| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
History at Ohio State University will discuss the history of military culture and the significance of President Trump and Secretary Hagseth's speech to military leadership. | |
| And we'll continue the conversation surrounding the government shutdown, first with Oklahoma Republican Congressman Tom Cole, and then with Oregon Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Dexter. | ||
| We'll also talk about President Trump's plan to deploy National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon. | ||
| Washington Journal is next. | ||
| Join the conversation. | ||
| The simple truth is Democrats and Congress have dragged our country into another reckless shutdown to satisfy their far-left base. | ||
| Republicans are delighted to have shut down the government. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because they want to continue to hurt everyday Americans. | ||
| We're not going to engage in bipartisan discussions while Democrats are holding the federal government hostage to their partisan demands. | ||
| Donald Trump and Republicans have barreled us into a shutdown because they refuse to protect Americans' health care. | ||
| Good morning, everyone. | ||
| It's Thursday, October 2nd, day two of the federal government shutdown. | ||
| Washington Journal continues with our live coverage this morning of Washington. | ||
| The two sides do not appear close at all. | ||
| They are exchanging barbs and pointing fingers. | ||
| This morning, we want to get your thoughts on the federal government shutdown. | ||
| Here's how you join the conversation. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| Federal workers, we want to hear from you this morning. | ||
| 202-748-8003. | ||
| To all of you, if you don't want to call, you can text at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Include your first name, city, and state. | ||
| You can also join us on facebook.com/slash C-SPAN or on X with the handle at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| We'll get to your calls here in just a minute. | ||
| Let's go back to more from both sides. | ||
| We'll begin with JD Vance, the vice president, who made a rare appearance in the White House briefing room yesterday. | ||
| To the American people who are watching, the reason your government is shut down at this very minute is because, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of congressional Republicans and even a few moderate Democrats supported opening the government, the Chuck Schumer AOC wing of the Democratic Party shut down the government because they said to us, we will open the government, but only if you give billions of dollars of funding for health care for illegal aliens. | ||
| That's a ridiculous proposition. | ||
| Let me say two other quick things, and then again, I'll take some questions. | ||
| Number one, we all understand that Democrats and Republicans have policy disagreements. | ||
| Democrats want to do things. | ||
| Look, when Chuck Schumer and Akeem Jeffries were in here a couple of days ago, they made some suggestions that the president was more than happy to say, yes, let's sit down and talk about how we can solve the health care crisis that we inherited from the Biden administration. | ||
| But it's one thing to say that we should solve the health care crisis for Americans. | ||
| It's another thing to say that we're going to shut down the government unless we give the Democrats every single thing that they want, which as Caroline says, includes giving billions of dollars of taxpayer funding for health care for illegal migrants. | ||
| That's ridiculous. | ||
| You don't have policy disagreements that serve as the basis for a government shutdown. | ||
| Let's have the conversation about how to fix American health care, about how to make health care more accessible. | ||
| As the president showed, he's more than willing to act on behalf of the American people for this very reason. | ||
| What you don't do is say, unless you do exactly what we want to do as congressional Democrats, we're taking hostage. | ||
| And the hostage, it turns out, is critical, essential services that the American people need. | ||
| Caroline talked about some of it. | ||
| Let me talk about some more. | ||
| Our troops are not getting paid starting today because of the Chuck Schumer wing of the Democratic Party. | ||
| We have people who require food assistance, low-income Americans who require food assistance, who will not get it unless we reopen the government, thanks to Chuck Schumer and his wing of the Democratic Party. | ||
| We have flood insurance as we start hurricane season in the southeastern part of our country. | ||
| That flood insurance is going to disappear because of Chuck Schumer and the far left of the Democratic Party. | ||
| We need to reopen the government. | ||
| Let's fix America's problems. | ||
| Let's work together to solve them. | ||
| But let's reopen the government before we have our negotiation about health care policy. | ||
| That's what the American people demand, and that's certainly what the President of the United States wants. | ||
| The Vice President at the White House yesterday, now across Pennsylvania Avenue at the U.S. Capitol, both parties held dueling news conferences. | ||
| Here's the Democratic leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries. | ||
| At midnight, Donald Trump and Republicans shut the federal government down because they don't want to provide health care to working-class Americans. | ||
| Leader Schumer and myself met with President Trump and legislative leaders on Monday. | ||
| We had a conversation that was designed to avoid a painful government shutdown and address the Republican health care crisis. | ||
| Subsequent to that meeting, we heard nothing from any of the legislative leaders on the Republican side. | ||
| And the president has been engaging in irresponsible and unserious behavior, demonstrating that all along, Republicans wanted to shut the government down. | ||
| That's no surprise because for decades, Republicans have consistently shut the government down as part of their efforts to try to extract and jam their extreme right-wing agenda down the throats of the American people. | ||
| Democrats have repeatedly made clear we are ready to sit down with anyone at any time and at any place in order now to reopen the government, | ||
| to enact a spending agreement that meets the needs of the American people, and to address the devastating Republican health care crisis that has caused extraordinary harm on people all across the country in rural America, working class America, urban America, small-town America, the heartland of America, and black and brown communities throughout America. | ||
| The Republican health care crisis is devastating, the likes of which no one has ever seen. | ||
| You've heard from both sides on day two of the federal government shutdown. | ||
| We're going to go back to the Capitol. | ||
| Joining us this morning is Reese Gorman, political politics reporter with notice to give us the latest on day two. | ||
| Let's begin with what is actually happening where you are in the U.S. Capitol this morning. | ||
| What's on the agenda today? | ||
| Yeah, so Speaker Mike Johnson is going to hold a press conference at 10 a.m., something that he's doing to kind of message what they think that Republicans are in the right in the shutdown here and that they are trying to reopen the government. | ||
| As far as that, not much. | ||
| With the Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur going on right now, both chambers are not expected to be in session today. | ||
| Senate is expected to come back tomorrow, maybe Saturday, to take some more votes on the continuum resolution. | ||
| But the House will not be in session until Monday at the earliest next week to kind of start dealing with government funding. | ||
| And we'll see what they can do. | ||
| In their minds, they've already passed a funding bill, so it's up to the Senate, but they're still going to get in, get back here, and have some talks. | ||
| So this government shutdown lasts until at least tomorrow, Friday. | ||
| When the Senate comes back, explain for viewers who have not been paying attention here, what have they been voting on to try to fund the government and avoid the shutdown. | ||
| It has not worked so far, but what are they voting on? | ||
| Yeah, so every time since, they've been voting on two continual resolutions since their first week they left. | ||
| They vote on a Democratic-led resolution, which will fund the government for the same period of time, but has some add-ons. | ||
| It takes, it strips the Republican reconciliation bill that passed on July 4th of its Medicaid cuts that are in the bill, and then it also extends the current Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies that were brought to light under COVID. | ||
| That's when they happened here, and now they expire at the end of the year. | ||
| And so that bill has continuously failed with only Democratic support in the Senate. | ||
| And then also they've been voting after that bill fails, they immediately go back up for another vote on the GOP-led CR that the House passed earlier in September prior to all this happening. | ||
| And that has continuously failed as well. | ||
| They voted twice or three times, I think, on that too. | ||
| The first time it passed with only one Democrat or two Democrats voting for it. | ||
| This time it now has three Democrats voting for it, the past two times. | ||
| And so it's been failing 45 to 55 because in the Senate you need to meet a 60 vote threshold for the bill to advance. | ||
| And so right now they're trying to find at least five more Democrats to come onto the continual resolution with them to vote for it. | ||
| That does not seem to be happening. | ||
| Talks in 90s seem to be going in a positive direction. | ||
| And they've been throwing out some ideas. | ||
| Mike Johnson has kind of swatted some of those ideas down because the House would then have to pass it if they changed the CR at all. | ||
| But right now there doesn't seem to be really any positive talks moving forward to continue funding the government. | ||
| And they need eight Democrats because Senator Ram Paul, Republican, is not voting for any continuing resolution. | ||
| Rhys Gorman, we're showing on our screen this morning a huddle that happened on the Senate floor yesterday. | ||
| It's a bipartisan group of senators all talking while they were holding votes. | ||
| Is this a sign that there could be compromise? | ||
| Well, us as reporters definitely read into that, but afterwards we kind of, some of my colleagues, we talked to the senators that were in that huddle. | ||
| Not seemed to be much positive movement moving forward. | ||
| There were preliminary talks about possibly maybe doing a shorter term CR by a couple days to give some more leeway to kind of negotiate the Affordable Care Act subsidies, which is something the Democrats are really kind of hounding on here. | ||
| But it didn't seem that anything productive came with this conversation, nothing fruitful. | ||
| There's nothing that kind of shows us that there is a deal in the works other than just some people having talks. | ||
| So right now I think that is way too early to tell that there is really anything going on positive that could fund the government, especially coming from those talks that we saw on the Senate floor yesterday. | ||
| Who is Russell Vogt? | ||
| And what have we heard from him as we enter day two of this government shutdown? | ||
| So he's the White House Office of Management and Budget Director, which basically he runs the budget for the federal government, for the executive branch, basically. | ||
| So all the agencies, all of that, that's his purview. | ||
| He has been making this shutdown as painful as possible for Democrats, which both Trump, Russell Vogue, and Republicans say that this is on the Democrats. | ||
| They're like, they believe that they are the ones that shut the government down. | ||
| So now they're going to cut programs. | ||
| They've cut multiple green kind of energy projects, about $8 billion worth from Democratic-led states. | ||
| They cut about $18 billion in infrastructure projects in New York, which is where both Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries are from. | ||
| So they've done that. | ||
| And then Vogt also held a call with House Republicans yesterday, which sources tell me was basically laid out his plan to lay off federal workers. | ||
| Said in about one to two days, they'll start doing reduction of force or risks to basically layoffs at these agencies. | ||
| He laid out how the WIC program, which is the Women, Infant, and Children Food Program, is almost out of money because of this shutdown and how there's nothing that the executive branch can do about it without new funding, without extending funding. | ||
| And so he laid out just kind of where things stand right now. | ||
| But he is planning on starting to lay off a significant number of federal workers because of this, something that they had promised before the shutdown ever happened. | ||
| It was something they warned was going to happen if the government were to shut down. | ||
| And he's also starting to cut some of these federal kind of grant federal monies that are going out. | ||
| And that's something that even Mike Johnson, I talked to him and he was like, hey, you got to make decisions during a shutdown. | ||
| And it makes sense that President Trump would want to cut programs that are not in line with his values, with his agenda. | ||
| So Republicans are fully on board with what is happening right now. | ||
| Some might be a little skeptical, being like, maybe this isn't the best look, but for the most part, they're like, well, like, this is what you said was going to happen. | ||
| And people did not heed his warning. | ||
| And now it's happening during a shutdown. | ||
| Reese Gorman with a notice and an update for us on day two of the government shutdown. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Let's go to calls. | ||
| Dave in Long Island Independent. | ||
| Dave, what do you say about this federal government shutdown? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| My comment is based on the first government shutdown during the first Trump administration. | ||
| Now, to remind everybody, Senator Schumer was responsible for that. | ||
| He made an unrealistic demand of amnesty. | ||
| He shut down the government. | ||
| It didn't last long, just a few days. | ||
| It was really insignificant. | ||
| And then he reopened the government in return for an extensive debate on the subject, which was later rejected on a bipartisan effort. | ||
| So, Senator Schumer, so Senator Schumer knows what's an unrealistic demand because he's been there, he's done that, and everybody could verify this for himself. | ||
| So, Dave, are you talking about the three-day shutdown in 2018 during President Trump's Yes, I am? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It was very short. | |
| It was over the weekend. | ||
| It was insignificant. | ||
| But my point is, it was later rejected on a bipartisan basis when they had the extensive debate. | ||
| So, my point is, Senator Schumer knows, or he should know at this time, he's very experienced, what's realistic and what's unrealistic. | ||
| So, Senator Schumer, with his experience, has to understand that this is probably going to cause a shutdown. | ||
| He's asking for a big bite, and there's no urgency on this. | ||
| So, I would say any negativity that results of this is solely on Senator Schumer because he has to know this. | ||
| He knows this. | ||
| He's shut the government down before, and he knows when he's being unrealistic. | ||
| All right, Dave. | ||
| So, let's do a little history here. | ||
| This is history.house.gov with the source. | ||
| And both sides have shut the government down. | ||
| In 1990, it was shut down for three days under President Bush. | ||
| President Clinton had a couple of shutdowns. | ||
| President Obama, 16 days during his second term, and then two shutdowns during President Trump's first term. | ||
| Three days in 2018, Dave was just speaking about that. | ||
| And 35 days, the longest in 2018, and it seeped over into 2019 as well. | ||
| And you recall President Trump was demanding that the funding for the wall be included in that shutdown. | ||
| So policy changes have been demanded by both sides in order to keep the government up and running. | ||
| Patricia in Minneapolis, Republican, Patricia, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I noticed what you did there, C-SPAN, and I have a few points, so please let me speak. | ||
| When you were showing the video of Gaby Vance, it was very much sped up and his lips were not in sync with the audio. | ||
| Patricia, Patricia, we didn't speed up the video. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, because I watched it live and it wasn't that fast. | |
| All right, here's my second thing. | ||
| It's the Schumer shutdown, and I love it. | ||
| I love we're going to get rid of a bunch of unnecessary federal workers that's going to save us billions and it will probably help the agencies run more efficiently. | ||
| I love it. | ||
| And the other thing, Schumer is doing this because he's afraid AOC is going to primary him for his position as senator. | ||
| So he's playing both things. | ||
| Very, very selfish of him to put America through this just because he wants to appease AOC, who's the Democrat shining star, if you can believe that. | ||
| But yeah, love it. | ||
| Love it. | ||
| And you're all prepared. | ||
| It's going to be a nightmare for the Democrats, and they're all set to do a lot of things they played right into their hands. | ||
| Love it. | ||
| Thank you, President Trump. | ||
| Best president I have ever had in my lifetime, and I'm in my senate. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Patricia, Republican in Minneapolis, calling this the Schumer shutdown, and she says she loves it. | ||
| This is what Democrats say they would like in the shutdown. | ||
| They have two key requests that they are making for this shutdown. | ||
| What they are saying is they want an extension of pandemic era expansions of Obamacare premium subsidies and then spending guardrails to prevent the Trump administration from ignoring congressional spending directives. | ||
| Now, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in this Senate, was on the floor yesterday. | ||
| This is what he had to say. | ||
| Donald Trump and Republicans have barreled us into a shutdown because they refuse to protect Americans' health care. | ||
| It's clear that the way out of this shutdown is to sit down and negotiate with Democrats to address the looming health care crisis that faces tens of millions of American families. | ||
| Democrats want to avert this crisis, but Republicans tried to bully us, and it's clear they can't. | ||
| They don't have the votes. | ||
| The way out of this is for Republicans to finally roll up their sleeves and get to work. | ||
| Republicans need to get serious and start actually addressing the looming crisis and reopen the government. | ||
| Now, why has all of this happened? | ||
| Why are we here on October 1st? | ||
| Because Republicans have tried to stick us with a partisan CR that fails to protect Americans' health care and does nothing, nothing, to fix the health care mess that they created. | ||
| It has now failed twice to get enough votes in this chamber. | ||
| So Republicans need to negotiate with us. | ||
| And Speaker Johnson's got to get his people here. | ||
| If anyone wanted evidence as to who wanted this shutdown, just look at the fact that Johnson does not even have the House in session. | ||
| When Democrats had the White House, the Senate, and the House, when Democrats had the majority in this chamber, when I was majority leader, we never had one shutdown in four years, not one. | ||
| You know why? | ||
| Because we worked with our Republican colleagues to find a way to keep the government funded. | ||
| Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, on the floor yesterday. | ||
| Healthcare is at the center of this debate for Democrats. | ||
| The Washington Post notes this this morning. | ||
| With the expiration of enhanced tax credits, the Affordable Care Act Marketplace consumers' out-of-pocket premiums will increase more than 75% on average. | ||
| This is according to an analysis by health policy group KFF. | ||
| Separately, KFF found that ensures median proposed premium increase for 2026 to be about 18%, more than double last year's median proposed increase of 7%. | ||
