supposedly accept it and then basically do everything to counter it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		We're going to go straight to President Trump about to make remarks here in Quantico.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Take a look.
unidentified		Well, we may do a lot, and that's only because of the Democrats.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		And as you know, they want to be able to take care of people that have come into our country illegally, and no system can handle that.
		And so we're totally opposed on that.
		But we can't take care.
		We just can't do it.
		I'd love to do everybody.
		I'd love to do the whole world.
		But our country can't handle people that come into our country illegally.
		And they want to give them full health care benefits.
		They want to open the wall again.
		Can you believe it?
		I can't even believe it.
		They want to open the wall.
		They haven't taken away boys playing in women's sports.
		They haven't done that.
		Men playing in women's sports.
		It's like they don't change.
		They lost an election in a landslide, and they don't change.
		How long have land regained?
unidentified		Hamas, how long do you plan to give Hamas to respond to the ceasefire proposal you're saying?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Well, we're going to do about three or four days.
		We'll see how it is.
		All of the Arab countries are signed up.
		The Muslim countries all signed up.
		Israel's all signed up.
		We're just waiting for Hamas, and Hamas is either going to be doing it or not.
		And if it's not, it's going to be a very sad end.
unidentified		And is it not a deadline, Mr. President?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Is there room to negotiate?
unidentified		Or is this a taking or leave the deal?
unidentified		Is there room to negotiate with Hamas?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		You know, with Hamas, we want very simple.
		We want the hostages back immediately.
		And we want some good behavior.
		And, you know, it's pretty simple.
		You don't get similar.
		Think of it.
		We've signed every country in the Middle East.
		This is like an impossible thing.
		Never been done before.
		This is more than Gaza.
		Gaza is big stuff.
		But this is Gaza, is a piece of it.
unidentified		And if they were set the deal, you said that Israel has your backing to do whatever they need to do.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Why do you engage in that land?
		Let them go and do what they have to do.
		They can do it pretty easily.
		I would let them go and do what they have to do.
		You know, we've killed about 25,000 Hamas.
		So certainly they paid a big price for October 7th.
		And this is a whole new group.
		You know, they come in and they come in and they keep coming.
		But this is a whole different group.
		And their leadership has been killed three different times.
		So they paid a big price.
		We hope that they're going to have a nice, calm life.
		Maybe it won't happen, but if it does, it'll be one of the greatest things ever to happen.
		We'll have actual peace in the Middle East.
unidentified		Are you preparing to take strikes against truck gangs in Venezuela, sir?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		We'll see what happens with Venezuela.
		Venezuela's been very dangerous with drugs and with other things.
		And they've been very, very dangerous.
		So we'll see what happens with Venezuela.
		We had a lot of drugs coming in through water.
		We call it water drugs.
		Just a simple term.
		We don't have any boats on the water.
		There are no boats.
		There are no fishing boats.
		There are no anything.
		So we hit a number of boats.
		You probably saw that.
		And since we did that, we have absolutely no drugs coming into our country via water because it was lethal.
		And now we'll look at cartels.
		We're going to look very seriously at cartels coming by land.
unidentified		What do you mean by the money?
unidentified		In this address, why gather all the generals in one place for a speech?
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Well, this is only an espretecord.
		You know what an esprit accord is?
		This is only a spirit.
		We're going to be talking to him.
		Pete Hegseth is talking right now.
		I'm going to have to leave because I have to talk to him.
		But these are our generals, our admirals, our leaders.
		And it's a good thing.
		A thing like this has never been done before because they came from all over the world.
		And there's a little bit of expense, not much, but there's a little expense to that.
		We don't like to waste it.
		We'd rather spend it on bullets and rockets, frankly.
		But this was the one time we had to do a great spiritizing.
		It's going to be great.
		I've seen it already.
		We have every general, every admiral.
		We have great people.
		We have our real warriors over there.
		And when they're not good, when we don't think they're our warriors, you know what happens?
		We say, you're fired.
		Get out.
		We had some real bad ones last time.
		You know, I rebuilt the military, the entire military.
		But I had a couple, and I had unbelievable people.
		To do that, you have to.
		But I had unbelievable people in there.
		But I also had some bad ones at the top.
unidentified		Like Lily and Madison and that Li Esper.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		I told him too, always too late, Jesper.
		He was horrible.
		But I learned because, you know, I was just in there and I put these people in.
		They were recommended by Rhinos and others.
		And then I could, what we have now is the best.
		But even despite that, I rebuilt the military in my first term.
		We had a great first term.
		We had the greatest economy ever, and it's being beaten by a lot this time.
		So I'm going over.
		I'm going to be meeting.
		I'm going to be meeting with generals and with admirals and with leaders.
		And if I don't like somebody, I'm going to fire them right on this spot.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So that was the president speaking to reporters outside of Marine One as he approaches the helicopter to take him to Quantico for that meeting.
		He was just referring to with the generals and the admirals.
		Secretary Hegseth is there addressing those officers, those military officers, and we've got that for you over on C-SPAN too if you'd like to take a look.
		We've got live coverage of that whole event.
		Now it's back to the phones for Open Forum.
		James Independent Line, Lewisburg, North Carolina.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Amy.
		I would like to say real briefly that I wish the American people could fire Donald Trump right on the spot.
		I just, I don't know what the MAGA people are thinking about.
		I don't know what the American people are thinking about.
		I mean, you can watch this man, see the actions that he's taking, his allegiance and alliance with Israel in the genocide of Palestine.
		And I don't know what anybody else could call it other than the genocide when you kill a bunch of folks who can't fight back.
		October 7th was a false flag.
		I don't care what anybody says.
		Mossad is too good.
		They're too thorough.
		They're too well manned, too well-equipped.
		They know where everybody is in Iran.
		They could tell you where officers were living.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Wait, so wait, hold on.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		False flag, meaning you think that the Mossad did it or that they knew that Hamas was going to do it and they stood back and let it happen.
unidentified		Yeah, Mamie, I think they knew about it and they just stood down and didn't do anything about it because, like I said, when they planned their strikes in Iran, I don't remember whether it was Iran or Iraq, but the bottom line is they knew where those officers lived.
		They knew what apartment buildings they were in.
		They knew what apartments they were in.
		But they didn't know that folks were planning on striking inside of Israel.
		I find that incredibly hard to believe.
