| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
Sadie German. | |
| Then we'll talk about day eight of the government shutdown, first with Maine Democratic Congresswoman Shelley Pingree, a member of the Appropriations Committee, and later with House Republican Conference Chair Michigan Congresswoman Lisa McClain. | ||
| Washington Journal starts now. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| It's Wednesday, October the 8th, 2025, the eighth day of the federal government shutdown. | ||
| The Senate will meet at 10 a.m. Eastern today with votes on government funding expected in the 11 a.m. hour. | ||
| Meanwhile, some 750,000 federal employees remained furloughed this morning. | ||
| A new White House guidance indicates that back pay for those employees after the shutdown ends may not be guaranteed. | ||
| We'll talk about it all this morning. | ||
| And as we do, we want to hear from you on phone line split as usual by political party. | ||
| Republicans, it's 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| We also have a special line for federal employees, that number 202-748-8003. | ||
| You can also send us a text or catch up with us on social media on exits at C-SPANWJ on Facebook. | ||
| It's facebook.com slash C-SPAN. | ||
| And a very good Wednesday morning to you. | ||
| You can go ahead and start calling in. | ||
| Here's the lead paragraph of the lead story in today's Politico newspaper. | ||
| They write that furloughed federal workers may not be eligible for back pay after the government shutdown. | ||
| That's according to a memo circulated by the White House. | ||
| Another escalation politico writes in the White House pressure campaign against Senate Democrats. | ||
| Yesterday at the White House, President Trump was asked. | ||
| I would say it depends on who we're talking about. | ||
| I can tell you this, the Democrats have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy, but it really depends on who you're talking about. | ||
| But for the most part, we're going to take care of our people. | ||
| There are some people that really don't deserve to be taken care of, and we'll take care of them in a different way, okay? | ||
| As President Trump yesterday at the White House at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue up here on Capitol Hill, Speaker Johnson was also asked about that White House memo. | ||
| Here's what he had to say. | ||
| With regard to whether the furloughed civilian employees of the federal government will receive back pay, it is true that in previous shutdowns, many or most of them have been paid time that they were furloughed. | ||
| But there is new legal analysis. | ||
| I don't know the details. | ||
| I just saw a headline this morning. | ||
| I'm not read in on it, and I haven't spoken to the White House about it. | ||
| But there are some legal analysts who are saying that that may not be appropriate or necessary in terms of the law requiring that back pay be provided. | ||
| So I'm sure that'll be a, there will be a lot of discussion about that. | ||
| But there are legal analysts who think that that is not something that government should do. | ||
| That, if that is true, that should turn up the urgency and the necessity of the Democrats doing the right thing here. | ||
| Even more pain, more than I just listed for more people. | ||
| So we've got to figure it out. | ||
| Speaker Johnson, yesterday on Capitol Hill, by the way, Washington Journal viewers will be able to listen to Speaker Johnson and themselves and call in and ask him questions when he appears on this program scheduled for tomorrow at 8.30 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| Hope you tune in for that discussion. | ||
| We could be hearing more from Speaker Johnson today on Capitol Hill. | ||
| The House is set to meet in a pro forma session at 3 p.m. | ||
| And the Senate, as we said, is set to join its session at 10 a.m. Eastern time. | ||
| On the floor yesterday on the Senate, Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, was talking about the shutdown as well, blaming Republicans for the continued impasse. | ||
| Republicans still haven't come to the table in a serious way. | ||
| Speaker Johnson, perhaps more than anyone else, has dug in and shut the door on any cooperation. | ||
| Johnson has become a massive roadblock to progress. | ||
| Yesterday, he even said, quote, there's nothing to negotiate. | ||
| And he sent the House home for yet another week. | ||
| The House hasn't held a vote now for 18 days. | ||
| They haven't been in session for two weeks. | ||
| That proves beyond a doubt that Speaker Johnson is causing and not interested in ending the shutdown. | ||
| Clearly, at this point, he, he, is the main obstacle. | ||
| So ending this shutdown will require Donald Trump's in the House are increasingly dug in. | ||
| Johnson has pushed this partisan, one-sided CR and told us to take it or leave it. | ||
| I heard my friend Leader Thune say it's a bipartisan bill. | ||
| There hasn't been one drop of Democratic input. | ||
| You can't call that a bipartisan bill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's a partisan bill. | |
| Anyway, Johnson pushed this partisan, one-sided CR and said, take it or leave it. | ||
| I'm going home. | ||
| He shut the House down now, the House of Representatives, for three weeks, and he has said he won't bring the House back until the Senate Democrats cave to his demands. | ||
| He also continues to outright lie, lie about Democrats trying to give undocumented immigrants health insurance through ACA or Medicaid or Medicaid. | ||
| That was a lie yesterday. | ||
| It's a lie today. | ||
| It'll be a lie tomorrow. | ||
| He knows that. | ||
| And yet he's still saying it to distract from the real issue. | ||
| Senator Chuck Schumer there yesterday at the opening of the Senate session. | ||
| Again, 10 a.m. Eastern is where you can watch the Senate on C-SPAN 2. | ||
| This morning, we are talking about day 8 of the government shutdown here on the Washington Journal. | ||
| Phone lines for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents as usual, and that special line for federal employees, 202-748-8003 for federal employees. | ||
| We'll start, though, on the line for Democrats, Damien out of Alexandria, Louisiana. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| What are your thoughts on this eighth day of the shutdown? | ||
| Seven days, seven hours into it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, of course, I don't think it's good. | |
| My wife's a government worker, and we're going to be fine, but I think that this shutdown is based on Republican lines. | ||
| What was you and your wife's reaction yesterday to the news about that draft memo that federal workers may not receive back pay after the shutdown ends? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, we didn't discuss it. | |
| It would be bad. | ||
| It wouldn't be good. | ||
| And, you know, like I said, we're going to be okay. | ||
| We're not going to be great. | ||
| We may not be able to go out to Outback this weekend. | ||
| But I'm exaggerating, but I'm just saying we'll be fine. | ||
| But some folk are not going to be fine. | ||
| Damon, what is your wife's best guess on how long this goes? | ||
| What sort of guidance is she getting from the folks she works for in her agency? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They've done it too many times. | |
| They're not comfortable with it. | ||
| Because they don't know what's next. | ||
| And it is different. | ||
| We have a different administration who clearly wants to use this to make a point. | ||
| They want to fire people. | ||
| She's not going to get fired, but many people may get fired. | ||
| That's Damon in Alexandria, Louisiana. | ||
| Further reductions in the federal workforce. | ||
| Certainly, one issue that has come up during this shutdown, one potential issue, the potential lack of back pay for federal employees who are furloughed. | ||
| That's for federal workers, for non-federal workers and Americans in general. | ||
| Here's a headline on impacts of the shutdown. | ||
| Journal noting that over Monday and Tuesday, more than 9,000 flights were delayed across the United States. | ||
| Some of the impacts of the shutdown starting to echo out across the country. | ||
| This is Leroy in Baltimore, Maryland. | ||
| You're up next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| This is very simple to me. | ||
| The Republicans have already had the votes to open back up the government. | ||
| They've already got 53. | ||
| They're trying to get 52 so they can get around, I forgot what it's called, but they already have the votes to open the government back up. | ||
| So this is a Republican shutdown because they could open the government up right now. | ||
| But they're listening to their commander-in-chief. | ||
| I'm not going to say nothing bad about him, but we know who he is. | ||
| And this is a maneuvering move. | ||
| But if they wanted to open the government up, they could do it right now. | ||
| So this is a Republican shutdown, point blank. | ||
| To the Republican line, this is Frank in Georgia. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Wow. | ||
| The lying. | ||
| The Democrats are lying about Medicaid. | ||
| You know, it's a state-run program. | ||
| All they have to do is go to the ER, an illegal, and he could get, if he gets severely hurt, you know, he's going to be seen in the ER. | ||
| That's where they get enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| The problem when the illegals come in and they get hurt on these construction jobs or whatever, maybe they get paralyzed from the hip down, from the waist down, and they end up going. | ||
| You're talking about that law dating back to the 80s that mandates emergency care, but you're then saying there's a step further that happens. | ||
| How do you, what evidence do you know of people being enrolled in health insurance after receiving emergency care? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, Im TALA. | |
| The Im TALA laws are the laws that require that anybody that shows up in the ER, regardless of whether they have health insurance or not, Illinois or New York, they will be enrolled in Medicaid. | ||
| And they could probably come to the ER with just little sniffles in California, and they're going to get enrolled in Medicaid. | ||
| So to say that illegals are not being enrolled in Medicaid is a lie. | ||
| Now, no, they can't go to the Medicaid office and enroll. | ||
| They have to go through the ER. | ||
| And that's how they access the system. | ||
| That's Frank in Georgia. | ||
| This is David in Illinois. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, John. | |
| I'd like to ask a question. | ||
| Why do the Senate Republicans need 60 votes to pass this bill? | ||
| They do it another way. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| It's overcoming the filibuster. | ||
| They need 60 votes to advance the legislation. | ||
| You're talking about a simple majority vote, and we've talked about that for reconciliation bills, budget reconciliations bills. | ||
| This is not that. | ||
| This is the usual process for Senate legislation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, thank you, John. | |
| Is there any way, though, that they could possibly do this with a simple majority? | ||
| That's not possible. | ||
| It would involve blowing up the rules of the Senate, changing the rules of the Senate, getting rid of the filibuster. | ||
| That would be how you overcome that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, can the Republican majority do that? | |
| David, there's been talk of ending the filibuster in the past, and there's been members on both sides of the aisle that thinks that's a bad idea, but certainly a discussion that's happened more and more in recent years. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, John, thank you so much. | |
| It's David in Illinois. | ||
| This is Mark in Florida, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes, good morning. | ||
| First of all, the Democrats in the Senate, led by Schumer, are shutting the government down. | ||
| It's very simple. | ||
| Every member of Congress and the House of Representatives or the Senate who voted yes on this bill, they voted to keep the government open. | ||
| If you voted no, then you voted to shut the government down. | ||
| It's not any more complicated than that. | ||
| Now, another issue here is if the framers, if the men who founded this nation could see where we're at today, they would be just so appalled. | ||
| The idea that any American citizen would be dependent on the federal government, the House of Representatives, the Senate, the President of the United States for their health care services, it just goes to show you how far gone we are as a nation. | ||
| No citizen should be under the thumb of government and reliant on the government as to whether or not we're going to receive any kind of health care companies as possible, as the market would decide on. | ||
| Bartering for our services, we wouldn't have these problems. | ||
| Health care costs would be minuscule. | ||
| Everything that we're seeing with health care, the expense, is all because the government has gotten involved in it. | ||
| The Affordable Care Act has done nothing that Obama and the Democrats said it was going to do. | ||
| All the promises have blown up. | ||
| Health care costs are going to be brought down by Obamacare, prescription drugs. | ||
| The Democrats are bellyaching and complaining about the same things now as they were 15 years ago, 20, 25, 30 years ago. | ||
| Nothing's changed, and it's not going to change as long as the government has their hands in things. | ||
| Now, we're going to come up with another plan. | ||
| As long as the government, the Congress is trying to figure out a new way to keep health care costs down, they're just compounding the problem, and it just never ends. | ||
| And it goes on and on and on and on. | ||
| And it's so sad that we have so many people in this country who literally cannot exist without government programs, government agencies. | ||
| It's really sad. | ||
| But thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Mark in Florida. | ||
| We talked about the potential of federal employees who are furloughed not receiving back pay, the impact on air traffic control staffing. | ||
| But this is the lead editorial in today's Washington Post, the editorial board writing that government shutdowns are not painful enough to be able to be ended quickly. | ||
| Most Americans, they write, have hardly noticed, let alone grown agitated at the partial government shutdown as it heads into its eighth day with no clear path out. | ||
| That's the natural consequence, they write, of a process designed to make life as painless as possible when elected officials fail to do their jobs as appropriators. | ||
| What's the real harm of a shutdown if it mainly inconveniences some federal contractors who won't get paid here? | ||
| The government is too big, they write. | ||
| There's plenty of fat to cut. | ||
| If the last week has shown anything, it's that the federal bureaucracy performs too many non-essential tasks that do not have a direct bearing on the lives of most citizens. | ||
| The Washington Post saying government shutdowns are not painful enough for members of Congress to want to end them quickly. | ||
| Kimberly in Illinois, Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
| Yeah, so the last caller and the callers that have called before. | ||
| The Republicans absolutely have the right to, I mean, have the ability to open this government back up if they want to. | ||
| Yesterday, the synagogues voted 4146 to confirm a block of nominees. | ||
| They suspend the filibuster rules when they want to. | ||
| That is what they did yesterday. | ||
| They can certainly suspend the filibuster. | ||
| This is what they want. | ||
| So don't tell me, you know, people really need to know. | ||
| Yes, they have the majority in the House, in the Senate, and they have the White House. | ||
| In the Senate, they, again, just voted. to confirm a block of nominees on a simple majority vote. | ||
| They can certainly do the same to open the government if they wanted to. | ||
| That's Kimberly in Illinois. | ||
| This is Jim in Texas. | ||
| Independent, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| Well, you know, it's real clear. | ||
| It's kind of like that gentleman was saying here a couple of calls ago that the Democrats voted to shut the government down. | ||
| They the one Schumer, he just, Schumer aid them, and he wants to shut it down because he just scared a little Crockett. | ||
| He's scared of the little radical left lunatics that got Elon Omar and that little racist Jasmine Crockett and a bunch of radical left little lunatics. | ||
| He's just scared of them. | ||
| And he's going to run and do any little thing they want to. | ||
| And all I can say is, is I'm already getting ready to say President JD Vance, President Marco Rubio. | ||
| I'm already, I mean, the Democrats are losing voters. | ||
| They've already lost 2.1 million voters here in the last three years. | ||
| And the Republicans have gained 2.4 million voters. | ||
| Jim, are you talking voter registration numbers? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just keep going the way you're going, and you're going to get beat even worse than you did the last time. | |
| That's Jim in Texas, line for Independence. | ||
| Again, the Senate is set to come in at 10 a.m. Eastern today. | ||
| You can watch it on C-SPAN too. | ||
| I'll be holding a vote on a continuing resolution to reopen the government to keep it funded at previous levels. | ||
| It'll be the sixth vote on this continuing resolution. | ||
| 10 a.m. Eastern is when they come in. | ||
| 11 a.m. Eastern is when we're expecting a vote or thereabouts. | ||
| Yesterday, it was Senate Majority Leader John Thune who was on the Senate floor discussing the shutdown and the continuing resolution votes. | ||
| Mr. President, it's been one week since Democrats shut down the government. | ||
| One week since Democrats put their far-left base before the American people. | ||
| Over the past week, the Senate has taken votes on two different continuing resolutions. | ||
| One, offered by Republicans, is a clean funding extension, something that we do routinely around. | ||
| It just extends current funding levels to November the 21st so that we can make more progress on full-year appropriations. | ||
| The Democrats' proposal, on the other hand, shows their lack of seriousness. | ||
| Their resolution would fund the government until October 31st in exchange for $1.5 trillion in new partisan spending. | ||
| Yes, you heard that right, Mr. President. | ||
| $1.5 trillion in new partisan spending to fund the government through the end of the month. | ||
| Just the end of the month. | ||
| For $1.5 trillion. | ||
| And then there's the fact that their plan makes non-citizens eligible for federal health care programs, strips away common sense work requirements for able-bodied adults to be eligible for Medicaid, and repeals the transformative $50 billion rural health fund that Republicans enacted in July to support and bolster rural hospitals. | ||
| Why Democrats think that threatening health care in rural America is a winning proposition is beyond me. | ||
| But apparently, they really do think so because we're still in the shutdown one week later. | ||
| Senator Majority Leader John Thune on the floor yesterday. | ||
| We'll hear more from him today in the 10 a.m. hour. | ||
| Back to your phone calls. | ||
| This is Prince South Carolina, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you doing? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
| The only thing I wanted to say was: I believe that the shutdown should have never been. | ||
| All it is that you got two parties fighting over who could steal the most money from America. | ||
| The Republicans hold the House. | ||
| They hold everything. | ||
| And if the president is supposed to be the deal maker, why is he making a deal? | ||
| Why is he trying to threaten people to make deals? | ||
| That's not a way to make a deal by threatening everybody. | ||
| He's threatening to turn off this and turn it out. | ||
| And then it's partisan. | ||
| He wants to turn off everything on the Democrats. | ||
| He's looking at Democrat this, Democrat that. | ||
