| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
And later, the effects of the shutdown on defense and national security. | |
| Virginia Republican Congressman Rob Whitman will be our guest. | ||
| Also, first-term Virginia Democratic Congressman James Walkinshaw on the Democrats' strategies in dealing with the shutdown. | ||
| Washington Journal starts now. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| It's Wednesday, October 15th. | ||
| It's day 15 of the government shutdown and is the first payday for active duty and reserve military troops since funding lapsed two weeks ago. | ||
| Over the weekend, President Trump directed the Pentagon to utilize funds appropriated to research and development that had not yet been spent and redirected to military pay. | ||
| This first half hour of the program, we're taking your calls, texts, and posts on the government shutdown. | ||
| Here's how to reach us. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| Federal employees can call us on 202-748-8003. | ||
| That's the same number you can use to text us your comments, include your first name and your city-state. | ||
| And we're on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Welcome to today's Washington Journal. | ||
| Let's start with the president yesterday at the White House. | ||
| He said that he would furnish a list on Friday, that's tomorrow, of so-called Democrat programs that would be targeted for cuts during the shutdown. | ||
| Yeah, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you feel any urgency to end the shutdown in the next week, two weeks, or would you be fine if it stretches into November and then toward the holidays with folks not getting paid? | |
| Well, you know, shutdown, we've had many, many shutdowns. | ||
| And this is a shutdown that shouldn't have happened. | ||
| A group of people brilliantly decided to make it after the election. | ||
| I said thank you very much. | ||
| In other words, give it to Trump instead of Biden. | ||
| So it shouldn't happen. | ||
| And likewise, debt ceiling shouldn't have. | ||
| But the big, great, big, beautiful bill solved the debt ceiling problem for. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is there a point where you would reach out to the shutdown, though? | |
| Honestly, can I put it in plain words for you? | ||
| And you're a smart guy, so you all understand, but a lot of people don't. | ||
| The Democrats are getting killed on the shutdown because we're closing up programs that are Democrat programs that we were opposed to. | ||
| So we're being able, and they're never going to come back in many cases. | ||
| So we're being able to do things that we were unable to do before. | ||
| So we're closing up programs that are Democrat programs that we wanted to close up or that we never wanted to happen, and now we're closing them up. | ||
| And we're not going to let them come back. | ||
| The Democrats are getting killed. | ||
| And we're going to have a list of them on Friday, closing up some of the most egregious, socialist, semi-communist, probably not full communists, we're saving that for New York, but semi-communist programs. | ||
| And we're closing them up. | ||
| We're not closing up Republican programs because we think they work. | ||
| So the Democrats are getting killed, but they're not telling the people about that. | ||
| I say it, nobody, well, I haven't said it probably as bluntly as I just said it, but so we are closing up Democrat programs that we think that we disagree with, and they're never going to open again. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Thank you, everybody. | ||
| I was the president yesterday, and this is USA Today. | ||
| This article from yesterday, Batten Down the Hatches. | ||
| Trump White House warns of more layoffs during the shutdown. | ||
| It says that the White House said additional mass layoffs of federal workers are coming as the federal government shutdown, now 14, now 15 days old, drags on. | ||
| The Office of Management and Budget said on X that the White House is, quote, making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out the Democrats in transigence. | ||
| It says, pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the rifts, and wait. | ||
| That's from OMB Director Russell Vogt. | ||
| And it's not clear what he means by paying law enforcement. | ||
| We haven't heard details about that. | ||
| But paying the troops today would be their payday. | ||
| And we'll hear more about that later in the program. | ||
| Go to the calls now, Carl, Chicago, Illinois. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| You know what I mean? | ||
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'm a very liberal Democrat, but I'd like to make a statement to call us this morning. | |
| Maybe listen to this. | ||
| I'm not going to say this in a kind of party. | ||
| So I'm going to try to be as honest and frank as I can. | ||
| This year, we were in a contiguous position at the beginning of the year. | ||
| When Donald Trump came into office, he chose to have an arbitrary date to pass what he wanted to be the priority, the big, beautiful bill. | ||
| When he did that, the Republicans basically decided, well, oh, that's their priority, not the budget or anything. | ||
| It was that. | ||
| And they worked on that all year because he had a deadline, his own deadline of July the 4th. | ||
| Now, in that big, beautiful bill, that was total Republicans working alone. | ||
| And they made negotiations in that bill in order to get it passed. | ||
| One was to create a $50 million slush fund for farmer sisters to get some of their members to vote. | ||
| And the other was to cut Medicaid by $800 million, which is almost a trillion. | ||
| And there's not that much fraud abuse and waste in that. | ||
| That is basically going to be a cut to services, and they know it. | ||
| That was something to get people like the Freedom Party to accept that, well, okay, we're not reducing the debt, but we are going to be cutting social spending. | ||
| That was to get them to go lower. | ||
| All right, Carl, and we'll stay in Chicago to joy Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Joy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just cannot believe how people are willing to allow services to people who are vulnerable to be cut based on absolutely nothing. | ||
| And I just don't like the derogatory split between Democrats. | ||
| It's just so tribal. | ||
| And it really reminisces to me what happened in Rwanda in 1994. | ||
| You know, how people became so vehement against each other. | ||
| But it's almost like they eat their all. | ||
| Vault, Miller. | ||
| I just don't understand how people can be so hateful that they would allow people to suffer and lose programs with programs, all these programs for vulnerable people. | ||
| They make us hate each other while they sit there and celebrate at the top. | ||
| We hate each other. | ||
| We're like a pack of wolves eating meat down here for crumbs while they are just so manipulative. | ||
| I just wish people would just open their eyes and see what's actually going on instead of hating one another. | ||
| That's all. | ||
| All right, Joy. | ||
| And we are taking your calls for just this first half hour on the government shutdown. | ||
| The lines are: biparty, Republicans are on 202-748-8001, Democrats 202-748-8000, Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| And our line for federal workers is 202-748-8003. | ||
| And while you're calling in, let's take a look at Senator Hoyer. | ||
| Stenny Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland. | ||
| He was at a press conference yesterday with Democratic lawmakers representing Maryland and Virginia, and he spoke about the administration's mass firings. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ladies and gentlemen, every authoritarian leader has had his grim reaper. | |
| Russell Vogt is Donald Trump's grim reaper. | ||
| Trump even posted a bizarre video describing vote in those terms. | ||
| That's who he wanted: a grim reaper. | ||
| Grim is defined in the dictionary as sinister, savage, and ferocious. | ||
| A trauma causer. | ||
| Reaper is defined that which is used to cut down. | ||
| Vote swings his scythe through the federal government as thoughtlessly and dangerously as Elon Musk and the Doge children did with their chainsaws. | ||
| The effect, sadly, has been the same: great damage to the government, the American people, and the morale, psychological well-being, and efficiency of the patriotic American workers, we call federal workers, who serve them. | ||
| Senator Sen, sorry, Steny Hoyer, and this is Mike, Warrington, North Carolina, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'm just as old as Trump. | |
| Trump has sold President Miller, Steve Miller, and Trump has sold us out. | ||
| And he's going to sell us out. | ||
| So, to all my evangelists, I pray that all of them fly and the plane fall out the sky to save America because he has killed America. | ||
| He sold us out. | ||
| Just gave millions of dollars to a foreign country, but yet still, we're over here in the United States suffering with food stamps, snap, Social Security, all of that. | ||
| Now, what are we going to do? | ||
| Are we going to let him do that? | ||
| We got the king back in the day. | ||
| He's making us have soup lines. | ||
| That's what he's going back to. | ||
| That's what it is. | ||
| So I pray they go away. | ||
| Ken in Florida, Republican line. | ||
| Hi, Ken. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Everything that's going on in this country right now, it's not Democrats versus Republicans or Independents or anything else. | ||
| Everything that's going on in this country is already adversely affecting everybody. | ||
| And I mean everybody, whether you're apolitical or independent or Democrat or Republican or anything, it's already adversely affecting everybody. | ||
| And again, it's not Republicans versus Democrats. | ||
| It's all MA. | ||
| And I view MAGA as nothing but a colossal criminal enterprise. | ||
| I mean, it's just literally ripping off this country, blackmailing every other nation on the planet. | ||
| In what way, Ken, explain what you mean by ripping off this country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Trump and the MAGA people are using the U.S. government to enrich themselves. | |
| I mean, he's got, you know, hotel things going on in Dubai, Indonesia, you know, giving $20 billion to Argentina to influence an election down there for crying out loud. | ||
| It's really just a massive criminal enterprise just enriching the MAGA base. | ||
| And Ken, did you? | ||
| Sorry, did you vote for President Trump? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I didn't. | |
| I am a registered Republican. | ||
| I'm a proud three-plus-year veteran of the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War era. | ||
| You know, I lost an uncle in Korea. | ||
| My dad went from North Africa to Sicily to Italy and came back. | ||
| Otherwise, I wouldn't even be here. | ||
| All right, Ken. | ||
| I'm going to move on to Charles in Tennessee. | ||
| Democrat, good morning, Charles. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| People need to realize that when we lose this Social Security and stuff and all these Obamacare stuff, people are going to die. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, this, I don't care if you're Republican or Democrat. | |
| They can't handle this. | ||
| I mean, this is going to be a bankrupt. | ||
| It's going to bankrupt people. | ||
| This health care is as dangerous as it can be. | ||
| And the fellow was just on there. | ||
| He's right. | ||
| Now, I guess we see, you know, what that country is for giving Trump that plan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They get to build an Air Force base here in the United States. | |
| But people, whether you're Republican, Democrat, or whatever, we cannot afford to lose our health care. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And another thing, too, how can we not afford health care here, but we can send Israel all this money for them to have one pair of health care, if I'm not wrong. | |
| I believe I'm right on that. | ||
| You can correct me if I'm not. | ||
| But how can we do that? | ||
| How can we give $20 billion to somebody the other day, but we can't have insurance for the little kid? | ||
| We can't have a snout program for them. | ||
| And I guess that's all I got to say. | ||
| But I'm not sure very much. | ||
| Let's take a look at what House Speaker Mike Johnson had to say at a news conference yesterday about the Republicans' plan to resolve this impasse. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You've been doing this every single day, coming up here trying to pressure Senate Democrats. | |
| They've been not budgeting. | ||
| They've blocked this bill time and time again. | ||
| So at what point, for the good of the country, do you need to change your strategy to negotiate a deal with that? | ||
| It's a great question. | ||
| Manu asks, why don't I change my strategy? | ||
| I don't have any strategy, Manu. | ||
| I'm doing the right thing, the clearly obvious thing, the traditional thing. | ||
| That's exactly what Chuck Schumer voted for in March of this year and gave impassioned speeches was the right and only thing. | ||
| I don't have anything to negotiate. | ||
| I'll say this again to everyone here. | ||
| We did not load up the temporary funding bill with any Republican priorities or partisan priorities at all. | ||
| I don't have anything that I can take off of that document to make it more palatable for them. | ||
| So all I am able to do is come to this microphone every day, look right into the camera and plead with the American people, as Chairwoman McLean said, to call your Senate Democrats and ask them to do the right thing. | ||
| We're not playing games. | ||
| They're playing a game. | ||
| We're not. | ||
| The strategy is to do the right and obvious thing and keep the government moving for the people. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Why don't I move closer to their position? | |
| Their position is this, Manu. | ||
| Their position is they want to spend $1.5 trillion in your tax dollars to fund nonsense overseas. | ||
| They want to give $200 billion to illegal aliens. | ||
| We are not going to do that. | ||
| We're not going to do it. | ||
| The American people don't want us to do it. | ||
| And they're using this for partisan political purposes to give themselves cover. | ||
| They don't want the Marxist to kick. | ||
| Chuck Schumer doesn't want to get a Marxist candidate challenge, AOC or someone else. | ||
| Mamdami is probably going to be, sadly, shockingly, the mayor of New York City. | ||
| Marxism is on the rise in Democrats. | ||
| Hey, this is not your father's Democratic Party, everybody, okay? | ||
| They're turning into communists openly. | ||
| And so Chuck Schumer does not fashion himself as a communist just yet. | ||
| So he's got to show a fight to these people. | ||
| That's what this is about. | ||
| I'm not playing his game, Manu. | ||
| I cannot go in and say, oh, gee, Chuck, what can I offer you? | ||
| You know what? | ||
| Maybe we'll just send $10 billion overseas to LGBTQ plus initiatives in the Horn of Africa or Malaysia or wherever you want to do that. | ||
| No, no, we're not wasting taxpayers' dollars. | ||
| Speaker of the House. | ||
| And we're asked about healthcare in Israel. | ||
| So real quick, this is trade.gov. | ||
| This is the website of the International Trade Administration. | ||
| It says that Israel provides universal health care coverage to Israeli citizens and permanent residents via four independent health management organizations, HMOs, and a network of mandated benefit packages, including hospital, primary specialty, mental health, and maternity, as well as prescription, drugs, and other services. | ||
| And that is a compulsory program that everybody has to join. | ||
| That's for Israel. | ||
| And this is Sarah in Maryland, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi, Sarah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| I just wanted to say that the cuts go across party line. | ||
| It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or a Republican. | ||
| It's not that when democratic programs are cut, that only Democrats benefit from them. | ||
| So it's going to go across party line in regards to this not being the Democratic Party as it was 40 years ago. | ||
| Well, the same can be said about the Republican Party. | ||
| It's not the same party that it was 30 or 40 years ago. | ||
| And in regards to what I think is important is to keep in mind is, and I read this the other day, that there's about 240 million adults in this country that are 18 years and older that can actually vote. | ||
| And out of those 240 million people, only about 155 million actually voted. | ||
| And out of those 155 million, more than half, about 80 million or so, voted for President Trump and the Republican Party. | ||
| So they are our elected leaders. | ||
| However, the other 75 million did not vote for this administration. | ||
| And out of the other 85 million that didn't bother to vote, I really would be interested in what these people that did not vote think. | ||
| 85 million people is a lot of people that did not make their voices heard. | ||
| And I think it is a shame that people don't take that privilege to vote seriously. | ||
| You know, if you like what you see, great. | ||
| You can continue to vote for that the next election. | ||
| But if you do not like what you see and you would like to see some changes, go to the voting booth, register to vote. | ||
| If you are already registered, please go and vote. | ||
| Make your voice heard. | ||
| This is your country as well. | ||
| So we all should take that seriously. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Barbara, Democrat in Georgia. | ||
| Hi, Barbara. | ||
| You're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I just wanted to say one thing. | ||
| I wanted to speak to the Republicans. | ||
| Listen here, Mike Johnson, he gets up there and he tells that the subsidies are going towards the illegal immigrants. | ||
| That's a lie. | ||
| The subsidies, the insurance, is not going towards illegal immigrants. | ||
| It's going to help people get insurance that work in these low-paying jobs. | ||
| And without the subsidies, then they don't have insurance. | ||
| Please, listen. | ||
| It's not the Democrats' fault. | ||
| Brian and Maryland, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Brian. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yeah, I'd just like to say, you know, it's Democrats, Republicans. | ||
| We're all in here together. | ||
| You know, the Republicans are voting pretty much straight across the board except for maybe one. | ||
| The Republicans can't do these votes on their own. | ||
| And for the Democrats to hold the bill up, you know, not over a couple hundred million dollars, but $1.5 trillion is absolutely absurd. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And be it what it may, the ADA, the affordable health care, if it needs COVID money still to bring people's subsidies down, then something's not right. | |
| You know, let's pass the bill, get into regular session, and fix the thing and be done with it. | ||
| But for the Democrats, we need Democrats to vote for a continuing resolution. | ||
| And if we can't get that, then they're shutting the government down. | ||
| So, Brian. | ||
| Yeah, so what Democrats are saying is we don't trust Republicans to fix this thing. | ||
| They've been talking about trying to fix it since it was passed, and nothing has happened. | ||
| So what are your thoughts on do you think it can be fixed before the end of the year? | ||
| Or do you think that those subsidies, those tax credits should expire? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, we have till like November 17th, I think they said. | |
| And that's what the Republicans were trying to do, was get the bill passed, take it up in regular session, and then try to get things what the Democrats want or, you know, what they're asking for, you know, by in that time period, you know. | ||
| But just to shut the government down, I mean, that's all on the Democrats. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Staten Island is next. | ||
| Independent line, Michelle. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, C-SPEN. | |
| First, I want to say, as always, great, great cameraman. | ||
| I just love the, I feel like I'm right there, the way they go in with the camera. | ||
| The shutdown, I mean, Trump, all he has to do is get back all that money he just gave away. | ||
| Bring it back, Trump. | ||
| Tell him you made a mistake. | ||
| You want your money back. | ||
| Which money that he gave away? | ||
|
unidentified
|
To what country? | |
| He sent money. | ||
| Argentina. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Yes. | ||
| Take that money back. | ||
| We need it. | ||
| You know, I was always taught, take care of your own house first and before you want to clean anybody else's. | ||
| You know, and as far as this shutdown, it's all about Epstein. | ||
| You know, we're all forgetting. | ||
| We want to forget about the Epstein files. | ||
| It's not going away, Trump. | ||
| And thank you, Marjorie Green. | ||
| I'm very proud of you. | ||
| You looked into your heart. | ||
| Tifton, Georgia, Democrat Brenda, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I would just like to piggyback off the last caller. | ||
| Thank you, Marjorie Taylor Greene. | ||
| I would never think I would say that. | ||
| But anyway, I would like to get back to the shutdown bill. | ||
| Mimi, you're doing a great job. | ||
| Listen, we shut down this government. | ||
| The Republicans did. | ||
| Mike Johnson is standing up there like he has the guts. | ||
| Mike Johnson needs to be fired. | ||
| Get away from the mic. | ||
| Put someone up there that's going to do the job. | ||