		And as far as Mr. Squires goes, as soon as I saw he was from the Heritage Foundation, he just totally delegitimized himself right on the spot when I was always from Heritage Foundation, and he was a black person because they are as anti-black as the KKK.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, James, why don't you take a look at the report itself before making that judgment and read the report for yourself and then decide what you think?
		Susan Hampton, Virginia, Republican.
		Hi, Susan.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		As far as the president being the main executor, that's because the president is the only person in government who the whole country votes on.
		He is the whole country's representative.
		That's why he's the head.
		As far as Israel, I sort of agree with that guy that just called Israel on October 7th.
		Israel knows if you throw a rock over the fence.
		So there's no really explanation why it took six hours for Israel to help there in the October 7th.
		Something's shaky about that.
		And I just wanted to say to my, I guess, black American friends, the word racist and fascist just doesn't mean anything anymore.
		It's been overused so much, it just doesn't mean anything anymore.
		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And this is NBC News.
		Trump's Gaza peace plan met with support and skepticism as the world awaits Hamas's response.
		It says that a spokesperson for the Qatari Foreign Ministry said that mediators in Qatar and Egypt had delivered Trump's plan to Hamas on Monday, yesterday in Doha, and that a discussion would be taking place later today on Tuesday.
		This is Frank in Poughkeepsie, New York, Independent Line.
		Good morning, Frank.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Now, the guy from the Heritage Foundation, like the guy said, I wouldn't listen to anything that come out of his mouth, period.
		Just a mouthpiece for heritage.
		And as far as All of command and control, all the generals being in one spot.
		Now, anybody, anybody who's done any kind of service, anytime, they would tell you: do not cluster up everybody in one spot.
		And he's, this is the most moronic thing I have ever seen.
		Yes.
		Should resign.
		That is the stupidest thing.
		I can imagine him out in the field calling everybody in one area and a morning round coming and everybody's gone.
		It's unbelievable to me.
		And it's a general's dream to have all the command and control in one spot.
		Oh, man.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, we got that, Frank.
		And we are going to pause on our calls and speak to a reporter with Federal News Network, Drew Friedman, joins us.
		Drew, welcome.
unidentified		Good morning.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So we're just hours away from a government shutdown.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		How are federal agencies preparing for this?
unidentified		So this is something that isn't necessarily unfamiliar for most federal agencies.
		They've faced the threat of a government shutdown many times over, but what they do in the days leading up to a shutdown, and especially in these final hours here, is they'll be looking to implement their agency contingency plans.
		These are plans that show how many federal employees at those agencies are either going to be accepted and expected to continue working without pay during a government shutdown, as well as how many federal employees are going to be furloughed, or in other words, they'll have to stop working during a government shutdown until that shutdown ends.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And how long do they have to prepare for this?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Like at what point do they start preparing?
unidentified		Usually it won't be a couple of days to weeks.
		It kind of depends on the nature of the shutdown, but it is often not that much time to prepare.
		The contingency plans have typically been listed on the Office of Management and Budget's website, but we know that those are not on that website currently and instead are only on agencies' individual websites.
		Some of the information is a little bit less clear than it has been in the past, but normally it is not a lot of time to prepare for a government shutdown.
		And it's something that many agencies have to figure out in the final days leading up to it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So let's talk about the federal workers.
		There are three categories: accepted, exempt, or furloughed.
		Explain those.
unidentified		Right.
		So for most agencies whose jobs are funded through congressional appropriations, they're going to be either accepted or furloughed.
		So an accepted employee is someone who works, for example, in public safety or a position that is considered essential to continuing life and property or expressly in law that they're going to have to continue working in a shutdown.
		They continue to work during a shutdown, but don't get paid until after the shutdown ends.
		Furloughed employees have to stop working during a shutdown entirely and they are guaranteed back pay similar to accepted employees, but not until the shutdown ends.
		And then the third category you mentioned, exempted employees, those are federal employees who work in positions that are funded outside congressional appropriations.
		Therefore, they continue to work and get paid during a shutdown as normal.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So as an example, the federal troops, the National Guard that are deployed in Washington, D.C., that are going to be deployed in Portland, they would still have to work, but not get paid.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Something like ICE agents would be working but not get paid.
unidentified		That's right.
		There's a lot of positions like those dealing with public safety, for example.
		So, law enforcement, border security, air traffic control, things like that are going to continue throughout a government shutdown.
		Those employees do continue to work.
		They just won't get paid.
		Again, they are guaranteed back pay once the shutdown ends.
		But, yes, National Guard and other things that are considered essential or accepted for a government shutdown purposes, they would continue working.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Now, there was a memo from the White House's Office of Management and Budget put out last week saying a reduction in force plans during a shutdown so that there would be mass layoffs of government employees if the government does shut down.
		Explain how that would work.
		Is that legal?
		And who would be targeted for those reduction in forces?
unidentified		So, the shutdown itself does not give additional authority to the Trump administration to conduct reductions in force, but they do have that authority.
		So, it is something where we actually saw more recently the Office of Personnel Management essentially is greenlighting agencies to let them conduct RIFs or do the work leading up to a reduction in force leading up to the shutdown as well as during a shutdown.
		So, RIF-related activities like creating a list of what positions would be eliminated and who would move into what new jobs during a reduction in force, that work can all continue.
		It's considered accepted activities according to some OPM guidance over the weekend.
		But this is something where the Trump administration is building on what have already been a number of reductions in force and other ways to remove federal employees from government.
		So, this is just kind of doubling down, in a sense, in terms of trying to scale down the size of the federal workforce overall.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And also, today is the deadline, the September 30th deadline, of the deferred resignation program.
		That's about 150,000 federal employees will no longer be on the rolls.
		Any impact should we expect from that?
unidentified		For the DRP employees themselves, those who have opted into it, no real impact except for the fact that they are no longer going to be paid.
		They're currently on paid administrative leave as they have been for the last six plus months.
		So, they will essentially, today is their last official day of government service, even though they haven't actually been, most of them working in their jobs and just on leave.
		This is the last day that they're going to be paid for that.
		So, if there is a shutdown tomorrow, they will not continue to get paid.
		If there are other employees on administrative leave, they do get moved to the furloughed category.
