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Oct. 19, 2025 11:00-13:05 - CSPAN

02:04:41

Washington Journal

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tammy thueringer

cspan 15:13

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brian lamb

cspan 00:53

kevin stitt

01:21

wes moore

d 01:16

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dasha burns

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david rubenstein

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john grisham

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shane connor

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		Congress returns in the week ahead with the federal government still shut down.
		House Republican leaders have canceled votes for a fifth week, awaiting Senate approval of short-term funding to reopen the government.
		Only brief sessions will be held returning on Tuesday, with most members back in their districts unless instructed to return with 48 hours notice.
		The Senate gavels in on Monday at 3 p.m. Eastern.
		Lawmakers will be voting for the 11th time to advance short-term government funding legislation by Republicans to reopen the government.
		Senators will also vote on several of President Trump's judicial nominations for U.S. district courts.
		Watch live coverage of the House on C-SPAN, see the Senate on C-SPAN2.
		And all of our congressional coverage is available on our free video app, C-SPAN Now, and on our website, c-span.org.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Joining us now to discuss the impacts and political ramification of the government debt shutdown are two former U.S. Representatives, Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia, and Steve Israel, Democrat of New York.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Congressman, thank you so much for joining us on the program.
unidentified		Thanks for having us.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We will get to the shutdown, but first, I know you're familiar faces probably to our audience, but discuss your backgrounds and your service in Congress.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Davis, we'll start with you.
unidentified		Yeah, I was, well, I was the head of the county government out in Fairfax County, Virginia, chairman of the county board, so our equivalent of mayor before I came to Congress.
		I served seven terms.
		I was chairman of the Republican Campaign Committee for two cycles and chairman of the House Oversight Committee and was a very active legislator.
		And I left Congress undefeated and unindicted.
		Something I'm very proud of.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		And Congressman Israel.
unidentified		Yeah, you represented Long Island, New York for 16 years.
		When I got to Congress, the one guy I feared the most was Tom Davis because he was the chairman of the Republican Committee and I was squarely in his crosshairs.
		I chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
		And I think I'm one of two members, former members, who, like Davis, left Congress undefeated and unindicted.
		I left Congress to open up a bookstore and write books.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		A point of pride these days, not being indicted.
		Well, let's talk a little bit about the shutdown that's happening right now.
		It's the 21st lapse in funding since 1980, those lapses resulting in 10 shutdowns.
		You both serving during those times.
		Did the shutdown of the government achieve anything politically and or benefit your party's Congressman Davis?
unidentified		Well, I represented a district with 50,000 federal employees.
		So shutting down the government, I'd vote whichever party wanted to open up the government, put my people back to work.
		I think it was different imperatives in those days than it is today.
		And just to take a second to sketch what's happened over the last 30 years, most of these members are from single-party districts, so they don't care about the voters at large.
		They care about their primary voters.
		Their primary voters all receive different information.
		Republicans get different information.
		They watch different news media.
		They get different feeds than Democrats.
		So there's a huge misunderstanding.
		And the end result is when members come to Congress, the minority party is no longer a minority shareholder in government.
		They're the opposition party.
		And open the government, it takes Democratic votes in the Senate.
		The Republicans preside over the Senate, but it takes 60 votes in the Senate, and they need Democratic cooperation to do that.
		And they're not getting it right now because the Democrats have an argument that's my way or the highway.
		Republicans have used it.
		Traditionally, as you know, we continue government at usual spending limits and negotiate.
		I think the Democrats this time felt a lot of pressure from their base to stand up to Trump.
		And so the government shut down and we are where we are.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		And Congressman Israel, your reaction to what Congressman Davis just said about the pressure on Democrats.
unidentified		Well, it turns out there's pressure on everyone.
		There was an AP Nork poll out just a few days ago that said that exactly what has happened in past shutdowns, at a certain point, the electorate, the American people, blame everybody.
		It becomes a pox on all your houses.
		Shutdowns tend to benefit one party for a moment and then maybe benefit another.
		But what happens inevitably is voters begin to become disgusted with it.
		You know, it may animate the base of the Republican base or the Democratic base, but at a certain point, it begins to rebound.
		Voters just want it solved.