| Now, when it comes to Medicaid, Republicans are saying that Democrats are trying to include undocumented immigrants, that that is at the center of their argument here, and they're trying to give them health care access. | ||
| What they're referring to is emergency Medicaid spending. | ||
| So, when an undocumented immigrant goes to an emergency room from the Washington Post, according to KFF, emergency Medicaid spending represented less than 1% of overall Medicaid spending between fiscal years 2017 and 2023. | ||
| As KFF experts explain in analysis, without emergency Medicaid, hospitals or state governments would be left with the costs of emergency care. | ||
| Barney in Florida, Democrat, what do you say to Washington on this second day of a government shutdown? | ||
| Barney in Florida, Democratic caller, your turn. | ||
| You got to listen and talk through your phone. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Are you ready? | |
| All right, moving on. | ||
| Francis, California, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, there. | |
| So I moved from Texas to California around 20 years ago, 2005, I believe. | ||
| And what I feel about shutdown is I've been very disappointed in a lot of things for a very long time. | ||
| And I feel like I feel like Massachusetts, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Eddie. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Yes, the congressmen, they're lawyers, see? | ||
| And lawyers, when their lips are moving, you know what happens. | ||
| They say they don't negotiate. | ||
| What do you think Congressman do last week, last month, last year? | ||
| They're there in Congress to negotiate. | ||
| So to say that they won't renegotiate, they're just waiting for the last minute and then they go on strike. | ||
| That's the problem. | ||
| They don't listen to Secretary Powers who said $2 trillion is unsustainable. | ||
| We cannot add to the budget as some congressmen want to do. | ||
| A trillion, a trillion and a half more. | ||
| While one party says, listen, we have to get rid of the waste and abuse. | ||
| We have to cut government. | ||
| The worst thing I've ever heard in the last month was Massachusetts. | ||
| 40 to 45% of the Massachusetts people vote for Republican, and yet we do not have one Republican in the Senate or the House. | ||
| That's what cold gerrymandering. | ||
| That's the problem. | ||
| Congress is corrupt. | ||
| Eddie's thoughts there. | ||
| Massachusetts, a Republican. | ||
| Gabriel's an independent in San Francisco. | ||
| Your turn. | ||
| Good morning, Gabriel. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| The elected officials, they need to do their job. | ||
| This is divided government. | ||
| You know, there's no supermajority. | ||
| There's two parties. | ||
| One has a slim majority, and they can't get a bill passed unless they get a minority support. | ||
| That's what's called 60 votes in the Senate. | ||
| So it's natural. | ||
| They have to negotiate. | ||
| That's just the nature of the game. | ||
| You can't dictate, oh, we get to decide everything and you just have to roll over. | ||
| So blaming it on one party is silly. | ||
| They have to work together and find a compromise. | ||
| It's common sense. | ||
| So anyone who suggests that Democrats are responsible for this shutdown is ludicrous because they have a right to negotiate if you want their vote. | ||
| And Republicans have a right to say, hey, we're the majority party, so we get to set the agenda, but they have to find a compromise. | ||
| It's just common sense. | ||
| I can't understand this blame game. | ||
| They just need to do their jobs. | ||
| That's bottom line. | ||
| Well, Gabriel, Republicans see a crack in the Democratic unity when they were able to score three, two Democrats, one independent, who voted with them. | ||
| John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, Senator Catherine Cortez, Masto, Democrat of Nevada, and then Angus King, who's an independent, but he caucuses with the Democrats. | ||
| They were able to get those three to vote with them, so they think they're headed in the right direction and that they don't need to compromise with Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry, but I just, I believe the American people want results. | |
| They don't want partisan bickering. | ||
| They want a compromise. | ||
| They don't think it's okay for one party to think just because they have a few seat majority that they can act like a dictator. | ||
| They have to work together. | ||
| That's what our system is based on. | ||
| It's based on compromise. | ||
| So I just think they just have to be big boys and girls and roll up their sleeves and find a compromise. | ||
| That's just common sense to me. | ||
| All right. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Let's listen to Angus King, the Independent. | ||
| He put out a video on Tuesday after he voted with Republicans explaining his vote. | ||
| I just came from the Senate floor where I took one of the most difficult votes I've taken since I've been in the Senate. | ||
| I voted to keep the government open for a continuing resolution. | ||
| The irony of this vote is many feel that this was an opportunity to stand up to Donald Trump, to vote no and to fight back. | ||
| The irony, the paradox is by shutting the government, we're actually giving Donald Trump more power. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that was why I voted yes. | |
| I did not want to hand Donald Trump and Russell Vogt and Stephen Miller additional power to decimate the federal government, to decimate the programs that are so important to so many people. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Here is what Donald Trump said just this afternoon. | |
| We can do things during a shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them, he means the Democrats, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like. | ||
| We can do things medically in other ways, including benefits. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We can cut numbers of people out. | |
| Maya Angelou once said, if someone tells you who they are, you should believe them. | ||
| Donald Trump, in this quote, tells us what he plans to do if there's a shutdown, and it will not be good for the American people. | ||
| This was a difficult vote, but in the end, I could not, in good conscience, vote to shut the government down and hand even greater power to the trio of Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, and Russell Vogt. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This was a vote of conscience on behalf of the state of Maine and the people of the United States. | |
| Angus King, independent from Maine, explaining why he voted to keep the government open before it shut down, warning what he thought President Trump and his administration would do once the government shuts down. | ||
| We're in day two of the shutdown, and Russell Vogt, the budget director, sending out these posts on X last night, or yesterday, excuse me. | ||
| Roughly $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects have been put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles. | ||
| More info to come soon, he said on that. | ||
| And then he also said in the afternoon, nearly $8 billion in green news scam funding to fuel the left's climate agenda is being canceled. | ||
| More info to come. | ||
| The projects are in the following states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington State. | ||
| Let's go to Jim, who's in Winter Park, Florida, a Republican. | ||
| Hi, Jim. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Greta. | |
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, I just want to say, you read an article a couple of minutes ago about that Medicaid does not get used for illegal aliens. | |
| And then, at the very end, it said that they did their study, and less up to around 2% of the money was used because the medical people, people that went to the hospitals in the emergency rooms, didn't have insurance. | ||
| They weren't American citizens. | ||
| So the government pays them through Medicaid to help these people. | ||
| 2% of $1 trillion is $200 million. | ||
| Okay, just some clarification, Jim, and then I'll come back to you, Jim. | ||
| One second. | ||
| So less than 1% is what the Washington Post reports. | ||
| And what Washington Post and other news outlets are saying is that they're not on traditional Medicaid, but they do use this emergency Medicaid program in our nation's emergency rooms. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You are using the same words that Democrats use. | |
| We're not spending the money on them. | ||
| All right, less than 1%, $900,000. | ||
| That is American money being spent on illegal aliens. | ||
| Point closed. | ||
| They're spending money on illegal aliens that should not be here in the country, that should not be getting any benefits. | ||
| If they're getting benefits as Medicaid money, they're getting benefits for other things too. | ||
| And nobody is telling the truth. | ||
| Now, I don't believe that the Republicans are telling all the truth. | ||
| I don't believe the Democrats are telling all the truth. | ||
| But we've got to stop candy coding the stuff that people are getting so that it makes it look like the Republicans are being the bad guys. | ||
| You know, about two weeks ago. | ||
| Yeah, Jim, the point is there's nuances to both sides of their arguments, right? | ||
| I mean, Democrats are saying this is going to, the ACA subsidy is going to affect trillions of, or excuse me, it's trillions of dollars. | ||
| It's going to affect people who are on ACA. | ||
| That's their negotiating pitch, right? | ||
| They want Republicans to work with them on that. | ||
| And Republicans are saying, and on Medicaid cuts that were put in the one big beautiful bill. | ||
| And Republicans are saying, well, they want to give some of that money to undocumented immigrants, so we're not going to negotiate. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, illegal aliens, not undocumented, undocumented immigrants. | |
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're illegal. | |
| They came across the border without going through the ports of entry. | ||
| They crossed the border illegally, illegally, not undocumented. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| This is the debate that's been going on for 40 years. | ||
| And I'm going to say one other thing. | ||
| Pedro had Congressman Pallone on from New Jersey a couple of weeks ago. | ||
| And the first two questions that he was asked was the health care problems and immigration. | ||
| And both answers, all he said was they're both broken. | ||
| Well, let me tell you, he's been in Congress for 27 years. | ||
| And what is his job? | ||
| To fix immigration, to fix health care. | ||
| What has he done? | ||
| Nothing. | ||
| They don't do anything. | ||
| The government being shut down is great because these jerks are just jerking everybody off. | ||
| That's all they're doing. | ||
| All right, Jim, his thoughts on Winter Park, Florida. | ||
| Some news to share with you this morning on the government shutdown. | ||
| The Hill newspapers reporting lawmakers expect the shutdown to drag on for at least a week. | ||
| From the Hills reporting, the Senate rejected votes to reopen the government on Wednesday, and the chamber will be out of session on Thursday in observance of Yom Kippur. | ||
| The Senate will return Friday, but few expect the vote that day on the House GOP measure to fund the government to have a different result. | ||
| Two Democratic senators and Independent Senator Angus King voted for the measure for a second time on Wednesday, but Republicans would need another five Democrats to reach 60 votes, the threshold needed to send the measure to President Trump. | ||
| Democrats say votes won't be there because Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has made it clear he won't support it. | ||
| And he would face a huge political backlash if he flip-flopped. | ||
| Both sides digging in their heels. | ||
| Brenda in Indiana, Democratic caller. | ||
| Brenda, what do you say? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning, Greta. | |
| Morning. | ||
| Excuse me. | ||
| I'm very glad that you cleared the record on the government shutdown. | ||
| Donald Trump did have the longest shutdown of 35 days, and you were correct as to the reason. | ||
| Donald Trump wanted more money than Congress would allow to build the wall that Mexico was going to pay for. | ||
| So Mexico was supposed to pay for the wall, and Congress wouldn't give Donald Trump all the money he wanted to pay for the wall. | ||
| Second, on Medicaid, I was just listening to the previous caller talking. | ||
| He said $900 million spent on Medicaid for undocumented illegal immigrants. | ||
| Think about this for a minute. | ||
| All the undocumented illegal immigrants, $900 million spent on emergency care. | ||
| Do you think over the course of time that these illegal immigrants are in our country, do you think they pay $900 million in sales tax? | ||
| Sales tax on clothing, on food, things they buy at Walmart, household furnishings. | ||
| Do you think the amount of sales tax that they pay just to live in the United States exceeds that $900 million? | ||
| I'm going to say yeah. | ||
| Okay, Brenda, let me ask you this. | ||
| React to the Washington Post editorial. | ||
| Democrats marched into a shutdown trap. | ||
| The editorial board argues. | ||
| The public has proved to be unsupportive of lawmakers who create unnecessary crises to extract political concessions. | ||
| Democrats who quietly favor shutdown dismiss this as trite conventional wisdom. | ||
| Republicans haven't been afraid of hardball politics, and they have seemingly suffered no meaningful consequences for it. | ||
| So why not play their own game, especially when Democratic voters are eager to see elected officials stand up to Trump? | ||
| The answer is simple. | ||
| The Freedom Caucus' tactics have failed to achieve Republicans' goals every time. | ||
| There is no reason to think this shutdown will end any differently for its left-wing counterpart. | ||
| The most likely outcome is that Democrats will come to regret having walked into a trap. | ||
| Brenda? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't really agree with that. | |
| I'm siding with the Democrats on this because I don't think, excuse me, Gary, I have a little froggy throat here. | ||
| Yes, I don't think the Democrats believe they can trust anything that the Republicans say. | ||
| The Republicans have gone back on so many things they have agreed to, it's almost like it's a no-win situation. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And so getting back to, I want to talk about Trump's big, beautiful bill. | ||
| You know, this big, beautiful bill was going to be the end-all be-all to our financial woes. | ||
| It was going to cover everything. | ||
| That's why they wanted everything in one bill. | ||
| It was going to cover everything. | ||
| So they knew that this deadline was coming up. | ||
| So since this big, beautiful bill was going to cover everything, why wasn't this period of time included? | ||
| We wouldn't be here if Donald Trump's big, beautiful bill covered everything that they claimed it was. | ||
| Okay, Brenda, I got to let some other callers in. | ||
| Diane in Philadelphia, Independent. | ||
| What do you say, Diane? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Greta. | |
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think the Republicans are at fault for what is going on. | |
| I listened to them speaking yesterday, and nothing in what they had to say indicated they were going to compromise. | ||
| And they're really blaming it on the Democrats. | ||
| And there's no room for compromise in what they're saying. | ||
| Also, I really do think that we ought to be paying for medical care for illegal immigrants. | ||
| I don't want to sit on a bus next to somebody who might have tuberculosis that they brought from another country. | ||
| So there you go. | ||
| Okay, Diane in Philadelphia. | ||
| Susan Milford, Pennsylvania, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Susan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, hi. | |
| What I have to say to President Trump is that you're a bully. | ||
| You're unfair to people. | ||
| You're cruel. | ||
| And I don't like what you're doing. | ||
| As far as the Democrats with this protest, what's going on, I do believe that health care is out of priced. | ||
| That my son was on the Pennsylvania program. | ||
| If it's going to go up at ridiculous price, it's not fair. | ||
| He needed it when he heard it had an accident, and that's some sort of accident that, you know, catches you by surprise. | ||
| If he had to pay it himself, it's like over $10,000 just to go to the ER. | ||
| As far as Schumer, I like Schumer. | ||
| I'm glad that he's there leading. | ||
| And I was upset that Fetterman didn't go along with him. | ||
| Same time, last time the two of them decided not to get in Trump's way. | ||
| But I think Trump is going to get away to do whatever he wants to do, fire people, whatever people he wants to fire. | ||
| He has to be stopped some way or other. | ||
| And Democrats, you know, the Republicans don't want to even negotiate the health care. | ||
| That was the problem. | ||
| From this whole time since June or July, the Republicans figure they don't even have to negotiate the health care, and it's not right. | ||
| So I'm glad they stopped the government for now. | ||
| Unfortunately, I do believe Trump and his allies would fire everybody anyway that they don't want. | ||
| What about the concern over federal workers here? | ||
| Because here's a headline from Axio: 750,000 federal workers risk furloughs in government shutdowns. | ||
| So do you think it's worth this battle over health care? | ||
| Is it worth the federal workers not getting paid while they are furloughed, while the government is shut down? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I do, because I don't believe anything that Trump says. | |
| He will get whatever he wants. | ||
| He wants to change the government to Project 2025, and he would not do what he says. | ||
| I don't think he's reliable in what he says, and the people that follow him would follow him whatever he says. | ||
| Okay, Susan. | ||
| Melanie Zanona reports on Capitol Hill yesterday sending out this. | ||
| Trump's budget director, that is Russell Vogt, told ours this afternoon that reductions in force, that's the federal workforce, will happen in the next one to two days. | ||
| Vogt issued a memo last week threatening mass layoffs in the event of a shutdown. | ||
| That's what he did not outline specifics on that call to Republicans yesterday. | ||
| We're in day two of the federal government shutdown. | ||
| Live coverage here on C-SPAN and a conversation, of course, with all of you on the Washington Journal. | ||
| Dennis, Denise in Freedom, New York, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just want to repeat that this is just a continuing resolution. | ||
| The Republicans didn't add anything into it. | ||
| The Democrats, I think, are going to regret not just going forward with it. | ||
| I live in the country. | ||
| I have a beautiful 10 acres, and they are clearing land all around to build these windmills. | ||
| So if Trump is able to stop funding for that, I am all for it. | ||
| Let him continue to cut. | ||
| Let Doge kick in. | ||
| Democrats are going to regret this. | ||
| I love President Trump. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| All right, Denise. | ||
| Talking about the continuing resolution put forth by the House, and it is a so-called clean, continuing resolution. | ||
| It doesn't have any policy riders on it. | ||
| It would keep the government open until later in November so that negotiations could continue over federal government spending. | ||
| Let's listen to the Speaker of the House. | ||
| He too held a news conference yesterday along with his Republican colleagues. | ||
| Here's what he had to say. | ||
| As we speak here this morning, there are hundreds of thousands of federal workers who are getting their furlough notices. | ||
| Nearly half of our civilian workforce is being sent home. | ||
| These are hardworking Americans who work for our federal government. | ||
| Our troops and our border patrol agents will have to go to work, but they'll be working without pay. | ||
| Food assistance, veterans benefits, and vital support for women and children are all coming to a halt. | ||
| Now, thankfully, President Trump is trying to mitigate the damage as much as possible. | ||