| Open up the government. | ||
| Let's get it started. | ||
| All that money he gave to Argentina, it could take care of the American people. | ||
| Why are you giving Trump holding all that money for himself and his billionaire friends? | ||
| Now, America is waking up now. | ||
| We try to tell you guys, this guy is not for America. | ||
| He is selling America out. | ||
| Wake up, people. | ||
| And here's Sarah Ranburn, Alabama Republican. | ||
| Sarah, you're on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm calling to say all these people that are calling in, warning, oh, why can't we get this, this, this? | |
| Do they not realize what a debt we have got hanging over our heads? | ||
| What do the Democrats want? | ||
| They want one and a half trillion dollars more to spend. | ||
| Your children, your grandchildren are not going to have anything left if we stick with people, the Democrats. | ||
| I can't believe some of them are fair. | ||
| How they get up there and tell things that are not true. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| And let's hear from House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries talking about the administration's plans to fire thousands of federal workers. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The president and the White House have confirmed now 4,000 firings across the federal government. | |
| As Kevin noted, that's something that Democrats previously said they were concerned about. | ||
| If there was a government shutdown, the president would go through with this. | ||
| Is there a way that Democrat strategy here has opened the door for the president to go about these firings? | ||
| Donald Trump and his administration have been engaging in mass firings since day one of his presidency. | ||
| For the Republicans, cruelty is the point. | ||
| And the fact that they are celebrating, meaning the extremists, the extreme MAGA Republican, the fact that they're celebrating, firing hardworking federal employees doesn't strengthen their position with the American people. | ||
| It weakens it. | ||
| Because the American people don't accept that kind of cruel and callous behavior and know that any responsible group of people would actually be standing up to support our hardworking federal employees and trying to actually find a bipartisan path forward to reopening the government, which is what Republicans refuse to do. | ||
| In the face of a growing health care crisis, open enrollment on November 1st, premiums, co-pays, and deductibles about to skyrocket, and the fact that Republicans have already enacted the largest cut to Medicaid in American history as part of their one big ugly bill so they could reward their billionaire donors with permanent tax breaks. | ||
| What, same period of time, refuse to consider a multi-year extension of the Affordable Care Act or a permanent extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits. | ||
| Democrats are fighting for everyday Americans. | ||
| Cancel the cuts, lower the costs, save health care. | ||
| Here's Joseph, Independent Line in Wayne, New Jersey. | ||
| Joseph, good morning. | ||
| Joseph? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, yeah, I hear. | |
| Because I was watching the TV and listening to this at the same time, they got all mixed up. | ||
| So anyway, I'm talking to the federal workers. | ||
| They talk about federal workers. | ||
| I mean, that's a gravy job. | ||
| Everybody wants it because you get all holidays, you get kind of big raises and everything. | ||
| Everybody wants a government job. | ||
| And then they talk about the laying it off. | ||
| They can get governor workers whenever they want. | ||
| Hey, Joseph, have you ever worked for the government? | ||
| I'm just curious. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, no. | |
| But I've known a lot of people that worked for the government. | ||
| And they say, you really don't have to work for crying out loud. | ||
| I know one guy that was doing like for taxes for the government and all that. | ||
| And he says they give you a certain amount to do. | ||
| And after that, you're done. | ||
| And you can get done with it in six hours. | ||
| And they pay you for the other two hours. | ||
| I mean, it's ridiculous. | ||
| You know, government get over, people get overpaid in government. | ||
| And that goes for the senators and everybody else. | ||
| They shouldn't be making what they're getting because half of the time they're only doing sitting down talking to somebody on the phone and not doing their job, what they're supposed to be doing. | ||
| And that goes, and then some of these people that call up and they say they're Republicans, you know, by God well, they're not Republicans because they go crazy with Trump. | ||
| I understand some of it, but not all of it. | ||
| The people go crazy with Trump. | ||
| Don't do this and do this and do that. | ||
| They don't do this. | ||
| And as far as giving money to different countries, they've been doing that for years. | ||
| So that's nothing new. | ||
| And if people think that's something new, it isn't. | ||
| All right, Joseph. | ||
| On the line for Democrats, North Carolina, Charles, good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mimi. | |
| And before I begin, I just want to tell you how much you guys on C-SPAN do such a great job. | ||
| I appreciate how you guys moderate everything. | ||
| And just you guys do a really good job. | ||
| Now, for my comment, I think the biggest problem right now that I see with a lot of Americans, too many of us only seem to care about what happens to us and our immediate families, and there just seems to be an indifference about does my neighbor have health care? | ||
| If my neighbor loses his job, do I care about it? | ||
| It just seems to be that kind of an indifference. | ||
| Here's a good example of it. | ||
| Right now, you can go to YouTube and you can look at a Charlie Kirk video where he's saying things like black women don't have the brain process and ability to hold a white man's job. | ||
| Or he'll say something like black people should never have been given civil rights. | ||
| I don't know how other people take that, but I'm greatly offended to see the Medal of Freedom being given to somebody who makes those kind of statements about their fellow citizens. | ||
| All right, well, Charles, we do have that portion of that. | ||
| We'll show that later in the program. | ||
| Sticking to the government shutdown, this is the Associated Press has this. | ||
| It says that some airports refuse to play GNOME video on shutdown impact, saying it's political. | ||
| It says airports big and small around the country are refusing to play a video with a message from Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam in which she blames Democrats for the federal government shutdown and its impact on TSA. | ||
| Airports in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Phoenix, Seattle, and more say the video's political content goes against their policies or regulations prohibiting political messaging in their facilities. | ||
| Well, we have that video. | ||
| Take a look and we'll play it right now. | ||
| Hi, I'm Christy Noam, the United States Secretary of Homeland Security. | ||
| It is TSA's top priority to make sure that you have the most pleasant and efficient airport experience as possible while we keep you safe. | ||
| However, Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government. | ||
| And because of this, many of our operations are impacted and most of our TSA employees are working without pay. | ||
| We will continue to do all that we can to avoid delays that will impact your travel. | ||
| And our hope is that Democrats will soon recognize the importance of opening the government. | ||
| And we will take your calls. | ||
| We'll continue to take your calls. | ||
| We're going to take a short break and go to open forum. | ||
| So if there's other things that you'd like to talk about, now's your chance to weigh in. | ||
| If you'd like to continue talking about the federal government shutdown, which is in day 15 today, you can certainly do that. | ||
| Numbers are on your screen. | ||
| Republicans 202748-8001. | ||
| Democrats 202748-8000. | ||
| And it's 202-748-8002 for independents. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. | |
| Here's a look at what's coming up this Sunday. | ||
| Live beginning at 11 a.m. Eastern, authors meet in Nashville for the Southern Festival of Books to talk about topics ranging from literary biographies to social justice movements to post-Civil War black communities and Great Depression documentary photographs. | ||
| Then at 5.45 p.m. Eastern, environmental journalist Sam Block argues that cities fail to consider the importance of shade to protect against overheating. | ||
| And at 8 p.m. Eastern, former professional American heavyweight boxer Ed Lattimore discusses what boxing taught him about life and manhood. | ||
| Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| And we are in open forum. | ||
| We'll talk to Velma Ashland, Kentucky, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Velma. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Does anyone really believe that the Democrats brought all these illegal people into the country without feeding them, housing them, clothing them, medical care? | ||
| No. | ||
| They intended to take us to take care of them. | ||
| You and I, the taxpayer. | ||
| And they can use whatever terminology they want to say they're not giving them Medicare this or that, but they're getting funding, folks. | ||
| They're being taken care of. | ||
| People have been interviewed. | ||
| Aileen have been interviewed. | ||
| This one lady in New York, the reporter asked us, he said, well, she gave details. | ||
| I don't remember word for word. | ||
| But she said she was giving you a check, getting a monthly check. | ||
| She said the government, they're taking good care of me. | ||
| So, when he asked her how much the check was, she realized she'd said too much, and she said, Oh, I have to go. | ||
| So, don't kid yourself. | ||
| We are paying for them. | ||
| It's a lot of money. | ||
| I believe that is exactly what the government shutdown is about. | ||
| That Mike Johnson refuses to give any more money to illegal aliens. | ||
| And they forgot what my next point was. | ||
| That's okay, Vilma. | ||
| Here's Robert, Maryland, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Robert. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| How are you doing? | ||
| So, I've been listening to Collins all day. | ||
| I agree with most of what everybody's saying, but you know, it's just further showing a disconnect between both sides of the Isle in D.C. and the average person. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I've heard this week that the cost of housing has gone up like 53% since 2019. | |
| Healthcare has gone up over 50%. | ||
| And also, that, you know, I don't know who's going to be able to afford a mortgage. | ||
| We've got bigger problems in this country than the agenda up there other than the healthcare. | ||
| I'd agree the healthcare needs fixing. | ||
| There's a lot of problems in this country that needs fixing. | ||
| And it's just a further disconnect between the haves and the have-nots. | ||
| It's that simple. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| On the line for Democrats in Pensacola, Florida, Ingrid. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| You're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, C-SPAN. | |
| When I woke up this morning and turned on the TV, I had Joe Scarborough on, and he was showing a clip. | ||
| I couldn't believe what I was hearing from President Trump. | ||
| He was actually saying that they were wanting to close down. | ||
| The Republicans were going to close down forever all the Democrat programs. | ||
| Now, I couldn't hardly believe what I was hearing because these Democrat programs, Social Security, Medicaid, Republicans use them too, Mimi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't understand how come Republicans don't get on board with the Democrats because this is people try not to make much out of health care, but it's a big deal for us older citizens. | |
| And I couldn't believe he actually had all his people behind him. | ||
| I'm telling you the truth, darling. | ||
| Maybe you can look up that. | ||
| But he said we're getting rid of the Democratic program. | ||
| Yes, yes. | ||
| So we played that. | ||
| That was our very first clip that we played. | ||
| And he said that he'd furnish a full list tomorrow. | ||
| I'm pretty sure he's not talking about Social Security itself, but we will stay on that, Ingrid, and see what we can find out about what programs specifically they would want to target. | ||
| Nate Franklin, Indiana, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Nate. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I am a Republican. | ||
| I've been all my 66 years. | ||
| Every person I've voted for has been a Republican except for one. | ||
| But this shutdown is actually about taxes. | ||
| You know, there was a lot of tax breaks that were continued, except for one. | ||
| And the, I know people call it a subsidy, but the premium tax credit, a tax credit is actually a tax cut on steroids. | ||
| It comes right off of the amount of tax that you owe at the end of the year. | ||
| Now, in this case, you can apply that through the year to your premiums for your insurance. | ||
| But I don't understand. | ||
| I thought Republicans were for less taxes. | ||
| I mean, we continued tax cuts for people that don't need it. | ||
| I mean, do the wealthy need two more Lamborghinis? | ||
| But you have my daughter that has five kids that relies on health care, we can't let her keep her tax cut to help her with her insurance premiums. | ||
| I don't understand my party. | ||
| I thought we were against tax increases and for tax cuts. | ||
| That's what the shutdown is all about. | ||
| So, Nate, I want to read you this, and then I want to get your opinion. | ||
| So, this is in The Hill, and the headline is, Vance says ACA tax credits fuel fraud. | ||
| It says that the vice president said Sunday that subsidies offered under the Affordable Care Act fuel waste and fraud in the insurance industry. | ||
| He said, quote, this is his quote, tax credits go to some people deservedly, and we think the tax credits actually go to a lot of waste and fraud within the insurance industry. | ||
| So, we want to make sure that the tax credits go to the people who need them. | ||
| That was on Face the Nation. | ||
| What do you think of that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, okay. | |
| Those tax credits go to those that make less than $60,000 a year. | ||
| They do not go to the wealthy, and they do not go to undocumented and illegal immigrants. | ||
| They cannot apply for the ACA. | ||
| There's no way they can get on ACA. | ||
| Those tax credits do not help those people. | ||
| That's, well, a lie. | ||
| That's all that is. | ||
| And that's not like the government's paying your insurance premiums. | ||
| No, it comes out of the taxes that you pay. | ||
| All right, Nate. | ||
| Let's go to Julie in Florida Independent Line. | ||
| Hello, Julie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| I would like to discuss about the green cards that people have in this country. | ||
| I used to work in construction, and these guys come in with green cards, and they claim much as like so many kids, 20 kids, so no taxes will be able to take out of their check. | ||
| They claim the highest deduction. | ||
| So they don't pay taxes. | ||
| They don't do the IRS. | ||
| They don't pay them. | ||
| So I don't understand why everybody's like green cards. | ||
| You know, they pay taxes. | ||
| They pay it in. | ||
| They don't. | ||
| None of my guys at this construction site pay taxes. | ||
| Because they had so many kids and they were able to deduct the child tax credits. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They claimed that they had so many kids. | |
| 20 kids, 30 kids. | ||
| It was ridiculous. | ||
| I even asked them. | ||
| They said, yeah, this is like, we don't pay it. | ||
| We just quit the job once it's over and move on and not pay any taxes whatsoever. | ||
| So Julie, that's actually defrauding the federal government. | ||
| That's a felony. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Exactly. | |
| To say that you've got 20 kids and you don't, that is definitely defrauding the government. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Exactly. | |
| So people, let's be honest, anybody that works in HR that has people with green cards and they fill out those papers, you have to put them in the computer. | ||
| You'll know that they're defrauding them. | ||
| So Julie. | ||
| Julie, that's not just green card holders. | ||
| An American citizen can do that. | ||
| There's no difference. | ||
|
unidentified
|
American citizens can do it, yes. | |
| But if you're an American citizen, they will go after you. | ||
| If you hold a green card, they won't. | ||
| I'm not sure that's true. | ||
| No, no, I'm not sure that's true. | ||
| There's no reason that they can't go after a green card holder because that's a legal permanent resident in the U.S. DJ Rising Sun, Maryland, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, DJ. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I'm calling this morning in regards to the money that's being sent to Argentina. | ||
| A gentleman is the one that gave the chainsaw to Elon for Doge. | ||
| Doge stands for Donnies Officially Gutting Everything. | ||
| Where's all the cases of the waste, fraud, and abuse that they found? | ||
| Not seen any, but they're gutting every agency. | ||
| Healthcare. | ||
| If people realized, all the bigwigs at the insurance companies usually are gone between the middle of November and the middle of January. | ||
| So when we have insurance coverages to be written up and brought into law, are they going to have time to have it effective by January the 1st for everybody? | ||
| No. | ||
| And here's the latest on the Argentina bailout. | ||
| This is from the Washington Post. | ||
| It says, Trump says U.S. won't benefit from $20 billion bailout for Argentina. | ||
| The president explicitly conditioned the relief on the success in this month's elections of the Argentine leader who admires and emulates him. | ||
| It's important to note that it's not the leader that is going for re-election, Malay. | ||
| It is the parliament. | ||
| So it is success in the parliamentary elections that are happening later this month. | ||
| He, the Malay, doesn't actually go for reelection until next year. | ||
| Stan, Prairie Hill, Texas, Republican, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am. | |
| You know, I've been listening, you know, for quite some time, and I keep noticing, just like a lot of people keep saying, keep telling y'all, that Democrats are calling in on the Republican line. | ||
| But getting off that just a minute, you know, if you look, the great Democrats like Harry Truman and JFK, I mean, they would really turn over in their grave right now to see what happens to the Democratic Party. | ||
| Are you still there, Mimi? | ||
| Yes, I am. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're listening. | |
| And I would just like to say that if you look, look who's voted for Donald Trump. | ||
| The military, the United States Navy, the United States Air Force, United States Marine Corps, all the great people, police officers, Christian coalition, just on and on. | ||
| For a while, they were saying Trump was anti-Semitic. | ||
| They love him over in Israel. | ||
| They built a city for him in the Golan Heights. | ||
| Oh, but Donald Trump is a racist. | ||
| Well, what does he do? | ||
| He goes off and gets Alice Marie Johnson, a wonderful black woman, and puts her over as his prison czar. | ||
| And she, you know, he, I mean, he's got so many friends that are black. | ||
| Oh, but he's racist. | ||
| He's a Hitler. | ||
| And, you know, well, Hitler hated the Jews, but yet Donald Trump frees the Jewish people. | ||
| All the Democrats do is just lie and lie and lie. | ||
| That's all they do. | ||
| And they know that they'll put it out there. | ||
| It's just like the gunboats that he's trying to stop all these drugs coming in. | ||
| He stops the gunboats. | ||
| And what do the Democrats do? | ||
| Oh, please don't stop them murdering killers from drinking drugs. | ||
| You know, he shoots them. | ||
| He destroys the gunboats and the Democrats. | ||
| Oh, don't shoot the little gunboats full of drugs. | ||
| You know, it's most ridiculous. | ||
| Like, look at the Abraham McCords. | ||
| So, Stan, let's do another great thing. | ||
| He's already done it. | ||
| Stan, let me update people on those gunboats since you brought that up. | ||
| This is the front page of the post. | ||
| Six more killed in strike by U.S., fifth known attack since September. | ||
| Trump says the men were narco-terrorists. | ||
| It says the U.S. military killed six alleged drug smugglers Tuesday off the coast of Venezuela. | ||
| President Trump said the latest development in an ongoing military campaign that has raised questions about his legal authority to use lethal force against vessels suspected of transporting illicit narcotics. | ||
| Writing on social media, Trump said that Defense Secretary Hagseth had ordered the strike, quote, under my standing authorities as commander-in-chief. | ||
| He claimed the six men killed were narco-terrorists affiliated with what he said was a designated terrorist organization, though he did not name it. | ||
| That's at the Washington Post. | ||
| And this is Adam in California, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you, Mamie? | ||
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I've been waiting for a while. | |
| Anyway, you know, I watch this show every day, and I'm astounded at what I hear, the level of ignorance of some of these people. | ||