		So, they would like continue to not be working and then also stop getting paid until after the shutdown ends.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And their benefits style as of today?
unidentified		The benefits continue, actually.
unidentified		So, federal employees do continue to get health coverage and other types of insurance.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But the ones that took the deferred resignation?
unidentified		No, if you took the deferred resignation, there is, I believe, there is a small overlap with a separate program that allows you a small bit of time, I believe 30 days overlap for benefits.
unidentified		But other than that, they will be stopped.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And finally, if there is a shutdown and if it goes on for a long period of time, is there any support programs for federal employees, people that are living paycheck to paycheck and don't have the savings to get them through not getting a paycheck?
unidentified		Furloughed federal employees can apply for unemployment insurance through their state.
		So, that is an option that's available to any federal employee who gets furloughed.
		Other than that, there's a lot of other organizations and credit unions, for example, that will offer loans and other types of assistance to federal employees who might be missing a paycheck or more than one, depending how long the shutdown lasts.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		That's Drew Friedman, a reporter for Federal News Network.
		You can find her work at federalnewsenetwork.com.
		Drew, thanks so much for coming in.
unidentified		Thank you.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And we are going back to open forum.
		If you would like to give us a call, you can do so.
		Our lines are by party.
		Democrats are on 202-748-8, sorry, 202-748-8000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		And back to the phone lines.
		Jill is in Iowa, Line for Democrats.
		Hi, Jill.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi.
		I haven't called for a while.
		I just wanted to comment on a couple of things.
		I have forever crusaded on the fact that we have mislabeled social media as social.
		In fact, it allows you to be asocial.
		The correct term should always be anti-social media.
		But I just, lately, people were talking about people who got fired after posting about Charlie Kirk and things that, no, yeah, I believe in freedom of speech.
		Everybody can post whatever they want.
		But they were right when they said that, you know, companies have policies and things like that.
		And I just wonder if it's pretty clear we need a policy about anti-social media attached to our government.
		I can't believe that it's okay in their hearts to fire someone for one comment about Charlie Kirk that, you know, just reflects their perspective versus all of the things that Trump is putting out on Truth Social.
		If he hasn't violated, if we don't have a policy about putting out things about magic med beds and, you know, there's just been so many things that he has put at and had to take down and the conspiracy theory stuff.
		If that's not enough to get him fired because of his social media or anti-social media policy, I don't know what is.
		And so for some future shows, you know, you have these Heritage Foundation people on here all the time.
		But what I'd like you to do is maybe do an analysis of the 2025 plan and what they have, and just how closely they're following it and checking things off when people wouldn't believe that it was true during the election.
		All right, Joe.
		I'm sorry.
		I'm just tired of government by brain fart.
		I really am.
		And I feel like my government has a flesh-eating bacteria.
		The things he spends money on.
		And that guy was right about all the top generals being in one location.
		And then take a look at who's in charge of each one of the military divisions.
		I mean, we won't get a command for the Coast Guard because we want to let Corey Lewandowski use the command in the house.
		And by the way, does Trump approve of the affair that's going on between Noam and Lewandowski?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Here's Jerry, Long Beach, Washington, Republican.
		Good morning, Jerry.
unidentified		Yes, good morning, and thank you for taking my call.
		First, I want to respond to a caller you had, not you, but C-STAN had a week ago yesterday.
		She called from Minnesota, and she said that Charlie Kirk said that black women look like gorillas.
		I Googled that because I was shocked to hear that.
		It's not him at all.
		It was some politician back in 2010 that I've never even heard of.
		So that caller should call in and apologize to all of us.
		She also brought up DEI.
		And when Delano was on, there was a guy called in and asked Delano, well, are you a DEI hire?
		Well, see, that, in fact, is the problem with DEI.
		That is a core problem with DEI.
		And I checked him.
		I checked Delano's background, and I would advise that caller, look at his background, Google him, find out about the guy.
		The guy's a hardworking guy, got his bachelor degrees, got his master's degree.
		He's clearly not about DEI.
		And I think that fellowship should research that before he makes that kind of a comment.
		And the final one is: I wanted to ask Delano when my generation, I'm 77, when my generation gals were, you know, burning their bras and demanding all kinds of things.
		From that moment in time, I wanted to ask him: is there any research that shows that was the part of the breakdown of our family, of our family?
		I'll give you my example.
		I married a woman my last year of college.
		I finished she had a year left.
		I paid for that education because her dad said, I own her now.
		I pay for her.
		But anyway, long story short, she was in a nursing profession for about a dozen years.
		I noticed that she wasn't happy.
		And so when I met her, she was talking about she would have rather gone to law school than go to nursing school.
		But I encouraged her to go ahead and go to law school.
		She did.
		And I always made more money than she did until the very end where she got a job in a major healthcare center as their general counsel.
		And guess what?
		She doubled my salary.
		Well, guess what?
		We aren't married anymore.
		She called me, told me one time she didn't need me anymore.
		So that's all I got to say.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Rick in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Rick.
unidentified		Yes, good morning, Aggie.
		I'd just like, I'm sorry if I'll be all over the place with this, but I just wanted to read off just a few names right here.
		You have Jim Jones at Jonestown who killed over, talked over 900 people into committing suicide.
		Bernie Madol back in 2008, who deceived all these people and took their money.
		Adolf Hitler, dictator, 1933 to 1945.
		Look what he did to his people in Germany.
		Marshall Applegate, that was the Heavensgate, leader of the Heavensgate, who led 41 people to their death, talked them into this.
		Donald Trump is the master manipulator.
		He always has been and he always will be.
		His favorite little slogan was the story between the frog and the snake.
		Donald Trump stood right there in TV and told us that I told you that I was a snake before you let me in.
		Donald Trump told this whole country that he was a snake.
		He is a snake.
		He always will be a snake.
		And Donald Trump does not care about our company, country.
		He only cares about himself.
		Thank you so much, and God bless.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And CBS News reporting: J.B. Pritzker says Trump administration seeking to deploy 100 troops to protect ICE in Illinois.
		Here is Governor Pritzker's news conference yesterday in Chicago talking about this.
jb pritzker ▲ ● ▼		Donald Trump and Christy Noam and Tom Holman said they were targeting the worst of the worst criminals.
		They lied and they continue to lie.
		60% of the individuals that ICE has taken in Illinois this year have no criminal convictions of any kind.
		ICE is running around the loop harassing people for not being white.
		Just a year ago, that was illegal in the United States.
		Now, ICE is making it commonplace.
		That's not making America great.
		In any other country, if federal agents fired upon journalists and protesters when unprovoked, what would we call it?
		If federal agents marched down busy streets harassing civilians and demanding their papers, what would we say?
		I don't think we'd have any trouble calling it what it is: authoritarianism.