| His administration is working to limit the harm to the American people. | ||
| But the longer this goes on, the more pain will be inflicted because it is inevitable when the government shuts down. | ||
| The sad thing about it is that every single bit of this was entirely avoidable. | ||
| Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, yesterday in the Capitol, and we heard from Reese Gorman earlier that the speaker will hold another news conference today around 10 a.m. Eastern Time on day two of the government shutdown. | ||
| We anticipate that Democrats will do the same. | ||
| And like yesterday, you'll see dueling news conferences on Capitol Hill as both sides continue to point fingers at each other. | ||
| During this government shutdown, as you heard from the speaker, federal governments, federal workers are not at their jobs. | ||
| And so yesterday, that includes the U.S. Capitol and staff. | ||
| So yesterday, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted this video of her doing a job that's typically left to staff. | ||
| So the government is shut down, which means that Capitol tours are closed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But we had a bus of kids from the Bronx and schools that came all the way down here for a tour. | |
| Obviously, no one knew the government was shut down, so I'm giving them a tour. | ||
| Say hi, everybody. | ||
| It is day two of the government shutdown here in the Washington Journal, getting your thoughts and your message to the lawmakers and the president. | ||
| What do you think should happen next? | ||
| Alex in Brooklyn, Democratic Caller. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Just give me a little bit of time, please. | ||
| I just want to explain my reasoning and concerning this. | ||
| You know, you just had Mike Johnson on concerning what Trump feels about this shutdown. | ||
| This is a man that can't even recognize that Trump's post on his Truth Social, putting Hakeem Jeffries with a sombrero and a mustache and basically insulting Schumer and the Democratic Party. | ||
| He can't even acknowledge that that shouldn't even be something the president should do. | ||
| And this is what he feels is the appropriate response after a meeting that they had. | ||
| This is the same president that basically two days ago, in front of an unprecedented situation where we had all these generals said that we are going to use democratic cities as training grounds for military operations for people that he doesn't like. | ||
| You have a whole people on the right side of this country that can't even acknowledge that this past weekend, we had people that were radicalized on the right killing people that are Mormons, killing people that they do not like. | ||
| This guy in North Carolina out of a boat. | ||
| None of this matters. | ||
| And so you have a whole political system on the right that has basically taken control of this government and this country. | ||
| They are impounding funds. | ||
| It doesn't matter what Democrats say. | ||
| So what I think should happen, and in my opinion, the system is completely broken. | ||
| Democrats should completely extract themselves from this process completely. | ||
| Let Republicans do whatever it is that they're going to do the way that Trump told Republicans to not do anything and let the voters decide. | ||
| And even though they're gerrymandering, even though they're doing all of this, let them fire everybody they're going to fire anyways in the federal government. | ||
| I'm a small business owner. | ||
| I'm dealing with all of this nonsense and I'm dealing with the repercussions on my end economically. | ||
| People are dealing with higher prices at the groceries everywhere across the country. | ||
| Extract yourselves from this process. | ||
| Let these Republicans do what they're going to do. | ||
| And next year, let's vote and let's see who is going to vote for who. | ||
| Because I do not think that there is any longer any way of being able to talk this out, see a way out of it. | ||
| Republicans are going to lie and say what they are going to say. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Alex's point there in Brooklyn. | ||
| Alex started out talking about an image that the White House put out after congressional leaders, Democratic leader Hakeem Jefferies and Chuck Schumer came to the White House for an Oval Office meeting with the president and the vice president and Republican leaders. | ||
| There's the image of Chuck Schumer at the microphones talking to reporters with his colleague Hakeem Jefferies in a mustache and sombrero. | ||
| That's what they put out yesterday on evening. | ||
| And JD Vance, they put out the image before JD Vance yesterday was asked about it in that White House briefing where he made a rare appearance and he said it was funny. | ||
| The Republicans and Democrats changing exchanging barbs over who's to blame for this government shutdown. | ||
| Chuck Schumer put out this on X last night saying that with a headline from People magazine, the White House will continue construction on a 90,000 square foot ballroom during the government shutdown. | ||
| So the Democratic leader says yes to ballrooms, no to healthcare for Americans. | ||
| Got it. | ||
| We'll go to Roy, who's in Cameron, Texas, a Republican. | ||
| Hi, Roy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Greta. | |
| How are you doing this morning? | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What I'd like to ask is: you've shown some videos of Schumer giving his spill and this, that, and the other. | |
| Is it possible that y'all could show the video of Senator Kennedy addressing the Senate? | ||
| He has such a great way of putting things down in a more understandable manner without all the political mumbo jumbo. | ||
| And he explains it very well what's going on. | ||
| I watched that video clip yesterday and I thought it was exceptional. | ||
| Secondly, something to think about because you brought up her name. | ||
| AOC, $40,000 in debt before she went to Congress, got to Congress on $170,000 a year. | ||
| Salary is now a millionaire. | ||
| How does that happen? | ||
| Do the math. | ||
| It doesn't apply. | ||
| Y'all have a great day. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Anthony, South River, New Jersey, Independent. | ||
| Anthony, we're talking about day two of the federal government shutdown. | ||
| What's your message to Washington? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, Greta, thanks for coming in. | |
| Thanks for C-SPAN. | ||
| All right, here we go again. | ||
| Let's not forget to bring up that the Congress has the lowest ratings out of any branch of government, as usual, and this is why. | ||
| I agree with the lady from Pennsylvania that the costs are skyrocketing in health care. | ||
| And we don't really hear anything about that they're really going to double the usual amount that they raise the price every year on the health care. | ||
| We haven't really heard about that. | ||
| And, you know, the talking points that we hear over and over, that gentleman Jim from Florida, he said that, you know, we kind of have these talking points, and it really does brainwash the population, the Americans, into thinking these talking points. | ||
| So I'm going to give you a couple talking points, just two, and I'm going to make it quick. | ||
| So we're talking about all of these people that you hear, they're going to eliminate the ACA subsidies. | ||
| Well, that's not really true. | ||
| They're going to eliminate the enhanced ACA subsidies that were passed in COVID. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| So that's really it. | ||
| So the healthcare, the insurance companies are making out big time. | ||
| We don't hear a word about that. | ||
| And I really object to them saying that we're going to eliminate ACA subsidies or not. | ||
| They're going to eliminate the enhanced HCA subsidies. | ||
| So that's part of it, too. | ||
| Another talking point that I really object to that I've been hearing, I heard one caller call in a couple weeks ago on C-SPAN, and he said January 6th, three people got murdered. | ||
| I said, oh, yeah, this is another talking point that's really been, nobody got murdered. | ||
| Somebody got murdered on a day. | ||
| Somebody would be charged for murder by Jack Smith. | ||
| Believe me, that would happen. | ||
| But then, two hours later, I heard Governor Pritzker say, three people got murdered. | ||
| And then I heard it a couple more times. | ||
| So, again, we're getting these talking points in, and people digest that. | ||
| And let's face it, the legacy media, it's not really journalism, it's opinion, and the vast majority, and it's on both sides with the talking points. | ||
| The vast majority of the legacy media are Democrats. | ||
| And you know what? | ||
| People realize that in the last presidential election. | ||
| Anthony, people need to dig into the arguments from both sides and look into the specifics of what they are saying. | ||
| I'm going to go to USA Today, where they note that in two national surveys released September 30th, Americans were more likely to blame Republicans than Democrats for a government shutdown, though results were mixed as to who would be considered most at fault. | ||
| In a separate poll released the same day, Americans had a gloomy view of much of government with more negative than positive takes on President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle. | ||
| That's from USA Today, as both sides here on the second day of the federal government shutdown continue to point fingers at each other and play the blame game. | ||
| Gene in New York, Democratic caller. | ||
| Gene, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, Gerda. | |
| I have a quick question. | ||
| Can the Republicans change the rule of the Senate to pass the budget if they want to? | ||
| Can they change the rules of the Senate to pass? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, where do they need the Democrat to reduce it to 50 if they want to pass it? | |
| Why don't they do that? | ||
| Well, the Democrats aren't in charge, so Republicans, and to reduce that, I'm not sure what they would have to do. | ||
| But, you know, the newspapers note this morning, try to find the article from the Washington Times, that on budget legislation, you need 60 votes. | ||
| That's the way the Senate is set up. | ||
| And Republicans, you know, have 53. | ||
| So they would need seven Democrats to join them to get over the 60-vote threshold. | ||
| But now for this continuing resolution, they need eight because Senator Ram Paul, Republican, is not going to vote for any continuation, continuing resolution to extend the federal government. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I see. | |
| Another thing I want to say, you know what puzzles me? | ||
| And I don't know if people who are listening, we can talk about it one day. | ||
| How the Republicans are giving Trump so much power? | ||
| What will they do to stop the same power to transfer to a Democrat president? | ||
| This is what puzzles me. | ||
| I want to see how this whole movie will end. | ||
| How can you give a Republican president so much power? | ||
| However, the same power does not transfer to the next Democrat president. | ||
| This is very interesting. | ||
| This is what I'm waiting to see how this whole movie will end. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All right, Henrietta, Fort Pierce, Florida, Republican, welcome to the conversation. | ||
| It's your turn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, hi. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I'm just, you know, it seems that what the Democrats are talking about and their talking points, like the young man, two previous callers said, Democrats are just spewing cuta. | ||
| It's unbelievable. | ||
| I think that the president should crush the Democrats. | ||
| He has all this power now. | ||
| Like Angus said, he didn't want to give Trump power, and he did. | ||
| Now, Trump should wield that power. | ||
| Take 30 programs and tell the Democrats every single day the government is shut down. | ||
| I will eliminate a program. | ||
| I'm not going to tell you which ones, but I will eliminate it. | ||
| So let's play Russian roulette. | ||
| It's unbelievable. | ||
| These Democrats are just not helpful. | ||
| They do what they think is good to their crazy base. | ||
| I believe Trump should show them how power is wielded and crush them because the Democrats do know how to use power. | ||
| They have used it before. | ||
| All right, Henrietta. | ||
| The opinion pages of the Washington Post this morning, this headline, who will win this shutdown? | ||
| Neither side will like the answer. | ||
| The largest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, the 35-day stretch from December 2018 until January 2019, occurred after the 2018 midterm elections. | ||
| Sure, Trump lost the 2020 election, but a whole lot happened between January 2019 and Election Day 2020. | ||
| Compared with the COVID pandemic and the social unrest after George Floyd's death, the shutdown didn't even amount to an asterisk. | ||
| In other words, even if you win a government shutdown fight, hardly anyone will remember in a month. | ||
| Lisa in Palmetto, Georgia, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Lisa. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Okay. | ||
| The Republicans have amnesia. | ||
| I don't know if the Republicans still remember when Ted Cruz rose into the government and his thing was no compromise, shut the government down. | ||
| No compromise. | ||
| Shut the government down. | ||
| Do y'all Republicans remember that? | ||
| And I believe that Democrats, in my opinion, should, now that you have the American attention, just go ahead and open the government back up and let Donald Trump just burn it down. | ||
| Because Republicans have amnesia. | ||
| I mean, do y'all remember? | ||
| Donald Trump didn't need a shutdown to when Doge came into office when he first came in. | ||
| Doge was in there. | ||
| They were cutting programs, agencies. | ||
| They were doing all of that. | ||
| There were no government shutdowns. | ||
| So, Democrats, please, in order for Republicans to wake up, Donald Trump has to burn this country down. | ||
| And that's a fact because it's just like a little baby. | ||
| All right, Lisa. | ||
| Democratic caller in Palmetto, Georgia. | ||
| The federal government is in day two of a federal shutdown. | ||
| Federal workers are furloughed. | ||
| And here is the agencies impacted the most. | ||
| EPA, education, and commerce, more than 80% of their total workforce are impacted. | ||
| In the Defense Department, it's about 45%, 334,000 of their civilian employees. | ||
| At Justice, it's 11% of the total, just over 12,000, almost 13,000. | ||
| In Homeland Security, it's about 5% of their total workforce, 14,000 employees. | ||
| And over at the VA, it's only 3% of the total, about 14,800 employees. | ||
| Chris in Philadelphia, an independent? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I would just like to say the last caller that was on, Henrietta, not the one before from, if she could hear herself and how selfish she sounds with she just wants to destroy the government and have everything like, yeah, I get it. | ||
| You're blessed. | ||
| You're in a good spot, lady. | ||
| But that doesn't mean that these services that you want cut just to be politically whatever is correct. | ||
| And so I just want to say she should listen to that and hear how selfish she sounds and hope and be thankful that she's never in a situation that she needs to use these services that make America great. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So that's what, to me, America is great for, the services and how we stand out from other countries. | ||
| Having said that, I recently had a trip to the emergency room where I had to get stitches. | ||
| And next to me was a family that was obviously, you know, not documented or as the one caller said, illegal aliens. | ||
| But I say this to everybody because, yes, I work hard. | ||
| I don't want my money just, you know, thrown out to anybody that takes trying to take advantage of it. | ||
| But on the same aspect, like the caller said, do you want to be sitting next to somebody who has tuberculosis or some type of leprosy or something that they came here with that if they're seeking medical care, they're not going to like be preventative. | ||
| Like they're not going to get colonospedies or whatever. | ||
| They're going because there's some type of emergency issue. | ||
| So I say this to all the Republicans that value the Christian values. | ||
| Think about a child. | ||
| If a child, if a family brings a child that has strep throat, that's on the verge of hemorrhaging because of fever or something, are you just going to say, no, you're not a citizen. | ||
| They're already made it here. | ||
| The problem is that the idiots in charge here all need to go back to school and take a communications class and realize both sides need to rise. | ||
| It's not all about them. | ||
| It's about the people. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Chris, I have to leave it there. | ||
| Chris in Philadelphia, we're at the top of the hour. | ||
| We're going to take a break. | ||
| Later on in the Washington Journal, we'll talk to lawmakers about the government shutdown. | ||
| We'll talk with Congresswoman Maxine Dexter, Democrat of Oregon. | ||
| We'll also talk to Oklahoma Republican Representative Tom Cole, who's chair of the Appropriations Committee. | ||
| Up next, though, retired Colonel Peter Manseur, chair of the military history at Ohio State University, discusses the history of military culture and the significance of President Trump and Secretary Hegseth's speech to military leadership earlier this week. | ||
| Stay with us. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
| I'm Dasha Burns, host of Ceasefire, bridging the divide in American politics. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| We are back and joining us this morning is retired Army Colonel Peter Mansoor, who is the chair of the Military History Program at Ohio State University, here to talk about U.S. military and the generals gathering in Washington earlier this week. | ||
| Colonel Mansoor, the Defense Secretary, the president, asked 800 generals and others, military leaders, to gather at Quantico, just outside of Washington earlier this week for a speech about changes that they want to see at the Pentagon and in Pentagon culture as well. | ||
| Daily Beast has a headline this morning. | ||
| Defense officials fume at Pentagon Pete's inexcusable rant to generals. | ||
| And in this article, one military official is quoted as saying, it could have been an email. | ||
| What is the history, the precedent of the Secretary of the Pentagon gathering generals all in one place? | ||
| Has it happened before? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, not to my knowledge, to bring all the combatant commanders from overseas to Washington, it's a big deal. | |
| And you would think it would be for some important purpose, perhaps talking changes in the national defense strategy, things that the Secretary would want to talk to his senior leaders about. | ||
| But this seemed to be nothing more than the campaign talking points the Trump administration used, and it's nothing new. | ||
| It was about grooming standards, physical fitness, a warrior culture, and so forth, and really nothing of substance in terms of homeland defense or changing strategy other than the one comment the president made about using American cities as training grounds for the military, which was pretty disturbing. | ||
| We'll get into that in just a minute. | ||
| What about having the generals sit in front of the defense secretary and the president in a public forum? | ||
| Cameras were in the room. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, it seemed to be something somewhat of a loyalty check, you know, that we can call you here. | |
| You're all going to show up and you're going to listen to us and face to face. | ||
| We're going to tell you how we're going to put a stake in the heart of DEI and we're going to make you all into warriors. | ||
| Other than that, I'm not sure what the purpose was. | ||
| Clearly, the President and Secretary of Defense have the legal authority to do this. | ||
| Whether it was a wise thing to do is up for discussion. | ||
| Let's listen to the president as he came out and addressed the generals and the combatant officials in the room. | ||
| This is what he had to say to them right at the top. | ||
| I've never walked into a room so silent before. | ||