| The one lady that called from Alabama stating that the Democrats are driving up the debt because they want to get $1.5 trillion health care. | ||
| But didn't the Big Beautiful bill add $4 trillion to our deficit just a couple months ago? | ||
| Am I missing this? | ||
| Then we have the last guy from Texas raving about the great job that Donald Trump is doing. | ||
| People need to remember the government is not a for-profit business. | ||
| It's not a for-profit business. | ||
| Trump gets on and every day he's saying, oh, we just took in from tariffs $17 trillion and all of this. | ||
| Where's the money? | ||
| I don't hear anything being said about infrastructure. | ||
| I don't hear anything being said about, you know, we want to improve the edge, we want to do away with the education. | ||
| You know, we're not doing anything for the people of the country. | ||
| And for the Republicans or the MAGAs or whatever you want to call them, they are more interested in extracting pain from the so-called liberals. | ||
| We're all American citizens. | ||
| And to have the chief executive say that he wants to extract pain from the people that didn't vote for him, that's 50% of the country. | ||
| Can they understand those numbers? | ||
| You know, I don't get it. | ||
| They're so infused with hate that they're voting against their own self-interest. | ||
| And here's Don on the Independent Line in Estherville, Iowa. | ||
| Good morning, Don. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| To me, I think it's more like the big industry, like the insurance industry, they pay the congressman to do stuff to vote in their favor to get more money. | ||
| And this is all I think about it: it's a congressman's taking taxpayers' money To get more money for themselves instead of passing it all on to the taxpayers. | ||
| So, in other words, some of these elected officials are getting millions and buying extra houses and stuff like that off the taxpayers because they're getting money from these insurance companies and everything else. | ||
| I just think they should just pass a law saying they cannot take money from insurance companies or anybody else except for the people who want to vote for them. | ||
| This is what I think is all the problem with the federal government right now. | ||
| We got too many big businesses putting money into pockets of our elected officials, and they don't care about the American people anymore. | ||
| This is, you know, like I said, it's just big business that's doing all this, and it's not the American people that gets American people, just gets hurt all the time. | ||
| All right, Don, here's Jose, a Republican in Florida. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for seconding my call. | ||
| I got a few points. | ||
| I ain't a Republican, but I do not like what's going on. | ||
| You give these people $20 billion out of our own money, tax money, for what? | ||
| Wake up, people. | ||
| You worship Trump like he's a God. | ||
| He's not. | ||
| Open the Esting file. | ||
| You will see who this real man is. | ||
| Did not want to open the house because he telling Johnson not to open the house because the Esting file. | ||
| He's in it. | ||
| Elon Musk, he's in it. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| $20 billion of money for what? | ||
| Benefit who? | ||
| Who? | ||
| And start calling the Democrat communists. | ||
| Who is close to communists? | ||
| Trump has spent six hours with the big communist man from Russia. | ||
| Six hours. | ||
| Who is friends with Russia? | ||
| Russia is a communist country. | ||
| So start calling the Democrat communists, which they are the closest one to us. | ||
| So we better wake up. | ||
| All right, Jose, and this is ABC News. | ||
| Trump posthumously awards Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom. | ||
| Tuesday marks what would have been Kirk's 32nd birthday. | ||
| And we have a clip of that from the Rose Garden yesterday. | ||
| We're here to honor and remember a fearless warrior for liberty, beloved leader who galvanized the next generation like nobody I've ever seen before, and an American patriot of the deepest conviction, The finest quality and the highest caliber, the late, great Charlie Kirk. | ||
| Five weeks ago, our nation was robbed of this extraordinary champion. | ||
| He was a champion in every way. | ||
| I got to know him so well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He didn't like losing. | |
| And he was able to fight people that were enemies. | ||
| And he didn't necessarily love those enemies so much. | ||
| You know, I heard he loved his enemies. | ||
| And I said, wait a minute, is that the same Charlie that I know? | ||
| I'm not sure, but I didn't want to get into it. | ||
| But it was a horrible, heinous, demonic act of murder. | ||
| He was assassinated in the prime of his life for boldly speaking the truth, for living his faith and relentlessly fighting for a better and stronger America. | ||
| He loved this country. | ||
| And that's why this afternoon it's my privilege to posthumously award Charles James Kirk, our nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| If you'd like to see that full event, it is on our website, cspan.org. | ||
| Jerry in Maine, Line for Democrats. | ||
| You're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mimi. | |
| Morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm going to put this, I'm going to put this on point. | |
| When you showed a clip of Mike Johnson half an hour ago, and the reporter asked him, how come we're not at this point of deciding this situation? | ||
| And when I saw him answer Mike Johnson, he smiled, and the lady next to him smiled. | ||
| It's not a time to smile. | ||
| The gentleman that said, Republican, Democrat, Independent in the United States, we are Mr. Trump and the MAGA people. | ||
| And what I want to see is all this time spent, and I've been watching C-SPAN every morning the last nine months, all this discussion and all this shutdown. | ||
| I would like to have Mr. Trump, Mike Johnson, Mr. Soon, Joaquin Jeffries, and Mr. Schumer sit in the room alone instead of spending time, which they have, for all the people that have voted from Republican Democrat that have voted. | ||
| This is a sad time. | ||
| And to blame, it's so easy to blame. | ||
| So easy to blame. | ||
| And name-calling. | ||
| It's not a time to do that. | ||
| And the big, beautiful bill, I'm one. | ||
| I've been, my insurance went up to $20 more a month, and I'm on Maine Care. | ||
| And my food stamps went down from 106 to 24 starting this month. | ||
| So they need to be sitting. | ||
| And Mr. Trump doesn't want to do that. | ||
| Leaves it up to Mike Johnson. | ||
| Of course. | ||
| They need to communicate in all caps, communication. | ||
| That's who we voted for, these people. | ||
| All right, Jerry. | ||
| And let's go to Janie in North Carolina, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mimi. | |
| Morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I hope you're doing well today. | |
| Yes, I am. | ||
| Go right ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I really enjoyed watching your show and hearing everyone's comments. | |
| And sometimes everyone gets all wild up, but I'd like for us all to, as we're thinking about this shutdown, can we can you hear me? | ||
| Yes, go right ahead. | ||
| We're listening. | ||
|
unidentified
|
As in thinking about this shutdown, I would like for us to all forget about all of this political things and that we can't agree on, and let's think about what is really going on with the shutdown. | |
| The reason we're having the shutdown is because of this CR. | ||
| Well, the whole reason that we're having that is because our representatives have not done their job so far. | ||
| There are 12 appropriation committees. | ||
| These are the committees that decide how the money actually gets spent where it goes. | ||
| This is really the important part. | ||
| There are only six of these bills are complete right now. | ||
| That's my understanding. | ||
| So I believe that if they had done their job, we wouldn't even need a CR. | ||
| But our representatives have not done what they need to do. | ||
| And they're the only ones getting paid right now, yet they're not working. | ||
| So maybe they should go back and finish the job and meet a deadline. | ||
| In the real world, I think when most of us are at work and we have a deadline, we don't get to go home. | ||
| We sometimes have to work weekends in additional time to make sure that those deadlines are met. | ||
| So I wish that our representatives would feel the same kind of responsibility that the rest of us do in our jobs. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Jamie, and we will talk to John Navarre, Ohio Republican. | ||
| Good morning, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Maimonides. | |
| Hey, thanks for taking my call. | ||
| And these Democrats that keep calling in and accusing Trump of doing fascist, terrible things, how come they're not celebrating that he took these tariffs and used them to fix the WIC program? | ||
| We don't have to worry about women and children starving or not getting their milk or cheese or their eggs, their orange juice. | ||
| And this woman here, she's willing to, the last Democratic car wanted to vote for Democrats because she gets an amount of food stamps. | ||
| Please don't sell your freedoms for some carrots and sugar. | ||
| Please, we want to be free people. | ||
| We want government out of our way, and we want it to be as small as possible so we can flourish, not the government. | ||
| So get it together, people. | ||
| Reread the Constitution and figure it out. | ||
| Wait, wait, John, I just wanted to ask you about the food stamps for the last caller. | ||
| You said that she shouldn't get food stamps so she could be free. | ||
| Could you explain that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, she's willing to give up her vote to Democrats so she can get some candy and sugar. | |
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| But I'm not sure people want... | ||
|
unidentified
|
There's nobody starving in the USA. | |
| Our welfare people are fat. | ||
| Some of them are obese. | ||
| I was a grocer. | ||
| I retired when I hit 65. | ||
| My grocery store is up for sale for anybody who wants to buy it. | ||
| Come see me. | ||
| I can't wait to help Vivic get governor of Ohio because that what we need. | ||
| We need this government shaved down with a meat axe. | ||
| All right, John. | ||
| And that's it for this segment. | ||
| But later on in the Washington Journal, we'll talk about the latest on the government shutdown with two members of Congress and get an update on how the shutdown is impacting military pay and Pentagon operations. | ||
| But next, after the break, Federal News Network senior reporter Jory Heckman joins us to discuss the government shutdown and its impact on the federal workforce, including the Trump administration's reduction in force. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2, exploring the people and events that tell the American story. | |
| This weekend, as the nation celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding, join American History TV for our series, America 250, and discover the ideas and defining moments of the American story. | ||
| This week at 11 a.m. Eastern, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps mark their 250th anniversary with celebrations throughout the city of Philadelphia. | ||
| Then at 8 p.m. Eastern on Lectures in History, Gettysburg College professor Timothy Shannon chronicles the colonists who settled on Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina in 1587, only to mysteriously disappear soon after. | ||
| And at 9.30 p.m. Eastern on the presidency, on the 35th anniversary is of Desert Shield and Desert Storm, the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum looks at the 1990 diplomatic efforts in the Persian Gulf and the successful war coalition led the following year by President George H.W. Bush. | ||
| Exploring the American story, watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. | ||
| This Sunday, watch the premiere of C-SPAN's bold new original series, America's Book Club, with our guest, John Grisham, former politician, lawyer, and bill, the firm, and the pellet host, renowned author and civic leader, David Rubenstein. | ||
| We just sold the filmwatch to the firm to Paramount for more money than made in 10 years of practice and law. | ||
| After you heard that, how long after that did you quit the practice of law? | ||
| 15 minutes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Watch America's Book Club with John Grisham Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | |
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| We're joined now by Jory Heckman. | ||
| He's a senior reporter at Federal News Network talking about the government shutdown and federal workers. | ||
| Jory, welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Okay, so first explain to us what RIF means as opposed to being furloughed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| So a RIF, a reduction in force, is a layoff. | ||
| It is employees who, in a matter of typically 60 days, will no longer be with their agency. | ||
| They will separate from the federal workforce. | ||
| And that's different from a furlough, which during any shutdown, any lapse in congressional funding, hundreds of thousands of employees, they are temporarily sent home from their agencies. | ||
| They are considered not essential to the operations of the agency for a temporary basis. | ||
| And then once the shutdown ends, they come back to their jobs. | ||
| They come back to their agencies. | ||
| And presumably they'll be paid that back pay that they had missed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's how every shutdown has gone before. | |
| That has been guaranteed in legislation that President Donald Trump signed in 2019, ending the last government shutdown. | ||
| This has never been a question before, but what we've seen from the Office of Management and Budget recently is they've circulated a memo saying that they are of a different legal opinion. | ||
| They say that Congress, once they arrive at a stopgap spending bill, they will have to put that specifically in writing that they would give furloughed federal employees back pay. | ||
| This has, again, never been a point of contention before, but this is what OMB is saying. | ||
| And how many people and what departments and agencies have been hit the most of these layoffs? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, we've seen about a little more than half a dozen agencies go through the shutdown layoffs. | |
| I believe the Treasury Department and the IRS are the hardest impact by these layoffs. | ||
| We've also seen the Department of Health and Human Services. | ||
| We've seen parts of the Department of Homeland Security, their cybersecurity agency, CISA. | ||
| We've seen the Education Department. | ||
| We've seen the Energy Department. | ||
| We've seen HUD impacted as well. | ||
| We've heard that the Environmental Protection Agency has sent intent to rift notices to employees for a handful of employees. | ||
| But it really is a little bit of every agency all over across the federal workforce here. | ||
| And these are some agencies that we've already seen go through some pretty substantial cuts already this year. | ||
| HHS, they laid off 10,000 employees back in April, and now they are back again with layoffs. | ||
| So this notice for a RIF, you get laid off. | ||
| How does it actually work with the logistics of it? | ||
| In other words, if people are already at home and they're not in the office and they get this notice, do they go back and get their stuff? | ||
| Is it immediate? | ||
| Do they have like a week notice or two weeks' notice? | ||
| Talk about the logistics of that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, it's important to walk through all that. | |
| Typically when you get a rift notice, the official separation from your agency happens months later. | ||
| It's typically 60 days, although in some limited cases it can be shorter than that. | ||
| But once you get that rift notice, that notice in your hands that you will eventually no longer have a job with this agency, you have 60 days. | ||
| You're on administrative leave. | ||
| You're paid to essentially not work for that period of time. | ||
| And then what I've seen from the RIF notices recently is that December 9th is the date that a lot of employees are looking at when they will no longer have a job with the federal government. | ||
| And if they don't get their back pay, it doesn't really matter. | ||
| They're not going to get anything up until December 9th. | ||
| Because the government shut down. | ||
| Or maybe if the government opens before December 9th, they'll get some pay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, typically the administrative leave part of things is not up for debate, but there's so much uncertainty right now as to what's going on. | |
| Well, you mentioned the IRS. | ||
| So a couple of things happening in the IRS. | ||
| You have this article with the headline, IRS says shutdown exempt staff face furloughs if they take too much leave. | ||
| And it says IRS employees were told that if they take more than eight hours of leave per pay period, they will be furloughed for the remainder of the pay period. | ||
| Can you explain what's going on there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| So this was something we've heard recently from IRS employees. | ||
| I should note that there has been no email or memo, anything written down communicating this policy, but I've heard from a number of employees and one even shared a recording of this conversation that their manager had with them that if they take more leave than the eight hours that you mentioned per pay period, which is two weeks, they would be furloughed. | ||
| And these are employees that are at this point they are. | ||
| Furloughed or rift? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Furloughed. | |
| Okay, so they would just be sent home. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Correct. | |
| Yeah, so what's notable here is that we're talking about employees who are already exempt from the government shutdown. | ||
| They've been deemed by the Treasury Department to be essential. | ||
| They have to continue working. | ||
| They have to continue being on the job, even though the IRS at this point, they've furloughed nearly half of their workforce already. | ||
| So this remaining rough half that we're talking about, there are in some cases people who have planned vacations months ago. | ||
| There are people who in some cases have been on paid paternal leave, paid family leave, and they have been told if they are exempt from the shutdown that they have to continue showing up to work or they could be furloughed. | ||
| And as we've discussed, OMB is of the opinion that furloughed employees may not be guaranteed back pay, so it introduces this new level of stress for them. | ||
| And we've got Jory Heckman in the studio with us. | ||
| If you'd like to ask him a question or make a comment about federal workers and the shutdown, you can start calling in now. | ||
| The lines are Republicans 202, 748, 8001, Democrats 202, 748, 8000, and Independents 202, 748, 8002. | ||
| And our line for federal workers is 202, 748, 8003. | ||
| Speaking of which, at the IRS, here's another article that says IRS backtracks on back pay guarantee for furloughed employees. | ||
| Talk about that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, we've seen some back and forth between what the White House has been saying about the shutdown, notably on the topic of back pay, and what agencies have been saying. | |
| We've talked about how OMB has circulated this legal opinion that back pay is not a guarantee, something that Congress would have to decide on their own about. | ||
| But we've seen when the IRS was furloughing people, furloughing about half of its workforce, it sent out language saying, don't worry, back pay is guaranteed. | ||
| There's legislation on the books. | ||
| There's a law on the books that says that you will get back pay. | ||
| And then about a day later, they rescinded that language saying, actually, we're going to defer to OMB on this one. | ||
| They are the opinion that you should follow when it comes to the topic of back pay. | ||
| And from what I've heard from some agencies, that initial notice was automatically deleted from their email inboxes. | ||
| So that was a bit of confusion for them because they are hearing one thing from their agency and they're hearing another from the White House. | ||
| Here is what OMB put on X. | ||
| It says OMB is making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out the Democrats in transigence, pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the rifts and wait. | ||
| Do we have any indication of what agencies or what kind of departments might be next on the rifts? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's really too soon to tell. | |
| It could be a deepening of cuts at the agencies we've already been talking about. | ||
| It could be other agencies stepping in and introducing layoffs here. | ||
| Too soon to tell. | ||
| What we did hear from President Trump yesterday, he told reporters at the White House that we should see some more developments this Friday. | ||
| He said that more programs, Democrat programs, could be on the cutting block, that more things could be cut. | ||
| He said that a shutdown should have never happened, but that the administration is going to take this as an opportunity to shut down, close down programs that his administration doesn't believe in, doesn't believe supports his agenda. | ||
| Well, let's play a portion of President Trump on Air Force One when he was asked about it. | ||
| Take a look. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, President Trump, what's harder? | |