		They become tired of the posturing and they don't want to vote based on who's winning the shutdown fight, but based on who's going to end the shutdown.
		I think that you're beginning to see that now, kind of the equalization of blame and responsibility.
		Also, members go home.
		Tom knows this very well.
		Tom, I don't know how many members that I had during shutdowns, candidates, incumbents, who would come back and say, look, I'm just catching hell at home.
		You've got to figure a way out of this.
		The leadership has to figure a way out of this.
		And that's when both parties begin to calculate differently.
		They begin focusing on a way out rather than digging very much deeper.
		Let me just say one other thing.
		You can credit one party or the other.
		You know who really gets hurt in this?
		The American people.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Israel, you just talked about that new AP NORC poll.
		Wanted to show a chart or the results of that polling.
		Who's responsible for the shutdown?
		This is the, it reflects the overall respondents.
		58%, said President Trump, 58% congressional Republicans, 54% congressional Democrats.
		When we look at blame, is it a potential political motivator, especially outside a party's base and among independents?
unidentified		Well, I don't, ultimately, a shutdown has no electoral consequences, never has and never will.
		They're basically forgotten.
		People in a midterm election or a congressional election, Tammy, are voting on the economy.
		They're voting on jobs.
		They're voting on paychecks.
		And they're also voting as a referendum on the president who happens to be there at the time.
		I can't think, and Tom is a political trivia expert, I cannot think of a shutdown that even registered in polls in the next congressional election.
		So they're magnified at the moment, but I don't think they have long-term electoral consequences.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Former Congressman Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia, and Steve Israel, Democrat of New York, are joining us for the next 35 minutes or so talking about the government shutdown and the impacts and political ramifications.
		If you have a question or comment for them, you can start calling in now the lines, Republicans 202-748-8001, Democrats 202-748-8000, and Independents 202-748-8002.
		If you are a federal worker, you can go ahead and give us a call at 202-748-8003.
		Congressman Davis, it's the current shutdown.
		Democrats want to extend these expiring ACA subsidies.
		That's at the heart of the matter.
		Republicans say they have to pass the clean spending bill before they're willing to negotiate.
		Is lack of trust a key problem here?
unidentified		Well, I think there is a lack of trust between the two parties, and I think it's accelerated over the last few years, and I think that's part of the problem here.
		But just remember this, traditionally before this, 13 times, Democrats have voted for what's called a clean CR, which the Republicans have offered this time.
		I think this time the Democratic base really does not like Donald Trump, and they want him to fight.
		The problem is federal government, employees are held hostage to this.
		And they're the hostages in this thing.
		Not just that they're not getting paid, but key services plans aren't being processed.
		And we're starting to see some squeaking from all sides at this point as the public becomes more fed up with this.
		I think maybe one party ends up playing its hand.
		They might be winning at the beginning.
		But at this point, this is going to affect turnout, people not showing up that might have shown up and the like instead of taking it out on one party or the other.
		And Steve's right.
		I've seen very little ramifications the following November to these shutdowns that generally happen the year before.
		There may be some ramifications in the races in Virginia this year, in particular where you have Northern Virginia is a third of the state vote, a lot of federal employees and contractors that are affected by this.
		Remember, federal contractors also aren't getting paid during this period of time.
		And federal contracts, people are not allowed to work on those contracts in some cases.
		And so companies have to decide, do we keep our people on or do we let them go?
		Or do we just eat the costs?
		Depending how long this goes on, that's going to have ramifications.
		And I think that has ramifications in the Virginia governor's race and the statewide races there.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Israel, your colleague Tom Davis, just mentioning the CR.
		The current version would extend funding through November 21st if it was passed.
		If that were to happen, do you think anything would be different when it comes to negotiating those ACA subsidies?
unidentified		Look, the Republicans must negotiate and must extend those subsidies for people who are already paying premiums that are way too high or may lose their health insurance.
		If the Republicans go into next year without extending these subsidies, that will have an impact on the midterm elections.
		People will remember that their premiums increased by threefold or fourfold or that they lost their insurance when they go vote.
		They won't remember a shutdown.
		And so I think that the Republicans, at some point, they've got to negotiate this.
		Now, if you're a Democrat and you're in the minority and you just don't have the votes to get what you need, this is the only shot you have.
		The Republicans need your votes.
		And I don't know, I think Tom would agree with this.
		In every scenario, in my 16 years in Congress, when both parties had to strike a deal, when one party needed the other, then the final deal reflected the values and priorities of both parties.
		In this case, it is a value and priority of Democrats to extend those subsidies.