| This is very, don't laugh, don't laugh. | ||
| You're not allowed to do that. | ||
| You know what? | ||
| Just have a good time. | ||
| And if you want to applaud, you applaud. | ||
| And if you want to do anything you want, you can do anything you want. | ||
| And if you don't like what I'm saying, you can leave the room. | ||
| Of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future. | ||
| But you just feel nice and loose, okay? | ||
| Because we're all on the same team. | ||
| And I was told that, sir, you won't hear a murmur in the room. | ||
| I said, we had to loosen these guys up a little bit. | ||
| So you just have a good time. | ||
| So, Colonel Mansoor, he said, it's so silent. | ||
| What were the generals doing when their commander-in-chief walks into the room? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, so here's what's happening. | |
| You know, President Trump feeds off audience reaction to his speeches. | ||
| You know, he gets energy from applause and the lines he takes. | ||
| But these generals and the sergeant majors, you know, they are cultured to be apolitical. | ||
| And that means they will respect the president and secretary of defense, but they will sit there silently and they're not going to applaud political taglines that the president's supporters would otherwise applaud. | ||
| And I think this was a bit unnerving to the president. | ||
| He's probably never been in a forum before where he hasn't gotten any reaction to what he's saying. | ||
| But this, I think, proves that the American military at its highest levels is still apolitical and is still adherent to the culture of the military that says respect the office but don't get involved in domestic politics. | ||
| You heard the president say, you can leave if you want to, but there goes your rank. | ||
| There goes your future. | ||
| Is that a possibility? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, sure. | |
| If someone had walked out on the president, he probably would have been relieved of command. | ||
| I think that the president was trying to get a laugh from the audience there, and it obviously didn't work. | ||
| You did hear some laughter from in the room muted because what he was saying was self-evident. | ||
| Let's go to what you touched on at the top of this conversation. | ||
| The president talking about how past presidents have used the military. | ||
| Let's listen to what the president had to say earlier this week. | ||
| But these service members are following in a great and storied military tradition from protecting frontier communities to chasing outlaws and bandits in the Wild West. | ||
| And our history is filled with military heroes who took on all enemies, foreign and domestic. | ||
| Know that phrase very well. | ||
| That's what the oath says foreign and domestic. | ||
| Well, we also have domestic. | ||
| George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Grover Cleveland, George Bush, and others all use the armed forces to keep domestic order and peace. | ||
| Many of our leaders used the military to keep peace. | ||
| Now they like to say, oh, you're not allowed to use the military. | ||
| Colonel Mansoor? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Congress passed the Posse Comitatus Act in the wake of Reconstruction after the Civil War in order to prevent the military from being used for domestic policing. | |
| That law is still in effect. | ||
| So what George Washington did or what Abraham Lincoln did is really not all that relevant. | ||
| You know, the military is there to fight our wars against our nation's enemies. | ||
| And yes, those could be internal if they're in rebellion against the United States, as was the case during the Civil War. | ||
| In 1992, during the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, used the military to help quell the disturbances, but at the invitation of the governor of California. | ||
| What we're seeing today is wholly different. | ||
| It's the president basically sending the National Guard into America's cities, not at the invitation of all the governors, some of them, but not all. | ||
| And there's no massive violence that would occasion such a use of military force. | ||
| So I see this as deeply troubling and problematic. | ||
| We want to invite our viewers to join us in this conversation this morning about the announcements made by the Defense Secretary earlier this week in those remarks made by the President to the nation's generals. | ||
| Republicans, dial in at 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independence, 202-748-8002. | ||
| We also want to hear from active and former military this morning. | ||
| Your line is 202-748-8003. | ||
| Nikki's waiting in Panama City, Florida, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Nikki. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Getta. | |
| I don't know where you found this guy. | ||
| I'm a veteran, and the big thing with Trump is transparency. | ||
| And press didn't have to go to Plantico, but they were welcome to go. | ||
| And so it took public forum because it was open to them, not because it was an everyday thing. | ||
| I thought both Hegis and Trump, I thought they did great. | ||
| And it was important not just for the generals, but for the American public to hear what they thought and how they were going to approach things. | ||
| And this business about posse comitatus, I'm sorry. | ||
| But, you know, back after Reconstruction, they weren't faced with cartels. | ||
| They weren't faced with millions of undocumented people coming across the border. | ||
| Don't be stupid. | ||
| Okay, well, Nikki, let's get a military example. | ||
| Historian on. | ||
| Please get somebody from West Point. | ||
| Okay, Nikki, let's take your examples, your arguments here. | ||
| Colonel Mansoor, about cartels and illegal immigrants. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'd like to correct the viewer. | |
| I am a West Point graduate. | ||
| So, you know, after the Civil War, you didn't have cartels, but you had the Ku Klux Klan. | ||
| And very little difference. | ||
| It was a domestic terrorist organization. | ||
| It had to be suppressed. | ||
| So, you know, there isn't much difference between the situation in the late 19th century and the situation today with regards to domestic policing. | ||
| In terms of immigrants coming across the border, that's an issue for civilian law enforcement and the Border Patrol. | ||
| The military does not have to be used unless there is a organized foreign invasion of the United States and undocumented immigrants coming across the border is hardly an organized foreign invasion. | ||
| We're talking this morning with Titworth retired Colonel Peter Mansoor. | ||
| He commanded the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division from 2003 to 2005, including 13 months in combat in Iraq from July 2003 to July 2004, service for which his brigade was awarded a President Unit Citation for Collective Valor and Combat. | ||
| He wrote about his experience in the 2008 book, Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq, and he finished his military service as executive officer to General David Petraeus, the commanding general of multinational force Iraq during the period of the surge in 2007 to 2008. | ||
| Darrell, North Dakota, Independent, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning, Colonel. | ||
| Thank you for your service and everything. | ||
| From what I'm seeing, everything, when all the generals and everything appeared at the meeting and everything, they were ordered to. | ||
| All they were doing was following their orders. | ||
| It's not a thing about loyalty to Donald Trump or not. | ||
| You know, it's you're doing what you were doing what was in your contract when you took to defend America and put in Bulk War and dimension that all you were doing is fulfilling your contract and your obligation that you signed on for. | ||
| Okay, Darrell, let's take that point. | ||
| Colonel Mansoor. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, certainly the generals and the sergeant majors had to show up. | |
| They were following orders. | ||
| And, you know, they had to sit there and listen to their leaders. | ||
| You know, the President and Secretary of Defense have every right to do this. | ||
| But to spend $3 to $6 million to bring in 800 leaders from all corners of the planet, basically to listen to things that had already been discussed in the Pentagon prior. | ||
| DEI stake had already been put through the heart of it. | ||
| The emphasis on lethality and the warrior culture that had already been discussed. | ||
| So it's unclear to me why you would do this when all of the things that were discussed in Guantico had already been discussed previously. | ||
| And you could have done it in an email, for instance, or a memo, or you could have just brought the generals and admirals from the national capital area who were close by in to make the point and then televise it and make the ones from overseas use Zoom to zoom in. | ||
| So it is, again, an astonishing thing that for the first time in American history, you bring all the generals, admirals, and their senior enlisted representatives into a single room to basically listen to things that had already been spouted by this administration. | ||
| The Joint Chiefs Commander also opened up This gathering here in Washington area this week by saying our enemies are scared that all of those generals were in the same room. | ||
| Do you agree? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm not sure if they were scared or if they saw it as a target, but yeah, I think that that's neither here nor there. | |
| You know, we're not at war, and I'm sure the security was pretty tight around the meeting. | ||
| But again, if you want to bring all the generals and admirals and their senior enlisted representatives together, do so for a very weighty reason. | ||
| You know, discuss the new national defense strategy, discuss how the Western Hemisphere and Homeland Defense is going to be the priority of this administration. | ||
| That might have been something worthy of a discussion. | ||
| We'll go to Mike, Tampa, Florida, Republican. | ||
| Mike, good morning. | ||
| Question or comment? | ||
|
unidentified
|
A little bit of both. | |
| Okay, we're listening. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| So the Colonel's from West Point. | ||
| And do you really think that this public speech was the main reason? | ||
| It's ridiculous because what a better way to pass on orders than face to face with zero digital footprint. | ||
| And there's no way our enemies could find out what is going to happen. | ||
| And I think it's ridiculous to think that the public speech that we all saw was the whole reason. | ||
| I mean, to get all these joint commanders together to now push forward further orders that only now they only know. | ||
| It could also be a mohawk. | ||
| That's just my opinion. | ||
| Mike, do you have military experience? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I have family in the military. | |
| My grandfather was a tailgunner B-26. | ||
| My father was an F-4 mechanic. | ||
| My godmother typed the D-Day invasion plans. | ||
| So, and I love this country. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Let's take Mike's point, Colonel Mansoor. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I'm not sure what the other reasons for the meeting would have been other than what we saw on TV. | |
| There's no indication that there were anything else passed on to this group other than what we saw. | ||
| What we saw was the Secretary of Defense emphasize what he's been emphasizing since January 20th: forming a lethal military organization. | ||
| He was emphasizing physical fitness and grooming standards. | ||
| He was saying DEI is dead. | ||
| We're not going to have trans people in uniform. | ||
| These were all things that were said during the campaign and have been said since January 20th. | ||
| So, yeah, he wanted to emphasize them face to face with his senior leaders. | ||
| But, you know, these are people with weighty responsibilities on their shoulders. | ||
| And I'm not sure that emphasizing those things was necessarily the best use of their time. | ||
| Colonel, the Secretary also talked about the change in name put forth by an executive order by the president. | ||
| And now the Pentagon can be referred to as the Department of War and Pete Hegseth as the war secretary. | ||
| What is the history behind those words? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So before 1947, there was a Department of War, which is really the Army and the Army Air Force, and there was a Department of the Navy. | |
| It was never the Department of War as representing the entire military. | ||
| In the National Security Act of 1947, that was changed. | ||
| And the Department of War and Department of Navy were combined and became the Department of Defense. | ||
| And the Department of Air Force, Department of the Army, Department of the Navy were subordinate to the Department of Defense. | ||
| So that's the history behind it. | ||
| Clearly, the President and Secretary of Defense wanted to make this change again to emphasize what they've emphasized since they took office: that we're going to make the military more lethal and we're going to focus on warfighting. | ||
| Tom is in Pittsburgh, California. | ||
| Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Tom. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, thank you for taking my call. | |
| First of all, Colonel, thank you for your service. | ||
| My time in the service was a war shortly before yours. | ||
| I'm a Vietnam War veteran. | ||
| I'm a student of history. | ||
| I've never seen anything like this in my time to call all the high-ranking officers generals. | ||
| I mean, God, it looked like the universe, all these stars. | ||
| And I don't understand what this was even all about. | ||
| Like you said, it could have been done in an email. | ||
| My question, my only question is, and what concerns me, is that President Trump said, well, I'd like to take the military and bring training grounds into U.S. cities. | ||
| I know we have certain rules and regulations that you cannot bring active military service people, the Army, the Marines, whatever, whatever branch of service, into an American city unless there is an armed invasion from a foreign power. | ||
| Then the military can be brought in. | ||
| That's what this is all about. | ||
| Otherwise, each state has a National Guard. | ||
| That is the function, one of the functions, the two functions of the National Guard is disasters. | ||
| And by the use by the governor, if there's a riot or something that the normal police force cannot handle, then the governor can issue an order to bring in the National Guard. | ||
| But to bring in the regular military, I find that very disturbing. | ||
| Anyway, thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Once again, Colonel, thank you for your service. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Colonel Mansoor, your response. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, first, I appreciate what you said about my service. | |
| It was an honor to serve. | ||
| But the caller is right. | ||
| We have a hierarchy of the use of force in the United States. | ||
| First, you have local police and then state police. | ||
| And then, if the governor deems a situation out of control, let's say the riots in Detroit, I think they were in 1968, he'll call in the National Guard. | ||
| And only after that will federal forces be used if the other three agencies are unable to handle the situation. | ||
| So, again, let's use Detroit in 67, 68, one of those years, as the example. | ||
| The local police were overwhelmed. | ||
| The governor of Michigan, who was Romney, Mitt Romney's father, sent in the state police, and then he sent in the National Guard, and they were still unable to get the riot under control. | ||
| And President Johnson then sent in the 82nd 101st Airborne Divisions, at least portions of them, and they were able to quell the riot. | ||
| That's how the system is supposed to work. | ||
| What we've seen, let's say in Los Angeles recently, is you had demonstrations that turned violent, but not violent in the sense that there were a lot of deaths. | ||
| It was property damage. | ||
| And the local police pretty much had a handle on the situation, but the governor was augmenting them with state police. | ||
| And then before the governor even put in the California National Guard, because he didn't have to, the president federalized them and put them into the situation as federal forces. | ||
| What was wrong with this is that, again, federal forces cannot be used, and National Guard fall under this situation when they're federalized, cannot be used for domestic law enforcement unless there is a declared insurrection against the United States, and there was not in Los Angeles. | ||
| So a lot of these federal forces, the Marines and the Federalized National Guard, found themselves really with not a lot to do because they couldn't. | ||
| And that's the issue. | ||
| Jeffrey's in the Plains, Ohio, Independent. | ||
| Morning, Jeffrey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'm just interested. | |
| West Point was historic, of course, West Point was founded as a training ground for professional military officers and in military sciences, but it was also established, one of its purposes was it was the nation's first civil engineering school. | ||
| And as I understand it, is a peacetime purpose of military, of military, of the military when not at war. | ||
| And one of the things that I'm curious about is to what degree would Sylvanus Thayer, the father of West Point, be concerned about what is going on with the politicalization of the American military at this time? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, the caller's right. | ||
| West Point was established as a military academy, but it was the nation's foremost engineering school. | ||
| A lot of West Point officers helped map the West. | ||
| They staffed the Corps of Engineers. | ||
| They developed flood control projects. | ||
| So West Point is deeply, and West Point graduates are deeply embedded in the history of our nation. | ||
| Regarding what Sylvanus Thayer would have thought, you know, he emphasized engineering in the curriculum. | ||
| And the officers of the 19th century were concerned about protecting the nation against foreign enemies. | ||
| They would build coastal fortifications, for instance, to protect us from the British Navy. | ||
| They would, you know, they were obviously used in the war against Mexico. | ||
| And then when there was an insurrection in the United States, military officers, you know, put down the rebellion in the Civil War. | ||
| So these are the things that West Point emphasized in the 19th century. | ||
| And, you know, we really haven't changed a lot since then. | ||
| It was never intended for military officers to interfere with domestic political parties and domestic politics. | ||
| And that sort of culture has deepened as we got into the 20th century to the point where a lot of military officers wouldn't even vote because they wanted to remain apolitical in spirit as well as legally. | ||
| Gene in New Jersey, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Gene. | ||
| Your question or comment here? | ||
|
unidentified
|
My question and comment. | |
| My question is, does the Colonel believe that the speech that Trump gave to the commanders was worthy of them coming and sitting and having to listen to that? | ||
| Does he feel that that was a sane speech and maybe our domestic problem is the President of the United States? | ||
| And what can the military do about that? | ||
| Well, I'll take the last question first. | ||
| The military can't do anything about that. | ||
| This is an issue for the American voters. | ||
| If they don't think the president is worthy of his office, they vote him out. | ||
| The next time we'll have a chance to do that will be 2028, but that will be up to the voters, not the military. | ||
| In terms of the speech, it sounded a lot like a campaign rally. | ||
| The president had remarks on a teleprompter. | ||
| He didn't use them for the most part. | ||
| And this is what President Trump does. | ||
| He riffs off of what comes into his mind. | ||
| And the officers in the room listened politely and they had to because they were ordered there. | ||
| But I think I've already said it. | ||
| I don't think the speech rose to the height that you needed to gather all these senior leaders in one room to hear it. | ||
| If they wanted to do this, I really would have hoped that it would have been for a higher purpose. | ||