| Peace in the Middle East or ending a government shutdown? | ||
| Well, I think the hardest is this. | ||
| This has been going on for 3,000 years. | ||
| The shutdown has only been for 10 days. | ||
| So I think the shutdown, it's gotten to be almost customary, but we're taking care of it. | ||
| We've got the military paid in full. | ||
| And we're doing a lot of things. | ||
| We're ending some programs that we don't want. | ||
| They happen to be Democrat-sponsored programs. | ||
| But we're ending some programs that we never wanted. | ||
| And we're probably not going to allow them to come back. | ||
| I think they made a mistake. | ||
| I think they made a big mistake. | ||
| This is really a Schumer shutdown because he's become sort of irrelevant and he wants to make himself relevant again. | ||
| Any idea, Jory, about what those Democrat-sponsored programs that he was talking about might be? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not a lot of clarity on this already, but what we have heard from agencies from the layoffs that we do know already, they've been really pointed in saying why these layoffs are happening. | |
| Going back to the example of DHS and CISA, the cybersecurity agency, they said in statements to me and other reporters that CISA is being targeted by these layoffs because the former CISA director Chris Krebs was not supporting claims made by the administration back in 2020 for the election then that the election was not secure from a cyber perspective, that votes were changed in any kind of way or that it was rigged or tampered with. | ||
| So CISA has always been pushing back on the narrative that the first Trump administration had. | ||
| That's something that they raised there. | ||
| We've been talking about the IRS. | ||
| The administration has been critical of the multi-billion dollar fund that they've received in the Inflation Reduction Act to build up its workforce, to modernize its IT. | ||
| That's one thing that's come up. | ||
| And at the Energy Department, I just heard the other day from a spokesperson there that the Energy Department has been wasteful with its spending, that they have been pursuing an energy agenda that they feel focuses too much on clean energy and renewables and not the energy priorities of the current administration. | ||
| All right, let's talk to callers. | ||
| We'll start with Lester on the line for Democrats in Washington, D.C. Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Look, Mr. Hackman, can you tell me what's your thoughts on the furloughs and the terminations and so forth? | ||
| What impact, if any, will it have on national security and domestic, you know, domestic security? | ||
| I'm speaking more specifically. | ||
| You know, are we looking at another 9-11? | ||
| Are we looking at another pandemic? | ||
| Because I understand the CDC has been cut. | ||
| What are your thoughts on that matter? | ||
| Also, too, I'm just going to end by saying, you know, this is a Republican-inspired shutdown. | ||
| The Republicans control the House, they control the Senate, and they control the Supreme Court. | ||
| Jory. | ||
| A couple of things to hit on there. | ||
| As far as the national security side of things, we did see just this week that the Trump administration is trying to move some money around to ensure that active duty military get a paycheck this week and that at DHS, the Coast Guard would get paid regardless of the shutdown situation. | ||
| That's something new and novel that we're seeing play out. | ||
| To your point about national security and Homeland Security, one thing we have been seeing is an uptick in sick outs for air traffic controllers. | ||
| And so that's been something that has been a concern in previous shutdowns. | ||
| That was a point of contention in the last shutdown, the 35-day shutdown, that got people back to the negotiating table and ending that shutdown. | ||
| We haven't seen that play out just yet. | ||
| This is air traffic controllers just calling in sick and not showing up, and there being flight delays. | ||
|
unidentified
|
More than usual. | |
| Flight delays. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And the caller also mentioned layoffs at CDC. | ||
| A couple hundred of those have been rescinded. | ||
| They realized that those were made in error. | ||
| But there are still cuts at CDC and at HHS more broadly. | ||
| This is NPR about that. | ||
| With new cuts at CDC, some fear there's nobody to answer the phone. | ||
| So here are the numbers. | ||
| It was more than 1,300 CDC employees were notified they'd lost their jobs on Friday. | ||
| And then about 700 employees got emails revoking those RIF notices. | ||
| So it's about 600 net that have been laid off. | ||
| How did they get laid off by accident? | ||
| What happened there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is actually kind of a familiar playbook with what we've seen with layoffs more generally and layoffs at HHS. | |
| We've seen this play out in April where they also back then rescinded some layoffs, realizing they didn't measure twice, cut once, that some of these notices were sent in error. | ||
| Something that I've heard from employees is that some of the discrepancy here is that the data, the workforce data that these agencies have is outdated. | ||
| And so when it comes down to performance data and tenure and veterans preference and things of that nature, the data isn't always accurate for the employees. | ||
| And so when they make these decisions, sometimes RIF decisions are sent out in error. | ||
| And so they have to call them back. | ||
| Let's go to San Clemente, California. | ||
| Republican Ron. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're on with Jory Heckman. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, guys. | |
| Jory, let me ask the question. | ||
| Why is the secret about ICE and why they're being funded and they're essential? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're identified as essential personnel. | |
| So they have to show up. | ||
| Are they being paid as well? | ||
| Also, the Capitol Police, are they their essential employees and are they being paid? | ||
| In the meantime, you've got Christian on television blaming the Democrats for everything about this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But I want to know something else. | |
| While we're going through the hiring freeze or whatever, are they still paying $50,000 for bonuses? | ||
| Are they still paying for student loans? | ||
| Give us an insight on what's going on with ICE and when they're being paid. | ||
| And I understand, of course, the federal workforce or the soldiers are going to be paid this week. | ||
| Week. | ||
| What happens in the weeks to come? | ||
| Because this shutdown could go all the way to the midterms. | ||
| So let us know. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Let's get an answer. | ||
| Go ahead, Jory. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so clearly, ICE employees are clearly working during the shutdown. | |
| The important thing to spell out here is accepted employees are employees that are still working during the shutdown. | ||
| They don't get paid right away. | ||
| They typically get paid at the end of the shutdown, and exempt employees are paid throughout the shutdown. | ||
| The specifics on ICE, not quite clear on that, but that's one thing to consider here. | ||
| And as far as the bonuses side of things, not entirely clear on that piece of things, but one thing to point out, going back to my coverage on the IRS, a lot of the employees that the IRS in recent years have been bringing on to answer the phones. | ||
| They were paying bonuses to them to incentivize them to join the IRS. | ||
| A lot of those employees have now left the agency and now the IRS, once again, preparing for the filing season, they are trying to bring a new wave of people in, but there are already people they recently let go who have been trained, have the expertise to do this. | ||
| They're not bringing them back. | ||
| So what's the impact of that for the filing season coming up? | ||
|
unidentified
|
There's a lot of concern. | |
| There's a lot of alarm bells raised. | ||
| The National Taxpayer Advocate just this summer raised concerns that the IRS is now, just through the voluntary incentives alone, the Fork in the Road email, about 25% of IRS employees this year are gone. | ||
| They have left the agency. | ||
| They did that through the voluntary incentives. | ||
| IRS, up until now, has not pursued RIFs. | ||
| They said that they would earlier this year, but they got where they needed to be through the voluntary incentives. | ||
| So they are in a situation where they are now back in hiring mode. | ||
| They're trying to hire people who will answer the phones. | ||
| They're hiring, but they're also riffing people? | ||
| I mean, how does that work? | ||
| Or is it just different departments? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Both of those things are happening simultaneously here. | |
| They are looking to bring in people to answer the phones. | ||
| The people who are being laid off right now at the IRS, what I've heard typically is they are HR, they are IT, they're other back office people. | ||
| But I've spoken to those people in recent days. | ||
| They say, especially for HR, you need people on the job to oversee that hiring, to oversee the planning of where you are, where you need to be, and how aggressively you need to push to get to your numbers, your goals in time for the filing season. | ||
| And they say that that's in jeopardy. | ||
| And Ron asked about U.S. Capitol Police officers, and they are not being paid. | ||
| This is NBC News headline, U.S. Capitol Police officers miss first full paychecks due to government shutdown. | ||
| Officers were only partly paid last week, but members of Congress will continue to receive their full paychecks. | ||
| And here is Gary in D.C., Independent Line. | ||
| Hi, Gary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Jory. | |
| I were to ask you that I retired in 2021. | ||
| I wanted to find out, does Trump really have authority to revoke back pay? | ||
| That sounds like that's illegal. | ||
| Does he really have the authority to do that? | ||
| This is a burning question for a lot of people right now. | ||
| This has just been something we've never seen before with a shutdown. | ||
| This has always been something that has been understood as just a baseline thing that once the shutdown ends, all employees, the ones who are furloughed, the ones who are at home, not working during the shutdown, and accepted employees, people who were working without a paycheck during the shutdown, everyone gets back pay once the shutdown ends. | ||
| What we're seeing from the White House and the Office of Management and Budget right now is new and novel. | ||
| They are saying that this is not a guarantee, but this is something that is ultimately up to Congress. | ||
| So we'll have to wait and see. | ||
| And that was written into law and signed by President Trump during his first administration after that 2018-2019 shutdown. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's right. | |
| Here's Phyllis in the Pennsylvania Line for Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| My question is, where is the money going to? | ||
| From the tariff, where's all that money going to? | ||
| And if I'm not mistaken, Trump said that somebody paid him millions of dollars. | ||
| Somebody gave him millions. | ||
| Where's all this money going to? | ||
| Is it going to the rose garden or to the ballroom? | ||
| I just wanted to know where we hear that we're in debt. | ||
| We're on a shutdown. | ||
| Nobody's getting paid. | ||
| Where is the money going to? | ||
| The terrorist money and all of the money that he's getting. | ||
| Got it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| So as far as I think this goes back to the matter of pay for active duty military, something that Trump said just the other day is that he had heard that someone was willing to put up the money to pay those service members. | ||
| Now, what the Department of Defense is actively pursuing right now is moving its own money around, funds that have been appropriated for one purpose, moving them to pay soldiers that would otherwise miss a paycheck right now. | ||
| So that is moving around of funds and also a concern because Congress appropriated these funds for specific reasons and the administration is saying we will move them around for a different purpose. | ||
| That's what we're seeing play out there. | ||
| And do we know that the troops have been paid today? | ||
| Did that money actually land in their bank accounts? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So not definitively sure on that, but I think there have been all assurances that that will be done and that will be accomplished for those service members today. | |
| And Jory, do we have any idea how much that costs per pay period to pay 1.3 million active duty troops? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's an astronomical sum. | |
| I don't have the exact number at my fingertips, but it's a substantial amount of money. | ||
| The DOD obviously has the resources at its disposal, but it is, again, a matter of moving funds around. | ||
| And here is Juanita in Ohio, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you doing? | ||
| I have a comment and I have a question. | ||
| My comment is that over the past four or five days, and this is to the reporter, because I got my J school degree years ago. | ||
| I have not heard, well, I just read about the Special Education Department in the Department of Education being shut down completely. | ||
| And I'm wondering if my MAGA friend out there in the senators had ever thought about what happens to those states that get funding to help people in special education, like my late brother. | ||
| He was 62, lived at home. | ||
| He had nouns all his life. | ||
| That's my comment. | ||
| And my question is, has Linda McMahon ever said anything or made any moves for special education and those children and adults with special needs? | ||
| Because they cover everybody. | ||
| And here in Hamilton County, we have a wonderful network. | ||
| Kentucky doesn't. | ||
| Can you answer that for me, please? | ||
| Anything about special education? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure, I can speak to that. | |
| We've heard the same things that the Education Department has been the target of layoffs. | ||
| And those who have received the layoff notices includes people who are working in special education at the department. | ||
| And it's notable because what we saw earlier this year is the Education Department was already the target of significant reductions. | ||
| The administration has tried to bring the department down to what is only statutorily required and to reduce all other functions of the department, move it elsewhere within the bureaucracy of the federal government. | ||
| And so what we've seen before the shutdown even is the education department was cut somewhere in the neighborhood of about half of us employees who either took voluntary incentives or were laid off. | ||
| And now what we're seeing more recently is that approximately another 20% of the department is now seeing layoffs. | ||
| And Juanita, this is on the front page. | ||
| That story is on the front page of USA Today. | ||
| Advocates say special ed system in danger. | ||
| Education Department layoffs create uncertainty. | ||
| It says nearly the entire Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, including the Office of Special Education Programs, was let go according to agency employees and their union. | ||
| That's again on the front page of USA Today if you'd like to read that article. | ||
| Here is Donna in Sunman, Indiana, Republican. | ||
| Donna, are you there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Hi, go ahead. | ||
| I have a comment. | ||
| Our representatives are the ones and the only ones who should not get paid and should not get any back pay for the time of the shutdown. | ||
| I'm 84 years old and I've been a taxpayer all my whole life and our incomes are the ones that are being punished. | ||
| Back pay does not help bills that need to be paid today, like food, child care, and cost of living, whatever. | ||
| And if these people cannot agree to get along and work together, they need to be replaced. | ||
| Stop the blaming each other and get along. | ||
| Yeah, I can just say more broadly that federal employees, the number one thing I think they speak to during the shutdown is the uncertainty of it all, how long it's going to go on for. | ||
| The last shutdown was a record shutdown. | ||
| It was 35 days. | ||
| At that time, federal employees missed two paychecks. | ||
| So that's a real financial hit for them. | ||
| And what we're seeing at this point, last Friday, a lot of federal employees got their first partial paycheck. | ||
| And so it would be late in this month for them to miss their first full paycheck. | ||
| But this is a real financial toll on them. | ||
| And they're concerned that lawmakers are really no closer to a deal than when they started this. | ||
| And members of Congress do continue to get full pay, but their staff do not. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's my understanding, yes. | |
| Jordan in Florida, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Jordan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you guys for having me on. | ||
| I just have a quick comment, and then I have a follow-up question. | ||
| Our representatives need to be at the negotiating table trying to get a bipartisan CR. | ||
| Republicans need to get back to work and stop running from the negotiating table. | ||
| And in the Senate, GOP senators not being able to get five Democrats is not on the Democrats. | ||
| It's on leadership of the GOP side, but Democrats need to be willing to do the same, and it shows both sides aren't willing to bring the goalposts back to reality. | ||
| Now, here comes my question. | ||
| We should stop paying ICE agents bonuses during the government shutdown, especially the $50,000 signing bonus to dehumanize the American people. | ||
| And I think that money should be going towards the federal workers. | ||
| Do you think the same during a shutdown? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Last comment, Jory. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| Yeah, the caller is correct that ICE has offered sign-on bonuses to bring new employees into the agency. | ||
| Unclear where the status of those are. | ||
| ICE is largely unimpacted by the shutdown. | ||
| So it seems like it would be business as usual in that regard. | ||
| Has there been any discussion about paying ICE agents during the shutdown? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, it typically hasn't come up too much in these shutdown discussions. | |
| Because the OMB posting on X said pay law enforcement, and federal law enforcement would include ICE and Border Patrol. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right, right. | |
| Just the other day they mentioned that they were, you know, quote, battening down the hatches, that they will continue to fund the programs that they align strongly with. | ||
| So it is law enforcement, it is paying active duty military, and that they are prepared to ride this out for the long term. | ||
| All right, that's Jory Heckman, senior reporter for Federal News Network. | ||
| You can find his reporting at federalnewsenetwork.com. | ||
| Thanks so much for joining us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having me. | |
| And coming up later on the Washington Journal, we've got Freshman Representative James Walkinshaw. | ||
| He's a Democrat of Virginia and member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. | ||
| He'll join us to talk about the shutdown and Democrat strategy. | ||
| But next, after the break, we'll take more of your calls on Open Forum. | ||
| You can start calling in now. | ||
| During that time, we'll also speak with Washington Examiner Defense Reporter Mike Brest and Republican Congressman Rob Whitman. | ||
| Vice Chair of the Armed Services Committee is a Republican of Virginia about the shutdown and impact to Payday for Active Military Members. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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 Rubenstein, each week features in-depth conversations with the thinkers shaping our national story. | ||
| Among this season's remarkable guests, John Grisham, master storyteller of the American justice system. | ||
| Justice Amy Coney Barrett, exploring the Constitution, the court, and the role of law in American life. | ||
| Famed chef and global relief entrepreneur Jose Andres, reimagining food. | ||
| Henry Louis Gates, chronicler of race, identity, and the American experience. | ||
| The books, the voices, the places that preserve our past and spark the ideas that will shape our future. | ||
| America's Book Club, premiering this fall, Sundays at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| On the premiere of C-SPAN Ceasefire, Republican Mike Pence and Democrat Rahm Emanuel reflected on their unexpected friendship and found common ground on one of the world's most pressing issues, Israel and Hamas. | ||
| And I have no problem saying it. | ||
| President Trump deserves credit here. | ||
| Some of my party won't say that. | ||
| I'm grateful for Ron speaking plainly about giving President Trump credit here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Friday, governors from opposite ends of the political map come together from Deep Red Oklahoma to solid blue Maryland. | |
| Democratic Governor Wes Moore and Republican Governor Kevin Stitt sit down with host Dasha Burns. | ||
| Welcome to Ceasefire, where we seek to bridge the divide in American politics. | ||
|
unidentified
|
For a conversation, not a confrontation. | |
| Red meets blue. | ||