| Then you got Republicans and Democrats hollering at one another, calling each other this, that. | ||
| That's kids' play. | ||
| America's tired of kids' play. | ||
| We need grown-ups in the house instead of children playing. | ||
| If their money, if their time was at stake, do you think that we'd still be doing this? | ||
| That's all I had to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Prince, before you go, when do you think the last time was we had grown-ups in the house, grown-ups in Congress? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't think there has ever been grown-ups in the schoolyard, constantly fighting against one another. | |
| And Americans, I wouldn't care if they're Republicans, Independents, or Democrats, is falling for it. | ||
| Nobody knows what's going on. | ||
| Everybody just taking new snippets from here, from there. | ||
| Everybody being deceived because we're not the ones making the rules. | ||
| We're just the ones at the bottom. | ||
| That's how I see it. | ||
| That's Prince in South Carolina. | ||
| Some 21 lapses in government funding since 1980. | ||
| Funding, of course, expired at midnight on September 30th of last week. | ||
| We are seven days, seven hours and 23 minutes into this latest government shutdown, the longest government shutdown, 35 days from December 22nd of 2018 into January 25th of 2019, back during the first Trump administration. | ||
| We'll see how long this one lasts. | ||
| We're taking your calls on day eight of this shutdown, a rainy, foggy day here in Washington. | ||
| This is Alex in Florida, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I'm a calling because this whole shutdown is about power and control. | ||
| They've been doing it since day one, since they got into the administration. | ||
| They already have millions and billions of dollars, and they're still greedy to withhold from all the people who aren't in the same bracket of category of being rich people status. | ||
| And then they claim that they have Christianity where they don't carry Bibles, they don't preach from the Bible, they don't anoint from the Bible, they don't speak about the Bible, but they throw up devil horns in the funeral row and act like a WWE event or Super Bowl. | ||
| Christianity has nothing to do with that. | ||
| There's no transparency whatsoever, and the Christ-like Holy Spirit doesn't come out of their genes, out of their blood. | ||
| So, Alex, you're calling in on the Republican line. | ||
| Do you agree with the Republican leadership's efforts so far when it comes to the government shutdown of holding the line on this continuing resolution? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, just because I'm a Republican, that doesn't mean that I cover the sun with my hand or my finger. | |
| You have to say what's right is right and what's wrong is wrong. | ||
| And to give to Caesar what is Caesar is a gift to God, what is God's. | ||
| It's Alex in Florida. | ||
| This is Cornell in the Garden State Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, John. | |
| The Democrats need to stick to their guns because, first of all, the Republicans never wanted the Affordable Care Act in the first place. | ||
| And for years, said that he would fix it on day one. | ||
| Literally, people in nursing homes are going to get kicked out, and the premiums for insurance is going to skyrocket. | ||
| And sadly, every elected official has the best health care system in the country. | ||
| And they're still getting paid during this shutdown. | ||
| And yet, and still, the Republican lawmakers just leave and go home. | ||
| And then what can we do when the Speaker of the House says that, well, let's just pass this through and then we could negotiate afterward. | ||
| With this Republican elected, this Republican government under the leadership of Donald Trump, everyone knows that we're not going to get anything done. | ||
| And we haven't gotten anything done since Donald Trump's really been in office, except for, first of all, the most important thing is to make sure that the wealthiest Americans get the lion's share of everything he's doing, even to make their tax breaks permanent. | ||
| He says that, okay, we're going to stop tips. | ||
| We're going to stop the tips. | ||
| But guess what? | ||
| The tips expire in a couple years. | ||
| He says we're going to stop taxing Social Security. | ||
| Guess what? | ||
| That expires in a couple of years. | ||
| And the ignorance, the ignorance of the Republican callers that constantly say about immigrants, you know the reason why we don't have national health care and every industrialized country does is because the Dixiecrats did not want black people to get health care. | ||
| That's the reason why we don't have national health care in the first place. | ||
| Cornell, what would be your response to the caller who brought up earlier the law dating back to the 80s to the Reagan administration, that if somebody goes to the hospital in an emergency, they receive treatment, whether they have health insurance or not. | ||
| The law is that they need to receive treatment from that hospital. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So you throw up the baby with the bathwater. | |
| They are in this minuscule minority. | ||
| But the reason why they had the reason why they had the Affordable Care Act in the first place is the most people that are going to get really hurt are people in the Republican states. | ||
| And yet, and still, They refuse and they're blindsided by the fact that if the Democrats cave in on this, everybody's health care is going to skyrocket. | ||
| Cornell, were you surprised with Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene breaking with Republicans on the Affordable Care Act, calling for Republicans to avoid the premium hike? | ||
| A series of tweets from the Congresswoman saying she's not a fan of Obamacare, but complained that her own adult children's insurance premiums for 2026 would double if Congress ignores this issue. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, she's a Gemini. | |
| That other twin showed up. | ||
| She's as radical as Donald Trump. | ||
| She's as radical as Donald Trump, as Marco Rubio, the people that flip-flop and flip-flop. | ||
| But I do agree with her on that instance. | ||
| Because, and the Democrats, please, please stick to your guns. | ||
| And then for Donald Trump to say that the people aren't going to get paid seriously? | ||
| The people that, because you refuse to do your jobs, they're not going to get paid. | ||
| But yet and still, he's made billions since he's been in office since that January. | ||
| That's Cornell in the Garden State at 7:30 on the East Coast, halfway through this opening segment of the Washington Journal, taking your phone calls on day eight of the government shutdown. | ||
| We are seven days, seven hours, 30 minutes, and just about 30 seconds in shutdown. | ||
| This is Doug on the Republican line out of Newport News, Virginia. | ||
| Doug, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I think the biggest problem we have is everyone in Congress should not be paid. | ||
| I hope your listeners understand they get paid. | ||
| They're not shut down. | ||
| They need to put on a uniform, pick up a weapon, and go into harm's way without pay, and then tell me how it feels. | ||
| This is the most ridiculous thing for people to sit there and say that the Republicans shut the government down. | ||
| The Democrats shut the government down. | ||
| If you weren't watching C-SPAN with the vote, they're the ones that voted to shut it down. | ||
| You can't keep feeding welfare people and expect the military to do their jobs, and their families are suffering. | ||
| I think everybody. | ||
| It's Doug in Virginia. | ||
| This is Tom, Rock Island, Illinois, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm going to try to keep from being too radical here, but I'd like to point out to people: you know, all these things that are happening right now, the shutdown, all of these things has been called orchestrated chaos. | ||
| We are so busy. | ||
| Have you ever walked into a disco with all the flashing lights and the disco ball and all blown around? | ||
| You can't keep track of one of the spots. | ||
| They spin too fast. | ||
| You get disoriented. | ||
| That's what's happening to us right now. | ||
| We're facing a bad issue here, shutdown. | ||
| But it's we're in the grass. | ||
| We're in the grass picking up blades after blades instead of looking at the lawn. | ||
| There's a lot going on here in addition to what we are looking at. | ||
| We're seeing this part right now, but there's a lot of other really bad things going on. | ||
| But we're looking at these individual little things in front of us instead of seeing who's creating this chaos. | ||
| What are we going to do about it? | ||
| We are arguing among ourselves about it. | ||
| It's us, all of us, not any. | ||
| That's why I call him independent. | ||
| Because we've got to stop pointing fingers, stop saying still things like they should all retire. | ||
| They aren't going to retire. | ||
| We've got to take them out of office. | ||
| If there's ever another election, we are seeing the little things that aren't really the problem. | ||
| Look at who's spinning the ball, not the ball. | ||
| That's Tom in Illinois. | ||
| Tom, you talk about finger pointing, plenty of finger pointing on Capitol Hill yesterday on the shutdown, and also plenty of finger pointing during Attorney General Pam Bondi's appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee. | ||
| That took place. | ||
| We showed that on C-SPAN. | ||
| One of the issues that members of Congress brought up was this one, the Fox News story on it. | ||
| Jack Smith tracked private communications and calls of nearly a dozen Republican senators during the January 6th probe. | ||
| According to the FBI, it was Senator Josh Hawley who called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate those actions done under the Biden investigation during that hearing yesterday. | ||
| Here's that exchange. | ||
| I've been listening closely in this hearing, and I've heard over and over from my Democrat colleagues concerns about targeting political enemies, and they've accused you of all manner of things and the current president. | ||
| I've also heard them said, and I just wrote it down because I wanted to be sure I heard it correctly. | ||
| I've heard them say that Joe Biden never, because I could have sworn that yesterday we learned that the FBI tapped my phone. | ||
| Let's look at it. | ||
| We've got a list. | ||
| Tapped my phone, tapped Lindsey Graham's phone, tapped Marsha Blackburn's phone, tapped five other phones of United States senators. | ||
| Gee, it sure looks like targeting political opponents to me, and yet I haven't heard a word from that side of the dais about any concern whatsoever. | ||
| We've got nothing but concerns today, but no concern at all for a Justice Department that is tapping the phones of sitting United States senators because who knows why? | ||
| They don't like them. | ||
| Members of the opposition party, they're Republicans, they're conservatives. | ||
| You've seen this document, Attorney General Bondi. | ||
| What was going on here? | ||
| Who ordered this? | ||
| Who ordered the tapping of the phones of United States senators? | ||
| Senator Hawley, I cannot discuss the details of that right now for very good reason. | ||
| You're going to do a thorough investigation into this, I trust. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| We will be looking at all aspects of this, and I have talked to Director Patel at length about it. | ||
| And you're going to figure out who was involved in this, who signed off on it, who knew about it. | ||
| You're going to get to the bottom of all of it. | ||
| Is it correct? | ||
| Yes, and I've spoken to Director Patel about it, and he is committed to doing this. | ||
| Well, I can tell you, we already know many of the details. | ||
| We already know that this was ordered by the special prosecutor, Jack Smith, who reported directly to the Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland. | ||
| And we know that Jack Smith was on his witch hunt because he was directed to do so by the President of the United States, Joe Biden. | ||
| That exchange yesterday in the Senate Judiciary Committee, you can watch that entire hearing on our website at c-span.org. | ||
| By the way, Director Patel, Kash Patel, sending out this ex-post yesterday morning about that issue brought up in that exchange. | ||
| Transparency is important and accountability is critical. | ||
| We promise both, and this is what Promises Kept looks like. | ||
| He goes on to say, we terminated employees when it comes to the baseless monitoring of members of Congress by the prior leadership team of the FBI. | ||
| We have abolished the weaponized CR-15 squad, as he called it, and we initiated an ongoing investigation with more accountability measures ahead. | ||
| The ex post from Kash Patel yesterday morning. | ||
| Back to your phone calls on this eighth day of the government shutdown. | ||
| This is Robin in the Tarheel State Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just wanted to let these people know that there is something called Medicaid retroactive. | ||
| That means they go to the emergency room, but Medicaid will pick that up retroactively, meaning they get it from the time they go into the office backwards. | ||
| It's not, they don't get it forwards. | ||
| They just get it backwards. | ||
| So all you hateful people out there, everybody's a human being. | ||
| And just because you can't speak Spanish, you shouldn't hate on them. | ||
| That's Robin. | ||
| This is Richard in the Natural State Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, you do a great job of hosting the show. | |
| Yeah, well, specifically to that woman who just called everybody's human being. | ||
| I mean, come on, stop. | ||
| What about all these white children? | ||
| Wake the hell up. | ||
| All right. | ||
| This is Nick, New York, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, how are you doing? | |
| I'm just calling to find out, you know, about this shutdown. | ||
| Isn't there a bill in progress that they're trying to eliminate that and try to make it where you cannot shut the government down? | ||
| Is there something that's out there on that? | ||
| So, Nick, what we're watching today is a bill that would reopen the government, a continuing resolution, as it's called, continuing to fund the government at the previous levels before the shutdown. | ||
| This would restart the government. | ||
| The question is whether it's going to get the 60 votes necessary in the United States Senate today. | ||
| The last five times it's been up, it hasn't gotten the votes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, but I thought I saw something on the channel that said that they're going to bring up a bill where they're going to eliminate government shutdowns. | |
| I don't know. | ||
| There's a lot of members of Congress proposing legislation, a lot of them saying that shutdowns are unhelpful, hurting America. | ||
| Do you think shutdowns should be illegal? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I do. | |
| And let me just change gears here for a second. | ||
| You know, not for nothing. | ||
| The last four years, everybody watches TV, everybody watches the news, everybody sees what's going on. | ||
| I mean, what was our national deficit four years ago, you know, when Biden administration started? | ||
| Was it $37 trillion? | ||
| How much was it? | ||
| Do you know? | ||
| Or fan, I'm just curious. | ||
| Nick, I don't have the number off the top of my head, but I can give you what the debt is now if you want. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I know it's over $37 trillion. | |
| I know that. | ||
| Well, here's my point. | ||
| The borders, I come from a family of immigrants also, okay? | ||
| I'm the only one in my family that's born here in the United States in New York City. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| My mother came here with my father and my brave registration, the green cars, whatever. | ||
| My point is that they did it legally. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| Now, the borders were open wide, and who knows how many millions of people here came in illegally. | ||
| And I think that's totally wrong. | ||
| And the reason that they, I believe, that they were let in illegally is to enhance Biden's chances of winning by getting all these votes, okay, illegally. | ||
| I mean, they were giving out driver's licenses to illegal aliens. | ||
| Some of them didn't even have a name on it. | ||
| I saw one where it said no name. | ||
| I mean, come on, man. | ||
| Let's do this legally. | ||
| I mean, you know, we're a country of rules and laws. | ||
| Follow them. | ||
| I mean, we're trying now under this new administration. | ||
| God bless Trump and his administration, I have to say, because I've been watching it and I see the difference between the left and the right and blue and red, whatever you want to call it. | ||
| And there's a big difference now, and he's trying to fix everything. | ||
| But look, I don't have anything against immigration. | ||
| I mean, a country was built on that. | ||
| But let's do it the right way. | ||
| I mean, come on. | ||
| You got to, you know, certain, you know, you have to come in the right way, present papers, and become a citizen like they've been doing since this country's been founded. | ||
| But now it's being torn down by all this. | ||
| And now all this allegations of things coming out of the other administration, it's disgusting. | ||
| I'm ashamed to call myself an American. | ||
| That's Nick in New York. | ||
| This is Jonathan in Florida. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| I'm never ashamed to be an American. | ||
| I don't care if I'm a Democrat, Republican, Dependent. | ||
| That's one thing. | ||
| So anyway, I wanted to say this. | ||
| What really bothers me is that whenever you have politics involved, and I'm calling on the Democratic line, but I can see the Democrats have issues. | ||
| The Republicans have issues. | ||
| This whole thing with the Obamacare, let's think about it clearly. | ||
| Obamacare is not working, okay? | ||
| I mean, I'm sorry, man. | ||
| When you have $10,000 out-of-pockets, okay, and that doesn't matter, you know, even if this thing gets extended to subsidies, the Fed, the extent and subsidies, these plans have $10,000 out-of-pockets. | ||
| So it's not a good thing, man. | ||
| I mean, it's not. | ||
| And then the Republicans lie and they say, well, illegal aliens. | ||
| No, they're talking about being lawfully present. | ||
| Those are the ones that the Democrats want to get back. | ||
| They're people like the DACA kids. | ||
| Those are the ones lawfully present, not illegal aliens. | ||
| Anybody who does their research, anybody who watches C-SPAN, okay, because C-SPAN's amazing, all right, can understand that, you know, both sides are lying through their teeth that things are great. | ||
| And, you know, Obamacare has issues. | ||
| Let's face it. | ||
| I mean, you have people that are paper-poor that are getting subsidies that live in $3 million houses, and they do it legally, but they're milking the city. | ||
| Subsidies, these health care subsidies, and the impacts that letting them lapse will have on millions of Americans. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was surprised being that she's so partisan all the time and that she's willing to say something like that. | |
| But you know what's crazy? | ||
| And I'll tell you this, is that Marjorie Taylor Green, being as partisan as she is and being the villain of the Democrats, right? | ||
| Now, all of a sudden, she says one thing that they agree with, and now she's like, oh, she's like, you know, becomes like sort of like the darling, you know? | ||
| And it happens all the time. | ||
| It happens with the right, too. | ||
| When you have somebody who supposedly the Democrat who starts, who says something on the right that they like, they automatically become like the center stage, like, oh, this is the new person. | ||
| It's BS, man. | ||
| I mean, you know, obviously she stands for 99% of are totally against what the Democrats stand for. | ||
| This 1.1% she says something, and now she's being touted and she's being reported on. | ||
| Like, wow, you know, even she sees it. | ||