| And discussing the administration's priorities in terms of homeland security and defense of the Western Hemisphere, I think that would have been worthwhile to discuss with these commanders of American Armed Forces, but they didn't do that, unfortunately. | ||
| Retired Colonel Peter Mansoor of the U.S. Army and chair of the military history at Ohio State University, we want to thank you for the conversation this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thanks for having me on. | |
| We're going to take a break. | ||
| When we come back, we're going to return to our conversation about day two of the federal government shutdown. | ||
| Later on in the program, we'll talk with Oregon Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Dexter. | ||
| But coming up after the break, we'll be joined by Oklahoma Republican Representative Tom Cole, chair of the Appropriations Committee, here to talk about day two of the federal government shutdown. | ||
| We want to get your thoughts on that as well. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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unidentified
|
I love politics, and I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices. | |
| You and C-SPAN show the truth. | ||
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to the Washington Journal on this Thursday, October 2nd. | ||
| It's the second day of a federal government shutdown, and both sides don't appear any closer to opening the federal government back up. | ||
| They're pointing fingers and playing the blame game. | ||
| Listen to JD Vance, the vice president, who made a rare appearance in the White House briefing room yesterday. | ||
| To the American people who are watching, the reason your government is shut down at this very minute is because despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of congressional Republicans and even a few moderate Democrats supported opening the government, the Chuck Schumer AOC wing of the Democratic Party shut down the government because they said to us, we will open the government, but only if you give billions of dollars of funding for health care for illegal aliens. | ||
| That's a ridiculous proposition. | ||
| Let me say two other quick things, and then again, I'll take some questions. | ||
| Number one, we all understand that Democrats and Republicans have policy disagreements. | ||
| Democrats want to do things. | ||
| Look, when Chuck Schumer and Akeem Jeffries were in here a couple of days ago, they made some suggestions that the president was more than happy to say, yes, let's sit down and talk about how we can solve the health care crisis that we inherited from the Biden administration. | ||
| But it's one thing to say that we should solve the health care crisis for Americans. | ||
| It's another thing to say that we're going to shut down the government unless we give the Democrats every single thing that they want, which as Caroline says, includes giving billions of dollars of taxpayer funding for health care for illegal migrants. | ||
| That's ridiculous. | ||
| You don't have policy disagreements that serve as the basis for a government shutdown. | ||
| Let's have the conversation about how to fix American health care, about how to make health care more accessible. | ||
| As the president showed, he's more than willing to act on behalf of the American people for this very reason. | ||
| What you don't do is say, unless you do exactly what we want to do as congressional Democrats, we're taking hostage. | ||
| And the hostage, it turns out, is critical, essential services that the American people need. | ||
| Caroline talked about some of it. | ||
| Let me talk about some more. | ||
| Our troops are not getting paid, starting today, because of the Chuck Schumer wing of the Democratic Party. | ||
| We have people who require food assistance, low-income Americans who require food assistance who will not get it unless we reopen the government, thanks to Chuck Schumer and his wing of the Democratic Party. | ||
| We have flood insurance as we start hurricane season in the southeastern part of our country. | ||
| That flood insurance is going to disappear because of Chuck Schumer and the far left of the Democratic Party. | ||
| We need to reopen the government. | ||
| Let's fix America's problems. | ||
| Let's work together to solve them. | ||
| But let's reopen the government before we have our negotiation about health care policy. | ||
| That's what the American people demand, and that's certainly what the President of the United States wants. | ||
| Vice President Vance at the White House yesterday on the other end of Pennsylvania in Pennsylvania Avenue in the U.S. Senate, the Democratic leader Chuck Schumer came to the floor and had this to say about Republicans and the government shutdown. | ||
| Donald Trump and Republicans have barreled us into a shutdown because they refuse to protect Americans' health care. | ||
| It's clear that the way out of this shutdown is to sit down and negotiate with Democrats to address the looming health care crisis that faces tens of millions of American families. | ||
| Democrats want to avert this crisis, but Republicans tried to bully us, and it's clear they can't. | ||
| They don't have the votes. | ||
| The way out of this is for Republicans to finally roll up their sleeves and get to work. | ||
| Republicans need to get serious and start actually addressing the looming crisis and reopen the government. | ||
| Now, why has all of this happened? | ||
| Why are we here on October 1st? | ||
| Because Republicans have tried to stick us with a partisan CR that fails to protect Americans' health care and does nothing, nothing to fix the health care mess that they created. | ||
| It has now failed twice to get enough votes in this chamber. | ||
| So Republicans need to negotiate with us. | ||
| And Speaker Johnson's got to get his people here. | ||
| If anyone wanted evidence as to who wanted this shutdown, just look at the fact that Johnson does not even have the House in session. | ||
| When Democrats had the White House, the Senate, and the House, when Democrats had the majority in this chamber, when I was majority leader, we never had one shutdown in four years. | ||
| Not one. | ||
| You know why? | ||
| Because we worked with our Republican colleagues to find a way to keep the government funded. | ||
| The Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, on the floor yesterday. | ||
| Republicans and Democrats all going before the cameras to hold dueling news conferences and blame the other side for day two of the federal government shutdown. | ||
| We're getting your thoughts on this this morning. | ||
| There are the lines on your screen. | ||
| President Trump, by the way, in a Truth Social post, says that Republicans should use this opportunity of opportunity of Democrat forced closure to clear out dead wood, waste, and fraud. | ||
| Billions of dollars can be saved. | ||
| That is what the president had to say on Truth Social yesterday. | ||
| From Melanie Zenona, who reports from Capitol Hill, Trump's budget director told House Republicans yesterday that reductions in force will happen in the next one to two days. | ||
| Vote issued a memo last week threatening mass layoffs in the event of a shutdown. | ||
| Let's get your thoughts on this. | ||
| Jerry in Newport News, Virginia, Democratic Caller. | ||
| Good morning to you. | ||
| Day two of the federal government shutdown. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am. | |
| This is Jerry. | ||
| I'm from Virginia. | ||
| And I just don't understand why we can't put all these senators and congressmen in a room, lock them in, don't give them nothing to eat, no food, no bathroom breaks, nothing. | ||
| And you sit down and you create a budget for the American people. | ||
| This is not a run government by one president or the other side. | ||
| It's a government for all the people. | ||
| It's not a government for Mr. Trump to run this country down. | ||
| This country is going to be in so much trouble down the road that it's going to take years to create and fix this country from the Republicans controlled Congress. | ||
| And, you know, I'm just sick of it. | ||
| They just need to get this, you know, either vote them out or whatever we got to do. | ||
| But we need to get the right people in here and run this country the way it's supposed to be run. | ||
| We were number one country in the world. | ||
| Now we're looked at like number 100. | ||
| Whatever. | ||
| Jerry in Newport News calling for bipartisanship. | ||
| There was a huddle of Republicans and Democrats on the Senate floor yesterday while they were taking a vote on Trump, President Trump's nominees. | ||
| And you can see in the right corner of your screen at the bottom, senators gathering, Republicans and Democrats. | ||
| And there were hope, there was some hope that perhaps a bipartisan group could come together. | ||
| Senator Mike Rounds there from South Dakota talking to the press after Washington Times reports about this bipartisan huddle. | ||
| But we heard from Reese Gorman earlier of notice that after reporters talked to some of these senators and they did not see that perhaps they've come close to solving this government shutdown. | ||
| So for now, the government is shut down and it's likely to continue to at least tomorrow because the Senate is out today in observance of Yom Kippur. | ||
| They are back tomorrow where the Senate Majority Leader, Republican John Thune, says they'll try again on the votes that they've been taking to fund the federal government. | ||
| Republicans have a so-called clean continuing resolution that would keep the government open until November and allow negotiations to continue on spending levels. | ||
| Democrats are saying they want Republic, if they want their votes in the Senate where they need 60, that they would need to compromise with them on health care. | ||
| Let's go to Capitol Hill. | ||
| Congressman Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, is joining us. | ||
| Congressman, have you heard from your Republican leadership? | ||
| And are there talks happening with the other side? | ||
| Well, I hear from my leadership on a regular basis. | ||
| Quite frankly, the House has done its job. | ||
| There's really no reason for talks here. | ||
| We've actually passed the legislation for a clean continuing resolution, so we can continue to negotiate. | ||
| Now we have to wait on the Senate to see what they're going to do. | ||
| So in the House, we've solved the problem, but obviously it takes a Senate vote as well. | ||
| We're pleased to see we have a bipartisan majority for our position in the Senate. | ||
| That is 55 votes. | ||
| But of course, under Senate rules, you have to get to 60. | ||
| I always like to point out that's not in the Constitution. | ||
| That's not a law. | ||
| That's a Senate rule, but it is a Senate rule. | ||
| So, again, we're hoping our colleagues come around. | ||
| We originally had one Democratic vote in the Senate, then we got two more, so three. | ||
| And I think as this shutdown goes on, other people will, honestly, I would put it, sober up and recognize that we shouldn't hold the day-to-day operation of the government at risk to achieve objectives that really don't relate to the normal appropriations process. | ||
| Republicans and Democrats have both done that in the past. | ||
| It's never worked out, it's never gotten them to where they want to go. | ||
| I predict that's where we're at today. | ||
| Sooner or later, I hope my friends in the Senate on the Democratic side of the aisle recognize that shutting down the government is bad for workers, it's bad for the country, and it's an inappropriate tool of politics. | ||
| And so, hopefully, we'll get there. | ||
| But, you know, the longer it goes on, the more damage will be done. | ||
| As you noted, Congressman, two Democrats, one Independent, voted with Republicans in the Senate on the House clean resolution, continuing resolution. | ||
| The Hill, though, is reporting this morning that the votes on Friday will be more of the same, that Senator Chuck Schumer has the rest of his party in line and that he does not expect any more, or at least enough, would vote with Republicans on their offer. | ||
| His argument, you should respond to it, is you need us, so you should negotiate with us. | ||
| We are negotiating with them over appropriations bills. | ||
| That's what this is supposed to be about. | ||
| Look, the other matters they raised, number one, the Medicaid issue, Congress has already voted on it. | ||
| A majority of both houses passed the Medicaid reforms, and the president signed them. | ||
| So revisiting them is silly. | ||
| In terms of the Obama era, COVID-era tax subsidies for health care, number one, this continuing resolution actually ends before those things run out. | ||
| Number two, the Democrats actually set the date they were supposed to run out. | ||
| So this is actually their issue. | ||
| But we don't owe them a negotiation over unrelated items any more than they owed us a negotiation over Obamacare back in 2013. | ||
| Look, we did the same thing. | ||
| I'm not arguing Democrats are doing something unusual. | ||
| It didn't work out. | ||
| We didn't change Obamacare. | ||
| We just caused a lot of pain and inconvenience. | ||
| And in the end, the side that is perceived as having shut down the government, which is what Senator Schumer and his fellow Democrats in the Senate are doing right now. | ||
| To be fair, Minority Leader Jeffries would have done the same thing if he could have, but he didn't have the votes. | ||
| So this is very much a Democratic shutdown, but it's an inappropriate use of political power, and I don't think it'll end well for the Democrats. | ||
| In the meantime, it does a lot of damage to the country that I hope they reflect on. | ||
| In USA Today, they report that two national surveys released September 30th, Americans were more likely to blame Republicans than Democrats for a government shutdown, though results were mixed, as to who would be considered most at fault. | ||
| Your response to those polls? | ||
| Well, number one, I think, look, I used to be a pollster. | ||
| I can tell you they changed pretty fast. | ||
| In a week or two weeks, it'll look a lot different. | ||
| Number two, it doesn't matter. | ||
| It's just not the right thing to do. | ||
| You know, the Democrats have chosen to take a hostage and punish the American people. | ||
| That's bad. | ||
| Look, I have a federal heavy district. | ||
| I have tens of thousands of federal employees in my district. | ||
| I know how much uncertainty this is creating. | ||
| Again, I'm always proud to say I voted to keep the government open every time I've had the opportunity. | ||
| I authored the bill in March that kept the government open. | ||
| This current CR is one that, again, we asked, talked to the Democrats. | ||
| We asked them, what do you need? | ||
| They said, we need a clean, continuing resolution. | ||
| This one is. | ||
| And we need a short-term duration. | ||
| This one is. | ||
| We gave them what they asked for, and then all of a sudden their leadership decides to drop things in the middle of the negotiation that has nothing to do with appropriations. | ||
| So, again, I think American people are pretty smart. | ||
| They'll figure it out pretty fast. | ||
| And it's the Democrats that are shutting down a government, and it's the Senate that's not doing its job. | ||
| Not the majority of senators, the majority of senators actually want to keep the government open and operating. | ||
| That's a bipartisan majority. | ||
| It's Leader Schumer and a few of his, well, and the bulk of his caucus that are shutting down the government. | ||
| I don't think it'll take the American people long to figure that out. | ||
| Do the polls reflect the fact that Republicans have a trifecta? | ||
| You control the House, the Senate, and the White House. | ||
| We don't control the Senate in the sense you have to get to 60 votes on any significant piece of appropriations legislation. | ||
| We have 53. | ||
| So we acknowledge that they have cards to play. | ||
| They ought to be playing them in terms of the appropriation. | ||
| They shouldn't be shutting down the government. | ||
| And let me just make a prediction: as a guy who's seen these, they never end well. | ||
| We shut the government down over Obamacare. | ||
| It's still there. | ||
| We shut the government down over building the wall. | ||
| It didn't get built. | ||
| And frankly, Democrats shut the government down over DACA, and they didn't get the reforms they wanted. | ||
| This isn't going to work either. | ||
| They're just drawing it out, and I think largely for political purposes. | ||
| Senator Schumer is under enormous pressure from his left wing. | ||
| He did the right thing in March, and what did he get for it? | ||
| A lot of blowback, not from Republicans, not from President Trump, but from minority leader Jeffries and other people that wanted him to shut down the government with no clear exit strategy. | ||
| This time he's giving them what they want. | ||
| They still have no clear exit strategy. | ||
| They're going to do a lot of damage. | ||
| But this is about, I think, Senator Schumer remaining popular in his district, avoiding a primary challenge which has been threatened, and avoiding a leadership challenge. | ||
| So, I mean, I don't think you ought to hold the American people hostage, the entire country hostage, for your own political benefit. | ||
| And I think that's what's happening right now. | ||
| Congressman, do you have any concern that Russell Vogt and the president are saying that there could be mass layoffs, that they will take this opportunity of a government shutdown and begin reductions in force today, tomorrow, and possibly during weeks of a government shutdown if it lasts that long? | ||
| Well, first of all, the best way to avoid that is to reopen the government. | ||
| They have a responsibility to get us down to essential services. | ||
| And let me point out: even those people that are deemed essential aren't getting paid. | ||
| That includes our troops in the field. | ||
| That includes air traffic controllers. | ||
| That includes people that are making sure that Social Security and Medicaid cuts, well, excuse me, those are people actually are covered. | ||
| But there's lots of folks that are working without a guaranteed paycheck. | ||
| That's just simply wrong. | ||
| And so I don't worry about what they're doing. | ||
| They're doing what they're responsible for, which is keeping the government operating and making tough choices. | ||
| What I'm worried about is why did we put them in this situation anyway? | ||
| And frankly, if Democrats are concerned about Mr. Vogt, they just empowered him. | ||
| The executive branch gets stronger during a government shutdown because Congress sidelines itself and isn't doing its work. | ||
| And frankly, in this case, that's due to the Democrats in the Senate. | ||
| The House has actually passed a clean CR. | ||
| We've done our work. | ||
| We're waiting on the Senate. | ||
| And the people holding up the Senate aren't the Republicans over there. | ||
| It's not even all the Democrats. | ||
| It's Mr. Schumer and the majority of his caucus that decide the government shutdown is better for their political interests than actually making sure the American people get the services they need and deserve. | ||
| Congressman Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, the chair of the Appropriations Committee in the U.S. House. | ||
| Thank you, as always, for talking to us this morning. | ||
| Bretta, thanks for having me. | ||
| It's always a pleasure to be on CSM. | ||
| We'll go back to our viewers. | ||
| And part of this conversation this morning on day two of the federal government shutdown, Clarice is next in West Virginia, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Clarice. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and thank you for taking my call. | |
| I have a slightly different angle on this this morning. | ||
| Of course, being in West Virginia, I am in a very rural area. | ||
| And we had a, when Obamacare first came into place, we had a wonderful family doctor, and we had had him for several years. | ||
| And due to clerical work of taking care of Obamacare, he finally had to close down his practice. | ||
| He said it would take a whole staff just to take care of the paperwork from Obama. | ||
| Now, I know I am a registered Republican, but I often wonder, do these people ever think of everybody else? | ||
| I mean, we're paying the subsidies, although we're not receiving those. | ||