| Great Plains meets Mid-Atlantic Friday, October 17th at 7 p.m. Eastern and Pacific. | ||
| Ceasefire, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Phil and high school students join C-SPAN as we celebrate America's 250th anniversary during our 2026 C-SPAN Student Cam Video Documentary Competition. | ||
| This year's theme is Exploring the American Story through the Declaration of Independence. | ||
| We're asking students to create a five to six minute documentary that answers one of two questions. | ||
| What's the Declaration's influence on a key moment from America's 250-year history? | ||
| Or how have its values touched on a contemporary issue that's impacting you or your community? | ||
| We encourage all students to participate, regardless of prior filmmaking experience. | ||
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| And we're back. | ||
| It is Open Forum. | ||
| You can start calling in now while you're calling in on our lines by party. | ||
| We will be speaking to Mike Brest. | ||
| He's a defense reporter for Washington Examiner about military pay and things happening at the Pentagon. | ||
| Mike, welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for having me. | |
| Today is payday for 1.3 million active duty forces. | ||
| Have they been paid today? | ||
|
unidentified
|
From my understanding and from what I've heard, many of them have been paid today as expected. | |
| And to give a little bit of background as to how they were able to do this, President Trump asked Secretary Hagseth to look through the Pentagon's unspent funds for the past fiscal year to see if there was any additional money that they could use and repurpose. | ||
| And so the Pentagon announced that they found roughly $8 billion in unobligated research development funds. | ||
| And so they have since decided to repurpose that money to pay troops. | ||
| And so this is somewhat of a controversial decision because it's unclear whether the Pentagon just can sort of change what the money was allocated for because that's generally Congress's control. | ||
| That being said, the shutdown is now entering its third week. | ||
| Today's the end of the second week of the shutdown. | ||
| And so we heard from. | ||
| Sorry. | ||
| So before you continue, let's talk about that 8 billion. | ||
| And has that ever been done? | ||
| Does the Pentagon have that authority to move funds around? | ||
| Is this a temporary measure? | ||
| Is that $8 billion going to go back after the government reopens? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So there's a lot that's still unknown with exactly how this is occurring and whether or not there's even more money to be found even, because it's unclear how much of that $8 billion was used up to pay service members today. | |
| And so what's unclear now is if the shutdown is still going on on November 1st in two weeks, how the military plans to pay its service members, whether or not all of this $8 billion has been expended, and if there's more to be found. | ||
| And what about, we mentioned 1.3 is active duty. | ||
| What about the hundreds of thousands of active members of the National Guard, the Reserve, and then civilian employees at the Defense Department? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So active duty are considered essential employees. | |
| So they go to work every day during a shutdown as normal. | ||
| However, they don't get paid. | ||
| When it comes to the civilian employees that work in the Department of War, that total is around 750,000 people. | ||
| And so when we look at that 750,000, about 30% of them are deemed essential workers and are still working. | ||
| About 25% of the civilian workforce are funded through other means. | ||
| So about 55% or so, give or take of the civilian workforce is still working as normal without pay. | ||
| And about 45% of the civilian workforce has since been furloughed and will return to work whenever the shutdown ends. | ||
| But there's no discussion of paying them during the shutdown. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Not at this moment, but there are still ongoing conversations taking place on Capitol Hill as well as in the Pentagon about sort of how both sides can move forward, how Congress can move forward to pass a spending bill and reopen the government, and about how this affects the Pentagon and National Security. | |
| As far as payment of troops, how has that been handled in previous government shutdowns? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oftentimes in previous government shutdowns, Congress will come together to pass a standalone bill that specifically and exclusively allows for service members to get paid and sort of allocates just enough money for them to do that and keep service members getting paid. | |
| There was talk about Congress doing something along those lines this time. | ||
| However, this $8 billion of unspent funds sort of negated the pressure on Congress to act in the short term to get service members paid because there was even consternation on Capitol Hill between Democrats and Republicans about passing a standalone bill just to pay service members. | ||
| And that bill has not been moved through Congress, so leadership has decided against it. | ||
| But how much support had there been for that bill, the pay the troops bill? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So there's always support for paying troops during shutdowns. | |
| No one wants to be seen as the party that's responsible for service members who risk their lives and the families who do as well to not get paid. | ||
| And service members, especially junior level service members, often live paycheck to paycheck. | ||
| So even the threat of missing one paycheck can be very emotionally impactful, very dramatic for finances, for specifically young service members who can't afford to miss a paycheck. | ||
| So no one wants to be seen as the party who is preventing them from being paid. | ||
| And so this $8 billion really took off some of the pressure on Congress to make sure that they found a pathway forward to get paid. | ||
| However, this was only, it seems like a temporary solution because whether it's November 1st or again, November 15th, the service members will continue to expect paychecks every two weeks as normal. | ||
| And so even if this $8 billion was enough to pay every service member today, it's not clear that they have the funds available to pay them again in two weeks or four weeks or moving forward if the shutdown continues. | ||
| Moving to a different topic, Secretary Hagseth has announced new rules for the press corps at the Pentagon. | ||
| Most news outlets have rejected those new rules, including yours at the Washington Examiner. | ||
| Can you explain to us what it was he was asking news organizations and reporters to do? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So there's a couple different aspects of the Pentagon's new press policy that not just the Washington Examiner, but a number of outlets felt was problematic and potentially infringed on the First Amendment. | |
| And so some of those things were included. | ||
| Things like there was a line in the document that the Pentagon wanted all reporters to sign that said we could be deemed a security risk if we did something like seeking not even classified, but just unclassified information that had not been prepared for release. | ||
| And so Pentagon reporters wouldn't be doing their job if all they did was writing up press releases from senior Pentagon officials. | ||
| And so the thought of having being viewed as a threat from the Pentagon and having our credentials then dangled in front of us as a concern or as a threat if we did not do as they saw fit was a bridge too far for many of these outlets. | ||
| And as you said, at this point, only one outlet has publicly said that they will sign this document, which is One American News Network, which is a conservative network that is very friendly to both the president and the secretary. | ||
| And they didn't even have a spot in the Pentagon or dedicated workspace to the Pentagon until Secretary Eggseth instilled them and kicked out a more historic outlet, CNN, from its workspace. | ||
| And so the Secretary and his senior public affairs officers have taken a much more antagonistic stance towards the media that dates back since the beginning of this term. | ||
| And this is just sort of the latest culmination of their ongoing effort, which includes, as I mentioned, kicking some outlets out of their space for other outlets that they believe would provide more favorable coverage to them. | ||
| And so what they're saying is, what the administration says is that you wouldn't have a pass to just roam around any defense facility. | ||
| You can't go around an army base without an escort. | ||
| Why would the Pentagon be any different? | ||
| What's the response to that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So it's a little misleading because up until new rules were put in place a couple months ago, Pentagon reporters like myself had the ability to walk throughout the Pentagon in the public areas. | |
| And I want to be very clear, we were never allowed behind closed doors where classified information is discussed or kept unless invited. | ||
| And so you don't see Pentagon reporters who are sneaking in and out of offices trying to find classified information. | ||
| It's never been like that. | ||
| And so the stance that the Pentagon has taken that we don't have passes and we can walk willy-nilly in and out is a little misleading because we can do that only in the public spaces. | ||
| And so before the pandemic and when there were tours going on all the time in the Pentagon, we're talking about the same spaces that you would see on a Pentagon tour for the most part. | ||
| And so it really has been a gradual shift towards where we are now in this document. | ||
| Even mentioned plans to move the Pentagon reporters out of its dedicated space, which it's had for many years, to an undisclosed place. | ||
| But it's unclear where exactly they want to move the Pentagon Press Corps. | ||
| But now that press corps is obviously much smaller, given an overwhelming majority of its credentialed reporters have now given in their badges, myself included. | ||
| So that deadline has passed. | ||
| So you have had to relinquish your badge and you are no longer able to get into the building except with an escort? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That is correct. | |
| And so I find myself in the same position a number of my colleagues do, which is just because we don't have access to the Pentagon anymore doesn't mean we are going to stop reporting on the military or national security. | ||
| It really just means we need to become more creative in how we do it and look for other avenues to try and uncover the stories that matter to our readers and to military and service members and their families. | ||
| Do you think that this will have an effect, Mike, on the coverage of the Pentagon, the coverage of the Defense Department? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think for reporters who cover the Pentagon, day-to-day life will be different, but in terms of how you get your news and the coverage, I don't think there will be much of a difference because a lot of the stories, the groundbreaking stories that so many of my colleagues have broken going back decades, have not simply been reported because they were in the building at the right place at the right time. | |
| But these are deeply sourced, very well-respected journalists who are trying to do their job and will continue to do their job no matter what. | ||
| All right, that's Mike Brest, defense reporter for the Washington Examiner. | ||
| His work is at Washingtonexaminer.com. | ||
| Thanks so much for joining us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for having me. | |
| And it's Open Forum. | ||
| We are taking your calls on whatever's on your mind public policy-wise, whether it's the government shutdown, what's the peace deal, the peace plan in Gaza, whatever you would like to talk about. | ||
| And we'll start with Krista, who's in Frederick, Maryland, on our line for federal workers. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Amimi. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| So I have a couple questions based on the conversation with Mike Brest. | ||
| But in addition to that, I have a couple other things to assert about being a federal worker. | ||
| So the Pentagon has decided, or military, to pay the military staff, which I understand. | ||
| But the Anti-Deficiency Act prevents you moving funds from one fiscal year to another fiscal year, which is why when there's a continuing resolution that is not passed or there's not a budget, they have to shut down the government and furlough people and not pay those that are working. | ||
| I want to know how the administration is getting away with reappropriating or moving funds when they don't have that power, Congress has that power, to pay the military out of research and development funds. | ||
| So, Krista, we do have a Republican lawmaker coming on the program, and I will ask specifically about that. | ||
| But I want to put up on the screen, since you mentioned it, it's the Anti-Deficiency Act, just so everybody knows what you're talking about. | ||
| That is, this is from GAO.gov. | ||
| It says that it prohibits federal agencies from obligating or expending federal funds in advance or in excess of an appropriation and from accepting voluntary services. | ||
| That is the Anti-Deficiency Act. | ||
| And you can find more information on that at GAO.gov. | ||
| Judy, Phoenix, Arizona, Democrat, good morning, Judy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, hi. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Oh, I've been listening since you guys went on air, and I'm so upset. | ||
| I really got to try to keep this short and sweet. | ||
| Trump and our government, and we've got to go through this for three and a half more years, it's a big snafu and a big cluster, you know what? | ||
| And that's all I can say today. | ||
| I am so upset. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Here's JB in New York, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I have, I guess it would be a comment with regard to the people in the Senate and the Congress that they, it's my understanding that they're not under the regular civil service that they have their own retirement system, which they control whether that exists or not. | ||
| So I doubt it will ever disappear. | ||
| But what I think should be done is their system, they should be treated as contractors. | ||
| And like all contractors, they should be able, they should pay their taxes and make allow them to make this thing that they do. | ||
| They'll do it anyway, represent whoever they represent. | ||
| I think that should be known over a certain amount. | ||
| How much if somebody is donating a certain amount of money above a certain amount, they should be required to identify who the actual donators are and that the people on Capitol Hill should be treated as contractors, | ||
| made to pay taxes like everybody else, and they would still be able to continue their jobs of running the government, but as contractors rather than their own retirement system. | ||
| I think that's about it. | ||
| All right, JB, let's go to the line for Democrats in Texas. | ||
| Jesse, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just had a question. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I wanted to know, I just heard that the argument is about Democrats wanting to pay a trillion dollars to pay illegal immigrants. | ||
| And I just want to know what data, because I haven't seen any data presented to the people to show that this is that illegal immigrants are being paid or abusing the funds that they're taking their stance on. | ||
| And that was just a question. | ||
| So I think the $1.5 trillion comes from what the tax credits would cost, continuing the tax credits. | ||
| And then the Democrats also want to repeal parts of the One Big Beautiful bill related to Medicaid funding and a small amount for bringing back public radio and public TV funding that was taken away in that, also in that bill that was signed in July. | ||
| Walter, Baltimore, Maryland, Independent. | ||
| Hi, Walter. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, C-SPAN. | |
| Good morning, America. | ||
| We must stop the lies and the hate that is espoused by the Republicans, basically. | ||
| Because in fairness, how can you call yourself a Christian when you want to deny humanity to other people, here or not? | ||
| I am against $20 billion going to Argentina. | ||
| But then I have no skin in the game. | ||
| Yes, I do. | ||
| $20 billion to them, added to the trillions, as was said earlier today, to the deficit going to billionaires who don't need it. | ||
| C-SPAN America, I go to the dollar store, which is now the dollar and 50 cents store or dollar plus store. | ||
| It's outrageous. | ||
| When I say to you, I'm on Social Security and Medicare for almost half of my income, and you tell me I have to give that up for Argentina or for a billionaire to get a tax break. | ||
| I think that's insanity. | ||
| So is the orange devil perpetrating as the. | ||
| All right, Walter, and this is Politico on that Trump Scamble on Argentina looms over IMF World Bank Summit. | ||
| Treasury Secretary Scott Besson announced a framework for a deal to provide U.S. financing to Argentina through a $20 billion currency swap. | ||
| It says Treasury Secretary Scott Besson last Thursday announced a framework for a deal to provide U.S. financing to Argentina through a $20 billion currency swap between the Treasury's Exchange Stabilization Fund and Argentina's central bank. | ||
| The assistance is aimed at bolstering Argentina's collapsing currency and calming economic unrest ahead of a crucial October 26 midterm elections that will determine if Malay can retain a political mandate to continue pursuing a dramatic government cost-cutting economic agenda admired by the Trump administration. | ||
| That's at Politico. | ||
| And this is Peggy, Long Beach, New York. | ||
| Democrat, you're on Open Forum, Peggy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| A couple of things. | ||
| As far as the Department of Defense goes, I think that Pete Hegset thinks that it's his Department of Defense. | ||
| That belongs to the American people, the taxpayers. | ||
| This administration is acting like all of these government entities are theirs. | ||
| I'd also like to talk a little bit about the money being spent. | ||
| Trump talks about $17 trillion in our treasury from tariffs. | ||
| There's no proof of that. | ||
| Where is that money? | ||
| It doesn't reflect in any of the money numbers coming out of the government. | ||
| We give $6 billion to Netanyahu, $20 billion to Argentina. | ||
| Meantime, both of those countries have universal health care. | ||
| Argentina even covers tourists and undocumented immigrants. | ||
| $6 billion for SpaceX, $85 million for Trump's golf outing so far, $200 million for a ballroom, $1 billion upgrade to the Qatari jet. | ||
| And what are our service people going to be working building a Qatari base? | ||
| Our soldiers. | ||
| How much money is that going to cost? | ||
| Meantime, we lost 32,000 jobs in September. | ||
| $1 million a day to the National Guard who are raking leaks. | ||
| The corruption is unbelievable. | ||
| The United Arab Emirates for $2 billion of Trump's crypto coins. | ||
| In return, they were given computer chips that were banned from them because of the risk, our national security risk. | ||
| So I say follow the money. | ||
| It's just like the corruption is out in the open. | ||
| It's really disgusting. | ||
| All right, Peggy. | ||
| And if you'll remember, last week on this program, Speaker Johnson was our guest and he took calls. | ||
| He was asked about appearing on our program called Ceasefire and sitting across from Hakeem Jeffries. | ||
| Here is that exchange. | ||
| You know about our program called Ceasefire. | ||
| I know. | ||
| I was just talking about it in the green room. | ||
| It's exciting. | ||
| And what Democrat would you like to sit up? | ||
| I'll sit down with Hakeem Jeffries, my counterpart. | ||
| Yeah, sometime we'll get that done. | ||
| I'm sure he's listening. | ||
| So Hakeem, let's sit down together. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And this is a headline from The Hill. | ||
| Jeffries accepts challenge, says he wants to debate Speaker Johnson on C-SPAN. | ||
| It says he said that he said this week that he's ready for a public debate with Speaker Johnson amid the government shutdown. | ||
| The quote is, I look forward to that. | ||
| That's Jeffries' quote. | ||
| We're going to try to get it scheduled. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| So be on the lookout for that here on C-SPAN, a debate televised between Speaker Jeffries and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. | ||
| Joe in Bitterford, Maine, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mimi. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Good morning, America. | ||
| Wow, where do you start? | ||
| Just because the woman before me mentioned Netanyahu, I have a solution for all our economic problems, all the budget deficit. | ||
| We get reparations from Bibi. | ||
| We blew up Iran. | ||
| We don't even know how many bunker busters we gave them because everybody's lied about it. | ||
| Heg Seth said 16. | ||
| Trump said 14. | ||
| You know, it depends on what day it is, I guess. | ||
| The Republicans just lie out loud. | ||
| What Donald Trump has done is perform the biggest Ponzi scam ever on the United States people. | ||
| The taxpayers are losing money. | ||
| He keeps saying things are going to get better later. | ||
| You know who it's getting better for? | ||
| It's the Trump family. | ||
| Billions of dollars. | ||
| What one caller already said, the Bitcoin, the Saudis, the Saudis who blew up 9-11. | ||