| So this must be like, you know, a new thing. | ||
| So, you know, it's forcing questions to Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday on Capitol Hill. | ||
| This is his response to what she tweeted. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Congresswoman Green specifically said that Republicans do not have a plan to deal with health care. | |
| Congresswoman Green does not serve on the committees of jurisdiction that deal with those specialized issues. | ||
| And she's probably not read in on some of that because they've still been sort of in their silos of the people who specialize in those issues. | ||
| When we get the conference back and when everybody's back together, we'll go through a lot of that. | ||
| I mean, I have spoken personally to a number of members in the last three days, Republicans, From the most conservative member to the more moderate member with their various ideas on that. | ||
| There's a lot of work that's been done on that. | ||
| It's implied as if this has been some sort of ignored issue. | ||
| It's not that at all. | ||
| Okay, but everybody's entitled to their opinion. | ||
| I mean, not everyone knows everything. | ||
| Congress is a very complex organization, operation, institution with lots of things going on in lots of different areas of committees of jurisdiction. | ||
| And no one member is read in on everything that happens because that would be an impossible amount of information. | ||
| Speaker Mike Johnson, yesterday on Capitol Hill, he will be here with us in studio, scheduled to join this program tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| And take your phone calls live on the Washington Journal. | ||
| Hope you join us back to your phone calls this morning, about 15 minutes left in this opening hour. | ||
| This is Richard out of Nashville, Tennessee, Independent. | ||
| Richard, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning. | |
| I thought I got cut off, but I was hanging in there with you from the other guy from Richard. | ||
| But anyway, you know, I'm an independent. | ||
| I see both sides. | ||
| You know, I'm a God-fearing man. | ||
| I want to help within their communities. | ||
| But I'll give you an example. | ||
| This morning, I'll get up and I'll go to the convenience store and I'll put gas in my vehicle and I'll have a federal and state pact on that gas. | ||
| And then I'll walk into the convenience store and I might buy a cup of coffee or pastry or something and I'll move on through the day. | ||
| And it's that way every day. | ||
| I have a tax no matter where I go. | ||
| But I have a choice, except for the gas tax or the state or federal tax. | ||
| I don't have a choice. | ||
| Now, what I really wanted to call in and say is with the technology that's out there, with everything from the grocery store to the scan and go technology, no more cash registers. | ||
| They got machines to stock this. | ||
| Why sits on Zoom all the time when she does meetings around the world, her corporate offices in England, they do Zoom calls. | ||
| Why can't Washington, especially the state representatives, do that? | ||
| We don't even need that building behind you. | ||
| Richard, bring me to the shutdown. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the shutdown is the bottom line is that the Democrats could keep it open. | |
| But if you remember, elections have consequences. | ||
| And when the big beautiful bill was passed, they put in stuff the Republicans did. | ||
| That was the majority of the people that voted for Trump in this election, like it or are lumpy. | ||
| It is what it is. | ||
| All they needed to do was keep it open, stay in committee, get this ironed out, and nobody would be looking at back pay or losing their jobs. | ||
| But what they've done is they've given the president the right to lay off people, and this may be a cleansing of our government. | ||
| You talk about those coming in and finding waste, fraud, and abuse. | ||
| Well, right now, you basically, Democrats are giving Donald Trump the authority to fire anybody he wants to and cut these departments. | ||
| So, in other words, do you think he should do that, Richard? | ||
| Do you think that is something Donald Trump should do today? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't want him to do that because I want people to have an exit of any job, whether it's government or private. | |
| You know, if you work in the private sector, your boss could walk, if it's non-union, could walk in today and fire you if he didn't like the way you look. | ||
| Now, he's not going to tell you that, but he could do that in government or in union jobs. | ||
| You have to go through the process. | ||
| And you know yourself, a lot of those federal employees are union workers. | ||
| They have a contract and they will get their jobs back. | ||
| Where it's going to get silly is that they're going to cut out the jobs that are no longer needed. | ||
| They're not essential jobs. | ||
| And they're going to cut those out. | ||
| And once they do, they'll never come back. | ||
| Richard, we'll take your point. | ||
| Just about 10 minutes left. | ||
| Let me go to Bob in Texas. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How are you doing, Mr. Mommy? | |
| Doing well. | ||
| How are you doing? | ||
| Can you hear me? | ||
| Yes, sir, Bob. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What are your president is the problem? | |
| He is supposed to bring us together. | ||
| We all want the same thing. | ||
| We all want America to be great. | ||
| The president should be bringing us together instead of making us fight. | ||
| But yes, he's making us fight. | ||
| So, yes, he's the problem. | ||
| If we had John McCain, for example, he was a Republican, and I'm a Democrat. | ||
| But that man was great, in my opinion. | ||
| Bob, do you think Democratic leadership is part of the problem? | ||
| Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I do. | |
| Yes, I do. | ||
| I think Democrat leadership is part of the problem. | ||
| But the Democrats are not the president. | ||
| He is the president for all on the earth. | ||
| Republican, Democrat, or independent. | ||
| He should be making us feel like we all is one shoe of time. | ||
| John McCain would have done that. | ||
| Like I tell you, I'm not a big Republican fan. | ||
| Believe me, they got a lot of thoughts you got right. | ||
| But John McCain, I feel good. | ||
| He spoke for his heart. | ||
| He spoke. | ||
| That's Bob in Texas. | ||
| You mentioned Hakeem Jeffries. | ||
| He spoke to reporters on Capitol Hill, was asked questions yesterday about this idea that furloughed federal employees might not receive back pay. | ||
| Here's some of what he had to say. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just want to get your take on this memo that's circulating in the White House that seems to suggest that furloughed workers may not get back pay. | |
| What is your reaction to that guidance? | ||
| And is it your expectation that some type of language to ensure back pay will be included in any final CR or bill once this shutdown is resolved? | ||
| Donald Trump and his administration have been torturing federal employees since the very beginning of his presidency, engaging in mass firings, harassing them, brutalizing them, laying people off without justification, and violating the law. | ||
| So let me be clear to those hardworking federal employees who are now being victimized by this Trump Republican shutdown. | ||
| We continue to stand with you and will stand with you as we've done from the very beginning of this presidency. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And the law is clear. | |
| Every single furloughed federal employee is entitled to back pay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Period, full stop. | |
| The law is clear, and we will make sure that that law is followed. | ||
| Hakeem Jeffries, yesterday on Capitol Hill, here's some of the numbers on those furloughs. | ||
| About three-quarters of a million federal employees currently furloughed. | ||
| That includes thousands of civilian employees in the Department of Defense, 11% of the Justice Department, about 13,000 employees, 5% at Homeland Security, some 14,000 employees, 3% of the VA, another 15,000 employees, some numbers from the New York Times there taking your phone calls this morning. | ||
| This is Larry, Webster City, Iowa, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| How are you doing? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
| I blame both sides for this shutdown. | ||
| I'm a Marine Corps veteran. | ||
| I just want to go back to when the Medicare was started by Johnson. | ||
| And then also in 83, when they started taking money from Social Security to use it for other things. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that needs to be paid back. | |
| And also for these politicians to stand there and getting paid while the federal employees are losing pay and worrying about when they're going to get the next paycheck is ridiculous. | ||
| They need to sit down and resolve the issue, get the continuing resolution passed, and, you know, get the health care to the American people that is needed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't approve of Obamacare, but come on, there's people out there that need to have health care. | |
| I'm suffering from cancer right now, and I'm going through the VA, and it's pretty scary right now that they're cutting employees from the VA. | ||
| It's pretty scary. | ||
| And that's the best system that they have for the veterans. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, Mr. Trump, let's get this government going. | |
| And all you left-wing radical Democrats, let's get it going. | ||
| Quit pointing the fingers and open the government up. | ||
| You work for us. | ||
| You don't work to enrich yourselves. | ||
| So get off your butts and pass the bill today. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Larry in Iowa to Florida, Ken Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, John. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
| Yeah, John, I'm trying to, I'm going to talk real quick. | ||
| You know, I've spoken to you a couple of times since I've been listening to this show, and I've been listening for a long time. | ||
| But, you know, John, just like the gentleman who just called, I'm retired military also. | ||
| Most of these people don't understand that they don't know how it is until they're going through something before they start seeing the light. | ||
| So, John, two things before I talk about that shutdown real quick. | ||
| Since you said Mike Johnson, he's wrestling with his moral conscience. | ||
| Now, when it comes to the shutdown and the country supposedly supposed to be evenly divided, if 750,000 people are probably going to be jobs eliminated, if the country is evenly divided, don't Donald Trump assume or think that at least 325,000 of those people voted for him? | ||
| I haven't heard anything about all 750,000 furloughed federal employees losing their jobs. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But even if they lose off furlough, if the country is evenly divided, I mean, a pro at least voted for what's going to happen to them and pay or whatever the case may be. | |
| Now, when I was in the military, yes, we had some shutdowns, and we still got paid because I was active duty. | ||
| Last thing, John, you know, when people were flowing over the border, like they say, which it was true, if the Democrats are so narrow thinking, they could not foresight to see what the Republicans were doing when they were shipping all these undocumented people to Oregon, New York, and California and all that, to where now they're sending ICE into those same cities. | ||
| The Democrats need to just get rid of the whole leadership from Chuck Schumer and Jeffrey's. | ||
| Just get rid of all of them. | ||
| And to be honest, I'm an independent, but I guarantee you, even though I didn't care too much about Marjorie Taylor Green, but now I can see that she is really open-minded about getting the country going and treating people basically fair about everything. | ||
| Ken, you think that the Democratic leadership has been outplayed here politically by Republicans? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're outplayed all the time because let's say with the Republicans, Donald Trump and the Republicans, they please 20% Of the country, which is those so-called mega people, which we understand half of them don't like certain people. | |
| The Democrats fell on their sword for 0.0001% of people when Camilla Harris was running for president. | ||
| And instead of saying, hey, you know, when it comes to boys playing and girls' sport, they fell on their sword for less than 300 people. | ||
| Do you understand what I'm saying? | ||
| They always get outplayed because they're too afraid to say, hey, look, we don't agree with that. | ||
| Hey, we love you, but what you do, we don't agree with it. | ||
| Ken in Florida, this is Tommy in our last. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Maybe I'm wrong. | |
| But I think all this is about is for the MIGA, gets the BL gets all them tax cuts, or the old people get health care. | ||
| Now, Trump wants MIGA, his base, to get all the riches. | ||
| He don't care how many old people are sentenced to die. | ||
| He didn't care during the COVID. | ||
| He don't care anytime. | ||
| And that's all it is about is rich MIGAs wanting the tax cuts. | ||
| They've got no heart. | ||
| They got no conscience. | ||
| And Trump will do anything to keep the subject off of what's bothering him. | ||
| And their sipsting is killing him. | ||
| And he'll do any crazy thing to get the subject off of that. | ||
| And you could watch him. | ||
| He don't care about this other stuff. | ||
| He just don't want to go to prison. | ||
| That's Tommy in Kentucky, our last call in this first hour of the Washington Journal. | ||
| Stick around, plenty more to talk about. | ||
| A little later today, we'll be joined by two members of Congress: Congresswoman Shelley Pingree, Democrat from Maine, and Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain, Republican of Michigan, will join us. | ||
| But up next, we're joined by Sadie Gurman of the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| We'll discuss former FBI Director James Comey and his legal issues today, along with Pam Bondi's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. | ||
| Stick around. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Premiering this Friday at 7 p.m. on C-SPAN, Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Vice President Mike Pence, once colleagues in Congress, sit down together for this episode of Ceasefire. | |
| hosted by Politico's White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns. | ||
| Ceasefire, Bridging the Divide in American Politics, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
| Two leaders, one goal, to find common ground only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Have been watching C-SPAN Washington Journal for over 10 years now. | ||
| This is a great format that C-SPAN offers. | ||
| You're doing a great job. | ||
| SPAN should be required viewing for all three branches of government. | ||
| First of all, if you say I love C-SPAN and how you all covered the hearings. | ||
| Thank you, everyone, at C-SPAN, for allowing this interaction with everyday citizens. | ||
| It's an amazing show to get real opinions from real people. | ||
| Appreciate you guys' non-biased coverage. | ||
| I love politics, and I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices. | ||
| And C-SPAN show the truth. | ||
| Back to the year verse for C-SPAN. | ||
| It's the one essential news network. | ||
| Collection of C-SPAN products, apparel, books, home decor, and accessories. | ||
| There's something for every C-SPAN fan. | ||
| And every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations. | ||
| Shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Amid a busy week on the Justice Department beat, we turn now to Sadie Gurman, who covers the DOJ for the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| Sadie German, former FBI Director James Comey said to be arraigned today just across the Potomac River in an Alexandria, Virginia federal courthouse. | ||
| Remind us what happens at an arraignment and what the charges are that he's facing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, normally this is a pretty perfunctory thing. | |
| A defendant walks into a courtroom and has read the charges, but in this case, from what I'm being told, the courthouse is already mobbed with reporters. | ||
| There were lines to get in. | ||
| And so basically, he'll just make a very brief appearance and acknowledge that he understands what the government's bringing against him. | ||
| And does he get to make a plea at this point? | ||
|
unidentified
|
He could, yes, he could. | |
| Are we expected to hear from him outside the courthouse? | ||
| Is he expected to take questions from reporters? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Now that I don't know. | |
| Seems like the kind of thing he might want to do, but I'm just not sure. | ||
| When it comes to the charges against him, your story in the Wall Street Journal, Donald Trump overcame internal dissent to get his case against James Comey. | ||
| Explain the background here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, this story sort of talks about how these charges came over the objections of many career prosecutors and also President Trump's handpicked prosecutor, who he actually ousted and installed in and installed his own personal lawyer in his place. | |
| And she was ultimately able to obtain the indictment, but she did this all by herself. | ||
| And this story sort of talks about how, you know, even advisors were telling him this is not a good case. | ||
| You know, the prosecutor has some doubts about it. | ||
| Pam Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche were telling him. | ||
| Is she going to be in the courthouse today? | ||
|
unidentified
|
She very well could be. | |
| From what I understand, she has brought in prosecutors from North Carolina. | ||
| That's outside the district. | ||
| That's unusual. | ||
| And it's a signal that maybe people inside the office didn't want to be part of this case. | ||
| How big is the spotlight going to be on her and what's her background? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it'll be very big. | |
| She is a former insurance lawyer. | ||
| This is the first case that she's ever prosecuted. | ||
| That was the first time she's ever presented anything before a grand jury, but she represented Donald Trump in the Mar-a-Lago case, and she's been really by his side ever since then. | ||
| If she prosecutes this case and gets a guilty verdict, what sort of punishment could James Comey face for the charges that he's facing? | ||
|
unidentified
|
These charges come with some serious prison time, potentially, if he is found guilty. | |
| So I think it's up to like 10 years in prison for lying to Congress. | ||
| So it's a pretty serious charge. | ||
| James Comey being arraigned today in an Alexandria courtroom, just one of several stories happening on the Justice Beat. | ||
| Yesterday was Pam Bondi, the Attorney General on Capitol Hill. | ||
| What did you make of her testimony? | ||
| What stood out most for you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It was very combative. | |
| You know, even at some of the more, just even at some of Democrats' more simple questions, straightforward questions, she just came back with very personal attacks. | ||
| So actually, it felt like rather than answering even the most basic questions, she just was ready to go to combat with these people. | ||
| And it made for some fireworks, and it was interesting. | ||
| And it made for a TV moment as well on the Republican side of the aisle. | ||
| We showed the clip of Josh Hawley talking about the Biden-era phone tapping of Republican senators, what has come out from the FBI, Kash Patel, tweeting about that yesterday. | ||
| What do you know about that story? | ||
| How far are we into that investigation? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it looks to be just beginning, but there's a declassified document that Senator Chuck Grassley made public that indicates that I think nine Republican senators had their phone records searched as part of Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation. | |