		So let's not pretend it's something else when it happens in our American cities.
		The MAGA Republican-supported invasion of Portland and Chicago and LA and Washington, D.C. is not making us any safer.
		Instead, it is putting our people in danger.
		This is an attack on neighborhoods, on lawful residents, on U.S. citizens.
		That's not preventing crime, as Donald Trump claims.
		That's threatening public safety.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Back to your calls for open forum.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Robbie, Republican Line, Washington, D.C. Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, I'm not a Republican.
		I'm a Democrat.
		My name is Commissioner Robbie.
		I'm a warded commissioner here in Washington, D.C., elected official.
		It just shocks me how I can hear all of this racism, everything that's spewed on the news, everything that's all over social media.
		And yet, we have individuals who get upset when we give just a little bit of that back.
		This is Washington, D.C.
		This is my hometown.
		This is our city.
		Red summer, July the 19th, 1919, happened here in Washington, D.C. My family fought in that.
		We are not tolerating anybody taking over our city.
		We are not tolerating this racism.
		And if anyone thinks that we are not ready for a war, you better think again.
		Leave us alone.
		That is the moral of the story.
		Leave us alone.
		Stop trying to take over our lives.
		Stop trying to blame us for each and every little thing that the Republicans are going through internally.
		It has nothing to do with us.
		But if you don't leave us alone, you're going to find out that not only are we willing to fight back, but we are ready for war.
		We have been taught this our entire lives to never get too country, too comfortable in this country.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you mean by you're ready for war, Commissioner Robbie?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you mean by that?
unidentified		All of this targeting that's happening through the city, all of this targeting that is going on on the media, on the news, these videos of hangings, hangings, people talking about they're going to start hanging us here in Washington, D.C. Who's talking about that?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What news are you seeing that on?
unidentified		All over social media.
		That's all you see.
		You can't be blind to it.
		You can't be blind to it.
		You can't act like you don't see it.
		It's all over social media.
		There will be, this is not 1865.
		This is not the early 1600s.
		There will be no hangings in Washington, D.C. There will be no racist targeting here in Washington, D.C.
		The last thing you will want us to do is to rise up in a way that you cannot handle.
		We're not tolerating that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And tell me what you mean by racist targeting in Washington, D.C. Are you talking about ICE arrests when you say racist targeting?
unidentified		Did what I just say sound like I'm talking about ICE?
		I am not talking about ICE.
		Then give me a specific example.
		Coming into our city, posting videos all over social media of hangings and threatening to hang us as residents.
		And then you have this president who gets on the news and keeps spewing all of this negativity about Democrats.
		Now, I am a Democrat, but I have some conservative views.
		But this is not about Democrats or Republicans.
		It's not about black and white.
		It's about behaviors.
		And what he is trying to do is cause a race war.
		We are never, not ever again in history going to be anybody's slaves.
		So the thought of that needs to exit your mind quickly.
		But what he is trying to do is start a race war.
		And we're not going to tolerate that here.
		This is our city, and we're going to fight for it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Up next, we've got the nation's Ellie Mistal to talk about actions by the Justice Department, including the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.
		Stay with us.
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		Washington Journal continues.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Joining us now is Ellie Mistal, justice correspondent and columnist for the nation.
		He's also author of the books called Bad Laws and allow me to retort.
		Ellie, welcome to the program.
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Mimi.
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		Thanks for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		First, your thoughts on the indictment of former FBI director James Comey.
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		Baseless and stupid.
		There is no evidence in this two-page indictment brought by a first-time prosecutor that was handpicked by Trump because other more senior, more experienced prosecutors refused to bring it.
		She's the only person who even signed the charging document, and it is, it is, it lacks, to say it lacks substance is an insult to cotton candy.
		All right.
		Like there is nothing in here.
		They're accusing Comey of making false statements in a congressional testimony.
		They have no evidence that those statements were false, but more to the point, even if they were false, which again, they weren't.
		He wasn't lying.
		But even if he was, they have no evidence to show that his false statement, again, if he made one, was material to anything that he was talking about or anything that Congress was talking about on that day.
		So it's completely baseless.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Ellie, how do you know that there's no evidence?
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		They literally did not say anything in the charging document that suggests that there is any evidence whatsoever.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Is that typical?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Is that typical that you would put that information?
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		They'll put forth something.
		They're not going to pull out their Trump card, but usually they'll put forth something we know because yada yada yada that this happened or that happened.
		There's none of that here.
		There's nothing, it's trying to find a great way of explaining it.
		Like, usually when you see a charging document, you're looking at a, it's like a coloring book, right?
		Like, you'll, you'll see the outlines of things, right?
		And maybe it's not, maybe not everything is colored in.
		Maybe you don't have the red nose here or the, you know, blue hair there, but you see the outline of the clown that they're trying to make.
		This, there's not even a clown.
		This is just, they're not even dots that can be connected here.
		It is just, it is just the ravings of a lunatic thrown, you know, through the lens of this inexperienced, unqualified prosecutor, right?
		Again, remember, Mimi, this is Jim Comey we're talking about.
		And one thing we know about Jim Comey is that he takes notes, right?
		That's a note-taken man.
		We know that from all of his previous history.
		And there is no indication in any of the documents, and again, the two-page charging document that they got a note, that they got a letter, that they got a wiretap.
		There's nothing there.
		And then, Mimi, you just kind of pull back to the larger kind of context of all of this.
		What he's accused of lying about is saying, is authorizing a person from the FBI to leak to the New York Times.
		We already know the people who leaked to the New York Times, right?
		Like that's already kind of like out there in public information.
		And none of those people have said that they were authorized to do so by Jim Comey, right?
		Like McCabe hasn't said that.
		The Columbia professor hasn't said that.
		So like nobody's flipped on Jim.
		So they can't be getting any evidence from the people that we know to be leakers.
		Now, it is possible, it is possible that they have some mystery, never known before leaker who is telling stories to the DOJ, but that strains credulity.
		There's no, again, there's no reason to believe that unless you were trying to find ways to justify this charging document, which I don't think we should waste the intellectual time or energy to do.
		We know what happened.
		We know what he said.
		It's not a lie.
		And if it was, it doesn't matter.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So, Ellie, let's go back to the C-SPAN archives.
		We're going to show kind of what started all this.