| They were the ones who ran 9-11. | ||
| They flew out of Portland, Maine. | ||
| And another thing I'd just like to mention about my great senator, Susan Collins. | ||
| Last month, her salary is $174,000 like the other senators, and she gets this and that for being on this committee. | ||
| She made on stock exchange $150,000 in her pocket in one month, Mimi. | ||
| I just see you blink your eyes. | ||
| Please fact-check me. | ||
| I'm sick of coming on this show and having saying things and facts. | ||
| And you let Mike Johnson, Mike, on this show, you never mentioned that he wrote an amicus brief and explained to the people what that is. | ||
| He said that Donald Trump, who lost by 7 million votes, gets to do a redo. | ||
| Gets to do it again. | ||
| He gets to try again. | ||
| Who the heck? | ||
| He didn't write that brief for Joe Biden. | ||
| I mean, Kamala. | ||
| And in other words, I just like to say the Republicans, don't let them tell you that they can't learn a new trick. | ||
| All of a sudden, the Republicans who ran around on how Christian they are were calling Kamala Harris Kamukala, Kamulu. | ||
| All right, John. | ||
| So let's talk to a Republican because we're joined now by Representative Rob Whitman. | ||
| He's a Republican of Virginia. | ||
| He's on the vice chair of the Armed Services Committee and Vice Chair of the Natural Resources Committee. | ||
| Congressman Whitman, welcome to the program. | ||
| Good morning, Mimi. | ||
| Great to be with you. | ||
| As I just mentioned, you are vice chair of the Armed Services Committee, and it is payday for the troops. | ||
| Can you confirm that they have all been paid their paycheck for today? | ||
| Yes, they had put things in motion to move some money from research, development, technology, and engineering accounts into payroll accounts to make sure that our members of the military are paid. | ||
| I'm also a co-sponsor of the Pay Our Troops Act, which would continue that. | ||
| Remember, though, Mimi, that this is a temporary measure. | ||
| If this shutdown continues to the end of the month, our troops could miss another paycheck. | ||
| So that's critical for us to make sure that we get government reopen. | ||
| But yes, our troops will receive a paycheck. | ||
| And Congressman, we're hearing that there was $8 billion that was moved from research and development test and evaluation to pay the troops. | ||
| How much did it cost for the $1.3 million to get their paychecks? | ||
| Well, the dollars that are moved there, I think, cover that cost. | ||
| So I know that there's an accounting measure there to make sure that the full cost of those paychecks are covered by the research, development, technology, and engineering account. | ||
| Now, there was a caller that mentioned the Anti-Deficiency Act that prohibits that kind of expenditure. | ||
| Can you explain how that works and if Congress is going to have any issues with the administration moving funds at will? | ||
| Well, listen, I don't have an issue with our military members being paid. | ||
| If any other member of Congress has an issue with paying our members of the military, I hope that they speak out. | ||
| I hope they let folks know why they object to our members of the military being paid. | ||
| And is there, what part of research and development will not be getting funded as that money has been expended elsewhere? | ||
| Well, these dollars will be replaced. | ||
| So this is a momentary move of those dollars. | ||
| But when the government reopens, those dollars can be replaced for the research, development, testing, and engineering programs. | ||
| You mentioned that you are in favor of the Pay Our Troops Act that would fund, essentially fund, congressionally fund payment for the U.S. military troops during the shutdown. | ||
| The leadership in Congress, as far as Health Speaker Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Thune, have said that they oppose this. | ||
| Well, listen, I want to make sure that our members of the military are paid, pure and simple. | ||
| So it doesn't matter to you if it's from Congress or the administration is moving money around, you're happy that they're being paid? | ||
| I want to make sure that they're paid, yes. | ||
| What about the National Guard and the Reserve and also the Defense Department civilians? | ||
| Yes, I want to make sure that our National Guard and Army Reserve and reserve components, including the Air National Guard, are paid, period. | ||
| They absolutely must be paid. | ||
| Have you heard anything about the administration finding the funds to pay them as well? | ||
| I know there are discussions about how to make that happen and we've encouraged the administration to find ways to make sure we get those dollars into the necessary accounts to make sure we pay our reservists and our National Guard. | ||
| And as Vice Chair of the Armed Services Committee, Congressman Whitman, are you concerned about military readiness and the national security of this country? | ||
| Well, I always am. | ||
| You know, our opponents are never at rest. | ||
| They're always continuing to pursue efforts to take advantage of the United States in any way, shape, or form they can, both strategically and for that matter, economically. | ||
| So I want to make sure we're doing everything we can. | ||
| I just met last week with Secretary Hegseth. | ||
| I'm very confident that the Pentagon, our service branch chiefs who I'll be meeting today with the Secretary of the Army, I am very confident that they're doing everything they can to make sure that our forces are ready, that they're trained and equipped and properly outfitted to assure that they stand ready if called upon to defend this nation. | ||
| And in your conversations with Secretary Hegseth, I wonder if his new Pentagon press policy came up in your conversations and if you're concerned at all about First Amendment issues and the ability of journalists to cover the Defense Department properly. | ||
| Listen, that issue did not come up and the Pentagon, I know, has their press policies. | ||
| I'm a firm believer in the First Amendment and everything that we do in our office assures that people have access and that we continue to freely communicate on the issues that are important to the people, not just to the First Congressional District of Virginia, but also to our nation. | ||
| Switching now to the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian President Zelensky will be meeting with President Trump on Friday. | ||
| He has asked for high-precision, long-range cruise missiles known as Tomahawks. | ||
| Are you in favor of that? | ||
| I'm in favor of giving Ukraine the tools necessary to make sure that Russia seeks to end this conflict. | ||
| I think you have to make sure that Russia sees a continued threat in continuing the conflict. | ||
| I think anything that we can do to help Ukraine, and that includes in conjunction with our European neighbors, is the way that we need to go forward. | ||
| I want to see an end to this conflict. | ||
| I think the president deserves a tremendous amount of credit for his efforts in brokering this peace deal in the Middle East. | ||
| I think his next focus is on the Ukraine-Russia conflict. | ||
| The way that you bring Russia to the table is to make sure that they continue to see risk in their efforts in continuing this conflict. | ||
| We've seen, unfortunately, the conversations between Vladimir Putin and the President haven't resulted in the things necessary to bring this conflict to an end. | ||
| I think Putin has said things. | ||
| He's not followed up. | ||
| I think they continue to pursue these heightened conflict efforts in Ukraine. | ||
| The way you bring them to the table is to make sure that Russia sees that it's not to their advantage to continue this conflict. | ||
| They have to see that there's a cost to pay if they continue the conflict. | ||
| Providing these sorts of weapon systems to Ukraine, I think, provides that. | ||
| The President's been very clear with that. | ||
| President Zelensky, too, has been clear in saying that these are the things that are needed to really force this situation to a reasonable and fair peace agreement. | ||
| Now, those tomahawks would give Ukraine the ability to hit Moscow in a very precise fashion and certain targets there in Moscow. | ||
| The Russians have said that this is an escalation. | ||
| Obviously, they would not be happy about that. | ||
| How do you feel about this being an escalation and things getting out of control if Ukraine starts hitting Moscow directly? | ||
| Listen, I want to see this conflict end. | ||
| Its obvious status quo is not ending the conflict. | ||
| I want to make sure that we're doing things to bring this conflict to an end. | ||
| Finally, Congressman Whitman, I want to ask you about the deployment of National Guard troops to American cities. | ||
| This past week, President Trump and the Vice President and Stephen Miller have all mentioned that the President could invoke the Insurrection Act and give himself full authority over those deployments. | ||
| Would you support that action? | ||
| Well, the President has to make an assessment about what the threats are in these various cities. | ||
| They will do that. | ||
| I want to make sure I stay informed about how they do that threat assessment and how they make their decisions. | ||
| So I'm going to continue to monitor the situation and determine what the information that they have is being used and making their determination. | ||
| And I'm glad to assess it at that particular point. | ||
| Were you concerned, sir, that when the president said at that speech in Quantico to military leaders that the military could use American cities as training ground? | ||
| Listen, we want to make sure that our troops are trained. | ||
| We have lots of training opportunities through national training centers, through our deployments, through the things that our military does in joint operations to train with other nations. | ||
| I think there are lots of training opportunities there. | ||
| I think our military does a great job in ensuring that they're ready for any contingency that comes before them. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Representative Rob Whitman, a Republican of Virginia. | ||
| Thanks so much for joining us today. | ||
| Thank you, Mimi. | ||
| And we are back to Open Forum. | ||
| We'll take your calls, whatever you'd like to talk about. | ||
| Republican line in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Lori, good morning. | ||
| You're on the air. | ||
| Yes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| So the government shutdown, there is a reason for everything. | ||
| The shutdown is temporary. | ||
| No more raising that debt ceiling. | ||
| And also reducing the size of the government. | ||
| Cutting debt and eliminating jobs were needed. | ||
| Doge and the tariffs have generated all kinds of revenue to the country. | ||
| And I believe there are great things ahead in store for America. | ||
| And reevaluating our financial system. | ||
| I believe all of these things will lead to the golden age and the quantum financial system. | ||
| It's time Americans engage in some homework. | ||
| It's way past due. | ||
| Thank you and have a great day. | ||
| Joe, East Point, Michigan, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| You know, as I've been listening to my fellow Americans, a thought hit me, just an epiphany. | ||
| When you're compelled to work without pay, as hundreds of thousands of federal workers are, that's called slavery. | ||
| That was ended in the 1860s by President Lincoln. | ||
| And if I were one of those federal employees, you're not going to make me a slave. | ||
| Compel me to work without pay. | ||
| Look it up. | ||
| It may sound trite to you or simple, but that's what they've done. | ||
| They've turned hundreds of thousands of hardworking American people into slaves. | ||
| I'd grab me a lawyer, maybe, or act on my own behalf and sue those rascals for making me a slave. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Look it up. | |
| Working without pay is slavery. | ||
| Kind of happened to me once. | ||
| I went to the state agency. | ||
| Two days later, I got all my money, my back pay. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| All right, Joe. | ||
| And some news for you from NBC. | ||
| This headline, Jack Smith speaks out against the Trump administration in a rare interview. | ||
| The former special counsel warned of threats to public servants and the independence of the judiciary in an interview at University College London Faculty of Laws. | ||
| We've got a short clip for you. | ||
| We'll play it right now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The people on my special counsel team were like that. | |
| The idea that politics played a role in who worked on that case or who got chosen is ludicrous. | ||
| And Andrew, you know, this is another thing that I think if you're not inside the U.S. Department of Justice, the idea that politics would play a role in big cases like this, it's absolutely ludicrous and it's totally contrary to my experience as a prosecutor. | ||
| Rick, Grand Celine, Texas, independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I wanted to talk about artificial intelligence data centers that are being built all over the country. | |
| And they are scheduled to, they're estimated to eat up 8% of our base load available electricity by 2030. | ||
| And what they need to do is to build more natural gas plants, which create reliable baseload electricity. | ||
| The wind and solar is not reliable. | ||
| And so we need to build more natural gas Centers plants to be able to accommodate so we don't have brownouts and blackouts. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mike in Bessemer City, North Carolina, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Mike. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes, I want to talk about the National Guard going into Chicago and places like that in Illinois. | ||
| You know, you've been seeing where these protesters have been actually smashing cars into the Board of Patrol and Homeland Security thing. | ||
| Of course, we need to protect those installations. | ||
| And you got Pritzker out there wanting to talk about prosecuting ICE agents, but he's unwilling to help protect these government facilities. | ||
| And I don't know what the Democrats' problem is on this here. | ||
| They don't want to, they want people in here illegally, but they don't want to protect the federal agents that are, they are getting criminals off the dang streets. | ||
| And these sanctuary cities, if they would just turn over the criminals with an ICE detainer, there wouldn't be none of this going in here. | ||
| And J.B. Pritzker and these liberal judges are responsible and should be tried and fined and tried if any of these ICE agents, Homeland Security gets hurt, killed, God forbid, not killed. | ||
| And here is Joe, Haverhill, Massachusetts. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| Just a couple of points. | ||
| One, I think it's sad that when you have all the terrible traits a human may possess apply to the president, it's sad and dangerous. | ||
| Two, all authoritarian governments pay their militaries. | ||
| They want their guns pointed where they want them. | ||
| Too bad it's against their own fellow citizens. | ||
| Three, the Democrats are doing the right thing. | ||
| They're going to try and protect health care. | ||
| If we go back to the old days, you pay for your health care until you need it, and then it disappears. | ||
| So the Republicans, their party comes across as just cruel. | ||
| And it's sad, but we have to vote and hope that the Democrats stand strong. | ||
| They're the last hope for reduce this kind of attack on our government. | ||
| All right, Joe. | ||
| And a couple of things for your schedule later today. | ||
| At the end of this program, at 10 o'clock in about 45 minutes, Speaker Mike Johnson will hold a press conference with other Republican House leaders discussing the government shutdown as it enters its 15th day. | ||
| We'll have live coverage of that at 10 a.m. Eastern here on C-SPAN. | ||
| Also at 10 a.m., but on C-SPAN 3, we've got the Supreme Court. | ||
| They'll hear a case on the extent to which race can be considered when drawing congressional district maps under the Voting Rights Act. | ||
| Here, you can hear that oral argument live at 10 a.m. | ||
| That's over on C-SPAN 3. | ||
| Those will also be on our app, C-SPANNOW and C-SPAN.org. | ||
| Also at 10 o'clock, the Senate comes in. | ||
| The House is not in session. | ||
| The Senate will be over on C-SPAN 2, and you can watch all the proceedings there. | ||
| And this is Gary, Asheville, North Carolina, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you doing? | ||
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, listen, I just wanted to, I gotta, I'm heading out. | |
| I'm sorry, but reassure everybody. | ||
| I mean, everybody, all this financial stuff, you know, everything about that, just imagine no more Federal Reserve. | ||
| All right. | ||
| The Federal Reserve is like a middleman between the citizen and the Treasury. | ||
| We don't need a middleman. | ||
| We don't need a middleman who's charging us interest, making us pay taxes. | ||
| So the whole thing, I think, is going to be revamped. | ||
| Like, you know, right now we're playing football. | ||
| So when the Federal Reserve Board's gone, all of a sudden we're going to be playing baseball. | ||
| It's going to be a whole new ball game. | ||
| No more income taxes, no more property taxes. | ||
| Like that lady said a minute ago, it's going to be like a golden age. | ||
| I think that's what he's talking about. | ||
| Get that Federal Reserve Board off everybody's back and get back to sound money. | ||
| Everything's going to change. | ||
| All right, Gary. | ||
| Here's Dylan Sturgis, South Dakota, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Say, I'm a disabled veteran. | ||
| I was in Vietnam for two tours and I was a grunt. | ||
| And I know there's a lot of Vietnam veterans around this area because of Fort Meade. | ||
| And I did get my pay, so I guess I'm blessed. | ||
| But I appreciate C-SPAN. | ||
| And you have a good day, Amy. | ||
| You too, Dylan. | ||
| This is Lonnie, Democrat, Salisbury, North Carolina. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| Top of the morning to you. | ||
| Hey, look, you know, there's some selfish people up in here about it's okay to lay off people. | ||
| But I want to say this whenever you get another Republican ask this question, because I try to get in and talk to Johnson. | ||
| But Johnson said something about the filibuster. | ||
| He said, if we get rid of the filibuster, it'll open the Pandora box. | ||
| But see, he acted like he forgot that when Kamala was the vice president and she was the tiebreaker, because at the time the senator chamber was 50-50, we were in the process of getting rid of the filibuster to get rid to pass the George Floyd Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. | ||
| But no, Manchin and Sinema went over and blocked that. | ||
| I'm trying to tell these Republicans they need to get on the phone and ask these Republican white senators why you guys don't end the filibuster just for this moment and open up the government. | ||
| You know why they don't want to open it? | ||
| Because they know he said the Pandora box will open. | ||
| They would now have to get the what's his name files. | ||
| So this is one of the reasons why they were not in the filibuster to open up the government, put the filibuster back, but they don't want to open up the Elf Sting files, people. | ||
| Trump is in it. | ||
| Some of them senators are in it. | ||
| We got to get it open to find out who is for because they're going to scorch earth before they name come out. | ||
| I bet you that. | ||
| All right, Lonnie, on the Republican line, St. Augustine, Florida. | ||
| Margaret, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I was listening to the conversation about Johnson and Jeffries. | ||
| I was on when he was asked who would you like to be on ceasefire with. | ||
| I thought the purpose of ceasefire was to have a conversation and find uncommon ground. | ||
| How come we're letting it get turned into a debate? | ||
| Just because Jeffrey used the word debate, I think you ought to go back and say, wait a minute, we're not having a debate. | ||
| We're having ceasefire, a conversation where people talk to each other and not those debates that they have where nobody even pays attention to what the other person says and just makes their talking points. | ||
| Was that an accident that you started using the word debate and following it? | ||
| I know more people. | ||
| I actually, I don't think I use the word debate, Margaret. | ||
| I think that was reading it. | ||
| That's from the Hill. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think we need to. | |
| I know that media love more eyes and people love watching fights, but I think that you should tell Jeffries we're not inviting you for a debate. | ||
| We're inviting you for a conversation and not let it turn into a debate. | ||
| And I mean, it did, Pence and They did pretty good. | ||
| Ram Emanuel. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yep. | |
| Did you watch that? | ||
| What did you think of that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I really prefer to keep it a little slower and make sure the other person responds to what the other person says. | |
| So it's a real understanding of what the other person is saying and a real response to what the person is saying, rather than they're so used to getting in their talking points. | ||
| And I would, I bet it's going to be a real challenge for, and I don't, I don't, I've never seen that woman before that's been chosen as the host for Ceasefire. | ||
| Yep. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I think about, I'm curious that you've chose somebody like that rather than one of your moderators. | |