| But at the same time, people around the country can't get the health care that they need over some of the policies they put in. | ||
| And another thing I'd like to mention, President hasn't been in office a year yet, and everybody is slamming everything he does. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Would they like to go back to the last four years and continue that? | |
| I definitely wouldn't. | ||
| And I really don't lead wholeheartedly Republican or Democrat. | ||
| I'm for all the people. | ||
| All right, Clarice. | ||
| Clarice talking about the demands from Democrats on the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| This is from the Washington Times reporting this morning in their paper, and they note that what Democrats are asking for is an extension of COVID-era expansions of Obamacare premium subsidies. | ||
| So those subsidies put in place when the economy was in the position that it was in during the pandemic during the Biden administration. | ||
| Also, they are talking about spending guardrails to prevent the Trump administration from ignoring congressional spending directives and clawing back funds through impoundments and rescissions. | ||
| Now, the pandemic era expansion of Obamacare premium subsidies is set to expire this year. | ||
| And as you heard from the Congressman Tom Cole, that's after this continuing resolution. | ||
| So Republicans argue it's not a crisis situation. | ||
| Let's go to Cheryl in California and Independent. | ||
| Cheryl? | ||
| We're in day two of the government shutdown. | ||
| What do you think? | ||
| What's your message to Washington? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, here's my message. | |
| I think, first of all, I think the Republicans should tell the truth about the continuing resolution. | ||
| If you go back to the last time we had a shutdown or we were at the point of having a shutdown, okay, they were trying to pass the Big Beautiful Bill. | ||
| And Chuck Schumer went along with them in keeping the government open. | ||
| And what they did is they shoved the Big Beautiful bill into law with just votes from the Republican. | ||
| So now fast forward to this shutdown, the only option the Democrats have to save health care, affordable health care for the American people, is this shutdown. | ||
| And I want to give you some facts if you just give me a moment. | ||
| I just got my Medicare book, you know, for 2026. | ||
| And this is what Democrats are talking about. | ||
| Last year, you know, your base health care was $171. | ||
| That is going to go up to $185, which we normally expect of increase. | ||
| But then, if you go over and you choose your plan from what you had last year, now the plan I had last year did not cost me a cent. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Everything was zero. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| The monthly premium was zero. | ||
| The monthly premium now is going to cost me an additional $288 a year when you add up the monthly premium. | ||
| That's $288 for me, $288 for my husband. | ||
| The same thing was, I looked at one of the senior citizens that I go and help, and hers went from $69 up to $91, and she's a senior that's over 85. | ||
| You know, so this is what the Democrats is talking about. | ||
| And, you know, for the private sector, they won't get this until January. | ||
| This continuing resolution, what it's going to do is it's going to allow them to go ahead and appropriate the funds that they already put through the big beautiful bill and signed. | ||
| They're going to put them through. | ||
| And that way, now whatever we see here will stand. | ||
| And that is what the Democrats are fighting. | ||
| Okay, Cheryl's thoughts there in California. | ||
| From the Washington Post this morning in their reporting, why do Republicans say Democrats want $1.5 trillion in spending? | ||
| Last month, Democrats presented their own government funding extension plan. | ||
| Their proposal plan sought to make the ACA subsidies permanent and reverse the $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts in Trump's One Big Beautiful bill. | ||
| The proposal to make ACA subsidies permanent would increase the deficit by almost $350 billion in the next decade and increase the number of people insured by $3.8 million. | ||
| Republicans attacked the Democrats over their proposal, which also included language to increase oversight of administration spending authorized by Congress and return millions of dollars to public broadcasting, describing it as a $1.5 trillion ransom note to taxpayers. | ||
| Renee in Chicago, Democratic caller. | ||
| Renee, what's your thoughts on the shutdown this morning? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, if the president right now took pen to paper and rolled back the trillions of dollars in taxes for the 1%, which would not put any further debt on our economy and give those tax breaks to the 99% of Americans who need this affordable health care coverage, Dems gave their word they would be ready to compromise on any and all other issues the Republicans have. | |
| And with that said, this affects all Americans, this critical issues, Republicans, Independents, and Democrats. | ||
| Thank you for taking that call. | ||
| All right, Renee's thoughts there in Chicago. | ||
| Shirley's a Republican in Newcastle, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Hi, Shirley. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Good morning, and thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I have just a few things to say. | ||
| First of all, it's a shame that we have this shutdown. | ||
| And it's all over health care. | ||
| And I have members in my family that they need procedures done, and their health care will not cover it. | ||
| And yet we hear that Chuck Schumer and AOC and the whole bunch of them think that they need all this money to take care of these people that are in our country. | ||
| They should not be here, and yet we should take care of their health problems. | ||
| This is not right, and it should be stopped. | ||
| Now, yeah, go ahead, Shirley. | ||
| Finish your thoughts. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, Chuck Schumer has been there way too long. | |
| I think he needs to retire. | ||
| And as far as AOC, everyone can see what's going on in New York with her up there making all these remarks about the person that should be voted in. | ||
| And that is wrong. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Shirley, back to the Washington Post, because you mentioned illegal immigrants, undocumented immigrants using the Medicaid program. | ||
| That's the argument that the vice president made. | ||
| Others have made as well. | ||
| The Washington Post says, Republicans in the White House, however, have taken up issue with emergency Medicaid, which reimburses hospitals nationwide for emergency care provided to uninsured people who don't qualify for Medicaid because of their immigration status. | ||
| But that program does not provide coverage for individuals from the Washington Post. | ||
| However, according to KFF, emergency Medicaid spending represented less than 1% of overall Medicaid spending between fiscal years 2017 and 2023. | ||
| As KFF experts explain in analysis, without emergency Medicaid, hospitals or state governments would be left with the costs of emergency care. | ||
| We'll go to Dee in Tennessee, Democratic Caller. | ||
| Hi, Dee. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| My comment is, if you can pull up the video way back before Trump became president, he made the comment if a shutdown take place, he would blame the president. | ||
| Not only that, he also made the comment that he wanted to file these people even before the shutdown took place. | ||
| And we Americans, he's attacking Americans. | ||
| He want to run this country. | ||
| He's taken from Putin playbook. | ||
| He want America to be ran as Putin is running Russia. | ||
| He's putting us in so much chaos and causing our own military children to fight us. | ||
| I don't understand why people ain't seeing what Trump is doing to this country. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Have a nice day. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That is D in Tennessee. | ||
| Brenda is an independent in Denver, Colorado. | ||
| Hi, Brenda. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Greta. | |
| How are you doing? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I said I wasn't going to do that, but I did it anyway. | |
| My point is Americans are caught between a rock and a hard place. | ||
| The shutdown of the government is only an excuse for the layoffs, which are going to happen anyway, somehow. | ||
| The Democrats need to need someone as cunning and manipulative as Trump to get ahead of the plan to send troops within American cities for the guardrails. | ||
| Heck yes. | ||
| And to the lady from Tennessee, I totally agree. | ||
| Okay, Brenda. | ||
| Let's put some numbers to that KFF analysis that we mentioned from the Washington Post this morning. | ||
| The emergency Medicaid costs the government about $3.8 billion in fiscal year 2023, a tiny fraction, less than 0.5% of total Medicaid spending, but it's $3.8 billion. | ||
| This program reimburses providers for life-saving emergency care given to immigrants who would be eligible for Medicaid but for their immigration status. | ||
| Care hospitals are federally mandated to provide the total cost of $27 billion over a seven-year period, that's from 2017 to 2023. | ||
| Those were the years given by the Washington Post without that price tag, was a small portion of overall Medicaid spending, and that comes from the Congressional Budget Office. | ||
| So there are some numbers to go along with that Washington Post reporting. | ||
| John in Pounding Mill, Virginia, Republican. | ||
| Hi, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I have a question. | ||
| You could ask your next guest, possibly. | ||
| I think all confusion were the Democrats are saying, you just said, that illegal immigrants don't get Medicaid, and Republicans are claiming they do. | ||
| And obviously, they can't both be true. | ||
| But I think it is true that they don't get Medicaid because the government can't pay them Medicaid directly, but the government gives the money to the states. | ||
| And the state is actually giving the Medicaid to the people. | ||
| For example, I heard this happens in California. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So it's six of one and a half a dozen of the other. | ||
| Also, I was wondering if you could look up, are you still there? | ||
| Yes, we're listening. | ||
| Look up what? | ||
|
unidentified
|
A few, I don't know, a year ago on your show, I think it was, they were talking about a hospital in Tucson, Arizona, right across the border, that was going broke, you know, millions of dollars in debt because of all the Mexicans coming across the border to have their baby. | |
| And obviously they had to deliver it and they weren't getting paid. | ||
| And they said, you know, they were so far in debt they didn't know if they're going to make it. | ||
| I just wonder if you could see if they ever resolved it. | ||
| Did our government give them money or are they still in business? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All right. | ||
| John there in Virginia Republican. | ||
| We are taking your calls this morning here on the Washington Journal. | ||
| Continuing with our live coverage of day two of the federal government shutdown and no end is in sight. | ||
| The Hill newspaper reporting this morning that it could be at least a week that the government is shut down. | ||
| Senators will try again tomorrow to reach a compromise when they come back after observing Yom Kippur today. | ||
| And they will do another round of votes that we have seen them do earlier this week and before that. | ||
| One on the proposal by House Republicans for a so-called clean continuing resolution that would fund the government through November and the Democrats' proposal to deal with health care. | ||
| Karen in Chester, Pennsylvania, Democratic caller. | ||
| Karen, your message to Washington. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Greta. | |
| You're a wonderful host. | ||
| You helped me twice in the past. | ||
| Once you had a guest, I asked a question, he didn't answer, and you asked him again. | ||
| You pressed the question, and I appreciated that. | ||
| And another time, you pointed out that I was being more nasty than I needed to be. | ||
| So I appreciate that. | ||
| But what I want to point out, I want to point out briefly three little things. | ||
| Number one, it really, really got to me when the Republicans say we did our job. | ||
| No, they didn't do their job. | ||
| The reason that we're in a continuing resolution is because they didn't pass a budget. | ||
| And it hasn't passed the budget for years. | ||
| They're not doing their job. | ||
| That's why we're in this situation. | ||
| There wouldn't be a continuing resolution to vote on if they had done their job. | ||
| The other thing is that people need to realize that it's not Republicans that are the problem. | ||
| The problem is not the people. | ||
| The problem is the administration. | ||
| People need to stop hating each other, shooting each other, arguing with each other. | ||
| They just need to look at the administration and what they're doing for us. | ||
| And what they're doing for us is not very good. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Karen there in Chester, Pennsylvania with her reaction to day two of the federal government shutdown here in Washington. | ||
| And as Karen said, both sides are pointing fingers. | ||
| The president and the Democratic leadership holding dueling news conferences on Capitol Hill. | ||
| We expect more of the same today. | ||
| The Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, putting this out on X last night. | ||
| A headline from People magazine, the White House will continue construction on a 90,000 square foot ballroom during the government shutdown. | ||
| So the Democratic leader says, yes to ballrooms, no to health care for Americans, got it. | ||
| That is from the Democratic leader in the House, Chuck Schumer. | ||
| And from the White House yesterday, after the Democrats met with them, we saw pictures like this. | ||
| This is from the White House's account on X. Chuck Schumer standing next to his colleague Hakeem Jeffries and an AI generated image of the Democratic leader in the House Hakeem Jefferies with mustache and sombrero there. | ||
| It continues this morning. | ||
| Ted Cruz sending out a similar image on his account on X. | ||
| The 44 Senate Democrats who voted for Schumer's shutdown should know that the sombrero posting will continue until they reopen our government. | ||
| We'll go to Karen in Chester, Pennsylvania, Democratic caller. | ||
| Karen, we are to talk to you. | ||
| We'll go to Adam in Washington, D.C., Republican. | ||
| Hi, Adam. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Greta. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I just wanted to call and sort of bridge the last guest with this conversation, this topic, and just wanted to stress how valuable it was for the President and the Secretary of War to meet directly with commanding generals and enlisted leaders. | ||
| You know, presence matters. | ||
| Face-to-face leadership builds trust and sends a message you can't capture in a memo. | ||
| And the timing made this even more powerful during amidst a federal shutdown when service members like myself and many others continue serving without pay and top leaders showed up in person. | ||
| You know, it marked a stark transition in military culture, giving commanders and the troops the chance to hear that message directly. | ||
| The previous guest, the retired colonel, should know better than anyone that showing up in person is leadership. | ||
| And, Adam, you're an active military officer, and you are working and not getting paid. | ||
| Is that right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's right. | |
| And if you don't mind, I prefer to sort of hold my thoughts any further on since I am active duty. | ||
| Understood. | ||
| That was Adam there in Washington, D.C. We're talking about the government shutdown this morning here on the Washington Journal. | ||
| We continue with our live coverage, showing you the scenes around Washington throughout today's Washington Journal. | ||
| There's signs on some of the doors saying that some of the institutions here are closed. | ||
| This is the Labor Department here in Washington, D.C. You can see the flag there. | ||
| And we'll continue to bring you other sights and sounds from around Washington. | ||
| Our coverage of day two of the federal government shutdown continues here on the Washington Journal and throughout the day. | ||
| So stay with us here on C-SPAN, C-SPAN 2, and of course on C-SPAN 3 as well. | ||
| You can also follow along with our free video mobile app, C-SPANNOW or online on demand at c-span.org. | ||
| Yesterday, C-SPAN interviewed folks here in Washington about how the federal government shutdown is impacting them. | ||
| Here's a few of their answers. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How has the government shutdown affected your visit here to the United States? | |
| To be honest, it's minimal for us. | ||
| I mean, obviously, I guess it's more inconvenient for you guys, but the only thing from our perspective, we had tickets to visit Library of Congress. | ||
| I've been before, but my friends who are with me haven't. | ||
| And I thought it was great. | ||
| It was worth a visit. | ||
| But apart from that, it's not affected us yet. | ||
| I guess it'll depend on what happens when we go for our flight back to Europe and see what happens at the airport. | ||
| But hopefully it'll be minor inconvenience, nothing more. | ||
| It hasn't affected that much. | ||
| Yesterday we got in, so we got to see all the Smithsonian museums. | ||
| But today we did have, we have three or four areas that we can't see, which is the Capitol, Library of Congress, the FBI, and the Bureau of Engraving. | ||
| So those are the only four items, and we have four days packed. | ||
| So it's really the only thing that it's affected us so far. | ||
| My feelings about the shutdown is grow up. | ||
| Grow up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I didn't use bad language, but I'd like to. | |
| And what do you mean by grow up? | ||
| We can't spend money we don't have. | ||
| Can you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I can't either. | |
| I mean, they do things I'd get locked up for. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, yes, I'm a registered Republican. | |
| I don't have anything against the Democrats. | ||
| A lot of my family are Democrats, and I don't get along with them. | ||
| They don't like me. | ||
| I don't care. | ||
| But I'm a conservative. | ||
| I always have been. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I've been a businessman all my life and I have to be a conservative. | |
| So they need to get their act together. | ||
| I'm sure there are people that are going to be hurting. | ||
| Maybe not. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know how it works. | |
| It's interesting you ask that. | ||
| For me, I think my biggest fear is I work in the tech sector and I have a lot of concern and friends I've been talking to were really concerned about just national security from a technology perspective. | ||
| Last time it shut down, a lot of licenses didn't get renewed during the shutdown. | ||
| Databases were shut down. | ||
| People were cut out. | ||
| And when you work closely with the government as a contractor, it makes it hard to do your job. | ||
| So even though I don't work directly for the government, working as a contractor with the government affects you too. | ||
| You can't log into systems. | ||
| You can't do your job. | ||
| And it was very frustrating. | ||
| So we're kind of nervous. | ||
| We're kind of waiting and seeing. | ||
| But, you know, and we're worried about the holes and the vulnerabilities. | ||
| Look, maybe it's just my own public opinion, but we don't seem really popular abroad right now. | ||
| And that's not the time to have a, you know, kind of a lapse in our national cybersecurity. | ||
| And when you take groups like NIST and you put over half of them on furlough and you have systems where you're not updating security protocols, it's scary. | ||
| So yeah, my colleagues and I are a little scared. | ||
| C-SPAN on the streets of Washington yesterday talking to tourists and others about the impact of the government shutdown. | ||