		We're going to go back to 2017 and then the testimony about that 2017 that happened in 2020, and then we'll talk about it.
chuck grassley ▲ ● ▼		Director Comey, have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?
unidentified		Never.
chuck grassley ▲ ● ▼		Question two, relatively related.
chuck grassley ▲ ● ▼		Have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?
unidentified		No.
ted cruz ▲ ● ▼		On May 3rd, 2017, in this committee, Chairman Grassley asked you point blank, quote, have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?
		You responded under oath, quote, never.
		He then asked you, quote, have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton administration?
		You responded again under oath, no.
		Now, as you know, Mr. McCabe, who works for you, has publicly and repeatedly stated that he leaked information to the Wall Street Journal and that you were directly aware of it and that you directly authorized it.
		Now, what Mr. Kitten McCabe is saying and what you testified to this committee cannot both be true.
		One or the other is false.
		Who's telling the truth?
unidentified		I can only speak to my testimony.
unidentified		I stand by the testimony you summarized that I gave in May of 2017.
ted cruz ▲ ● ▼		So your testimony is you've never authorized anyone to leak.
		And Mr. McCabe, if he says contrary, is not telling the truth.
		Is that correct?
unidentified		Again, I'm not going to characterize Andy's testimony, but mine is the same today.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Ellie Mistal, what do you make of that contradiction in Andrew McCabe and Jim Comey?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And do you see that as a problem?
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so two things.
		First of all, I disagree with the framing that this is what started it.
		What started this persecution of Jim Comey is that he did not give Donald Trump his loyalty back in 2017.
		Like, let's not get it twisted here.
		This is happening because Donald Trump doesn't like Jim Comey, not because of anything Jim Comey said to Congress.
		Now, they are trying to use this congressional testimony as a hook.
		And when you say the incongruity between Comey's testimony and McCabe's testimony, that incongruity only exists in the head of Ted Cruz.
		Because Andrew McCabe is not, in fact, saying that Jim Comey authorized him to leak to the Times.
		He's saying at best that he was aware that McCabe was out there talking.
		That is very different than authorization.
		Charlie Grassley is a lawyer.
		Ted Cruz is a lawyer.
		When you use words like authorize, that has kind of a specific meaning, right?
		That means Jim Comey says, hey, Andy, go do this.
		You're my employee.
		Go do this.
		I'm ordering that to you.
		And that's not what anybody is saying happened, right?
		So when they ask Jim, hey, did you authorize this guy to leak?
		He's like, no, no, I didn't.
		Did you know that he was leaking?
		That's a different question.
		They didn't ask him that.
		Maybe he didn't know.
		Maybe he didn't know.
		I don't know.
		What I do know is that Jim is saying that he didn't authorize him.
		And McCabe is saying that he didn't authorize him.
		But here's the other point, Mimi.
		What was this congressional hearing about?
		Because once again, I don't think James Comey is lying.
		But let's say that he is.
		Let's say that that clip that you, dead to rights, he told Andy, you go, he ordered the code red.
unidentified		All right.
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		Let's say you got him dead to rights.
		Is it a material false statement meant to mislead Congress about the thing that they were having a hearing on?
		Because their hearing in that Ted Cruz clip is not about leaks from the FBI.
		That's not the material point of that hearing.
		That is a hearing on Crossfire Hurricane, which is the investigation into Trump's potential Russian connections, right?
		Like that was the point of that testimony.
		So if Jim Comey lied, and again, I don't think he did, but if you think that Jim Comey lied, you don't just have to show that he lied.
		You have to show that he lied knowingly, willingly, and with the intent to mislead Congress on their inquiry into Crossfire Hurricane, which ain't got nothing to do with Andy McCabe or leaking to the New York Times.
		If the Congress had had an entire hearing about leaks from the FBI, which are not actually illegal, but whatever, an entire hearing about leaks from the FBI or the dissemination of top secret documents or whatever, and then Comey lied.
		Okay, that would be what lawyers would call a case.
		This is not a case.
		This is a vendetta.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Ellie Mistal is just, if you'd like to join our conversation, you can start calling in now.
		Lines are by party.
		Democrats are on 202-748-8000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		And Independents 202-748-8002.
		You can start calling in now.
		Ellie, if you say, I mean, this case is completely without merit.
		How did, why do you think that the grand jury voted to indict something, something ham sandwich?
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		Like, think about just how you phrase, how you organize these clips, right?
		Like, if you take a person who doesn't know anything about the law and is not hearing the other side, and you say, Jim said this and Andy said that, well, then if you don't know anything else, if you don't know anything about materiality, if you don't know anything about false statements,
		if you don't know what McCabe's testimony was because you're only going on what Cruz, because the prosecutor only showed you what Cruz said about McCabe's testimony, as opposed to what McCabe said about McCabe's testimony, if that's all you're going on, you might return the indictment.
		Like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to crap on the grand jury.
		They're people who are doing their civic duty and we thank them for the for it.
		But the grand jury literally only gets one side of the story.
		And with this administration, there's no there there's no surety that the grand jury had a full and complete understanding of the facts or the law before they made their charging indictment.
		So I don't fault the grand jury, but their indictment doesn't mean like, oh, well, 12 random people agreed with this.
		So clearly there must be, no, that's not how, that's just not how it works.
		The prosecutor in a grand jury situation gets to control what the grand jury sees and what the grand jury knows.
		And with that power, that's why you have the old, the old adage: a prosecutor can get a ham sandwich indicted in front of a grand jury.
		Like, that's why that exists, because when you control the information, you generally control the outcome.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, let's show what President Trump said last week outside the White House about the indictment of James Comey.
		Take a look.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Not a list, but I think there'll be others.
		I mean, they're corrupt.
		These were corrupt, radical left Democrats, who Comey essentially was worse than the Democrats.
		I would say the Democrats are better than Comey.
		Oh, there'll be others.
		That's my opinion.
		They weaponize the Justice Department like nobody in history.
		What they've done is terrible.
		And so I would, I hope they're, frankly, I hope they're others because you can't let this happen to a country.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		He said they weaponized the Justice Department.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What's your reaction to that?
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		First of all, I finally agree with something Donald Trump said because he said that James Comey is worse than a Democrat.
		And I agree with that because James Comey is a Republican.
		He was a Republican appointee.
		He was a lifelong Republican.
		And he did Trump the biggest solid in the world, which was napalming Hillary Clinton's campaign right before the 2016 election.
		So I kind of agree with Trump on that.
		However, just because I don't like James Comey doesn't mean that I think he should be persecuted and maliciously prosecuted by Trump over this over this vendetta that he's had for him since 2017, which is clearly what happened.