| Like, wouldn't Peter have been good for that? | ||
| All right, Margaret. | ||
| This is Joe in Ohio, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I also kind of want to talk about the upcoming Hucking Jeffries Johnson thing. | |
| The Republicans parbayed an art form of just saying absolutely false statements. | ||
| I'm thinking specifically of what President Trump was claiming that Portland was in flames. | ||
| We heard that quote thousands of times on the media, but no one actually said to him, No, President, that there is no crisis in Portland. | ||
| Portland is not in flames. | ||
| And so I'm hoping that your moderator, when claims like that are made, especially by the Republicans, completely false claims, that that person will step in and say, no, that is factually incorrect. | ||
| And that is not taking a side. | ||
| That's only taking aside the truth. | ||
| And we just had, you know, an example a few callers earlier who claims that wind and solar can't provide all the power that we're going to need. | ||
| And that's just false. | ||
| The grids in the planet, like South Australia, that have the highest concentration of wind and solar are the most stable grids. | ||
| They're the least likely to have roundouts and blackouts. | ||
| So that's the kind of factual information we need, not this just back and forth. | ||
| He said, he said, you know, one person claiming one thing, the other person claiming the other. | ||
| That's not balanced. | ||
| All right, Joe. | ||
| And on the line for Democrats in Houston, Texas. | ||
| William, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, C-Span, and good morning to the audience. | |
| I want to keep this real simple. | ||
| I got one question that not only standing for any congressmen or representatives that are listening and any Republican or any voter out there that makes less than $100,000 a year. | ||
| Please explain why you vote Republican and what policies, financial or any other policy, that benefits you at the less than $100,000 a year labor income. | ||
| And one other question. | ||
| Did President Trump get plastic surgery on his ear? | ||
| Have a great day. | ||
| Greg in Tazewell, Virginia, Republican? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Good morning, Greg. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, I just got a couple short questions. | |
| On this National Guard situation, I don't understand why people would not welcome the National Guard into their cities to get rid of this lawlessness. | ||
| It don't make sense. | ||
| And why would the people of these cities vote for these crazy people that don't want to get rid of the lawlessness? | ||
| And I wish somebody asked them on TV, ask their daughter, would they let their daughter, 15-year-old daughter, walk down the street at 9 o'clock at night by theirself and see what their answer would be. | ||
| All right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And one other thing about this health insurance for wanting all this money, I'll just give you an example of some insurance I had while I used to work. | |
| The most I would have to pay when I'd go to the doctor over here would be like $350. | ||
| When Obamacare kicked in, it went to $12,000 that I had to pay, and I ended out, couldn't pay anything, so I just gave up my insurance. | ||
| And that's what the Republicans are trying to straighten out. | ||
| They're going to get that in order for you. | ||
| You had private insurance? | ||
| Is that what you were... | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| That was private insurance? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, it was through the through the company where I used to work. | |
| All right. | ||
| And it went from, like I said, about $350,000 at the most I would have to pay, and it went to $12,000 after that before they would pay anything. | ||
| For premium money. | ||
| Oh, for a deductible. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| Got it. | ||
| Well, the president was at the White House yesterday, and Secretary Pete Hegseth also were talking about those new Pentagon press restrictions. | ||
| Take a look. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Will you consider removing new restrictions on the press that report at the Pentagon? | |
| And have you spoken to Secretary Hegseth about this? | ||
| I have. | ||
| Well, he's finding, I mean, I think I can speak for him. | ||
| I'll let him speak for himself, but I think he finds the press to be very disruptive in terms of world peace and maybe security for our nation. | ||
| Press is very dishonest. | ||
| Not you, but the press is very dishonest. | ||
| You have something to say for us. | ||
| Well, I very much appreciate the question because it was interesting to watch. | ||
| We had a chance to go along on the historic trip of Middle East peace, which our generation of veterans never dreamed would be possible. | ||
| So you would think that the Pentagon Press Corps of all press corps would be front and center across the board on wanting to give credit to the president for forging this kind of peace. | ||
| And instead, what they want to talk about is a policy about them, which simply says maybe the policy should look like the White House or other military installations where you have to wear a badge that identifies that you're press or you can't just roam anywhere you want. | ||
| It used to be, Mr. President, the press could go anywhere, pretty much anywhere in the Pentagon, the most classified area in the world. | ||
| Or also that if they sign on to the credentialing, they're not going to try to get soldiers to break the law by giving them classified information. | ||
| So it's common sense stuff, Mr. President. | ||
| We're trying to make sure national security is respected and we're proud of the policy. | ||
| You know, we have an option here. | ||
| As you know, the press years ago moved into the White House. | ||
| It used to be across the street. | ||
| We could move them. | ||
| You're lucky I'm president because we could move them very easily across the street. | ||
| They used to be there. | ||
| They would have more room. | ||
| We have a beautiful, nice space. | ||
| You can sit all by yourselves and have fun. | ||
| Instead, you walk around the White House talking to anybody that can breathe. | ||
| But I find that when it comes to war, and now our great Department of War, we have some great people over there. | ||
| I think it's sort of, it bothers me to have soldiers and even, you know, high-ranking generals walking around with you guys on their sleeve asking because they can make a mistake and a mistake can be tragic. | ||
| They can do it innocently too. | ||
| They can, you know. | ||
| And they're not press people. | ||
| They don't really deal with the press, so they're not really necessarily good at it. | ||
| Although I think it's mostly instinctual one way or the other. | ||
| You're either good at things or you're not. | ||
| But I could see you being bothered by that. | ||
| So you have them in an area and you treat them fairly, but they're not allowed to go into much like somebody's office and sit with them for 10 hours. | ||
| And this is the Hill Hagseth Changes Pentagon Press Policy. | ||
| Five takeaways. | ||
| One thing it says here, all but one outlet refused to sign. | ||
| That's One America Network. | ||
| They're the ones that signed on to that. | ||
| It says, under the new rules, journalists are technically not barred from investigating, reporting, or publishing stories on the U.S. military using information deemed sensitive or unclassified, but they could be deemed a vague security or safety risk should they even ask Defense Department personnel for such information according to the rules. | ||
| That's at the Hill, and this is Johnny, Fort Deposit, Alabama. | ||
| Democrat, you're on the air, Johnny. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, question. | |
| Go ahead. | ||
| How many countries were involved in the peacekeeping in the Middle East? | ||
| Trump will try to take credit loans alone for the Mary, El Paso, Texas. | ||
| Republican, Mary, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, hi. | |
| No, I'm in Arizona. | ||
| But anyway, you know, who was on yesterday? | ||
| Was it Pedro? | ||
| I believe so. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, so a man called in and brought up the fact that a lot of the Democrat representatives are going to be at a five-star winery this weekend. | |
| Anyway, Pedro didn't look anything up about that. | ||
| Maybe you can. | ||
| So that's what they're doing. | ||
| Well, we just need five of their votes. | ||
| And I'm wondering who's paying for that as well. | ||
| Okay, well, we're people in our will never see a place like that ever. | ||
| So, Mary, my two parents. | ||
| We've got a Republican lawmaker coming on next, so I will ask them about that five-star, you said five-star winery. | ||
| Yes, sorry, a Democrat. | ||
| We've got a Democrat coming on. | ||
| So we'll end open forum here because coming up next, freshman Representative James Walkinshaw, a Democrat of Virginia and a member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, joins us. | ||
| He'll discuss the government shutdown and Democrat strategy. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Past president. | |
| Why are you doing this? | ||
| This is outrageous. | ||
| This is a kangaroo quarter. | ||
| Fridays, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity. | ||
| Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
| Politico Playbook chief correspondent and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns is host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the island to a dialogue. | ||
| Ceasefire, on the network that doesn't take sides. | ||
| Fridays at 7 and 10 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. | ||
| We have been watching C-SPAN Washington Journal for over 10 years now. | ||
| This is a great format that C-SPAN offers. | ||
| You're doing a great job. | ||
| I enjoy hearing everybody's opinion. | ||
| I'm a huge C-SPAN fan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I listen every morning on the way to work. | |
| I think C-SPAN should be required viewing for all three branches of government. | ||
| First of all, if you say hello, C-SPAN, and how you'll cover 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. | ||
| You and C-SPAN show the truth. | ||
| Back to year verse for C-SPAN. | ||
| It's the one essential news network. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| We're joined now by Representative James Walkinshaw, a Democrat of Virginia and a member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. | ||
| Welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having me. | |
| Before we talk, I just wanted to respond to the last caller about the winery. | ||
| This is Bloomberg. | ||
| Bloomberg government is reporting the senators holding holiday weekend fundraising trips amid shutdown. | ||
| This is from October 7th. | ||
| Senate Majority Leader Thun is among the senators from both parties who have weekend fundraising getaways planned as the government shutdown heads toward its second week. | ||
| Thun and other GOP senators have planned a fundraising trip this weekend to South Carolina. | ||
| Their Democratic counterparts have scheduled one with donors in California wine country, according to fundraising appeals sent to donors and other sources. | ||
| And just wanted to get back to that caller. | ||
| But you have just been elected to Congress. | ||
| You replaced the late Jerry Connolly. | ||
| Can you give us a little bit of an idea about your background? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Well, I'm a lifelong Northern Virginian. | ||
| My grandfather grew up on a farm near Dulles Airport and I spent my entire life with the exception of four years in college in Northern Virginia. | ||
| When I was 26 years old, Jerry Connolly asked me to be his chief of staff here in Washington. | ||
| And I spent 11 years serving as his chief of staff, advising him on a host of issues. | ||
| In 2019, I ran for the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, which is the governing body in Fairfax County. | ||
| I flipped a Republican-held seat and for the last five years represented about 130,000 people right in the middle of Fairfax County, including George Mason University. | ||
| When Congressman Connolly was diagnosed with cancer and made the decision not to seek reelection, he and I sat down and talked and he encouraged me to consider stepping into the race to succeed him. | ||
| And I was very fortunate to have been elected on September 9th, sworn into the House the next day on September 10th, and have been doing my best to represent my constituents in Virginia's 11th district since then. | ||
| And you're brand new to Congress, but you are in the middle of a shutdown now. | ||
| So could you give us the latest on what kind of negotiations are going on? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, there aren't really negotiations going on, unfortunately, especially in the House. | |
| And we are now in week four of the unplanned House recess. | ||
| Speaker Johnson has canceled votes again, so the Congressional Republicans are not here in Washington, not negotiating. | ||
| Democrats like myself are here. | ||
| We're ready to sit down and negotiate a compromise, but unfortunately, that can't take place when one side of that negotiation is not even in town. | ||
| So what's the long-term strategy then for Democrats? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think the long-term strategy is to continue to advocate to cancel the health care cuts to address the expiration of the Affordable Care Act, enhance premium tax credits. | |
| If we don't do that, just in my district, 19,000 people will see their health care premiums skyrocket. | ||
|
unidentified
|
On November 1st, the open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act opens. | |
| So the families who have now been receiving those notices that their premiums will go up are going to have to go to healthcare.gov or the respective state exchanges and make a decision about the health care coverage for their families next year. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I think that date, November 1st, is critical and could be a forcing function to get our Republican colleagues to the negotiating table to work out a compromise. | |
| Your Virginia district is very close to Washington, D.C. | ||
| It's home to about 55,000 federal workers. | ||
| What are you hearing from them? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So federal workers have experienced over the last nine months an assault from the Trump administration. | |
| So they've been fired, laid off, forced out. | ||
| They've had their public service to the nation, which I believe is noble service, denigrated and attacked for nine months. | ||
| So they are angry, frustrated, and fed up. | ||
| And I think they see this Trump shutdown as one more in that long list of assaults and attacks that they've experienced from the Trump administration. | ||
| So they want to see us negotiate. | ||
| They want to see a spending agreement that, yes, reopens the government, addresses the health care cuts, provides some protections for federal agencies and federal workers from the rescissions that we've seen from the illegal impoundment of federal funds where the Trump administration refuses to spend dollars that Congress actually funds and appropriates if they don't like that particular program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They want to see us accomplish all those things in a bipartisan negotiation. | |
| Our guest is James Walkinshaw, a Democrat of Virginia. | ||
| If you'd like to join our conversation and speak to him directly, you can do so. | ||
| Our lines are by parties. | ||
| Republicans, 202748, 8001. | ||
| Democrats, 202748, 8000. | ||
| And Independents, 202748, 8002. | ||
| We have a line for federal workers. | ||
| It's 202-748-8003. | ||
| You serve on the Oversight Committee. | ||
| And yesterday, OMB put this on X. | ||
| They said OMB is making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out the Democrats intransigence. | ||
| Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the rifts, and wait. | ||
| We understand the pay the troops, the pay law enforcement, where is that coming from and where would that money be found, if at all? | ||
| Do you have any idea? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that's a great question. | |
| I've read some reporting and speculation. | ||
| And look, the Anti-Deficiency Act is very clear about what the administration can and cannot do during a shutdown. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They cannot incur new obligations. | |
| They cannot expend money except when it's required to fulfill a constitutional duty or to preserve life and property. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I have a lot of questions about how they would intend to do that. | |
| You know, we've seen with paying the troops an effort, and they haven't really explained it to use unobligated funds at the Pentagon for which the Appropriations Act have given some transfer authority. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So it's possible that there's a legal mechanism to do that. | |
| I haven't seen a similar explanation for paying law enforcement, but I'd be eager to review it. | ||
| They just haven't explained it. | ||
| Let's talk to callers now. | ||
| Start with Vicki in Lincoln, Nebraska Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Vicki. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I just want to compliment C-SPAN about how when people call in and complain about the other party, which I'm not going to do that, how you guys let them go on and on. | ||
| This is what I love about C-SPAN. | ||
| It's my favorite show because you let people be what they are. | ||
| And this is a safe place for us to voice our opinions. | ||
| And for the Democrat that's on the gentleman, I would just like to thank you for what you're doing. | ||
| I do believe the shutdown is something that has been caused by the Republicans and their revenge. | ||
| I feel like it's just we have to get back to doing the right thing for the people. | ||
| And I want to thank you, sir, for what you do. | ||
| And also, you might have somebody look into this. | ||
| In Nebraska, it just hit the news recently about 11 people getting left off, left out of a job at the state because they do collections and we're owed like $100 million. | ||
| So why would you get rid of people that that's their job? | ||
| You might want to look at that and have a Nebraska representative on and explain that to us. | ||
| All right, Vicki. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| I'm not aware of that situation in Nebraska, but we'll certainly look into it. | ||
| Yeah, thank you. | ||
| Here's Melissa in Bloomfield, Iowa Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, thanks for taking my call. | |
| Representative, I know we're all concerned about the shutdown and everything, but I'd like your opinion and to explain to everybody why there are a few Independents and a Democrat in the Senate that is voting for this continuing resolution, which isn't adding any more money. | ||
| It's just keeping the lights on and keeping the bills paid. | ||
| Why you guys don't think it's important enough to vote for the so-called federal workers that you're worried about when all you're worried about is the illegals getting to stay on medical insurance. | ||
| When I'm sorry, but they don't belong here. | ||
| They need to go. | ||
| They need to quit living off of all of us. | ||
| All right, Melissa. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thank you for the question. | |
| And I think if you look at the situation with respect to the shutdown right now, what has happened in the Senate is you have a Republican spending proposal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And from my perspective and the perspective of most Democrats, that proposal locks in devastating cuts to health care for Americans, especially Americans in rural communities. | |
| That proposal has failed in the Senate because it hasn't received 60 votes. | ||
| There's also a Democratic proposal that Democrats have put on the table that would cancel the health care cuts, fund the government, provide some protections for the federal workers that I represent. | ||
| I acknowledge that that Democratic proposal also doesn't have 60 votes in the Senate. | ||
| I think most Americans out there across the country recognize when you have two competing proposals, neither of which have enough support to move forward, the logical thing to do, what we do in our families and our businesses and in our communities is we sit down at a table like this and we bring those two proposals together and we try to negotiate a compromise and reach a middle ground. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that's what I and other Democrats here in Washington are trying to do. | |
| Unfortunately, our Republican colleagues are not willing to sit down at a table like this or a table in the Capitol to negotiate that kind of compromise. | ||
| Now, the caller asks you why you want to support a bill that would allow illegals onto medical insurance. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I realize this is a talking point that some of my Republican colleagues have been saying and the President has been saying. | |
| It's flat out untrue. | ||
| The Affordable Care Act exchanges, and that's fundamentally what we're talking about here with the tax credits that are expiring. | ||
| Somebody who's undocumented or illegal, as a caller defined it, is not eligible. | ||
| Not only are they not eligible for the tax credits that we're talking about, they're not eligible to be on the Affordable Care Act exchanges at all. | ||