| This was basically just, you know, when a prosecutor is doing this kind of investigation, they can see who, you know, who you've called, and you can see sort of the metadata here. | ||
| And that is what happened in this case. | ||
| But it certainly gave Republicans a talking point. | ||
| That was one big talking point for Republicans. | ||
| For Democrats, one of their main lines of questioning was whether Pam Bondi had gotten political pressure from the White House to pursue political investigations, James Comey being one that they pointed to for that. | ||
| Here's part of the exchange yesterday from the Senate Judicial. | ||
| We can't delay any longer, Pam, using your name, not bringing criminal charges, are killing our reputation, his words and credibility, and then goes on to tell you to prosecute a member of this committee, to prosecute the Attorney General of New York, and to prosecute James Comey. | ||
| Do you consider that a directive to the Justice Department? | ||
| Senator Klovichar, President Trump is the most transparent president in American history. | ||
| And I don't think he said anything that he hasn't said for years. | ||
| The Attorney General yesterday on Capitol Hill, how well do you think she did in batting away that line of questioning specifically on the political pressure side? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, she didn't really talk about it at all, but she makes a good point in that, you know, this is not unusual to see Trump put this kind of pressure on his attorneys general. | |
| What's different this time is that it seems to be working. | ||
| Do you think Josh Hawley sort of turned the tables then by bringing up this investigation, the tapping of phone lines saying, why aren't you outraged about political pressure by the Biden administration on Jack Smith's investigation? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| You know, for Republicans, they see all of this as sort of a course correction after years in which members of their party were targeted, including Trump. | ||
| So this is kind of tit for tat. | ||
| Taking your phone calls this morning, this segment of the Washington Journal, Sadie German is with us, Wall Street Journal Justice Department reporter. | ||
| Here's phone lines for you to call in. | ||
| 202-748-8001 for Republicans. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| And Jamie's up first out of Texas. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| The name is Jaime. | ||
| Jaime, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'm calling because that subject on Jack Smith investigating, they call it spying on the GOP certain amount of senators. | |
| I think it said eight, maybe. | ||
| And my takeaway from that is that Jack Smith is doing his job. | ||
| All he's doing is investigating what those GOP senators are looking like suspects, because at the beginning of the insurrection, maybe for a day or two, they were totally against the insurrection. | ||
| But then I guess Trump must have scared them. | ||
| And I don't know if he threatened them or, you know, they were afraid for their families. | ||
| And all of a sudden they switched over to the this is not an insurrection, you know, it was a picnic, anything. | ||
| He was investigating what those GOP senators looked like. | ||
| They became suspects. | ||
| Jaime, do you think Pam Bondi is doing her job, not weaponizing anything? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Here, I think she's weaponizing everything because she's, I guess, Trump's lapdog. | |
| She'll do whatever she tells her to do because she wants to keep her job. | ||
| It's a nice paying job. | ||
| You know, the government is shut down, but they're getting paid. | ||
| And, you know, they're living high on the hog and getting good money. | ||
| And everybody else. | ||
| So they're trying. | ||
| I see Pam Bondi advising the government just doing whatever Trump tells her to do. | ||
| And all a bunch of other officials are all on the same boat. | ||
| They're scared. | ||
| That's Jaime in Texas. | ||
| Sadie German. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, one thing I want to point out is that, you know, just the indication that the FBI may have looked at the phone records of these senators does not indicate that they're suspects or that they were under investigation personally. | |
| This was in the course of investigating Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. | ||
| And, you know, he was obviously the only person charged in that case. | ||
| But looking at phone records of a sitting member of the United States Senate, and there is one House member as well on that list, highly unusual. | ||
| And politically charged when you do it, or at least there are political landmines there when you do it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I think we'll be hearing about this for quite some time. | |
| Eddie in the Garden State of New Jersey, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're up next with Sadie German. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, my question is: I don't know what the big uproar is about James Cromey because when James Comey went on national TV and said that he knew it was a new administration and he did some things that he normally wouldn't have did, he showed that he crossed the line. | |
| So now if they're looking into things that he did, then he should have his day in court. | ||
| I don't understand what the big uproar is. | ||
| Can she explain that? | ||
| Sadie German. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, these, I guess, the charges that are brought against him relate to testimony from about five years ago, in which a senator asked him if he had ever authorized a leak to the news media. | |
| And he basically referred back to testimony from 2017. | ||
| So it might be helpful if we show those two sections of testimony. | ||
| So it was his testimony in 2017 with Chuck Grassley, Republican from Iowa, James, on Capitol Hill. | ||
| So here they are back to back. | ||
| Director Comey, have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Never. | |
| Question two on relatively related. | ||
| Have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| On May 3rd, 2017, in this committee, Chairman Grassley asked you, quote, have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation? | ||
| You responded under oath, quote, never. | ||
| He then asked you, quote, have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton administration? | ||
| You responded again under oath, no. | ||
| Now, as you know, Mr. McCabe, who works for you, has publicly and repeatedly stated that he leaked information to the Wall Street Journal and that you were directly aware of it and that you directly authorized it. | ||
| Now, what Mr. Kitten McCabe is saying and what you testified to this committee cannot both be true. | ||
| One or the other is false. | ||
| Who's telling the truth? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I can only speak to my testimony. | |
| I stand by the testimony you summarized that I gave in May of 2017. | ||
| So your testimony is you've never authorized anyone to leak. | ||
| And Mr. McCabe, if he says contrary, is not telling the truth. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Again, I'm not going to characterize Andy's testimony, but mine is the same today. | |
| And fast forward five years, James Comey indicted on two criminal counts, one for making a false statement to Congress, one for obstructing a congressional proceeding, and he faces the arraignment for that today in the federal court in Alexandria. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| So take us through what you see when you watch those videos from five years ago and eight years ago. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it's a little murky. | |
| You know, to prove this charge and obtain a conviction, prosecutors have to prove that he knowingly, intentionally lied under oath. | ||
| And I think when you're dealing with testimony that's that old and questions that are kind of murky, it might be difficult. | ||
| Are these the key moments there? | ||
| I mean, is the jury in this case likely to be played that same video and asked what they think of those answers? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think so. | |
| I mean, that seems to be their strongest evidence, at least that we know of at this point. | ||
| After his arraignment today. | ||
| Back to your phone calls with Sadie German. | ||
| Just about 10 minutes left here. | ||
| This is Vance in Richmond, California, Independent. | ||
| Vance, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| You know, I agree with the reporter from the Wall Street Journal that this is a rather difficult case to make because I think it's what I call a limited hangout case. | ||
| It's a difficult perjury charge to make in a Senate colloquy with Senator Cruz as far as perjury. | ||
| My question really is that Mr. Comey really needs to be asked about what happened to Joseph Miffsid. | ||
| Miffsid is a man who just mysteriously disappeared. | ||
| I want to know if that is a murder case that is being investigated by the Trump Justice Department. | ||
| I want to know also about Vice President Pence's involvement with his chief of staff, Josh Pitcock, whose wife worked with Peter Stroke in the counterintelligence division in the early days of the first Trump administration. | ||
| That is a seditious conspiracy. | ||
| There ought to be a seditious conspiracy investigation into that and also a murder investigation into the most exculpatory witness of Operation Crossfire Hurricane. | ||
| That's Vance in California. | ||
| Joseph Misfid and Pence Staffers. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That is a deep cut. | |
| I haven't heard that name in a long time. | ||
| It's a figure who was involved in the Russia investigation, which is still being litigated on the Hill. | ||
| I don't have any indication that DOJ is looking at that, but I just don't know. | ||
| Kevin, out of New York, Republican, good morning. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How is everyone today? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can I just go back? | |
| Do you remember Attorney General Eric Holder? | ||
| Wasn't he the wingman for Barack Obama? | ||
| If you're weaponizing Pam Bondi, I think there should be accountability. | ||
| Whatever they're charging us is what they already did. | ||
| It's just ridiculous. | ||
| There was some accountability from these people. | ||
| Maybe this could all come to an end. | ||
| It's just really sad for me. | ||
| Do you think that attorneys general are doing a good job of separating themselves from politics? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Eric Holder, Merrick Garland, at least in the first Trump administration, he didn't know what it was, the games these people play in Washington. | |
| So he hired listening to people in Washington. | ||
| This second term, he gets to put the people he wants. | ||
| Everybody's still working. | ||
| No cabinet member gone. | ||
| Kevin, who's the last attorney general that you thought was above the politics, above being roped in to political investigations? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, maybe Bill Barr. | |
| Maybe, you know, but from Eric Holder to Merrick Garland, Pam Bondi's trying to clean up this mess. | ||
| It's a mess. | ||
| And maybe if there was some accountability, it could end. | ||
| That's all. | ||
| You know, I wish the American people would see this and realize this. | ||
| It's pretty simple. | ||
| Sadie German, what do you want? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, what I will say is that Bondi was asked yesterday about the firings and demotions of dozens of prosecutors and FBI agents. | |
| And she said she stood by them because that her effort to hold people accountable for the kinds of things that you're talking about. | ||
| Others, you know, Democrats were asking her if those firings were politically motivated, and she said, absolutely not. | ||
| You know, that she's trying to clean up what you described as a mess. | ||
| Is this some grand tradition of attorneys general of being accused of political investigations? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's a more recent tradition, from what I understand, but historically, attorneys general, the White House, and the president and his attorney general have a sort of a weird relationship because this is a person that's in the cabinet who is supposed to be advancing the president's agenda, but also supposed to be this apolitical law enforcer. | |
| And so it's always been a fine line for attorneys general to walk. | ||
| But in recent years, you've seen these allegations lobbed back and forth about attorneys general being too close to the president and vice versa. | ||
| So it's. | ||
| Did you see the picture by the wife of the Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, of the dinner at the White House and Pam Bondi's having dinner with the president on the porch of the White House? | ||
| I think it might have been the Rose Garden or something like that. | ||
| What did you make of that picture circulating on social media and playing into this idea of a too close relationship between the top law enforcement officer in the country and the president? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Biden's Attorney General Merrick Garland, you know, he was chosen because he had no prior relationship to Biden, and they weren't family friends. | |
| But what we know about Pam Bondi is that she's been close with Donald Trump for years, and she actually represented him in his first impeachment and helped him with some, that's just an indication of their closeness. | ||
| This is David out of New York, line for Democrats. | ||
| You're up next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How are you doing? | |
| I want to get to Josh Hawley and Graham and the way they spoke yesterday and demanding that people look into what happened to them and that their phones got looked at. | ||
| Well, the truth being is that especially Mr. Hawley was very involved with the Oathkeeper and Proud Boys and meeting with them just before and after or just before the January 6th thing. | ||
| And it's just ridiculous how they're wondering why. | ||
| It's obvious. | ||
| They were working to make an insurrection. | ||
| Plain and simple. | ||
| Hawley Rand was the first one to run out of the building. | ||
| On his way in, he high-hitlered them with his hand gesture. | ||
| We know what he was up to that day. | ||
| We watched all day long this terrible incident. | ||
| Him, Graham, Jordan, they were all meeting with these people. | ||
| This is all a setup pre-planned. | ||
| Navarro that day, Rudy Giuliani up there making her speeches. | ||
| You got a fight, fight, fight. | ||
| That's what the FBI was looking in. | ||
| And to feel like, oh, David, if you think, David, if you think that's what was happening, why do you think the FBI case didn't, why the FBI investigations didn't indict all these people if you think they were all part of some grand conspiracy theory? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, that's what they were looking into. | |
| And like what has been said and what has come out since is they didn't look at the conversations. | ||
| They looked at the people and contacts before and up to January 6th. | ||
| That's what they were looking for. | ||
| And just like with Trump and everybody else and this whole insurrection thing, nobody, nobody big like Trump or Hawley or these guys were ever indicted. | ||
| And when they tried to certain people or powerful groups stepped in and shut these things down. | ||
| That's David in New York. | ||
| Sadie German, what do you want? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I guess I just think that we don't know enough information yet about what type of information they had and how they were using it. | |
| And Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel said that those are things they're investigating. | ||
| And so hopefully when they have some answers, they will tell us. | ||
| Rich in Baltimore, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just keep this case related just to the Comey case for context. | |
| So with your political figures or government figures, she considered them to have immunity for actions that they've done in the past, and they should not be getting charges brought against them if things are true. | ||
| Because that's not justice. | ||
| Because it goes back and forth on both sides. | ||
| They just keep going after each other. | ||
| And they're Rich, I think we're losing you on your phone. | ||
| Immunity and elected officials when it comes to the president being immune from official actions. | ||
| It's certainly a case we saw before the Supreme Court. | ||
| But is there immunity for lower level political officials and people like the former FBI director? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think there's immunity for police officers and prosecutors when they take first actions they take in the course of their jobs. | |
| But I don't know how that would apply in a case like this. | ||
| This is Rick out of Spokane, Washington, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just a minute or two left here. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Am I on the air? | ||
| You are, Rick. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| All right. | ||
| Thanks for kicking my call. | ||
| I'm calling from Spokane, Washington. | ||
| You know, I think Bondi's performance in front of the when she testified in front of the Senate was egregious. | ||
| I mean, giving speeches against those senators and that. | ||
| And finally, one of them, including Schiff, too, said, Mr. Chairman, he invoked the chairman because it seemed like Grassley, you know, I mean, all the Republicans threw her softballs, but, you know, Grassley didn't have the, Senator Grassley didn't have the gumption to bang the gapplins. | ||
| Now, you're a witness. | ||
| You're not here to be ridiculing senators over what they said. | ||
| You know, as far as Comey, I mean, the evidence from what I could see, I'm not a lawyer, but I do know a thing or two about jurisprudence. | ||
| And it seems like it's so specious. | ||
| And I heard months ago, and it didn't surprise me a bit that Comey was, I mean, that Trump was going to go after political enemies. | ||
| The next one is Adam Schiff, probably. | ||
| And some, you know, and talking about the Attorney General for New York State. | ||
| I mean, maybe Bondi was honest at one time, but she's been corrupted by Trump, and she does it. | ||
| But a lot of these people don't stand up to Trump. | ||
| And I've watched most of the confirmation hearings, and it seems like most, if not all, of the cabinet is just a bunch of foul balls. | ||
| I mean, it might get to the point where Trump's so egregious, even C-SPAN won't be able to maintain it. | ||
| That there is an active investigation against Adam Schiff or Letitia James, that there could be charges in the near future. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, we do know that both of them are being investigated for mortgage fraud. | |
| And Bondi assigned Ed Martin to be a special prosecutor and panel grand juries in Maryland and Virginia to deal with those cases. | ||
| So I do think we should expect something to happen in those investigations somewhat soon. | ||
| This is Larry out of New York. | ||
| Republican, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Sadie said that President Biden did not know Mary Garland before he appointed him. | ||
| A relationship going with Mary Garland when Mary Garland was appointed by President Obama to be a Supreme Court justice. | ||
| And then I have another thing. | ||
| Comey said that he leaked information to a professor out of some college that he wrote in his book. | ||
| Is that true? | ||
| Sadie German. | ||
| Have you read the book? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I've read the book. | |
| I feel like I wrote the book sometimes. | ||
| But yes, so Comey has acknowledged that he did provide memos to a professor who then provided them to the New York Times. | ||
| Just about a minute left here. | ||
| What are you working on this week? | ||
| What are you going to be watching for? | ||