		It is the only leverage they have.
		And because their votes are needed to pass a clean CR or any other kind of CR, this is what's in their armaments.
		This is what they get to negotiate with.
		And they also know that the Republicans can't go much past January 1st without fixing this.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Davis, do you agree with what he just said?
unidentified		I agree with what he's saying, but I would add that these subsidies don't expire until December 31.
		The group that put the end date on these subsidies were the Democrats who passed this extra money as part of the Recovery Act and put the expiration date, December 31.
		These were Democratic initiatives put in during COVID.
		They're going to be temporary.
		Now they want to make them permanent.
		It's a trillion dollars.
		And let me make this point.
		We're spending more money today for interest on the national debt than we are for national defense.
		This is crazy.
		And nobody seems to care until all of a sudden it hits.
		I said it's fine until it isn't.
		And this is unsustainable.
		We know this doesn't end well.
		We just don't know when it doesn't end well.
		And nobody wants to stop the party.
		We saw this when the Republicans went through the tax cut extensions and the like.
		Basically extending national debt by making sure these tax cuts could continue.
		Now, I understand the reasons for that.
		They were in a hole not disagreeing with it, but somewhere, sometime, this is going to hit.
		And it's not going to be pretty.
		And this is just another example of, well, let's spend another trillion dollars and keep the voters happy so we can go on and get elected.
		You can't continue to do this.
		And I think some Republicans have dug in on this and have said, look, we'll negotiate this, but you don't get the whole vote.
		We may have to put some income limits on who's getting the subsidies and the like.
		This was Obamacare.
		This was supposed to be paid for itself, and it hasn't worked out that way.
		Medical costs have continued to rise.
		And this is a result of that.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We have callers waiting to talk with you both.
		Let's start with Betty's calling from Crossville, Tennessee, on the line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Betty.
unidentified		Good morning.
unidentified		How are you?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We're doing well, Betty.
unidentified		I am agreeing with both Tom and Steve, but Tom cleaned up what Steve said, and I appreciate that, Mr. Tom.
		You are.
		Yeah, and I am agreeing.
		But there's one thing I want to say.
		I kind of blame President Biden and the Democrats for letting and allowing our borders to stay open for the illegals to come in, and then they won't want to fund their health care.
		A lot of those illegals should not have come across our borders.
		And some of them did need help.
		I think that is true.
		I was born in the U.S. My father, he fought in World War II for our freedom.
		And I want to thank you for allowing me to speak on this Republican line today.
		I don't blame Mr. Trump.
		I voted for him both times.
		I don't blame the Republicans.
		And I love Speaker Johnson.
		I love the Republican Party and our Senator, Marcia Blackburn.
		I've reached out to her a couple of times about a couple of issues.
		But I do blame the Biden administration.
		That's the final line.
		I can't go.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Betty and Congressman Israel.
		I saw you shaking your head.
		We'll give you a chance to respond first and then Congressman Davis.
unidentified		Betty, with all the respect in the world, and thank you for calling in early on a Sunday.
		What you said is just not true.
		It's not accurate.
		It's not true.
		It is being pumped out by some.
		And even Republican leaders have stopped using, many Republican leaders have stopped using that argument.
		The enhanced tax credits cannot be provided to people who came here illegally.
		They just can't, and they're not.
		This is just factually incorrect.
		If you cross the border illegally, if you came here illegally, you cannot get the Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act benefits, and you certainly don't get those premiums.
		Those premiums are for hardworking, middle-class Americans and working Americans who now, for the first time, actually have health insurance as opposed to having to get sicker because the health insurance companies gouged them and they couldn't afford to pay premiums.
		They now have health insurance.
		They're working hard.
		They want to stay healthy.
		They want their families to stay healthy.
		And this protects them against skyrocketing premium increases by the health insurance companies.
		This is something that Republicans and Democrats agreed on.
		Now, if you want to repeal Obamacare, which the Republicans and President Trump have attempted to do dozens and dozens of times, go for it.
		Go do it.
		You don't like the Affordable Care Act?
		Repeal it.
		But they haven't been able to because they know it's so dicey.
		So instead, they find other aspects of it that they want to repeal or reduce.
		This is one of them.
		This has nothing to do with illegal immigration.
		We ought to protect our borders, strengthen our borders.
		I'm all for that.
		But we ought not fall into the trap, this conspiracy theory that the Democrats want to shut down the government in order to provide free health care to illegal immigrants.
		It's just not true.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Davis.
unidentified		Yeah, look, the Obamacare had many ramifications.
		Part of it was the premium support Steve's talking about.
		The other part of it was Medicaid expansion, and some states have elected to give people who are here undocumented Medicaid dollars.