| So, the folks that we're talking about who are going to have their health care premiums skyrocket, in some cases, double or triple, are everyday Americans, just like the caller out there, like 19,000 folks that I represent in Virginia and tens of thousands of people in every congressional district across the country who are law-abiding, tax-paying citizens of the United States of America, who, starting November 1st, | ||
| are going to log in to healthcare.gov or the respective state exchanges and see that their premiums have skyrocketed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're fighting to prevent that. | |
| Congressman Walkenshaw, there is a provision in the Democrat plan to roll back the Medicaid cuts from the One Big Beautiful bill. | ||
| Wouldn't some of those rollbacks allow undocumented immigrants to access Medicaid? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, undocumented immigrants are not eligible for comprehensive Medicaid or Medicare. | |
| I think the kernel of truth that some Republicans are using to advance this false assertion is that there is a program in Medicaid that allows for somebody who shows up at the emergency room, someone who has a serious injury or a serious illness, and because they don't have health insurance coverage, if they're undocumented in this country, if they show up at the emergency room, in many cases, a life-threatening situation, they can get that care at the emergency room. | ||
| This is MTALA. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's right. | |
| But that would, that's currently in place. | ||
| I mean, that's the only thing that's been in place since Ronald. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's been in place since Ronald Reagan. | |
| That's right. | ||
| And I think that is the kernel of truth that some Republicans are saying to assert that we are advocating to give more. | ||
| Although there are some states that have elected to offer Medicaid coverage to undocumented immigrants. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's right. | |
| And states can make that decision on their own, and they could change that policy if they want to. | ||
| Here's Em in Dayton, Ohio. | ||
| Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Em. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I appreciate you letting me call. | |
| And you all have a very good day. | ||
| But my concern is during this shutdown and why they're wanting to stop pay from all the federal employees and they are wanting to cut out the Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, all this stuff. | ||
| How are they able to send all this money to other countries? | ||
| And why would they cut out medical needs for the United States citizens that have paid all their lives that they have worked into making tax cuts for the billionaires? | ||
| What they're not saying is how much of a deficit that will add to our debt, our debt. | ||
| If you look at how much tax breaks they're wanting to give, that is more cost to our debt than the medical part is. | ||
| All right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have to say my let's get into response, Em. | |
| Yeah, you're absolutely right. | ||
| And one of the things that makes me most angry, and I wasn't here when the Republicans in Congress passed the so-called Big Beautiful bill that gave permanent tax cuts to corporations, 10 years of tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, including billionaires, exploding and driving up the national debt and deficit. | ||
| And today, those same Republicans who voted to do that, permanent tax cuts for corporations, long-term tax cuts for billionaires, aren't even willing to provide hardworking, middle-class, working-class Americans even a temporary extension of the enhanced premium tax credits to help them afford their health insurance. | ||
| Look, this Republican Congress has been picking the pockets of hardworking Americans and lining the pockets of billionaires and corporations, and that needs to come to an end. | ||
| Annie, St. Petersburg, Florida, Democrat, good morning, Annie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, good morning. | |
| It's so nice to have someone on here that you are a very brave person. | ||
| Kudos to you. | ||
| Thank you, and welcome to the House of Representatives. | ||
| I'm calling to ask a couple questions. | ||
| First off, my son's a Marine in San Diego. | ||
| He has not received not a penny of money yet. | ||
| Also, I was wondering how you feel about the Congressman not being sworn in. | ||
| Yeah, thank you for your question. | ||
| Thank your son for his service. | ||
| I hope he'll get that paycheck today. | ||
| Today is the 15th when our troops are supposed to get their paychecks. | ||
| If that doesn't happen, he should reach out to his member of Congress and try to figure out what's going on there. | ||
| Yeah, with respect to Congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva, who was elected in a special election several weeks ago. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Look, I was elected on September 9th and sworn in the next day. | |
| And I was the 217th signature on the discharge petition that will force a vote to release the Epstein files. | ||
| That petition needs 218 signatures for the vote to take place. | ||
| Congresswoman-elect Grijalva will be, and she has said this, the 218th signature, which means we would proceed to a vote. | ||
| I think it's quite clear that Speaker Johnson is not bringing the House back in session because he doesn't want to afford her the opportunity to sign that discharge petition and doesn't want to deal with the challenge that he knows a vote on the floor of the House to release those files would create. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And he doesn't want to anger Donald Trump. | |
| For some reason, Donald Trump doesn't want us to know what's in the Epstein files. | ||
| And it is an astounding thing that the House of Representatives has been on a multi-week recess just so we can avoid a vote on releasing those files. | ||
| We have a text from Ken in Seabrook, Texas. | ||
| Why doesn't Congress just pass a law that prevents shutdowns when there is a budget impasse? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, there have been a number of proposals and discussions over the years about reforming the budget process. | |
| Foundationally, you know, the Constitution lays out Congress's role in appropriating your taxpayer dollars and ensuring that those dollars can only be spent if Congress passes legislation, your elected representatives pass legislation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, I do think there can be reforms to streamline the budget process. | |
| The process that we're using now in Congress does date from the 70s. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But at the end of the day, the Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse. | |
| From my perspective, some of my Republican colleagues have ceded already, have ceded much of that power to President Trump. | ||
| And I think from a small D Democratic perspective, it's important that we preserve that as your elected representatives. | ||
| Akron, Ohio, Independent Line. | ||
| Terry, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, thanks for the call. | |
| Letting me call. | ||
| I think the Republicans must think that the voters are stupid. | ||
| When Donald Trump can make a deal or the Republicans can make a deal and then turn around and reneg on it and just change it, I think that's really why the Democrats are holding the line. | ||
| Please explain to the American people this whole rescission process. | ||
| We can't trust the Republicans if they make a deal on something and then they can just turn around and say, oh, well, we'll just change that money and send it somewhere else. | ||
| I think you should. | ||
| All right, Terry. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, it's a great point, Terry. | |
| And, you know, I'll try to explain what's been happening. | ||
| As we discussed during this shutdown for an appropriations bill or a continuing resolution to pass the Senate, it requires 60 votes because of the filibuster currently, which means there has to be a bipartisan negotiation. | ||
| So from the perspective of Democrats, what's been happening throughout this Trump administration is that they've been participating. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We've been participating in good faith in those negotiations and compromising on some of the things that we would like to see so that we can reach an agreement, get to 60 votes in the Senate and move forward and fund the government. | |
| So imagine you were negotiating with a business partner or with your neighbor, and you compromise on some things, but you fight for and get some things in that negotiation on Tuesday. | ||
| And then on Wednesday, your neighbor comes to you or your business partner comes to you and says, you know, all those things that you just got in that negotiation that were really important to you. | ||
| Actually, I'm not going to do any of those things because I've decided I don't want to do them. | ||
| That's what the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have been doing with the rescissions packages, which only require 50 votes. | ||
| The Trump administration has also been doing that without even coming to Congress by, in my view, illegally impounding appropriated dollars and refusing to operate offices and agencies and programs just because they don't meet their political goals or agenda. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So that is absolutely a serious issue. | |
| And it's an issue that Democrats and Republicans should be concerned about because right now a Republican president is doing it. | ||
| But I try to remind my Republican colleagues in Congress, if a Republican president can do it, a Democratic president can do it in the future as well. | ||
| I want to ask you about the deployment of National Guard troops in American cities here in D.C. | ||
| We have the National Guard. | ||
| What are your thoughts on that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, look, I came from local government. | |
| And in Fairfax County, we have been and are the safest large jurisdiction in the United States of America with the lowest violent crime rate. | ||
| And the way you accomplish that is having a well-funded, highly trained, professional local police department that's connected to the community, that has relationships with the community. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That is a much better approach than the National Guard, as much respect as I have for those troops. | |
| You need a well-funded local law enforcement that knows the community, can engage with the community over the long term to bring crime rates down. | ||
| What we've seen from the Trump administration is they make a big show about public safety with National Guard and long guns and huge apparatus in the streets. | ||
| At the same time, they're trying to defund federal support for local law enforcement. | ||
| So even here in the D.C. region, recently announced Department of Homeland Security is defunding an important regional program that helped us in the D.C. region, all the local jurisdictions coordinate and work together to prevent terrorism and advance public safety. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So they're making a big show on social media with National Guard on one side. | |
| At the same time, they're defunding local law enforcement and public safety. | ||
| I don't think that's the right approach. | ||
| Here's Earl in Indiana, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Earl. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I tell you, this guy, he's a new one, and he knows the Democrats, the only thing they want is to get through this insurance for the people that are in here illegal. | |
| Trump has said he's going to clean up these cities and look at all the killings. | ||
| How can you condone killings? | ||
| This guy is stupid. | ||
| All right. | ||
| We're not going to call our guests stupid. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's all right. | |
| I've been called worse. | ||
| But talk about this idea of cleaning up cities and why would anybody be against that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I don't think anyone is against it. | |
| I'm certainly not against it. | ||
| Like I said, you know, on the local government level, I've been involved in that public safety work. | ||
| I know how you have a safe community, and it's by funding your law enforcement, investing in your communities, building partnerships over time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's how you bring down crime rates. | |
| We have seen, thankfully, across the country, you know, we saw a crime wave at the tail end of Trump's first administration that took hold. | ||
| We've seen in the last year crime coming down across our cities and across the countries long before any of these National Guard deployments. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I certainly hope that that trend will continue and believe that it will. | |
| But the way to do it is investing in our local law enforcement. | ||
| And that's why I'm opposed to Trump's budgets that have tried to defund local police. | ||
| I'm going to continue to push for federal money to get more local law enforcement on the streets of American cities in our communities to partner with everyone in those communities to keep ourselves safe. | ||
| Line for Democrats in East Orange, New Jersey. | ||
| Tanya, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Thank you, Felix. | ||
| I'm letting you call. | ||
| I just wanted to, I appreciate everything that he is saying, and that's some of what I was saying. | ||
| I'm listening to what he was talking about. | ||
| But at the same time, I think from the start, when they dubbed it the Obamacare, instead of calling it the Affordable Care Act, because I remember Nancy Pelosi daughter at Alexandria, she did this documentary. | ||
| And a lot of people did not even know that the system was going to be great for them by calling it the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| But when they called it the Obamacare, they didn't want it. | ||
| So I think from the beginning, they were trying to gut it. | ||
| So now that people found out that the Obamacare was for them, they're going through another avenue of saying, oh, now the illegals, when in actuality, if anybody goes to the hospital, they're going to be seen. | ||
| This hospital needs funding. | ||
| So mind you, they said, okay, each state is responsible for expanding their Medicaid or Medicare, whichever one. | ||
| They didn't do it. | ||
| So now this hospital is dependent on the community. | ||
| And now you have the hospital closing because there is no money. | ||
| So this whole shutdown thing, yes, because the hospital needs the money. | ||
| They need this extension. | ||
| They need the expansion. | ||
| And these people do not understand that because this is just another avenue for them to discredit the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| Got it, Tanya. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I think you made some really great points, Tanya. | |
| And I think this discussion about the Affordable Care Act and the exchanges and the tax credits is a good opportunity to talk about the successes of the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| Had we not passed the Affordable Care Act, there would be an additional 20 to 25 million people in this country today who have no health care coverage. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Had we not passed the Affordable Care Act, millions of people in this country wouldn't have access to preventive care, including cancer screenings. | |
| There are thousands of people in this country alive today because their Affordable Care Act coverage allowed them to have their cancer detected early enough that it could be treated. | ||
| But, Congressman, the argument being made is if it's so affordable, why do they require these tax credits and subsidies from the government? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, there's a lot of studies that demonstrate that health care premiums and costs would be much higher today if the Affordable Care Act hadn't passed. | |
| So they're not certainly as low as we would like them to be, and we need to do more to control costs. | ||
| One of the reasons, though, the premium tax credits are so critical in this moment is that we're facing a broad affordability crisis in this country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're facing a housing affordability crisis. | |
| We're facing a grocery affordability crisis. | ||
| Coffee up 20%, ground beef up 12%. | ||
| Groceries are expensive, and they've gotten more expensive in the nine months that Donald Trump has been in the White House. | ||
| So one of the reasons those tax credits are so critical right now is not just health care costs are high, but costs are high for Americans. | ||
| Gary, an Arkansas Republican, you're on the air, Gary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I don't think I think it's crazy. | |
| And the dude that's talking right now, he shut it down himself. | ||
| And everybody else and the Democrats shut it down, okay? | ||
| Thank you, Gary. | ||
| Obviously, I disagree with that take on it. | ||
| From my perspective, President Trump and Republicans in Congress are so dead set on driving up health care costs that they were willing to let the government shut down over it. | ||
| Marina, Dearborn, Michigan, Independent, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
In the White House. | |
| Hello. | ||
| How are you? | ||
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks. | |
| I'm calling because I'm so frustrated how often the government shuts down and how the people protecting our country do not get paid from military to custom border immigration. | ||
| The U.S. Marshals. | ||
| This has to come to an end. | ||
| This is ridiculous. | ||
| I'm not blaming the side because the Republicans and the Democrats are both to blame for this. | ||
| said, how come the Senate, if they're not on vacation, how come they're not, how are you? | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| You're getting confused with the feedback. | ||
| But was there a question, Marina? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, how come the Congress can't go to work without getting paid and use their money to pay our military? | |
| I think that is a very fair question. | ||
| And the Constitution does require that members of Congress get paid, whether the government is shut down or not. | ||
| A number of us, myself included, are having our pay voluntarily withheld until the shutdown ends. | ||
| As I noted, I represent a lot of federal workers, most of whom, many of whom are working today and won't be getting their paychecks until the shutdown ends. | ||
| So I feel like myself and members of Congress should be in that same situation. | ||
| But the legal answer to your question is the Constitution does require that members of Congress get paid. | ||
| Karen in Nebraska, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Karen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Require that. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Hi. | ||
| I would like to ask the representative. | ||
| My niece is going to lose her Obamacare at the beginning of the year. | ||
| And I realize the military are very, very important and they deserve to make sure that they get paid. | ||
| But what about the working poor? | ||
| And then I have another question. | ||
| I wanted to ask why the Department of Justice is asking the state department or Nebraska's Secretary of State for the voter roles. | ||
| Let's get an answer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thank you. | |
| And first, I hope that we're successful in this fight to preserve health care for your daughter and millions of Americans who desperately need it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I agree with you absolutely. | |
| We honor our military and our troops and want them to get paid for the incredible service that they provide. | ||
| And we want folks to be able to afford health care in this country, folks like your daughter. | ||
| With respect to the second question, the second question was about the voter roles. | ||
| Yeah, look, I think this is very, very troubling. | ||
| You know, elections in the United States of America are administered by the states. | ||
| And that's also in the Constitution and enshrined in federal and state law. | ||
| It is very concerning to me that the Trump administration and the Department of Justice, and historically, at least in the modern era, there's been something of a firewall between the White House and the Department of Justice. | ||
| We know that doesn't exist with this White House. | ||
| They serve Donald Trump's whims just as the rest of his cabinet do. | ||
| It's very concerning to me that they're asking for access to voter rolls. | ||
| Look, states have the ability to pass laws if they feel like they need to make reforms to their voter registration process, if they're concerned about the potential as rare as it is for voter fraud. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There's no reason for the Trump administration to have access to that information. | |
| All right, that's Representative James Walkinshaw, a Democrat of Virginia and member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. | ||
| Thanks so much for joining us today. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| And that does it for us today. | ||
| We're back tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| We're going to take you right over to the Capitol where Speaker Johnson is set to begin a press conference. | ||
| This is live coverage here on C-SPAN. | ||
| Thanks for watching, everybody. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're done. |