| Obviously, it's the arraignment happening today in Alexandria with James Comey, but what's next to watch as somebody who does this for a living? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We are watching very closely the investigations that you mentioned into Adam Schiff and Letitia James. | |
| And we're also looking, we know that there are active investigations into involving Christopher Wray, the former FBI director, and also the former CIA director, John Brennan. | ||
| Sadie Gurman and her colleagues at the Wall Street Journal cover it all. | ||
| It's wsj.com. | ||
| And if you want to follow her on X, it's at S German. | ||
| Easy enough to find. | ||
| Thanks so much for your time. | ||
| We'll let you get through your day. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Coming up after the break, phone calls and a discussion with two members of Congress will be joined by Congresswoman Shelley Pingree, Democrat of Maine, and Republican Conference Chair Lisa McLean, Republican of Michigan. | ||
| You can go ahead and start calling in on phone lines for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, and that special line for federal workers. | ||
| and we will get to your calls right after the break. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Premiering this Friday at 7 p.m. on C-SPAN, Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Vice President Burns Ceasefire, bridging the divide in American politics, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | |
| Two leaders, one goal, to find common ground only on C-SPAN. | ||
| This fall, C-SPAN invites you on a powerful journey through the stories that define a nation. | ||
| From the halls of our nation's most iconic libraries, comes America's Book Club, a bold, original series where ideas, history, and democracy meet. | ||
| Hosted by renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein, each week features in-depth conversations with the thinkers Grisham, master storyteller of the American justice system. | ||
| Justice Amy Coney Barrett, exploring the Constitution, the court, and the role of law in American life. | ||
| Famed chef and global relief entrepreneur Jose Andres, reimagining food. | ||
| Henry Louis Gates, chronicler of race, identity, and the American experience. | ||
| The books, the voices, the places that preserve our past and spark the ideas that will shape our future. | ||
| America's Book Club, premiering this fall, Sundays at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| If you ever miss any of C-SPAN's coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org. | ||
| Videos of key hearings, debates, and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. | ||
| These points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. | ||
| This timeline tool makes it easy to quickly get an idea of what was debated and decided in Washington. | ||
| Scroll through and spend a few minutes on C-SPAN's points of interest. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Day eight of the federal government shut down a vote today in the Senate to potentially reopen the government. | ||
| It was yesterday on Capitol Hill that we heard from the Attorney General and News yesterday about doubts being cast on workers' pay. | ||
| Federal employees have been furloughed. | ||
| There's a lot going on right now. | ||
| It's your time to call in on phone lines split this way. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-800-8000. | ||
| Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Federal workers, a special line for you, 202-748-8003. | ||
| We'll be taking your phone calls until the end of your phone calls and to ask questions about the shutdown. | ||
| And the Senate is in at 10 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| You can watch live on C-SPAN too. | ||
| So we hope you stay with us all day long on the C-SPAN networks. | ||
| Jack's up first out of Tennessee, a Democrat. | ||
| Jack, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'm calling about the hearing yesterday with Pam Bondi on to me investigating him for things that he's done and said. | |
| How about we, Jack? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Why don't we investigate Brandy about all the lies and stuff that she's told and sort of that's Jack in Tennessee? | ||
| This is Billy Anderson, Indiana, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Billy, good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Yeah, I'd like to talk about the Democrats claim that the Republicans has been lying about the illegals. | ||
| But Democrats said that and that seems like we know that that was a lie that the Democrats pushed out there and that all the lies that they was telling about. | ||
| Biden, that he was sharp as a tack, we all know that was a lie. | ||
| So I think if that the Democrats have been telling a lot of lies in the last four years about a lot of stuff, all the stuff they put Trump through is all Democrats. | ||
| Every hearing they had, all the jurors is all Democrats. | ||
| They'll throw in a few Republicans here or there. | ||
| But we know that the Democrats is the ones that's been putting most of the lies out there about. | ||
| That's your point, Billy. | ||
| That's Billy in Indiana to Bill in Silverdale, Washington. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Hello, sir. | ||
| How are you? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good. | |
| I love saying I'm affected by the shutdown. | ||
| We are still working, so people get confused with furlough versus exempted, etc. | ||
| So those that are furloughed are people that are sent home. | ||
| Those that are exempted are still working, not getting a paycheck, and this is really hurting us big time. | ||
| All prices go up, and that includes federal workers. | ||
| We're just like everybody else. | ||
| So it's a real hardship on us and very stressful. | ||
| But we've got to keep our focus and protect the country that we live in and fix the assets that we have to protect our country. | ||
| So one thing I just really wanted to say, because a lot of times people get things confused on here. | ||
| So as in the government sector, I am a union rep. I represent some of the federal workers, and we have to rep everybody, whether they're Republican, Independent, or Democrat. | ||
| And we also have to represent them whether they're a member or not. | ||
| We have what's called an open shop. | ||
| They have a choice to be a union member. | ||
| So whether or not they're paying dues and all that, we still got to represent them, which is really hard on our union because we don't get subsidized by the federal government in any way as far as our internal structure. | ||
| So I just kind of wanted to put that out there for those of you that are confused. | ||
| And it's almost an even split in our work sector. | ||
| We have about 45, 55 split Republican versus Democrat and some Independents in there as well. | ||
| Bill, what's been the reaction, any official reaction from the union folks that you're in contact with to that OMB memo now casting doubt on federal worker back pay whenever this shutdown ends? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, the law is the law. | |
| Federal workers, a lot of people don't understand. | ||
| We really are an employment organization that is ruled by law. | ||
| A lot of red tape where we work, a lot of restrictions. | ||
| So our view and the view of the union is that it should go by law. | ||
| We should be getting paid and back pay for all that, whether we're furloughed or whether we're exempted and still working. | ||
| But this administration has shown they push the limits against all the laws that are existing and just saying, hey, what are you going to do about what I'm doing against the law? | ||
| There's got to be pushback from our Supreme Court. | ||
| That's the only savior that we've got. | ||
| You don't think that Congress will push back in this sense? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We have little glimmers of hope. | |
| There's things that congressional representatives say in front of the camera, and the real truth is when they go to the voting ballot, how they cast their vote. | ||
| That's what we got to look at with folks that represent their constituents. | ||
| So if they're true to their word, they'll vote for the people. | ||
| And they'll, you know, I'm not that old. | ||
| I'm my 50s. | ||
| But I remember when I was younger, there was mudslinging during the elections. | ||
| But when the elections was over, they went back to work and behind the scenes, they were compromising. | ||
| And you get a little bit on both sides. | ||
| You don't get all or nothing. | ||
| I just hope they come together and they do something for us because it's killing us. | ||
| We're going to end up losing our house. | ||
| We're calling our people that we owe. | ||
| And there's not a lot of leeway for us. | ||
| We're just going to incur late fees and probably get evicted. | ||
| Bill, would you mind saying what agency you work in? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just one of the larger ones. | |
| Let's just say that. | ||
| That's Bill out of Silverdale, Washington, on congressional reaction to the guidance out of the White House, the Office of Management and Budget, as it's referred to, on potentially federal workers not receiving back pay after the shutdown. | ||
| It was Speaker Mike Johnson who was asked about it yesterday on Capitol Hill. | ||
| With regard to whether the furloughed civilian employees of the federal government will receive back pay, it is true that in previous shutdowns, many or most of them have been paid for the time that they were furloughed. | ||
| But there is new legal analysis. | ||
| I don't know the details. | ||
| I just saw a headline this morning. | ||
| I'm not read in on it, and I haven't spoken to the White House about it. | ||
| But there are some legal analysts who are saying that that may not be appropriate or necessary in terms of the law requiring that back pay be provided. | ||
| So I'm sure there will be a lot of discussion about that. | ||
| But there are legal analysts who think that that is not something that government should do. | ||
| That, if that is true, that should turn up the urgency and the necessity of the Democrats doing the right thing here. | ||
| Even more pain, more than I just listed for more people. | ||
| So we've got to figure it out. | ||
| Speaker Mike Johnson, yesterday, Washington Journal viewers will hear much more from Speaker Johnson. | ||
| He's set to appear on this program and take your phone calls tomorrow morning at 8.30 a.m. Eastern Time. | ||
| We hope you join us and call in for that segment. | ||
| Today on Capitol Hill, the House will have a pro forma session at 3 p.m. | ||
| The Senate is set to meet at 10 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| Votes on potentially reopening the government in the 11 a.m. hour. | ||
| Also on Capitol Hill today over at the Supreme Court, 10 a.m. Eastern, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case challenging Illinois procedures for counting mail-in ballots. | ||
| The case centers around Republican Representative Mike Bost, who sued the state in 2022 for counting absentee ballots received up to two weeks after Election Day. | ||
| That'll be live at 10 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| Democratic Leadership Steering and Policy Committee will hold a meeting today about healthcare issues amid the ongoing government shutdown, and we'll have live coverage of that at noon on C-SPAN, C-SPAN.org, and the free C-SPAN Now mobile app. | ||
| A lot going on today, a lot for you to see across the C-SPAN networks and platforms, and it's time for your phone calls in this last hour and 15 minutes of the Washington Journal. | ||
| This is Bernie out of Louisville, Kentucky. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Great. | |
| Thank you, John, for taking the call. | ||
| Well, I believe this administration has already succeeded in one of their objectives by causing some aid, going to cost him a few dollars for Mr. Comey, and some embarrassment. | ||
| So I think they've already succeeded there. | ||
| But honestly, I don't think we need another version of law and order. | ||
| This is going to be law and order DOJ. | ||
| What we need, what we need, I think, is some help out here. | ||
| Small businesses, they need help. | ||
| They need immunity from these tariffs. | ||
| They're drowning. | ||
| They need help out here. | ||
| So that's my comment. | ||
| Bernie, what tariffs do you think have impacted you the most in Louisville, Kentucky? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I would think small businesses like bakeries, places that are real close to government buildings who are no longer having employees come out and buy their coffee and that. | |
| I was listening to a story last night. | ||
| Of course, this was based in Atlanta. | ||
| This woman, she has a coffee shop and she supplies bakery goods to these people as they come out. | ||
| They're not coming out right now. | ||
| Foods and products like that that they are being, that the prices have gone so far up, you know, small businesses, they just don't have that support from like larger stores, obviously. | ||
| But, yeah, we just need help out here. | ||
| I remember the last time you and I talked, quickly I'm going to say, was with Marvin Kalb, and we were talking about Jalen Daniels and the Washington Commanders, and that was one of my favorite conversations. | ||
| I listened to that to about, I listen to that conversation about twice a week on y'all's archives, and I'm glad to have him back. | ||
| Bernie, how do you think he's going to do against the Bears coming up? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Man, the Bears are playing pretty well, but I'm still looking towards the Eagles. | |
| I'd like to see that rematch again from the, excuse me, from the championship, because that's what we were talking about. | ||
| It was the day of the NFL championship against the Eagles. | ||
| It didn't work out this time. | ||
| But anyway, good talking to you. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| Happy to talk, Commanders, with you. | ||
| This is Mark in Pennsylvania, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, John. | |
| I'd like to discuss some of the topic here, which is who's responsive in 50 years. | ||
| That's an F minus by anybody's standards. | ||
| Both parties are to blame because whoever's in power doesn't want to cut what they put in the that they want, and the other party wants cuts, and at least the Republicans do, and they don't agree to anything, so it just gets pushed out and out and out, and they do a CR, and it keeps all the fraud, waste, and abuse going, and it never gets taken out. | ||
| So that's problem one. | ||
| The only way to fix this is to do a convention of the states, which is a balanced budget amendment, or they can do a 20% reduction if they can't pass their funding bills by when they're supposed to, which is May. | ||
| It's not the end of the year. | ||
| We just accept this kind of stuff like a bunch of crazy people thinking it's going to change. | ||
| It's not unless we do something about it. | ||
| The other thing is that illegals don't get health care. | ||
| First of all, that's just a bold-faced lie. | ||
| All the Democratic politicians, when they ran for election, put their hands up and say, we want to give illegals health care. | ||
| Also, when they did the budgeting reconciliation bill, they looked at it and they said there's 1.4 million people that are illegal that are on there. | ||
| But the Democrats have carefully constructed a narrative where nobody's illegal anymore. | ||
| They're called some non-citizens or immigrants or what have you. | ||
| So it confuses people, and they don't understand that. | ||
| So they think that these people are not illegal in their mind. | ||
| But the truth is they qualify for all benefits. | ||
| And the biggest category of that is asylum seekers. | ||
| As soon as they're given asylum, they're automatically on a path where they can't be deported and what have you. | ||
| And then they start to qualify for benefits. | ||
| It's after they've been here a certain period of time. | ||
| That's called an LPR, a legal permanent resident. | ||
| And then they qualify for all almost every single one of the benefits that we can give them. | ||
| And they know we all know that these are. | ||
| Asylum seekers, at least until that asylum claim is rejected, they're on a legal path to be in this country. | ||
| They've made a legal asylum claim. | ||
| But you count them in the category of illegal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I do that because the court system has basically said 90% of them are. | |
| 90% of them get rejected. | ||
| When it's a judicial 10% of them that may be, but the other 90% aren't because they get rejected. | ||
| It takes decades sometimes for these people to get to court. | ||
| So they're living here, like you said, legally because someone didn't do the proper screening at the border, which Biden didn't do, obviously. | ||
| He let them come in with an app, didn't screen anybody. | ||
| And they basically let them in the country, which they're not supposed to do either. | ||
| They're supposed to hold them in detention until their case is heard. | ||
| But because it is so backlogged and so broken, they just keep coming in and coming in, and the dates get pushed further and further out. | ||
| So by the time they get to court, they already have two or three kids that they're getting benefits for. | ||
| They've already established themselves in the country. | ||
| It's basically a citizenship thing that they give away. | ||
| And they don't even check these people. | ||
| So that's the problem with the whole system. | ||
| That's the part that they're looking for. | ||
| It's $36 billion a year. | ||
| It's called an enhancement to the program. | ||
| And what it gives to, people don't realize this, but there's only 22 million people that get that enhancement. | ||
| Out of those 22 million, 9 million people pay basically nothing, $10 or under. | ||
| So when they say it's going to go up double, they may end up paying $20 a month. | ||
| Me as a senior citizen, I just went on Medicare, and I have to pay $185 out of my Social Security check, which is 20% of my check. | ||
| On that program, they can't pay more than 8%. | ||
| Why do I have to pay 20%? | ||
| I paid into the whole system my entire life, and they get free health insurance almost. | ||
| Most of them are getting free health insurance. | ||
| And some of them are getting subsidized all the way up to $130,000. | ||
| I think it's ridiculous. | ||
| Why are we subsidizing people that make $130,000 a year? | ||
| But this is what we're doing here. | ||
| This whole system, that whole program is messed up. | ||
| And then what the money goes to, which people don't know. | ||
| Mark, you bring up a lot of topics. | ||
| I got other folks waiting. | ||
| Let me try to get to Joseph in your same state, the Keystone State, Independent. | ||
| Joseph, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How are you doing, sir? | |
| I'm a good understanding about governments and politics and all that stuff, but I live in a Commonwealth state. | ||
| And when it comes down to health care, I have a mental health condition. | ||
| I'm not going to go into details and everything like that onto the mental health and everything. | ||
| But my mental health is now getting denied for my health insurance because this government shutdown. | ||
| People are blaming people. | ||
| they're not going over the keystone, the key rate of the land of the home, the land of the free, the home of the brave. | ||
| Everybody's going, giving money to other countries when they can just put it back into our country instead of dealing with, yes, immigrants, everybody comes from, everybody's family members are from immigrant states. | ||
| Ellis Island, I'm a New Yorker. | ||
| I'm always going to be a New Yorker. | ||
| But the way these politics are done, the government just needs to bury bridges, open up the government, because I'm trying to go for my Social Security. | ||
| And I cannot go for my Social Security if the government is shut down. | ||
| So, Joseph, Social Security checks still go out during the government shutdown? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, no, no. | |
| I don't get Social Security checks yet. | ||
| But I'm waiting for it because I got hurt badly and I can't work anymore. | ||