| We are continuing to involve you in this conversation as well, our viewers, as we always do here on the Washington Journal. | ||
| Jan in Boynton Beach, Florida and Independent. | ||
| Jan, do you have a message to these lawmakers and the president this morning? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I'm mainly interested in making a statement for people who have benefited from the health care that we've received through ACA. | ||
| My daughter is a food server. | ||
| She's a high-end food server for very wealthy people in Palm Beach. | ||
| And she's never asked for anything. | ||
| And finally, she was able to afford health care through ACA. | ||
| And when she went to the clinic for the first time, she was diagnosed with stage four cancer and was told to receive treatment immediately. | ||
| And she did. | ||
| And her life was saved because of ACA. | ||
| There are many people that never ask their government for anything. | ||
| They get up, they do their good job for other people, they serve other people. | ||
| And ACA has made it possible for those who were not given insurance by their employer. | ||
| Famous thoughts there in Florida. | ||
| Howard in Salisbury, North Carolina, Democratic Caller. | ||
| Howard, let's hear from you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, well done, the last caller. | |
| See, a lot of people look, look, people, look, the Republicans want to take all this money and give it to the wealth. | ||
| Now, look how, and what it sounds like to me is so selfish because now the Democrats are trying to save all this insurance money and all this appropriated money from going into a blank check to Trump. | ||
| If the people do not have health care, even though the lady said her insurance didn't take care of it, maybe she had the wrong insurance, but you shouldn't base that. | ||
| So do the Democrats just give up without any fight? | ||
| It's up to the Republicans to sit down and negotiate something for the American people, not just for themselves. | ||
| But I know I feel sorry for a lot of people who got caught up in this, but because a lot of those people voted for this. | ||
| But I do feel, but I do understand that if they don't sit down with the Democrats and say, well, so what shall we do? | ||
| We're going to stay like this. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Howard in Salisbury, North Carolina, Joe, Whitesboro, Texas, Republican. | ||
| Joe, welcome to the program this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Greta. | |
| Always nice to see you in the morning. | ||
| I would just like to say that this is a Schumer Jeffries Nancy Pelosi shutdown. | ||
| And what happens is they ask for these big money bills. | ||
| And we all know, especially being a Republican, that the Democrats have a great way of taking our money and making it their own. | ||
| They have spent so much on the election that they need to reinstate their cash counts. | ||
| And that's going to take a while. | ||
| And this is how they do it. | ||
| So I say for Thun and Johnson and Trump to hold firm and teach these Democrats that they cannot take our money anymore. | ||
| Jodi. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Do you agree with the administration potentially eyeing mass layoffs to federal government workers as well? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, that's going to happen. | |
| You know, and it does happen every time, but they're all basically made whole, but they will lose some. | ||
| And I'm on for that because that's part of it. | ||
| But who's to blame but Schumer and Jeffries and Pelosi. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Joe's thoughts there, Republican in Whitesboro, Texas. | ||
| We're going to continue taking our calls this morning on day two of the federal government shutdown. | ||
| C-SPAN will have live coverage here in the Washington Journal and throughout the day. | ||
| So stay with C-SPAN as we continue to cover what's happening in and around Washington with the federal government. | ||
| In other news this morning, front page of the Washington Times with this headline, the president deploys National Guard from coast to coast. | ||
| Democrats ignite legal battles. | ||
| Yesterday, the Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, and this is what the Attorney General had to say about efforts to combat crime in cities like Memphis. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What about the policies that need to be put in place to make sure that when we do get these criminals off the street, they stay off the street and maybe get charged for some of the crimes that they've allegedly committed? | |
| Yeah, and that's a huge problem in Memphis because they've had cashless bail. | ||
| You know, when you have a woke DA who doesn't care and they're letting people out, they're turning it around. | ||
| Someone who committed a violent murder recently in Memphis in 2024, I think, had just been let out months before on cashless bail and then commits a murder. | ||
| So these people should be locked up. | ||
| They shouldn't be on the streets. | ||
| And that's why our U.S. attorneys are going to take as many of these crimes federally as we can, as we legally can. | ||
| And also we have DEA, ATF, FBI, U.S. Marshals all working hand in hand with the National Guard, with Secretary Noam and DHS, and with all of our partners on the ground, local law enforcement as well, to help keep Memphis safe and make Memphis safe because it's been horrendous out there. | ||
| Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, talking to reporters yesterday before leaving with the Defense Secretary and Stephen Miller to Memphis, Tennessee. | ||
| Other news to share with you this morning. | ||
| Front page of the New York Times. | ||
| This morning, this picture of Jane Goodall, who passed away yesterday. | ||
| There's the picture on the front page of the New York Times revealing the life of chimpanzees and herself. | ||
| The picture there is from 2019. | ||
| Want to go into the C-SPAN archives as well? | ||
| She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Biden at a ceremony at the White House earlier this year. | ||
| Here's a portion of that ceremony. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is awarded to Jane Goodall. | |
| From war-torn England to the jungles of Tanzania, Dr. Jane Goodall's childhood passion for animals led her to explore wildlife in Africa. | ||
| Her groundbreaking discoveries of chimpanzees challenged scientific convention, reshaped conversation methods, and redefined our understanding of the connection between humans, animals, and the environment we share. | ||
| Jane's activism, vision, and message of hope have mobilized a global movement to protect the planet. | ||
| Above all, she has taught us that when we search for humanity and the natural world around us, we discover it within ourselves. | ||
| From the C-SPAN archives, Jane Goodall in 2025 receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Biden. | ||
| Ms. Goodall died yesterday in Los Angeles at the age of 91. | ||
| Back to the government shutdown. | ||
| It's day two here in Washington, and we're getting your messages to lawmakers and the president on what you want them to do. | ||
| Pete in New Haven, Connecticut, an independent. | ||
| Pete, what do you say? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just want to say this administration is a serious, sad joke. | |
| If the election was held today, there would be a tremendous amount of turnover that you wouldn't get the administration wouldn't be around. | ||
| And headset, Vice President Vance, all the lawmakers at Congress and the Senate that they are afraid, especially the Republicans, are afraid of Trump. | ||
| And that's why we can't get anything done. | ||
| There's no backbone in Congress, nothing, or in the Senate. | ||
| All right, Pete. | ||
| Glenn in Detroit, Democratic caller, it's your turn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Greta. | |
| Greta, it amazes me how a lot of Republicans called in talking about this healthcare issue is holding up things. | ||
| Not too long ago, have they forgotten it was something called pre-existing conditions before Obamacare, like which they like to call, where you go to your doctor and the insurance company would turn you down because they didn't want to take the risk if you had a heart attack, or maybe one or two heart attacks, or whatever that, if your conditions was severe. | ||
| So they had the right to turn you down. | ||
| And if they did sign you up, the premiums would be so high, you couldn't afford it. | ||
| If anything, Obamacare done by getting rid of pre-existing conditions, it saved a lot of lives where a lot of people were dying. | ||
| Just like the previous call, a few calls back saying that found out their family member has stage four cancer, and now they're getting real treatment. | ||
| So these people forget until that pre-existing condition come back at them. | ||
| Because I'm going to tell you, a lot of them that call it don't sound so healthy to me. | ||
| All right, Glenn. | ||
| Diane, Vienna, Virginia, Republican. | ||
| Diane. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I just wanted to say I am a registered Republican, and I think we all need to stop pointing fingers and blame each other. | |
| We all need to come together. | ||
| I think the Congress needs to stop the government shutdown. | ||
| What if they didn't get paid during any time the government shuts down? | ||
| Don't pay the administration. | ||
| Don't pay the representatives or the senators. | ||
| Let them feel how it feels to us when all of a sudden we have to pay our mortgage. | ||
| We don't have a paycheck. | ||
| Whatever our job might be. | ||
| I just think, again, they need to reopen the government, negotiate behind the scenes, and get where we need to be as Americans, proud and united as one. | ||
| And thank you, C-SPAN. | ||
| So, Diane, as a Republican, you think that they should negotiate with Democrats on these premiums that were put in place, subsidies, these premium subsidies that were put in place during COVID? | ||
| Is this the approach in place? | ||
|
unidentified
|
100%. | |
| 100%. | ||
| I absolutely do. | ||
| Again, I'm physically conservative and I wouldn't agree with this, but I think, yes, we need to come together and bring those back or keep those in place as well. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Diane, with her thoughts, a Republican in Virginia, take a look at the headline. | ||
| Axios has on their website, 750,000 federal workers at risk for furlough in the government shutdown. | ||
| And they're citing the Congressional Budget Office on that number. | ||
| Broken down, according to the newspapers, EPA, Education, and Commerce, they would see more than 80% of their total workforce furloughed. | ||
| At the Pentagon, it would be 45%. | ||
| It's mostly civilians, 334,000 civilian employees. | ||
| It's 11% for the Justice Department, almost 13,000 employees. | ||
| And at Homeland Security, most of those employees, essential, it'd be about 14,000 or 5% of the total workforce at Homeland Security that would be furloughed. | ||
| At the Veterans Affairs Department, it's 3% of the total. | ||
| Jerome in New York, an independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for taking my call. | |
| The lady who called up on the Republicans, she's correct. | ||
| This finger pointing is not working out. | ||
| And C-SPAN could help because there's something C-SPAN doesn't do. | ||
| You guys still do the best covering politics in the USC. | ||
| And I got that. | ||
| But you guys do not deal with the lies. | ||
| And you tried to deal with it just now because the Republicans are saying it's all about giving health care to illegals. | ||
| That is, you're totally correct. | ||
| 1% of the federal budget deals with people who come into the emergency rooms and the law is you must deal with them and treat them. | ||
| The other 99% deals with Americans. | ||
| Now, what are you going to do? | ||
| You're going to send somebody out there and say, I'm not going to treat you. | ||
| You're going to die. | ||
| Let's be compassionate. | ||
| So it's not, the Republicans are lying. | ||
| And you C-SPAN people need to expose them when they lie, whether Republican or Democrat. | ||
| Do not lie and say this is being held up because they want to give money to the illegals. | ||
| No, that's the emergency money. | ||
| Jerome, what we did is we play what the Republicans and the Democrats are saying. | ||
| We did not say that they want to give the money to the illegal immigrants. | ||
| You heard the vice president talk about that in the briefing room. | ||
| If you missed it yesterday, you can find it on our website at c-span.org. | ||
| We'll continue with this conversation for our last half an hour of today's Washington Journal. | ||
| After a short break, when we come back, we'll be joined by Oregon Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Dexter to discuss day two of the federal government shutdown and President Trump's plans to deploy National Guard troops in Portland. | ||
| Stay with us. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And past president, why are you doing this? | |
| This is outrageous. | ||
| This is a kangaroo clause. | ||
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Joining us this morning from Portland, Oregon is Congresswoman Maxine Dexter, Democrat, represents the third district there. | ||
| Congresswoman, thank you for being with us. | ||
| Let's begin with the Democrats' position on this government shutdown. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you agree with it? | |
| The Democrat position is that Republicans need to come to the table to reopen the government. | ||
| They need seven votes in the Senate, and to get those, they need to negotiate. | ||
| So, yes, I agree with this position 100%. | ||
| What is the position? | ||
| Outline it for our viewers who are just joining us. | ||
| And should the party hold firm on all of it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, a negotiation is always a back and forth, right? | |
| But what we are standing on the line of is protecting health care, cutting the cost for working families, and having an ironclad, enforceable deal that Donald Trump and Russell Vogt can't cut up with rescissions or other measures. | ||
| Is the party leaders, are the party leaders, negotiating, or are there any talks happening right now with Republicans? | ||
| Do you know of anything that will happen today? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know of anything personally in the House. | |
| As you know, we are going to receive whatever the negotiation is in the Senate to get that bill across in the Senate. | ||
| So we are at this point not in the negotiations from my perspective. | ||
| I know Chuck Schumer and Leader Jeffries have been closely collaborating throughout, so they very well may have meetings that I don't know about. | ||
| The Washington Post notes that three of your own two Democrats, one independent in the Senate broke with party ranks in that chamber and voted with Republicans to have a continuing resolution, a so-called clean one, no policy writers that would keep the government open until November. | ||
| Listen to Angus King, the independent from Maine, talking about why he decided to vote with Republicans, and we'll get your response on the other side. | ||
| The irony of this vote is many feel that this was an opportunity to stand up to Donald Trump, to vote no, and to fight back. | ||
| The irony, the paradox is by shutting the government, we're actually giving Donald Trump more power. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that was why I voted yes. | |
| I did not want to hand Donald Trump and Russell Vogt and Stephen Miller additional power to decimate the federal government, to decimate the programs that are so important to so many people. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Here is what Donald Trump said just this afternoon. | |
| We can do things during a shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He means the Democrats, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like. | |
| We can do things medically in other ways, including benefits. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We can cut numbers of people out. | |
| Maya Angelou once said, if someone tells you who they are, you should believe them. | ||
| Donald Trump, in this quote, tells us what he plans to do if there's a shutdown. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And it will not be good for the American people. | |
| Congresswoman, the Russell Vogt, the budget director, has said there could be mass layoffs in the coming days. | ||
| He's already started cutting programs and quote posting on X which programs that they are cutting. | ||
| So did the Democrats further empower the executive branch? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely not. | |
| You know, what we know is they don't need a shutdown to massively lay off people. | ||
| They've been doing it illegally throughout their nine months in office or in power right now. | ||
| What I agree with the senator that when they tell you who they are, believe them. | ||
| That is absolutely what we know, that they're not trustworthy for negotiations when we have a deal that they are going back on it. | ||
| Congress has the power of the purse, and that has been taken by Trump and Russell Vogt. | ||
| And we have to take out trust at this point. | ||
| We need to trust but verify. | ||
| And how we verify is having rescissions out of any deal that moves forward. | ||
| It has to be enforceable because they aren't trustworthy. | ||
| And this is a scare tactic, using the threat of mass layoffs as a result of the federal shutdown. | ||
| In fact, they've been doing it already. | ||
| And federal employees are more protected from layoffs during a shutdown. | ||
| So they, in fact, are filing a lawsuit against federal layoffs at this point. | ||
| So I don't take that. | ||
| I know that that's a talking point for them, but 100% we are absolutely protecting the American people by trying to take away their ability to just do what they want with whatever negotiated settlement or deal that comes out of us. | ||
| Congresswoman Maxine Dexter, our guests here this morning until the top of the end of the Washington Journal at the top of the hour. | ||
| So we'll go to calls. | ||
| Joe in Fort Worth, Texas, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, how you doing? | |
| Morning, Joe. | ||
| Question or comment. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I want to ask you, could you read that beautiful book? | |
| Let the people hear what's in the book. | ||
| I would like to know what's in the book, but let's see. | ||
| All right, Joe, I'm going to go on to Sherry in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Republican. | ||
| Sherry, it's your turn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for having me. | |
| My comment is that President Trump is doing a fabulous job. | ||
| And the thing that he needs to keep doing, we need every immigrant that is not a U.S. citizen out of our country. | ||
| If they have children in the USA, then they, yes, can be a U.S. citizen, but not until they are 18 years old. | ||
| So, their parents need to take them back to where they were born. | ||
| And when they get 18, if they want to come back to the United States, then they can come back to the United States. | ||
| I worked for the DNV for quite a few years. | ||
| And I know if you come over illegal, that takes a little while. | ||
| But if you start the process when you come, then you can become a U.S. citizen and get the paper that says that you are a U.S. citizen. | ||
| So there should not be any immigrants in this United States. | ||
| I wish they would come to Myrtle Beach and take every Mexican, every one of them. | ||
| That when I'm my job and I take money from them, they have a wallet full of $100 bills. | ||
| Sherry, how do you know this? | ||
| How do you know this? | ||
| And why Mexicans? | ||
| Why single out Mexicans? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not just Mexicans. | |
| They have all kinds of other people that I have seen their passports and they do not. | ||
| And I have seen them with their visa cards that have expired. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I'll work at that. | |
| Congresswoman, your reaction, your response. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, you know what? | |
| The colour is saying is not unusual across the United States. | ||
| I think people are really concerned about their families. | ||
| People are struggling to survive, paycheck to paycheck. | ||