		In terms of weaponization, you've got to remember that, you know, I started with the fact that the prosecutor who charged Comey was handpicked by Trump after the guy in charge refused to do this work.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		This is Eric Siebert.
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		Yes, because they didn't have a case.
		And Siebert didn't want to sully his name with this case.
		So when you are the president and you are pulling out prosecutors and putting in political appointees, this woman has never prosecuted a case before.
		And when you saw her at the arraignment, I mean, it was a train wreck is what it was, right?
		That is the definition of politicizing the DOJ.
		Pam Bondi, Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, handpicked by Trump, a true MAGA sycophant, was like, well, that case, we had a case.
		And Trump responded to that by blasting her on Truth Social, which is like the only currency in MAGA land that matters.
		Like the mean tweets is the only currency that matters in MAGALAN.
		And Bondi caved after she got blasted by the president on Truth Social.
		That is politicization of the Department of Justice.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let me ask you this.
		This is a headline from CNN.
		Why the Comey indictment is different from the Biden DOJ's indictment of Trump?
		Can you answer that question?
		How is that different?
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		Trump committed crimes.
		They had evidence of those crimes.
		They had so much evidence of Trump's crimes that the Supreme Court had to change the rules to make it so that Trump couldn't be indicted for the crimes that he was about to be convicted for.
		That's how many, like, I understand that there are people in this world who think, well, if you do X, then I do Y. That's fair.
		It's the same thing.
		But no, that's not how the law works.
		Like, the feelings are not the thing that motivates the law.
		If you have evidence of crime, you are supposed to prosecute the wrongdoers, right?
		Like, that is what the Justice Department is there for.
		It's not there to play tit for tat.
		If you don't have evidence of crime, I don't care how much you don't like the guy, you're not supposed to prosecute him, right?
		And again, I say this as a person who is no fan of James Comey.
		And frankly, Mimi doesn't like having to go on television to defend him.
		Like, I don't like the guy.
		I think he did bad things, right?
		But they don't have evidence of crime.
		And so he shouldn't be prosecuted.
		With Trump, they had evidence of crime.
		And so he should have been prosecuted.
		Two things are different.
		And people need to be able to live at that speed where different things are treated differently.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Ellie, do you think that the country is at a point of no return?
		In other words, if the Justice Department is no longer independent, as you would say, if there's a Democratic president that comes in in 2028, are these things going to be rolled back?
		Is the Justice Department all of a sudden going to be independent again?
		Or will that president have the Justice Department indict his perceived enemies?
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		I mean, there are two ways of answering that question.
		One, are we at a point of no return?
		Probably not.
		This country was a slave country for 100 years.
		It was an apartheid country for 100 years after that.
		And yet we have overcome.
		Like, so I can't say that this is the worst it's ever been in this country.
		You know, like the worst is probably, you know, 1810, probably the worst for people like me.
		So I can't say this is a point of no return.
		In terms of the more focused question on, is this a point of no return for the Justice Department?
		I think that the entire Trump administration has proven that the institutions cannot hold, will not hold, and have not held, right?
		People who are institutionalists, which I never was to begin with, I think have egg on their face.
		I think they're seeing the weakness of their guardrails, the fecklessness of the people in charge.
		How do you overcome complete institutional failure without completely reforming and reimagining the institutions that have so clearly failed?
		I think that is the challenge that we will have to reckon with going forward after the Trump administration, after this flare-up of authoritarianism leaves us, whether that leaves us in two years or four years or 100 years.
		But after this flare-up of authoritarianism is over, we will have to not reform, but rebuild the institutions that have clearly failed in this moment.
		And that obviously includes the Justice Department.
		That obviously includes the Supreme Court.
		I think it includes the entire criminal justice system.
		How we rebuild those institutions will be important.
		But the idea that we're just going to roll it back, we're just going to go back to the way it was and pretend like the last two or three years hasn't happened, only a Democrat would say that, right?
		Only an establishment Democrat would be like, oh, all we need is some super blue guys and some duck cake and we can put Humpty Dumpty back.
		No, it's broke.
		It's broke.
		This shows how broken it always was.
		The challenge now is to build something stronger than a Justice Department that could so easily be taken over and corrupted and co-opted by an authoritarian as opposed to trying to restore what once was.
		I have long argued, Mimi, this is a little bit off to your point, but I think goes to the spirit of your question.
		I have long argued that the Attorney General of the United States should be in an elected position separate and apart from the rest of the administration.
		I think that at best you should run on a ticket in the same way the president and vice president run the same ticket.
		It should be the president, vice president, and AG all separately running on tickets.
		I think the attorney general should be voted for separately than the president.
		We do that in the states, right?
		The New York Attorney General election is separate and apart from the New York gubernatorial election where I live in New York, and that's true in almost every state, I believe.
		So having political separation, not tying the political future of the Attorney General to the political future of the president is clearly the kind of alpha reform we need to fix what has clearly broken and failed at the Department of Justice.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's go to calls and start in New York City.
		Line for Democrats.
		James, good morning.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		It's a pleasure to speak to you, Mr. Mistar.
		I'm a big fan of yours.
		Two questions.
		One, can a judge throw out the case before the grand jury?
		Number two, with what is the protocol or the procedure that is needed to expand the court?
		I know you have been espousing that for quite a few years, and it is clearly evident that we have a rogue Supreme Court thanks to Judge Roberts and the destruction of the 2013 Voting Rights Act.
		Thank you.
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		100%.
		Thanks for your call, James.
		Yes, a judge can dismiss this case.
		I'm sure after an initial round of cross-filings, one of the first things that Comey's lawyers will ask is for a motion to dismiss because, again, the charges here are baseless.
		Now, I don't know, maybe I should know, but I don't know, actually, Mimi, which judge pulled the case.
		I'm sure that information is probably out there.
		I just haven't seen it yet.
		I don't know the partisan background of that judge.
		And to act like that doesn't matter is just being naive and stupid in this time.
		So I don't know what judge they pulled, but yes, a judge, a good judge probably would dismiss this case.
		I saw this morning that Comey has retained the services of Pat Fitzgerald, the famed prosecutor who cracked the mob back in the day as his defense lawyer.
		So Comey's lawyer.
		Comey's got better legal representation than the government, I'll tell you that.
		And so we will play our game.
		I don't think Comey is in any real legal danger from this because this is a clown lawsuit.
		The danger comes from being able to harass people like this.