| My mental health is diminished, and it's just I need my mental health medication, and I can't get it because the Democrats want us to get health care. | ||
| The Republicans don't want us to get defense, but you're bringing all that money into other countries because other countries are getting attacked. | ||
| That's your problem. | ||
| Joseph, got you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's not ours. | |
| Got your point. | ||
| That's Joseph talking about the impacts to him during the government shutdown. | ||
| Go ahead and keep calling in. | ||
| Ashwoman, good morning to you. | ||
| Thanks for the time this morning. | ||
| What's been the impact of the shutdown in your district, the first district of Maine, sort of that southern district in the Pine Tree State? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Well, thanks very much for having me. | ||
| I mean, I would say the number one impact is just the high level of concern that people have about the uncertainty. | ||
| We don't have as many federal workers, of course, as many states like Maryland and Virginia, but we do have Acadia National Park. | ||
| This is one of the most high traffic seasons there as the leaves start to change color. | ||
| So the whole issue around will the park be closed, it's not completely closed, but it has a limited amount of personnel, and how do you manage that many people? | ||
| Do the visitors get the same experience? | ||
| Where do they go for information? | ||
| That is certainly one of the concerns. | ||
| And, you know, while you might say, oh, it's just a park, you know, it's vacation. | ||
| The fact is it's a huge economic driver, particularly for the communities that surround it that are worried about will people stop coming, what's going to happen, will it be a bad visitor experience? | ||
| And also long-term damage to this park and so many of our others that are experiencing the same issues. | ||
| So I would say that's the thing I've certainly heard people talking about most. | ||
| But then again, the uncertainty and will this impact me? | ||
| How is it going to, all the questions that people are raising that they don't know about how it will impact their lives? | ||
| And as shutdowns continue, as we know, there's more and more challenges that go on and more and more federal workers who have to figure out, you know, I'm living by paycheck by paycheck. | ||
| How do I handle this? | ||
| Just the many things that you hear about all the time. | ||
| So is it time to make a deal? | ||
| How do you see this ending? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, as you've heard our leader say, he'll sit down anywhere, anytime, any place. | |
| He was right there at the White House when the president asked him. | ||
| I think there's plenty of opportunities to make a deal. | ||
| I'm a member of the Appropriations Committee. | ||
| We're on call. | ||
| Come in any moment of the day, be ready to make any kind of a deal. | ||
| But the Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House. | ||
| They have the ability to reverse this in a moment. | ||
| I know that many of my Republican colleagues are worried about exactly the same things that we are. | ||
| That's the enhanced premium tax credits for the Affordable Care Act, which kicks in on November 1st, but people are getting the notices now. | ||
| And that compounded with the damage done by the Big Ugly Bill, where there were huge cuts to Medicaid, other things that will imperil our local hospitals. | ||
| So there are things we have to discuss now. | ||
| And this idea of waiting seven weeks, which was their CR proposal to get this all done. | ||
| Like I said, I'm a member of the Appropriations Committee. | ||
| We've been in 92 hours of markup on our 12 bills. | ||
| So it's not as if we haven't spent many, many hours trying to negotiate these things. | ||
| We've hit a stone wall. | ||
| Even our colleagues on appropriations who are willing to negotiate basically get orders from their leadership to say, no, we're just, we're not. | ||
| Within the next seven weeks before the impact of some of those subsidies take place? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, as you hear almost every negotiator say, look, I'm not going to say what my bottom line is in the middle of a negotiation. | |
| So, of course, you go in with a big ask and then you see what you can get. | ||
| We don't want this government to stay shut down any longer than it has to be. | ||
| And we wish it wasn't shut down at all. | ||
| In fact, we wish the Republicans would have just agreed to do these things without having to shut down. | ||
| But this notion that we will just go into a conversation, I mean, that's what they said in the beginning, like, oh, that's an interesting problem. | ||
| You've got a health care issue. | ||
| Well, we'd be willing to talk about that. | ||
| I mean, sorry, but that's just kind of bullshit. | ||
| I mean, it's like, wait, we have to concretely. | ||
| These are the things that will go into that bill. | ||
| We have to get back negotiations. | ||
| When they said, give us seven weeks to negotiate this stuff. | ||
| I mean, this has been nine months, and we've watched them dismantle government, cut employees, cut funding, many of them in illegal and unconstitutional ways. | ||
| We've got to have a lot more than a promise to discuss it. | ||
| What's the conversation been like within the Pine Tree State delegation? | ||
| What do you make of Senator Angus King and Jared Golden voting for the CRs to keep the government open? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it's not unlike our delegation of four to split all over the place. | |
| We're usually very much unified when it comes to issues relating our, you know, our big shipyard or any of the things that are critically important to our state. | ||
| But we often have different opinions about going about how to go about this. | ||
| And two members, well, actually three, I'm the only one who voted to oppose this CR. | ||
| I think they all thought, well, I mean, some of the arguments they made were like, oh, well, if you shut the government down and you let Russ vote and Donald Trump just kind of have a free-for-all, they might do more damage. | ||
| I mean, that was the same argument we went through in March. | ||
| And we went ahead with the CR. | ||
| I didn't vote for it then either. | ||
| But the fact is, now we've had many more months of experience. | ||
| And I say to all my colleagues, Senator Collins knows this a little more firsthand because she is on the Appropriations Committee. | ||
| But to the other two, I say, you know, get into my shoes, 92 hours of markups and these guys don't move. | ||
| What makes you think that they won't continue to dismantle the government even if you vote for a shutdown? | ||
| So I think we have to use the leveraging power that we have. | ||
| I appreciate that different members of Congress, you know, vote different ways and have their opinions about things. | ||
| But in this case, I think I'm solidly right and they are wrong. | ||
| Just one more follow-up on that. | ||
| Jared Golden, his statement after he voted for it. | ||
| Some of my colleagues in the majority party, the Republican Party, have reasonable concerns about tax credits going to high-income households. | ||
| There is room and there's time to negotiate, but normal policy disagreements are no reason to subject our constituents to the continued harm of this shutdown. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Income, they're basically able to pay for their insurance themselves. | |
| You know, it has to be a certain percentage of your income. | ||
| So you have to pay something like $4,000 or $5,000 a month in premiums for that to kick in if you've got an income, say $300,000, $400,000. | ||
| And that means almost nobody in Maine. | ||
| We're the 38th in per capita income in this country, so that doesn't really cover us. | ||
| The second thing is, I've heard Richie Neal, who's our ranking member on Ways and Means, say, hey, there might be some argument for bringing that cap back. | ||
| I think it was there before some recent changes in the last couple of years. | ||
| So I think there's wiggle room there. | ||
| But you're just talking about one piece of this. | ||
| So yeah, that should be part of the negotiation if that's what we want to negotiate. | ||
| But you certainly can't hang your hat on saying like, oh, that will be enough to fix the whole thing. | ||
| We got a big problem in front of us. | ||
| And I think the biggest argument the Republicans keep giving us is, well, this doesn't kick in until December 31st. | ||
| Why are you worrying about it now? | ||
| Well, people are getting their notices in October. | ||
| They've got to make this decision in November. | ||
| And from what I've heard from many of my constituents, some of whom have either gone on the calculator or who have already gotten their notices, they're saying, my premium is going to increase 200%, twice as much as it was, more than my mortgage. | ||
| And many people will decide to drop their health insurance. | ||
| And then we'll be right back where we were before we passed the Affordable Care Act in 2009 or 10. | ||
| I mean, that's crazy. | ||
| We can't. | ||
| In Congress, we have the ability to see ahead. | ||
| We know what's going to happen here. | ||
| That is exactly why the Republicans went ahead and extended the tax credits for the wealthiest people in this country. | ||
| They didn't expire until December 31st either, but they had to get the big bill passed a long time ago. | ||
| So I say the same thing to them. | ||
| If you care about people's health care, get on this task now. | ||
| Is it a strange time to be on the same side of Marjorie Taylor Greene when it comes to avoiding premium hikes? | ||
| What do you make of her statement, her criticism of Republican leadership on this issue? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, I think all too often on the outside, people think that like we sit on opposite sides of the aisle and there's an invisible barrier and we can't talk. | |
| We don't know each other. | ||
| I mean, many Democrats have good friends on both sides of the aisle. | ||
| It is not at all unusual to see a bill that has odd bud fellows. | ||
| You know, it might be about health care. | ||
| It might be about stock trading. | ||
| I sign bills often with Representative Massey. | ||
| He and I both, you know, we both raise some of our own food and live off of the grid. | ||
| So we're often on the same side related to certain agriculture issues. | ||
| I had a conversation with Marjorie Taylor Greene not too long ago, just telling her I was pleased to see she opposed the bombing in Iran. | ||
| So I'm not surprised at all that there are members who, you know, who have different ideas. | ||
| There is no such thing as a locked in sort of siloed position in Congress. | ||
| And oh, if you're a progressive here, if you're a freedom caucus here, you know, we cross over on all kinds of things, whether she has an important voice in her caucus. | ||
| We don't have to agree on everything, but it's good when we have those areas of agreement and we should fight together on the same front. | ||
| And Ceaseman's new program, Ceasefire, sort of highlighting those areas of agreement from members on different sides of the aisle. | ||
| The ceasefire program airing on the Ceaseman networks and its premiere coming up this Friday. | ||
| So hope you join us on that. | ||
| And Congresswoman, it might be something for you to join us on down the road while we have you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| I think we've got you for about 15 minutes. | ||
| Can I get you a few phone calls from viewers? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Let me start in New England in Worcester. | ||
| Robert, Democrat, good morning. | ||
| You're on with Shelly Pingree. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I must be the luckiest man in America because of my health care. | ||
| I got Medicaid. | ||
| I got Blue Cross Blue Shield, Massachusetts. | ||
| I got Nass Health. | ||
| I got free medicine. | ||
| So I would classify myself as the luckiest man in America. | ||
| And my sympathy goes with the people of Washington State. | ||
| Here's my question. | ||
| And when I was to you, you, John, how many times did you have the Heritage Foundation on this show talking about 2025 project? | ||
| This is 2525 project. | ||
| It's got to be done before the end of 2025. | ||
| This is what makes it so dangerous. | ||
| This is why we do not vote for this health care thing. | ||
| We've got to pass this bill because I want everybody to have what I have. | ||
| I'm blessed to have what I have. | ||
| And this shutdown, this shutdown is all about Donald Trump taking over the military, the Justice Department, Homeland Security, ICE agents, state troopers, local police. | ||
| He recruiting these. | ||
| Every time he brings a military into a town, he's actually recruiting your local police officer. | ||
| Tell them, you're not getting paid that much money, so come break the ICE. | ||
| Robert, you bring up a lot of issues. | ||
| Congresswoman, what do you want to follow up on? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, first, Robert, thanks for calling in. | |
| I'm a big fan of Worcester, Massachusetts, lived there one year of my life, and actually was just back there last year visiting my grandson who was in school there and went to the Miss Worcester diner, which is one of my favorite places on earth. | ||
| So lucky you to live in Worcester. | ||
| But you bring up a lot of important points and congratulations on having such excellent health care. | ||
| You absolutely have what every American should have. | ||
| I believe in Medicare for all. | ||
| I believe in a much simpler system of coverage, but I'm glad to see that you are able to access your health care from so many different areas and that you are covered and that you get free prescriptions. | ||
| That's really important. | ||
| You're absolutely right about Project 2025. | ||
| As we all recall, you know, the president spent much of his campaign kind of looking up into space saying like, oh, I've never heard of that. | ||
| No, I've never read that. | ||
| Oh, I don't know what that is. | ||
| Come to find out it was written by Russ Vote, who now took over the office, required us to have hundreds of lawsuits, 90% of which we win, but take up a lot of time in court and have been a huge disruption and damage to this federal government. | ||
| And I don't know every evil plan behind the shutdown, but I know that many of my colleagues and many, many, many people that I talk to back in my district, Republican, Democrat, conservative, not, are worried about the military in the streets. | ||
| It's just something that feels very un-American to us. | ||
| The idea, and we've had several incidents of this, we don't have the military occupying our street, but ICE picking people up when they're dropping kids off at school or other kinds of raids of businesses is very disturbing to people. | ||
| And I don't think they like the course of what's going on. | ||
| And obviously the courts have been ruling against the president, telling him he can't use the National Guard in Portland, Oregon. | ||
| And then he just turns around and says, oh, well, maybe I can use the California National Guard. | ||
| And I love the fact that the judge went right back in and said, what is it you don't understand about the law of the United States of America? | ||
| So thanks for your call. | ||
| All great points. | ||
| The Miss Worcester Diner on Southbridge Street in Worcester, Mass. | ||
| What's your go-to when you go there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, geez, what did I eat last time? | |
| I think I ate like some kind of like a, I think they had chowder. | ||
| I think that was a, it was a chowder thing. | ||
| I remember remembering a bowl in front of me. | ||
| Maybe it was chili. | ||
| That's terrible. | ||
| I love food, but I can't remember what it is. | ||
| The Miss Worcester diner. | ||
| Back to your phone calls. | ||
| This is Ann out of the Pine Tree State Democrat. | ||
| And you're on with Congresswoman Pingree. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to thank Shelly Pingree. | ||
| I'm actually in CD too, but Kelly Pingree much more represents my views. | ||
| I'm very active with the Hancock County Democratic Committee, which is working really hard. | ||
| And I'm asking all Mainers to vote no on the question on our ballot because that is even more extreme than the SAVE Act. | ||
| But I really, you know, our entire congressional delegation, except for Kelly Pingree, has rolled over to the MAGA CR. | ||
| And I'm just, she's my point of light. | ||
| So thank you. | ||
| Congresswoman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Well, thank you, Ann. | ||
| That's my kind of call. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| And as you know, you know, Maine is a small state. | ||
| We're only 1.3 million people. | ||
| So first and second CD, we have a lot in common. | ||
| Hancock County, that's where I went to college, College of the Atlantic, and that's where Acadia National Park is. | ||
| So a lot of attention is focused on there right now. | ||
| And no one, I agree. | ||
| I know that's not the topic of our call today, but it's one of the many ballot measures that's being proposed by the ultra-riest percentage of voter turnout in the country. | ||
| And I have seen our laws change over the years and mostly making it more just simpler for voters to cast their vote. | ||
| It used to be you had to request an absentee ballot, you had to have an excuse, where was I going to be out of the country, blah, blah, blah. | ||
| Now no-fault absentee, early voting. | ||
| So many of these things have made a huge difference because we've been back in the state of Maine this week, not in Washington since the doors are locked. | ||
| I was able, I think on Monday morning, to go down to the town office in my community. | ||
| I live in a very small town in the state of Maine. | ||
| Walked in. | ||
| They had the ballots already. | ||
| It was first day of voting. | ||
| And I was able to pick up my ballot, cast my vote right there, and get it right back to them. | ||
| And it was just so simple. | ||
| I knew it was safe. | ||
| I gave it right back to the person who handed it to me. | ||
| I just two referendum items this year. | ||
| But one of the things I've been saying is, you know, if this measure pass, if too many people vote yes on one instead of no on one, absentee balloting as we know it will get much more complicated. | ||
| And there's all kinds of ridiculous things that are thrown in there, like only one ballot collection box per community. | ||
| So we're a town of very many, we're a state of very many small towns. | ||
| Portland, Maine is our largest city, but it is 65,000 people. | ||
| And if you just have one collection spot, that doesn't make it any easier for the voters. | ||
| You're making it much more difficult. | ||
| And there's all kinds of different requirements about how you pick up the ballot, what you do. | ||
| We don't have voter fraud in our state. | ||
| We haven't had huge problems. | ||
| All we have are some myth and lies that people are using to try to change this system. | ||
| So I hope Mainers get out in this off-year election and vote no-on-one. | ||
| So that's a plug to the whole country. | ||
| You all had to hear Maine's business there, but that's no on one. | ||
| More on Maine's business. | ||
| You talked about the impact of the shutdown in Acadia National Park and certainly the impacts of businesses around there that rely on tourism dollars in this time of year. | ||
| I wonder your thoughts on the Washington Post's lead editorial today. | ||
| The headline is that government shutdowns aren't painful enough to get them to end quickly. | ||
| The argument that they make is that most Americans really haven't noticed and haven't really grown too agitated yet about the government shutdown. | ||
| It's by design saying that if more critical functions were shut down, then shutdowns would end a lot quicker. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, it's interesting. | |
| I only got around to reading the headline and I pondered it for a bit, so now I'll go back and read it. | ||
| But I think you have a very, I mean, I think they're making a good point. | ||