| And when people are struggling and not making ends meet, they start looking at others who might be making it harder for them. | ||
| I very much believe that what we are seeing right now, this conflict over immigration, is because everyone across this country is feeling like they aren't getting a leg up in the world. | ||
| And when people are struggling, they look for someone to blame. | ||
| And I don't mean this individually. | ||
| I think people deserve a stable platform. | ||
| And we have not provided it in this country. | ||
| Now, I will also be very clear. | ||
| We are a country of immigrants. | ||
| Birthright citizenship is protected in the Constitution. | ||
| There are things that I absolutely disagree with, but the sentiment that the caller said, but the sentiment that things are not okay and people need to have stability, that is across this country. | ||
| And that is something that we need to address. | ||
| And we also need those workers. | ||
| I'll just say the hospitality industry, the hospitals, the home care industry, agriculture. | ||
| We don't have enough workers in Oregon here. | ||
| We need immigrants to help us do the work. | ||
| And we should build efficient pathways, legal pathways for them to have permission to work and stay in this country. | ||
| And let me just say the last thing that I think a lot of people don't really understand is that these undocumented immigrants are paying taxes and they cannot receive any benefits. | ||
| And so that is going to hurt our economy as we are removing these people from the workforce. | ||
| Social Security taxes, federal taxes are going to be, the revenue is going to go down. | ||
| Congresswoman, the Republicans point to the emergency Medicaid program, where hospitals in emergency rooms have to provide care for illegal immigrants that come into the emergency room. | ||
| And it's this emergency Medicaid program. | ||
| We read from the Congressional Budget Office over five years it cost $27 billion is the number. | ||
| That is what Republicans point to when they say Democrats are trying to close the government over giving funding to illegal immigrants. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so I just want to say it as clearly as possible. | |
| Illegal or undocumented immigrants do not have access to Medicaid in the same way that any American has it. | ||
| Any other citizen has it. | ||
| What they are saying is totally disingenuous. | ||
| I'm not going to say they're lying. | ||
| I'm going to say it's disingenuous to suggest that illegal immigrants are somehow getting Medicaid. | ||
| What happens? | ||
| I'm a doctor, critical care doctor. | ||
| If someone shows up in our hospital, we are going to take care of them. | ||
| We don't check documentation when somebody walks in the room because our job is to help people. | ||
| So, if someone is in our community, shows up in our emergency room, we are going to take care of them. | ||
| And we aren't going to send them out before they're healthy and ready to go home. | ||
| So, what that does is it puts uncompensated care on the hospitals in the communities. | ||
| So, taxpayers are paying for this care no matter what. | ||
| They're just going to pay for more expensive care if people don't feel safe coming to the hospital. | ||
| And right now, people can get care regardless of documentation. | ||
| But this bill has nothing, what we are standing up for is Medicaid cuts for American citizens that have already been cut and the premium-enhanced tax credits that are ending. | ||
| People this month today are getting huge increases in their premiums and they're going to lose the tax credits. | ||
| It's going to, it's almost half of the costs that we are trying to recuperate right now that have been cut. | ||
| 27%, I think, of the cuts are from the ACA tax premium enhanced credits that are going away. | ||
| The working families across this country, making $60,000 to $150,000 per year, are going to be paying an enormous amount, and they're going to see it today. | ||
| Back to that emergency Medicaid program that you were talking about as a doctor: is it also Americans who are showing up in emergency rooms without insurance? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, and this is going to explode. | |
| Let's just be clear about that. | ||
| When we cut Medicaid with the work requirements, and that's going to bleed people from the system and getting rid of these enhanced tax credits, people are going to be uninsured. | ||
| And so they will be uninsured showing up into our hospitals, sicker, you know, a preventative intervention that could have kept them healthy, or you know, antibiotics that could have treated an infection before it became sepsis. | ||
| Those things are not going to happen anymore. | ||
| And we all are going to pay more. | ||
| It's a penny saved, a pound foolish. | ||
| It really does not make any sense for us to cut people from our health care rules. | ||
| We fixed this 15 years ago, and now we're going to go back and do it all again. | ||
| Want to also get your reaction to the National Guard sent to Portland or the president talking about doing that. | ||
| This is Wall Street Journal headline: Portland vis to make case that troops aren't needed. | ||
| Congresswoman? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, troops are not needed. | |
| They certainly are not wanted. | ||
| We have everything under control here. | ||
| The governor has been very clear with the president, our mayor, our police force has been very clear. | ||
| There is nothing on fire in Portland. | ||
| I think what we have is a peaceful, united community. | ||
| And like every city, we could use federal investments, we could use housing, we could use health care, we could use treatment for substance use disorder. | ||
| But what we don't need are troops. | ||
| It is going to escalate tensions and scare people at a time where we are rebounding. | ||
| We are a joyful, very proud community, and we want to keep our community safe. | ||
| And troops are not going to make us safer. | ||
| We'll go to Matt, who's in Falls Church, Virginia, Democratic Caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I would just say that, and I just want to respond quickly to that previous caller and just say, immigrants are welcome in our society. | |
| And I abhor when people are singling out groups of people, like just saying Mexicans, when they don't even know the status of these people. | ||
| They just look at Hispanic people and go, illegal immigrants in this country. | ||
| I feel like Donald Trump has really increased the amount of racism towards immigrant groups in our society. | ||
| And I hear this stuff, and it's escalated, and it's just bad. | ||
| Now, getting to the shutdown, please continue the shutdown. | ||
| I live in Northern Virginia. | ||
| It's bad for our local economy. | ||
| It is probably bad for our workers. | ||
| But we need this to happen because Donald Trump is going to continue attacking the federal workforce. | ||
| He's going to continue to attack health care. | ||
| If we don't stop and say, what do we get out of continuing to do this? | ||
| It's just going to keep happening. | ||
| And I hope the Democrats continue having a spine against the Republican egresses against federal democracy. | ||
| We have a say. | ||
| We are part of this country. | ||
| You don't get to just steamroll us in our current system. | ||
| Okay, Congresswoman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I mean, that is also something that I am very much hearing in Portland. | |
| And I feel strongly that the caller is right, that we need to stand up against the authoritarian actions that this president is taking, whether it's sending troops into my home or it's cutting federal workforce workers without any reason and certainly without the process that is supposed to be in place to protect them in their places of work, many of which have been there for decades. | ||
| What this president is doing is dangerous, and this shutdown is absolutely necessary to help the American people understand that their health care is at stake, that their affordability of their lives is worse. | ||
| It is the great betrayal that he ran to say he was going to cut costs for people while people are going to see their premiums go up 75 to 200 percent. | ||
| It is egregious, the disingenuous president. | ||
| And we need to hold the line on this. | ||
| We cannot let him cut health care for 20 million Americans and make it much less affordable for everyone else. | ||
| The president on Truth Social around 8 a.m. this morning posting, I have a meeting today with Russ Vogt, he of Project 2025 fame, to determine which of the many Democrat agencies, most of which are political scam, he recommends to be cut and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent. | ||
| I can't believe the radical left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity. | ||
| They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to quietly and quickly make America great again. | ||
| What do you say to the president, Congresswoman? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's disgusting. | |
| It's a complete lie. | ||
| He is trying to scare and divide us. | ||
| It is time for American people to wake up to what our president is doing. | ||
| He is trying to consolidate power in the executive branch and take over. | ||
| The congressional legislative branch is separate and equal, and they are trying to take our power away. | ||
| And frankly, my Republican colleagues are handing it over. | ||
| This is our opportunity to reset and show the people what is actually happening. | ||
| And that is 100% a threat. | ||
| And do we really want someone leading us who is going to threaten and intimidate his people? | ||
| This is un-American. | ||
| We have to hold the line here. | ||
| We'll go to Eric, who's in New York, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Thank you for having my call. | ||
| Hi, Madam Representative. | ||
| My name is Eric. | ||
| I used to live in your congressional district back when Earl Blumenauer was there. | ||
| And then I moved to New Jersey in Frank Pallone's district, and he's the ranking member of the House, the House Subcommittee on Health, which I know that you're on. | ||
| My question is about a threat to health care in Portland, Oregon that exists today under the Trump administration under the Controlled Substances Act. | ||
| Oregon legalized psilocybin services centers. | ||
| Those are magic mushrooms, psychedelic mushrooms. | ||
| As you know, they are still under threat of federal authorities coming in and arresting all of those people going there for help, all of those people working there. | ||
| I've been asking this question of the Democrats that represent my congressional districts of where I've been living. | ||
| If you're pro-choice on reproductive freedoms, you believe that heterosexual couples who don't want to have your body your choice and I asked Frank Pallone this in 2022. | ||
| He totally evaded. | ||
| He told me Earl Blumenauer has never asked him about amending the Controlled Substances Act for psilocybin services centers. | ||
| So my question is: if you're pro-choice and you are for all of the mental health care and you're on the Veterans Affairs Committee as well, how many more months do we have to wait for you to amend the Controlled Substances Act under Donald Trump with RFK Jr. as the Eric? | ||
| We'll get a response. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Congressman Eric. | |
| No, thank you, Eric, for your call. | ||
| And psilocybin use in Oregon has been legalized in very controlled situations with practitioners. | ||
| And we are using this opportunity as a pilot. | ||
| We need to see if it really works. | ||
| We have reason to believe that it does. | ||
| And veterans in particular have really benefited from this. | ||
| If it is working, it will make it easier to amend the controlled substances provisions right now. | ||
| But that's not where we're at. | ||
| And I just want to be really clear. | ||
| What we are fighting for is for everyone to have access to health care. | ||
| And regardless of what that health care is, that should be between a physician and the patient. | ||
| We need to protect it. | ||
| But controlled substances and whether or not psilocybin should be amended is still, in my mind, up for further investigation. | ||
| And it is being actively investigated, and I think it's promising. | ||
| But I do not believe that untested, unproven interventions should be broadly available. | ||
| I think Oregon made a decision that it was sufficiently compelling. | ||
| I agree with that choice, but I think federal law is going to take a higher level of scrutiny. | ||
| And so at this point, what I want is for everyone to have access to health care, and that is why I'm holding the line with this budget shutdown. | ||
| Joe and Carlton, Kentucky, Democratic caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, good morning. | |
| This is Joe. | ||
| Can you all hear me? | ||
| Yes, we can, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, the three questions I have or comments I was going to make: I would like to know: has anybody looked at the Constitution anymore, or has the Constitution turned into a white erase board? | |
| What's your point, Joe? | ||
|
unidentified
|
My point is everything about our country is in the Constitution. | |
| The framers that developed this didn't get this done overnight. | ||
| All right, and Joe, tie that back to the government shutdown. | ||
| What are you referencing? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ma'am. | |
| Well, what are you specifically pointing to? | ||
| What action is being taken that you want to reference the Constitution? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, everything we have to do every day, we're getting tied up in the legal matters and everybody's wanting to take the Constitution to a different area. | |
| I don't understand. | ||
| And the thing with the Army, the regular military, we're not even following the laws of the Constitution. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Congresswoman? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, no, he's right. | |
| The Passe Comitadas Act said that the federal troops should not be used against its own citizens. | ||
| That is being violated in areas where Donald Trump is against the governor's wishes sending federal troops in. | ||
| It also, he's invoking Title 10, or Pete Hugseth is invoking Title 10, which says there has to be an invasion, a rebellion, or some catastrophic inability to enforce federal law for federal troops to be used against a governor's wishes. | ||
| So that is the title theoretically that's being used. | ||
| But let me just be clear, there's no invasion, there's no rebellion, and our local police forces are able to enforce the laws just fine here. | ||
| So it is in violation of the Constitution. | ||
| Any action to bring troops into my city, my home, I agree with the caller. | ||
| Ruthie is next in North Carolina, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I'm just concerned with the Democrats are saying this shutdown has got to do with the medical for everybody. | ||
| And the Republicans are saying that the shutdown is due to medical for undocumented immigrants. | ||
| But they're deporting all the immigrants. | ||
| So if you're deporting all the immigrants, why aren't they working with the Democrats to solve this issue and just get it done? | ||
| I mean, they're contradicting themselves and it makes no sense to me. | ||
| Congresswoman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I couldn't agree with you more. | |
| It makes no sense. | ||
| I think it's divisive. | ||
| It's cruel. | ||
| It is all in Project 2025. | ||
| It is a plan for consolidating power under an authoritarian. | ||
| I absolutely agree that it makes no sense. | ||
| And our economy is going to be hurt. | ||
| People are going to be hurt across this country, not just immigrants. | ||
| It's going to have a huge negative impact on each and every one of us. | ||
| In St. Louis, Missouri, Oliver is watching there on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm just, I just had a couple things. | ||
| I mean, first, the responsibility of the governing party that's in power is supposed to keep the government funded. | ||
| Right now, that's Republicans. | ||
| End of. | ||
| That's the bottom line. | ||
| They're supposed to keep the government funded by working with Democrats. | ||
| They refuse to do so. | ||
| At this point, I don't see any incentive for Democrats to come to the table. | ||
| I mean, if you're not going to, if you're not going to negotiate, we're not going to talk to you. | ||
| Second, the Party of States' rights of separate, you know, to be owning states' rights, which is allegedly the Republicans, you have no problem violating that principle by having the federal government come into everyday communities to impose the rule of law. | ||
| So I just, I don't really, I guess my question to the representative is what can governors do instead of placating Donald Trump? | ||
| What are they able to do to say no to him so that way they don't, they're not in fear of losing federal funds. | ||
| All right, Oliver. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, thank you, Oliver. | |
| Number one, totally agree. | ||
| Republicans are in control of the House, Senate, and the White House. | ||
| They absolutely own whatever is happening here. | ||
| They did not negotiate. | ||
| They did not plan ahead and make sure that we had the votes to get this budget passed. | ||
| Secondly, states' rights, ironically, have been something that the conservative arms of our political parties have really protected. | ||
| And yet, here we are with a president who's undermining states' rights. | ||
| And again, I think it is an authoritarian play that he wants to undermine their ability to push back. | ||
| My governor, our attorney general, is doing everything they can with their executive power as well as their litigation power. | ||
| We are suing the federal government for violation of Title 10. | ||
| That hearing is tomorrow. | ||
| I believe we are seeing this in California and in Chicago, Illinois as well. | ||
| We have to push back. | ||
| This is anti-American for one person to be able to override the will not only of the states, but the people of those cities in those states. | ||
| We are in very dangerous territory here. | ||
| And I am grateful for the leadership of our executive branch and attorney general here. | ||
| And I agree with the caller that Republicans own this. | ||
| They've got to make this change. | ||
| We'll go to Simon in Murrow, Georgia, Republican. | ||
| You are talking with Congresswoman Maxine Dexter, Democrat of Oregon. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You saying Simeon, correct? | |
| Yes, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How are you doing, Congresswoman? | |
| It's Simeon Nunnane, candidate for Congress in the 13th district. | ||
| Congresswoman, my mother died of breast cancer in my face. | ||
| To say that this party here does not care about women and health care is very, it's very insulting. | ||
| The thing is, this: you have asked for $1.5 trillion to be injected into the nation's economy. | ||
| Currently, the nation's inflation is at 2.9%. | ||
| So, the question is: for 343 million citizens, how do you expect the citizens to keep up with the inflation rate if we put in $1.5 trillion into the nation's economy? | ||
| Everything that you're asking for, eventually, the citizens would not be able to afford. | ||
| Okay, caller, we'll get a response. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so one, we are not injecting this. | |
| This is current services. | ||
| We are just asking those to not be gotten rid of or ended. | ||
| The premium tax credits are current law, but those end imminently. | ||
| So, if we don't do something, we are actually dramatically higher than that 2.9% inflation that people across this country are feeling. | ||
| It's 200% inflation for some families of four who are going to not be able to afford their premiums, their health care premiums. | ||
| And for some families, their premiums are higher than their rent or their house payments. | ||
| So, I absolutely agree with the premise that people can't afford this, but I am arguing with or taking issue with Democrats actually adding to the deficit. | ||
| I will also say that the billionaire tax credits that are in here that these Medicaid cuts and ACA premium tax credit cuts are funding adds $3.5 trillion to the deficit. | ||
| That is absolutely egregious. |