		It's happened to Jim Comey.
		Now that's going to make Trump feel like it can happen to others of his political enemies.
		And the whole point is to have a chilling effect on everybody who crosses Trump.
		You piss off Trump.
		You might catch charges, even if they're completely trumped up.
		Again, Jim Comey, former FBI director, well suited to defend himself.
		You keep knocking over dominoes.
		You're going to find somebody who isn't well suited to defend themselves.
		And then we see what happens, right?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And Ellie.
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		To answer the second part of James's question, just really quickly, expanding the Supreme Court, it's super simple.
		You need a bill, you pass it through Congress, you pass it through the Senate with 51 votes as opposed to the filibuster, which is not a constitutional thing.
		It's signed by the president, and boom, you can have as many justices as the president picks.
		It has been done six or seven times in American history, all through normal legislation.
		And it can easily be done again if the party has the will to do it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		And just to get back to your point about the judge, so Politico has this meet the judge who will oversee James Comey's criminal case.
		It's U.S. District Judge Michael Nakamanoff.
		He's a 2021 appointee of President Joe Biden.
		He was randomly assigned last Thursday evening to the Comey case.
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Mamie.
unidentified		Yeah.
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		So that sounds good, right?
		I mean, that sounds good.
		It sounds like Comey will at least be in a situation where he can get a fair trial, right?
		He's not being sued in Amarillo, Texas, right?
		So that's good for him.
		Again, I don't think that this puts Jim Comey in mortal danger.
		He is well suited to defend himself from this claptrap.
		The question is, what happens when Trump keeps doing this and keeps doing this and keeps doing this?
		He's going to find officials who are not well suited to defend themselves and it gets much worse from there.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Rob in New York, Independent Line.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Rob.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Hi, Mr. Mistal.
		Yeah, it is very frightening to look at a Justice Department that's corrupt.
		And I had a few questions for you.
		And if you could ask from yes or no, and then please elaborate.
		It would be appreciated.
		Do you think that the Hunter Biden laptop was real?
		And do you think it affected the election?
		And do you think that the Steele dossier was real?
		And do you think it affected Donald Trump's administration?
		Thank you.
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		I do think Hunter Biden had a laptop.
		I do not believe anything that they have said was on it, except for what I can independently verify.
		Do I think it affected the 2024 election?
		No, not really.
		I think it affected Joe Biden and his family.
		And I think that the Republicans glommed onto that.
		And I think that was sad.
		And I think it's sad for Hunter Biden, but I don't think it actually affected the macro political environment that we're living in.
		What was the second one?
		Do I think the Steele dossier was real?
		I get it.
		I think there was a Steele dossier.
		Yes, I think it was real.
		Do I think it was true?
		Probably not at this point.
		I mean, I thought it was true for a long time.
		I have seen evidence, you know, in the past like three or four years to suggest that some of this stuff was not true.
		So I've kind of changed my opinion on whether or not it was true.
		I know it existed.
		Do I think it affected the 2016 election?
		No, I really don't.
		I think that Trump's criminal behavior, I think that his crass behavior, I think that his corrupt behavior has been baked into the electorate since 2016.
		I think that people who voted for him already know what he's like and they like him anyway.
		I think people who didn't vote for him already know what he's like and they don't like him and they didn't vote for him anyway.
		And I don't think that had anything to do with anything specifically in the Steele dossier, right?
		And I think that that is, if anything, it's a problem that I have with the approach to 2024 because I think that there was a lot of thought in 2024 that kind of exposing Donald Trump for who he is was going to be a motivating factors for voters.
		I think that sometimes Democrats, and especially kind of elite-level, intellectually elite Democrats, I think we forget that people like this about Trump.
		They like the corruption.
		They like the racism.
		They like the authoritarianism.
		That's a feature, not a bug of his thing, right?
		And so, kind of pointing it out all the time, he's a racist authoritarian.
		Like, nobody, people like that about him.
		People like that he's mean and mean-spirited and lacks compassion.
		That's a feature, again, of his personality.
		So, like, talking about it doesn't actually motivate votes.
		And I think that's so I think that's a thinking that, like, oh, the steel dossier, that's the nobody cares.
		Nobody cares.
		And we have to move on to things that people actually care about.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's talk to John, a Republican in Hallsville, Texas.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		John, good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		First of all, let me clear one thing up.
		Anthony Blinken, it was reported that he sent a memo out to 50 people that that laptop was disinformation to use that.
		And then, lo and behold, he became Secretary of State.
		But that's for another day.
		When it comes to the indictment, this is simple.
		They got an indictment.
		And when they start shaking the sugar tree, when you put Andy McCabe on the stand and say, did he say this?
		Did he lie?
		And you start to show a pattern that he lied.
		And also, Comey went before a FISA court with that steel dossier, knowing it was not real and obtained a warrant so he could spy on Trump.
		That is a fact.
		I see you shaking your head, but that's a fact.
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		Because, John, if it was a fact, they would have indicted him for that.
		If it was a fact, John, that would be in the charging document.
		But it's not.
		Right, John?
		Like, you have, as much as you want to believe that, and I get you, John, it's not in the charging document.
		So, do you think, John, do you think, given how pissed Trump is about the steel dossier, do you think if they could have charged him over lying to a FISA court under oath, that's not false statements, John, that's perjury.
		Do you think that if they could have possibly charged them with perjury, they wouldn't have?
unidentified		No, let me go to the Constitution.
		You talk about the Justice Department being weaponized.
		Well, let me give you this: Donald J. Trump is president, CEO of the executive branch, and it falls within his realm.
		He can, if he wants to, get involved in every one of those cabinets.
		And there's nothing that the court can do about it.
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		Actually, the court can do something about it.
		It has allowed him to do this under a ridiculous theory called the unitary executive theory that we have not ever used before.
		The theory that everybody in the federal government, in the executive branch, serves at the pleasure of the president is simply not a thing that we've done before.
		And I'm not sure that's a road you want to go down, John, because again, at some point, the wheel is going to turn.
		At some point, the worm is going to turn.
		If you want a fire-breathing Democratic president with the ability to hire and fire every single person in the executive branch, you are just asking for a Democrat to one day come in and do exactly to the system what Trump has done to the system.
		And I don't think that's the kind of system that works out for the Johns and Hallsville, Texases of the world in the long term, right?
		So, like, again, the Supreme Court are the people who are allowing Trump to do this.