| On the other hand, I don't want to do anything as an elected official to make people's lives more painful. | ||
| It's hard enough right now. | ||
| Dealing with the cost of living, housing, you know, childcare, food costs, and now rising health care costs as well. | ||
| So, I mean, the idea that we would change the system to make it more painful is ridiculous. | ||
| The ones who gets furloughed that has to worry now about the pay cuts being permanent, which is a crazy aside. | ||
| Sorry, I even brought that up. | ||
| But anyway, you don't really experience it. | ||
| The average American doesn't really experience it. | ||
| You know, interestingly, there are also proposals out there that say there should never be a shutdown. | ||
| If the impasse happens, you go into a 10-day period that you can renegotiate in or another 10-day period. | ||
| And there's an argument for that, too. | ||
| And one of the reasons I think we have the shutdown and don't go along with legislation like that that eliminates them altogether is because there's some negotiating power in it. | ||
| The two parties have to do this. | ||
| But why can't we be reasonable? | ||
| And why don't we step back as a federal government and look at some of these systems? | ||
| I've seen proposals come across our desk that say, what about a two-year budgeting process or appropriations process? | ||
| What about doing this in a different way? | ||
| I was a state legislator before I got into this many years ago. | ||
| And we had a two-year budgeting process. | ||
| So it was different. | ||
| You were sort of thinking ahead and you didn't have so many crises and deadlines always on top of you. | ||
| And frankly, in this very partisan atmosphere, as people know, we have a hard time getting those 12 bills passed every year. | ||
| And it's usually some sort of modification, partial shutdown. | ||
| So I think there's a point to that. | ||
| And I think that we are imposing on the American public something that reflects the fact that Congress has gotten less cooperative, less bipartisan, just doesn't function as well. | ||
| Time for just a couple more phone calls here. | ||
| This is Joseph in the Garden State Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, how are you? | |
| Doing well. | ||
| You're on with Congresswoman Pingre. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, how you doing, miss? | |
| I just made two quick points. | ||
| You were just talking about being non-American, not an American way, having the military in the cities. | ||
| You said that before. | ||
| Well, I didn't hear you say, is it American that the DOJ and the FBI spy on eight senators? | ||
| I don't think that's American. | ||
| I don't hear you saying anything about that. | ||
| And getting back to the shutdown, the shutdown is because Republicans don't want some of these hospitals to be taking money to pay for illegal immigration and their health care. | ||
| Everybody says, no, they don't get health care. | ||
| They don't get health care. | ||
| Miss, you live in Maine. | ||
| I grew up in New York City, grandson of an immigrant. | ||
| Nobody's going to tell me about immigration. | ||
| They go to the hospitals like it's healthcare, and they're put on Medicaid. | ||
| Let me just make one point. | ||
| My mother is a retired nurse. | ||
| My father passed away. | ||
| He's a New York City fireman and a vet for this country. | ||
| My mother can't live by herself. | ||
| We have to pay the few bucks that she saved. | ||
| We have to pay every cent for medicine and for whatever social true doesn't really pay that much. | ||
| If it wasn't for my younger brother that's taking care of her, my mother would be screwed. | ||
| But an illegal athlete could come into this country before you and was married to a vet that served this country, doesn't get anything from the government, only the money that she put in for Medicare. | ||
| We shouldn't pay nothing. | ||
| Joseph, you bring up a lot of points. | ||
| Congresswoman Pam Bondi's hearing yesterday, emergency rooms treating undocumented immigrants, Medicaid and Medicare. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure, lots of important questions there. | |
| Thank you for calling in. | ||
| I also am a granddaughter of an immigrant, and my mom was a nurse, and my dad was an accountant. | ||
| So I sympathize with many of the things that you're bringing up. | ||
| And absolutely, everything you talk to us about in terms of how you get health care and your family gets health care. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| It's a broken system. | ||
| We need huge reform here. | ||
| I've been a big proponent of negotiating for lower prices of prescription drugs ever since I was back in the state legislature. | ||
| We shouldn't in the world. | ||
| It shouldn't be so difficult for your family to get by right here. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| No veteran should go without health care. | ||
| No one in this country should go without health care. | ||
| But you're wrong to say that undocumented immigrants automatically get health care. | ||
| The thing that Pam Bondi and other people have been mentioning was something passed by Ronald Reagan. | ||
| It's been a law for many years, and it says that if any individual comes into a hospital, no matter what, if they are in a serious car accident, if they're having a heart attack, you don't say, let me see your papers. | ||
| I'm not sure if I can treat you. | ||
| You treat them, and then the federal government reimburses you. | ||
| But they don't automatically go on the Medicare system or anything else. | ||
| You cannot be an undocumented immigrant in this country and collect health care. | ||
| That's just a lie. | ||
| The Republicans are using it to try to combat the very valid points that we're making on the Affordable Care Act, premiums, on Medicaid costs, on hospital closures. | ||
| I have a hospital in Maine, Waterville Hospital that closed this year. | ||
| We've had other units closed. | ||
| It's a huge issue for all of us. | ||
| Honestly, we're all in this together. | ||
| We're all saying many of the same things. | ||
| And to try to say that, you know, we're the ones that are breaking up this systems. | ||
| We're the ones who are trying to reform it and try to keep it going. | ||
| And we're desperately worried that by the end of the year, between the big ugly bill and these, the Republicans' unwillingness to extend these tax credits, we're going to have millions of people in this country without health care coverage. | ||
| And we're going to go back to a system where hospitals are trying to provide charity care, don't get sufficient Medicaid funding, and they're going broke. | ||
| Whether you live in the middle of the city or out in a rural area like mine, you're going to have some huge problems to face. | ||
| Congresswoman Shelly Pingree, 1st District of Maine, Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. | ||
| We'll let you get to your day. | ||
| Appreciate you stopping by the Washington Journal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having me. | |
| Take care. | ||
| And now another member of Congress joining us this morning. | ||
| It's Congresswoman Lisa McLean, Republican of Michigan, Republican Conference Chair. | ||
| Congresswoman, good morning to you. | ||
| It's the 9th District of Michigan. | ||
| What's been the impact so far, eight days into the shutdown, on your district? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, we have some federal workers in our district. | |
| They're concerned. | ||
| We have some, you know, calling our Democratic senators, Peters and Slotkins, to say and ask them, please open up the government. | ||
| Vote yes like you voted 13 other times before and stop playing political games with the American people's lives. | ||
| So it's beginning to, I don't think the full impact they've seen yet, but it's beginning to get a little nerve-wracking for a lot of our constituents. | ||
| So how does this end eight days in? | ||
| Are there talks going on behind the scenes that you can share? | ||
| You're a member of the Republican leadership team. | ||
| What hope do you give to those workers in your district? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, the hope is that the Democrats really come to their senses and vote yes. | |
| There are some talks going on, but I think here's the piece that people don't understand. | ||
| Typically when you do a CR, the party in power, the majority, right, usually loads that CR up with policy issues, partisan policy issues that they add onto the CR. | ||
| And then you negotiate with the other side to remove those partisan policy issues. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So you see a lot of negotiation. | |
| What Republicans did this time was said, hey, we're not going to do any gimmicks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're not playing any games. | |
| We're actually going to deal with the Democrats in good faith and pass the exact same funding levels that they passed and they voted for 13 times so we can get back to actually governing. | ||
| So we didn't play the games of loading the CR up with a bunch of partisan policies. | ||
| We just said, hey, let's pass this clean CR and let's get back to work because we've already passed 12 appropriation bills out of the House. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that's the situation that we're in right now. | |
| Speaker Johnson got this question yesterday on Capitol Hill. | ||
| I wonder what your thoughts are on one of your more vocal members of the conference, Marjorie Taylor Greene, breaking with Republicans when it comes to the ACA calling for something to avoid premium hikes for those when it comes to those credits. | ||
| What's your response? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, my response is everybody needs to represent their district. | |
| And we are happy to have those negotiations. | ||
| We're happy to have those talks. | ||
| But this is a funding battle, right? | ||
| Don't use that to keep the American people hostage and the government closed down and have our military members not get paid, right? | ||
| Those ACA credits don't expire till December and we can have those discussions and debates, but let's do it in regular order. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But we can't do it until we open the government. | |
| So the government has to be open first before you agree to have those discussions? | ||
| Or what, if there's a deal for folks trying to understand where there's common ground, what's the deal that could be made? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We had, and we're happy to have those discussions. | |
| That's how government is supposed to work is you're supposed to represent your district and then come in and have good spirited debates to get to a better place for all Americans. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that's exactly what Republicans want to do. | |
| But we got to open the government. | ||
| Let me come back to those government workers. | ||
| What is your view on the White House memo that was reported on yesterday about federal workers may not necessarily receive back pay whenever the government opens back up? | ||
|
unidentified
|
My view on that is government workers, especially our military, if they have worked, they absolutely need to get a paycheck. | |
| They didn't cause this issue, right? | ||
| They shouldn't be harmed. | ||
| So to me, if you're a furloughed employee and you've been working, you need to get paid. | ||
| And then Congressman, I know you need to run and get your day started, but did you watch any of Pam Bondi's hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday? | ||
| What was your reaction to that very high-profile hearing? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, I watched snippets of it, so I wasn't able to watch the entire thing. | |
| But again, I think it just shows the partisan politics that really we really have to get away from and we really have to come together and work for the American people. | ||
| That's who hired us. | ||
| I thought Pam Bondi did an absolute amazing job standing her ground and holding and holding firm to her beliefs and putting the American people first. | ||
| What does a day look like in the life of a Republican conference chair on Capitol Hill today? | ||
| What are you going to be doing? | ||
| Who are you going to be meeting with? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, well, we have a leadership meeting. | |
| We'll be in communication with the White House. | ||
| I will be doing a lot of press, and I have a just a packed day today. | ||
| So, you know, fingers crossed that we can make progress and open the government up for the American people. | ||
| Well, thanks for joining us at the outset of that busy day. | ||
| Congresswoman Lisa McLean, Republican, the Michigan Republican Conference Chair. | ||
| Back to your phone calls now on the last 40 minutes this morning of the Washington Journal. | ||
| It's phone lines for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents as usual, and that special line for federal employees. | ||
| 202748-8003 is the number for federal employees. | ||
| Paul's up first here in D.C. Paul, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning, and hi to all my fellow Americans out there. | |
| So on the Democrat line, been a Democrat for about 25 years and just wanted to hopefully put something out there that could unite my fellow Democrats and my friend Republicans around one idea about this shutdown, which is if anybody shouldn't get paid, it's members of Congress. | ||
| With all due respect to the two representatives that were just on the phone, I don't understand why they're getting paid for not doing their job, borders to helping educate our children. | ||
| They're not getting paid. | ||
| And they might not ever get paid, according to the president this week. | ||
| So my recommendation is for all of us to unite that Congress, if there's a shutdown, whoever started it or whatever, it doesn't matter. | ||
| Both parties are wrong to do it. | ||
| But whenever there's a shutdown, Congress doesn't get paid and Congress does not get any back pay if no matter how long it takes them to resolve the matter. | ||
| Paul, my understanding. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let me share my idea. | |
| Paul, my understanding of, and that's an idea that's been floating in the past, my understanding is that what that runs into is the United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution says senators and representatives, quote, shall receive a compensation for their services paid out of the Treasury of the United States, that it may even take a constitutional amendment to do what you're talking about during a shutdown. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for that education. | |
| Didn't know that. | ||
| If that's the way it's phrased, that they should receive compensation for their services. | ||
| My counter argument would be they're not providing services. | ||
| So if you're not providing services and you're not doing the job, you don't get the compensation. | ||
| Maybe that's just one crack that they could look into. | ||
| But thanks. | ||
| Really enjoying the exchange around this issue and wishing everybody out there, no matter where you're from, no matter what party you're in, a great day. | ||
| That's Paul here in D.C. out to the Bluegrass State. | ||
| Joey, Republican, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| I seen Chad Selmer vote on the same bail 16 times when Biden was bridging. | ||
| By Dean, Chud Selmer, she did the shutdown, but bid for the country. | ||
| Well, he ain't got no problem with it now. | ||
| That's Joey in Kentucky. | ||
| This is Kathy in Mansfield, Ohio. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I have a statement to make, and I would like to ask a question. | ||
| First of all, kudos to Marjorie Taylor Green Standing up for the American people and putting them first. | ||
| It shows a different side of her, and it's amazing and delightful. | ||
| Secondly, my question is: with all the billions and trillions of dollars supposedly saved by the good morning. | ||
| Oh, Kathy, I'm already hearing you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Due to illegal immigrants and all the waste, fraud, and abuse, I would like to know where does that money go? | |
| How is it spent? | ||
| And the American people deserve to know that. | ||
| That's Kathy in Mansfield, Ohio. | ||
| This is Kevin in South Carolina, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes, in regards to the shutdown, it seems like the key point of contention, obviously, or negotiating point of contention, is obviously Obamacare and healthcare. | ||
| And right now, the way I see it is the approach that they're taking is much more of a band-aid. | ||
| Just give us, give the health care system via the citizens, give them more credits or more government money to support health care. | ||
| But the question that I have that I keep toying with is: when are we going to deal with the larger issue, which is the ACA is probably unsustainable? | ||
| That's Kevin in South Carolina on the Affordable Care Act and the previous caller's comments about Marjorie Taylor Greene and her position on this issue. | ||
| Let me give the full context in the form of her ex-post that got so much attention. | ||
| I'll just read it in its entirety. | ||
| This was from earlier this week. | ||
| I was not in Congress, she says, when all this Obamacare Affordable Care Act BS started. | ||
| She did not use BS. | ||
| I got here in 2021, she writes. | ||
| As a matter of fact, the ACA made health insurance unaffordable for my family after it was passed with skyrocketing premiums higher than our house payment. | ||
| Let's just say as nicely as possible, I am not a fan. | ||
| But I'm going to go against everyone on this issue because when the tax credits expire this year, my own adult children's insurance premiums for 2026 are going to double, along with all the wonderful families and hardworking people in my district. | ||
| No, I'm not towing the party line on this or playing loyalty games. | ||
| I'm a Republican and won't vote for illegals to have any taxpayer-funded health care or benefits. | ||
| I'm America only. | ||
| I'm carving my own lane, she writes, and I'm absolutely disgusted that health care insurance premiums will double if the tax credits expire this year. | ||
| Also, I think health insurance in all insurance is a scam. | ||
| Just to be clear, not a single Republican in leadership talked to us about this or has given us a plan for helping American people deal with their health insurance premium doubling. | ||
| And it goes on from there. | ||
| Marjorie Taylor Green, that lengthy post getting a lot of attention after she put it on X this week, a lot of questions stemming from that post to Republican leadership. | ||
| This is Jerry in Willis, Texas, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I want to make one quick ironic that she rails about, and many Democrats rail about military in the streets. | ||
| And what that tells me is two things. | ||
| One is their biggest fear is mass black incarceration. | ||
| We went through that era and they're afraid of it happening again. | ||
| And the sad part about it is that it's black lives being saved in Washington, D.C., in Chicago. | ||
| Not overwhelmingly white people, but it's black people's lives that are being saved. | ||
| And the other question I would have had for her was, how many CRs did she vote for under the Biden administration? | ||
| Those two that the ACA subsidies were going to expire in 2025. | ||
| Not once did I hear any Democrats say those subsidies in next year. | ||
| We need to address this issue while Biden is in office. | ||
| That was the question I have for her. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's Jerry in Willis, Texas. | ||
| It's coming up on 9.30 on the East Coast. | ||
| Let me just show you where we are today in the Senate. | ||
| The Senate is expected to come in at 10 a.m. Eastern, and we are expecting a vote on a continuing resolution to keep the government open in the 11 a.m. hour, again, Eastern time. | ||
| In the House, the House is expected to have a brief pro forma session. | ||
| That's at 3 p.m. | ||
| After our program today, here on C-SPAN 1, we will be taking you over to the Supreme Court to hear oral arguments in a case challenging Illinois procedures for counting mail-in ballots. | ||
| So if you stick with us here, that's what you'll see. | ||
| We're also showing that on c-span.org and the free C-SPANNOW video app. | ||
| We're also monitoring the arraignment, former FBI Director James Comey in an Alexandria, Virginia courtroom today. | ||
| That's the camera outside the courtroom. | ||
| If James Comey, on his way into the arraignment, stops to take a few questions or talk to reporters. | ||
| We'll certainly show you that in the next half hour as it happens. | ||
| So there's a whole lot going on here in D.C. and just across the river in Alexandria. | ||
| And we're taking your phone calls on phone lines for Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and that special line for federal workers. | ||
| This is Don out of Texas, Democrat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I had had a question for the Republican conference leader, but I'm sorry that she had such a busy schedule with press appearances that she couldn't take questions, as could the Democrat. | ||
| I tell you what, Don, the Speaker of the House is going to take questions on this program tomorrow. | ||
| We've got Speaker Johnson set to join us at 8.30 a.m. Eastern tomorrow. | ||
| But go ahead with your thoughts. | ||
|
unidentified
|
When this new Democratic representative would be sworn in, because apparently that's something that the Republican leadership does not want. | |
| But she's not here. | ||
| I can't ask that question. | ||
| I know that Johnson has delayed her swearing in for some time. | ||
| Similar to our governor here in Texas, Governor Abbott, who for six months has delayed holding a special election in Congressional District 18, but in the meantime, could have a special legislative session convened to redistrict Texas. | ||
| So I don't know if those two things are related. | ||
| They're kind of off topic, but I did miss the opportunity to visit with the House conference leader. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| This is the seat of the seat that was held by Rahul Grihava, a longtime member of the House Democratic member out of Arizona. | ||
| And that seat is set to be occupied by RepElect Adelita Grijalva. | ||
| We actually heard from the Democratic leadership. | ||
| The Democrats are set to go to the House floor, expected during this pro forma session to demand that she be sworn in as a House member. | ||
| So we'll see what happens. | ||
| Those pro forma sessions, usually short and brief, but there could be some action today when that happens at 3 p.m. Eastern. | ||
| So you can watch that here on C-SPAN. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I hope so. | |
| And I really appreciate your coverage. | ||
| Will note that Speaker Johnson swore in a Republican that was old. | ||
| John, thanks for the call. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Thanks for the call from Texas. | ||
| This is Tom in South Carolina. | ||
| Independent, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'd like to propose a constitutional amendment that Congress be required to pass a balanced budget by no later than September 30th of each year. | ||
| In the event that they fail to do that, there will be a 100% complete government shutdown. | ||
| Everything, military, you name it, there are no essential jobs. | ||
| No one goes to work. | ||
| No one gets paid. | ||
| And if this is not resolved within 10 business days of the shutting down of the government, Congress will be declared to have abandoned, been in Congress, and declared to be abandoned. | ||
| Their jobs would not be eligible to rerun. | ||
| Let's see who is going to pull that pin on that constitutional hand grenade. | ||
| So, Tom, it sounds like you agree with the editorial board of the Washington Post today. | ||
| Their argument is simply that government shutdowns these days aren't painful enough to get them to end quickly, that there are so many essential jobs federal employees deemed essential that most Americans don't really feel the impacts of a shutdown. | ||
| And so, therefore, there's not enough pressure on members of Congress to avert a shutdown or to reopen the government soon. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Percussions to them. | |
| And they love this stuff. | ||
| I can tell you when it's going to end. | ||
| When 100% of both parties get their chance to go in front of a camera and a microphone. | ||
| But let's make it as painful for them as they made it for us as hostages. | ||
| We are the hostages of the Republicans and the Democrats. | ||
| Maybe Lincoln was wrong. | ||
| It should have been government of the political parties, by the political parties, and for the political parties shall not perish from this earth. | ||
| That's Tom in the Palmetto State to the Keystone State. | ||
| John, Republican, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, John. | |
| I wanted to ask, I guess it was Representative from Maine. | ||
| I had a couple of questions. | ||
| Like, they want to have the subsidies extended. | ||
| It would cost, one, I heard, $1.5 trillion, $1.7 trillion for 23 million people. | ||
| Where would the money come from? | ||
| Would this money be printed? | ||
| Would it be borrowed? | ||
| And how it would affect inflation. | ||
| I mean, this is why we got all the inflation over the last four years was because of the massive amount of money being flooded in. | ||
| And, you know, it just seems like if you wanted socialized or government health care, this doesn't seem the way to be doing it. | ||
| And I don't see how the Republicans get a win out of it if they give the $1.5 trillion because they'll be blamed for raising the deficit that's at $37.5 for where it's at now, trillion up to $38, $39 trillion. | ||
| So, you know, maybe you can ask the speaker tomorrow where these questions that I'm asking you. | ||
| John, thanks for the call from Pennsylvania, staying in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Ray is on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, hi. | |
| I just, I don't know. | ||
| But we'll go with the immigration thing where this guy, your guy from Pennsylvania, said that he had all these facts about they know how many people are on and they know that they're on illegal aliens, et cetera, et cetera. | ||
| Well, my point is, if they know these people are illegal, they've identified them, then what the heck is ICE doing going to Home Depots? | ||
| They got 1.4 million people that they could come and get just by looking up their records on Medicare or Medicaid or whatever they're getting, find out what their phone number is, their address is. | ||
| You know, they're easy pickings for them. | ||
| I don't understand why they don't just get it. | ||
| They've committed a crime by being on Medicare and Medicaid illegally. | ||
| So they're already criminals and they can be picked up. | ||
|
unidentified
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I guess the ICE just hasn't thought of that yet. | |
| Or maybe they just don't want to do it. | ||
| As far as this other guy, what was he saying about I can't remember now. | ||
| Damn it. | ||
| Can you help me, John? | ||
| That's okay, right? | ||
| We've got just about 15, 20 minutes left here. | ||
| Let me try to get a few more calls. | ||
| This is Clay in Wisconsin, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| So this bill, the continuing resolution passed the House, and it's the same language that has been used 13 times since the Biden administration. | ||
| And the mere fact that in the bill that the response, the Democratic short-term government funding bill, in the language, language says everything, they repealed the safeguards for illegals to get health care that were offered in the big beautiful bill, the Working Families Tax Cut Act. | ||
| And it prevented illegals from getting Medicare. | ||
| And if an illegal needed health care and went to the emergency room, they would get the care. | ||
| But who should have to pay for it? | ||
| The American taxpayer? | ||
| No. | ||
| This was intentional by the Biden administration. | ||
| Yesterday, we found out just how corrupt the Biden administration is, and it's going to be proven over the next three years. | ||
| Clay, do you think that Reagan-era law should be repealed? | ||
| The idea that if somebody goes to the hospital, and if it's a hospital that accepts Medicaid or Medicare, anyone that goes to that hospital, whether they're insured or uninsured, we should do away with that. | ||
|
unidentified
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Absolutely not. | |
| But who should have to pay for it? | ||
| So who should in this country? | ||
| It's been done over the last, we saw, 20 million in four years. | ||
| But they should get the health care, but I shouldn't have to pay for it. | ||
| You shouldn't have to pay for it. | ||
| The illegal Americans should not have to pay for it. | ||
| You know, this was intentional. | ||
| And one thing the Democrats did through Obamacare all the way along, they fought being able to sell insurance across state lines. | ||
| It's the one thing the Republicans tried to get through is the mere fact that they fought that is one reason why we are facing what we're facing. | ||
| Can I come back to that? | ||
| We absolutely shouldn't get rid of that law, but I shouldn't pay for it. | ||
| You shouldn't pay for it. | ||
| The illegal immigrant shouldn't pay for it. | ||
| Who's left to pay for it, Clay? | ||
|
unidentified
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Should pay for it. | |
| They should pay for it. | ||
| And if they pay for it. | ||
| And if they can't? | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, you know what? | |
| Then, you know, they should be penalized or fined. | ||
| You know, we've got to take accountability for the ones that are here working. | ||
| I think they should have to go to the end of the line. | ||
| They shouldn't be, if they're criminals, they should be sent back or prosecuted. | ||
| But if they're here and we document them finally, yes. | ||
| And if they're paying taxes, they should go to the end of the line. | ||
| That's called amnesty for some people. | ||
| But I tell you what, we got people that are doing it the right way. | ||
| They come in through the door. | ||
| They don't try to sneak around and get in here. | ||
| But this was intentional by the Democrat Party, and they should be held accountable. | ||
| Got your point. | ||
| That's Clay in Wisconsin. | ||
| About 15 minutes left this morning, still taking your phone calls until 10 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| As you're calling in, one op-ed today that is likely to get attention throughout the day. | ||
| Six surgeons general saying it's our duty to warn the nation about Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. | ||
| They include among them Vivek Murthy, Jerome Adams, who was Donald Trump's Surgeon General in his first administration, Richard Carmona, Jocelyn Elders, David Satcher, Antonio Novello among them. | ||
| Here's part of what they write. | ||
| This year, as the United States faced its worst measles outbreak in more than 30 years, Kennedy de-emphasized vaccination and directed agency resources towards unproven vitamin therapies. | ||
| The result, months-long outbreaks, important public health tools in American history. | ||
| Thanks to widespread immunization, we eradicated smallpox, eliminated polio in the U.S., and prevented an estimated 1.1 million deaths and 508 million affections among children born between 1994 and 2023. | ||
| Yet Kennedy continues to ignore science and the public's wishes. | ||
| They end by saying Secretary Kennedy is entitled to his views, but he is not entitled to put people's health at risk. | ||
| He has rejected science, misled the public, and compromised the health of Americans. | ||
| The nation deserves a health and human services secretary who is committed to scientific integrity and can restore morale and trust in our agency's sixth surgeons general on their thoughts on warning the nation about RFK Jr. | ||
| Again, it's in the Washington Post if you want to read the full piece. | ||
| By the way, that op-ed getting a response from the Health and Human Services Administration, a statement from Andrew Nixon, the department's communications director, saying, quote, the same officials who presided over the decline in America's public health are now criticizing the first secretary to confront it head on. | ||
| We remain committed to restoring trust, reforming broken health systems, and ensuring that every American has access to real choice in their health care. | ||
| So a response from Health and Human Services to that op-ed. | ||
| Again, the op-ed in the Washington Post if you want to read more. | ||
| This is Pat out of Huntington, West Virginia. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| All of this other stuff that we're talking about, including the budget shutdown, is all smokescreen to keep our minds away from the number one issue in this country, and that's to find out about these Epstein files and who the men were that were involved in this and whether the President of the United States was involved in something like this and is still the president of our country. | ||
| We need to get to the bottom of it. | ||
| It's the number one issue in politics right now. | ||
| And all this other stuff is just diversion. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Pat, did you watch yesterday's hearing with Pam Bondi? | ||
|
unidentified
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I did, and that's what I'm talking about. | |
| It's all diversion. | ||
| It's all auspication. | ||
| I think it's the term. | ||
| It's all designed to keep people from focusing in on getting the information that's right there. | ||
| The information's available. | ||
| They're just not making it available to the public. | ||
| These awful things to underage women. | ||
| Pat, it was Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dick Durbin yesterday at that hearing with the Attorney General Pam Bondi asking about the Epstein files and the release of the Epstein files. | ||
| Here's that exchange. | ||
| In February, you made a public claim that the Epstein client list was, quote, sitting on my desk right now for review, end of quote. | ||
| You then produced already public information and no client list at a major media event hosted at the White House. | ||
| Attorney General Bondi, why did you publicly claim to have the Epstein client list waiting for your review and then produce nothing relevant to that claim? | ||
| Senator Durbinette, that it was sitting on my desk along with the JFK files, the Martin Luther King files, and I said I had not yet reviewed it. | ||
| And if you see our memo on Epstein, you will see, excuse me, our memo on Epstein clearly points out that there was no client list, our July 6th memo. | ||
| According to another whistleblower who made a protected disclosure to my office, you pushed the FBI to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records on an arbitrarily short deadline in March, and the FBI was directed to flag any documents that mentioned President Trump. | ||
| Nothing came of that review until July when DOJ and FBI released an unsigned memo stating, quote, there's no incriminating client list. | ||
| Why was the July 7th memo unsigned? | ||
| The July 7th memo came from the FBI and the Department of Justice. | ||
| Director Patel answered those questions very clear. | ||
| And, you know, Senator Durbin, I find it very interesting that you refused repeated Republican requests to release the Epstein flight logs in 2023 and 2024. | ||
| You fought that. | ||
| Did you take money from Reed Hoffman, campaign donations, who was a huge Epstein friend? | ||
| Why did you fight for years? | ||
| Why did you fight to not disclose the flight logs, Senator Durbin? | ||
| I can tell you I did not refuse. | ||
| One of the senators here wished to produce those logs, and I asked her to put it in writing, and she never did. | ||
| Yeah, I think Senator Blackburn would quarrel with you on that. | ||
| But I will quarrel with you as to read somebody that you mentioned I never heard of. | ||
| Reed Hoffman. | ||
| So who gave the order to flag records related to President Trump? | ||
| To flag records for President Trump. | ||
| To flag any records which included his name. | ||
| I'm not going to discuss anything about that with you, Senator. | ||
| Eventually, you're going to have to answer for your conduct in this. | ||
| You won't do it today, but eventually you will. | ||
| Here today for your questions, your thoughts on day eight of the federal government shutdown. | ||
| This is the Weiss in Chicago, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Go ahead, Louise. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| My suggestion is for the sanctuary cities and for the illegals to set up a fund that is called the Sanctuary Cities Fund. | ||
| And it would have sponsors in this fund. | ||
| It would have employers. | ||
| It would have illegals. | ||
| They would do exactly as the American people do, pay for our own insurance through contributions from work and from donations. | ||
| And that would help with the problems of fighting over money coming from other people. | ||
| That's the Weiss in the Windy City. | ||
| This is Tiny in Texas, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning, and how are you today? | |
| Doing well. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes. | |
| Yes, I'm glad they shut down. | ||
| And I hope the Republicans don't be in with them. | ||
| You know, they voted 13 times in four years for the same thing. | ||
| They're doing this on purpose because they want to hurt America. | ||
| The Democratic Party cares nothing about the citizens of America. | ||
| And they always, oh, it's illegal for immigrants. | ||
| But that's not true. | ||
| I worked in the hospital for 33 years, so you can't tell me that illegals are not getting Medicare and Medicaid. | ||
| And that's what Biden did with the femur, giving them all the money till they was broke when they did have a disaster they couldn't help. | ||
| No, stand your ground. | ||
| That's Tiny in Texas. | ||
| This is Dan in Tennessee. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, John. | |
| Before I get started, I wanted to give a shout out to Mimi. | ||
| She's doing some outstanding work. | ||
| While I was in line waiting for my call to be answered, I heard about RFK Jr. story and just wanted to remind people that he, I'm paraphrasing, but he basically said heroin helped him get good grades in school. | ||
| So, as they say around here, look that up, people. | ||
| I wanted to point out a couple things. | ||
| The accelerated transfer of wealth is causing some anxiety among the masses, it seems. | ||
| Throw in Fox-type social media, also known as the Tower of Babel, and the people get confused. | ||
| Another point: stagnant minimum wage minimum wage seems to be stagnant as salary is seven-something for over a decade, two decades. | ||
| I mean, everything else goes up. | ||
| What about that? | ||
| What should it be? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I suppose at least 10 and go up from there. | |
| I mean, based on the regions of the country. | ||
| But one final point, John. | ||
| All over the mainstream media, they end the news program with a feel-good story. | ||
| And the feel-good story lately was the dog saving the elderly lady down in Distin, Florida. | ||
| So I want to point out: has Trump ever had a dog? | ||
| He would know how to show the compassion and love. | ||
| One man set the example for bullying. | ||
| We've had an 11-year-old girl here in Tennessee here locally. | ||
| She committed suicide from bullying. | ||
| One man set that example. | ||
| One man. | ||
| We wouldn't be in the shutdown if it wasn't for one man. | ||
| It's Dan in Tennessee to Iowa. | ||
| This is Linda, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, good morning. | |
| I think the Democrats need to take a nice big chill, Bill. | ||
| But, anyways, about the Epstein files. | ||
| The Democrats had four years plus Obama years to get to these Epstein files. | ||
| And if you want to know the facts, Dems, Bill Clinton has been known to have more time on the La Lita flights than Trump. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Trump never took any of those flights. |