		They could just as easily be the people who stop Trump from doing this, but they've decided to go a different way in part because the Republican and handpicked by Trump to begin with.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Ted, Independent, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
		Hi, Ted.
		You're on the air with Ellie Mistahl.
unidentified		Yeah, good morning.
		And I think Ellie's hit it right in the nailhead.
		If you look at the article that Trump had wrote on X, it absolutely proves that the Justice Department is not for independence at all.
		It is for the pleasure of Donald Trump.
		And I would just say one other thing, too.
		What I cannot believe is that the Supreme Court, how they bought time so that they could not charge Donald Trump with treason over the election, how he tried to overthrow the election and brought forth all of these faked electors, the Sydney Pauls, the Cheese Burls, these people, he should be in prison.
		He is a dictator.
		He's a wannabe dictator.
		And hopefully this country will boot his fat ass.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Ted.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Any response, Ellie?
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, Ted.
		Look, I obviously think the Supreme Court made terrible decisions and has been complicit and feckless in the face of the authoritarian takeover by Donald Trump.
		I think the Supreme Court is one of the biggest problems, not one of the smallest problems that we have.
		And it's beyond buying him time.
		Again, they declared him immune.
		They gave him kingly powers, which had heretofore never been even articulated in this country.
		And if they hadn't, I do believe he would have been indicted for the election fraud.
		But here's the thing for, again, the people who think that, oh, both sides are the same here.
		If the Democrats were like Trump, Joe Biden would have been on the phone with Merrick Garland every single day about charging Donald Trump, right?
		Like Merrick Garland would not have gotten away with spending four years hiding under his desk, being too afraid to charge Trump and his kids with crime, right?
		We wouldn't have needed Jack Smith if the Democrats, if Joe Biden had acted like Trump and put this kind of pressure on the Justice Department.
		I don't think Biden called Merrick Garland more than to wish him happy birthday.
		I never saw Biden tweet at Merrick Garland.
		I never saw the president put pressure on Garland to prosecute Trump.
		And they had a case against Trump.
		So that right there, to me, is the most obvious difference between how Democrats and Biden went about this thing versus how Republicans and Trump is going about it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Tad, a Democrat in Burrellville, Rhode Island.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Tad.
unidentified		Good morning, folks.
		I want to thank you for taking my call.
		Mr. Mistal, I also am a fan of yours.
		And you were talking about rebuilding our institutions or reforming them coming down the line.
		Well, I agree wholeheartedly.
		And I read three books by Sebastian Hafner, who was born in Germany in 1907.
		Anyway, he was a lawyer.
		And the way they work it over there is if you want to become a judge, you have to take a civil service exam, which would be much better than having political appointees.
		And I'm going to leave it at that, sir.
		And thank you very much.
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		Thank you so much.
		Yeah, how we pick judges in this country is weird.
		First of all, at the state court level, which are the judges that most people actually interact with, right?
		If you're going to be in front of a judge, you are most likely going to be in front of a state court judge.
		A lot of those positions are elected.
		And people have no idea who they're electing.
		I'm an expert in the law.
		And very often on the day before the election, I find myself Googling, oh, who is this judge again?
		Like, I don't know.
		Like, these are, it's incredibly difficult to find good information about the elected judges that we're getting.
		And then obviously the political appointment process of judges has been, the appointment process of judges has been completely politicized For going on, you know, decades now, both at the state court level, where governors appoint state court judges sometimes, and certainly at the federal level, where the president appoints every Article III federal judge with the consent and approval of the Senate.
		I think that the, I think that the proof that this system was broken and needed to be, again, ripped up from root and stem and rebuilt was what Mitch McConnell did with Merrick Garland when Merrick Garland was appointed to the was nominated to the Supreme Court.
		Refusing to give that man a hearing.
		I mean, give him a hearing, vote up or down, do whatever you're going to do.
		But refusing to give him even a hearing proved that the system of judicial appointments is completely broken and again, can't be just restored.
		We don't want to go back to the point where Mitch McConnell can steal a Supreme Court seat.
		We want to build something newer, better, more durable, less feckless.
		And that has to be Project 2028, Project 2032 on the left to actually think about how to rebuild these institutions so that they can't be intruded and taken over by authoritarians in the future.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's David, a Republican, Hendersonville, North Carolina.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I watch C-SPAN a lot, and some of your guests are very good.
		I have absolutely no respect for this guy.
		He has no credibility.
		I would like to ask him a couple of pointed questions.
		What crimes did Mr. Trump, President Trump, commit, which he brought up several times this morning?
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		Falsifying business records, mishandling of national security documents, attempting to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and racketeering to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
		And that is just what he's been indicted for.
		And I looked that up on Google while you were talking.
unidentified		Yeah, Google was another very credible company.
		He did not try to overturn the 2020 election.
		He sued.
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my God.
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		He sued 63 times to overturn the 2020 election.
unidentified		Would you shut up and let me say?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hold on, hold on.
		David, go ahead.
		You continue with what you were going to say about the 2020 election.
unidentified		Let me finish.
		He did not try to overturn the 2020 election.
		Okay.
		Number two.
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		That's wrong.
		I'm not going to let you finish lying.
		He did, in fact, try to overturn the 2020 election.
unidentified		There were laws that he lost.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Ellie Mistal, let's let David finish.
		You said the 2020 election.
		What else was your point, David?
unidentified		Well, I want to know how he tried to overturn the 2020 election.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, let's get a response on that.
elie mystal ▲ ● ▼		The fake electors.
		All right, David.
		He tried to have a fake slate of electors stand in for the real slate of electors to overturn the results in states that he lost.
		He was sued for this.
		He was indicted for this.
		That is how he tried to overturn the election.
		I cannot help you further than that, David.
		I suggest you go read a book about the 2020 election where this information is also available.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, here's Barbara, Midwest City, Oklahoma Independent.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Barbara.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi, Ellie.
		Wow, I'm glad you're on.
		I'm so nervous because I'm so thankful to see you on here after all these lies this morning.
		We have three hours of lies on this station every day now.
		We just have the Trump lies.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Every five minutes they play Trump.
unidentified		I had no inflation.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I'm so sick of hearing that.
unidentified		He had 9.8 inflation.
		That's what he handed to Biden.
		He says, oh, and I fixed the, he says he fixed the border.
		That's what Biden did the first thing, and Trump tore it up.
		I mean, please go through some of these things.
		Please tell the people that this man is lying about things like you're doing.
		And God, I love you.

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