		But I think the point here is what the Republicans are arguing is that hospitals take anybody who comes in there, including illegals.
		They don't ask questions in their reimbursements.
		And I think that's how they get to that question.
		But I think Steve is right fundamentally that in terms of the premium support, basically people that are here illegally are not eligible for those policies.
		I think I got that right, Steve.
		Yep.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Richard, who's calling from New Jersey on the line for Democrats.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Richard.
unidentified		Hi.
		Thank you both for having the intentional fortitude of being on C-SPAN.
		I have a question for Mr. Davis about something Mike Johnson said.
		But first, let me make a quick comment about the division in the country.
		When I look down from the 20,000-foot level, what I see is one party who basically wants to give away the farm.
		They want to, you know, feed the hungry, close the naked, you know, take care of the sick.
		Everybody should share both here and abroad.
		I call that party the lovers, okay?
		The other party, the leader of that party, gets up and says how much he hates Half of America.
		The guts of that party were those people marching in Charlottesville.
		I call those people the haters.
		Now, both hate and love are very important human feelings and often can lead to very bad things and extremes.
		Now, the question about what Mike Johnson said.
		Mike Johnson called Democrats socialists and communists and Marxists.
		Funny thing, he didn't call them fascists.
		Now, my question to you, Mr. Davis, are you anti-fascist or are you pro-fascist or okay with fascism?
		Which is it?
		Which do you think?
		Well, I'm certainly not fascists.
		I believe in the democratic system.
		I think my congressional and my whole electoral career, I've been that, but I don't divide us into lovers and haters.
		I think that there's love and hate in both parties because these are coalitions.
		And coalitions are pretty disparate sometimes when you get within that group.
		There are dissonant elements within those coalitions that make it up.
		And you have some people that feel very intensely sometimes, and sometimes that turns into hate.
		I mean, look at the Democratic candidate for Attorney General of Virginia talking about wanting to put two bullets into the Speaker of the House, the Republican Speaker of the House, have their children die, piss on their graves.
		Those are the kind of language that's not a lover.
		I think you have it on both sides.
		And I think sometimes, depending on the information we receive, we tend to look at the world as black and white.
		Steve, I think we look at it as a little bit more gray because we've been there and fought the campaigns and recognized that sometimes it's not as clear-cut as it looks to people.
		This is a struggle for power.
		You do have different worldviews and philosophies that divide the parties.
		We say the parties are ideologically sorted today.
		But I think there's a lot of love in both parties, and there's some hate among people who take this stuff very, very seriously sometimes, get intensified.
		Certainly the people that shot Steve Scalia, Charlie Kirk, these weren't lovers.
		And so I think both parties would disown those kinds of people, but you can't always control them.
		Tammy, may I get on?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Please go ahead.
unidentified		First of all, thank you, Tom.
		I agree with you completely.
		Look, Tom Davis was the guy who wanted to defeat me when he chaired the National Republican Campaign Committee.
		And my job was to try and defeat Republicans.
		But at the end of the day, people like Tom Davis and myself and many others understood that the politics ended on Election Day.
		And then you had to govern.
		Then you had to work together.
		And there were quite a few, Democrats and Republicans, who managed to reconcile their differences and realize if each party could get something, we could move not further to the right, further to the left, but forward.
		The problem now is all the energy is on the further left and further right.
		You saw the No Kings rally over the weekend, 7 million people on the streets.
		You saw the Tea Party come to Congress and the Trump rallies.
		All the energy has drifted further to the left and further to the right where it happens to be louder.
		But I think, and I think Tom would agree with me, most Americans see themselves more towards the center.
		And they deserve more members of Congress who are willing to find some common ground and not follow the lead to those extremes.
		The problem is, as Tom said before, Congress is so gerrymandered now, and the nation seems to be kind of sorting itself out ideologically that most members of Congress don't fear being beaten by the opposite party, but by somebody on their left flank or right flank.
		And that's become very dangerous, and I think helps explain why we see the kind of vitriol that we do on both sides.
		Let me add to that.
		I think I would put it like 85% of the House members, the only race that matters is the primary.
		November is what we call a constitutional formality.
		These districts are so sordid, and it's about to get worse.
		But with what, California and California, they're asking California voters to be complicit in this now, in Texas, in other states where these legislatures are now gerrymandering, basically taking voters out of the equation in November.
		So no wonder members cater to their own party and more of the extremes of that party because that's where the energy factors tend to be in primary elections.
		And it's just driven us apart as a country and made compromise punishable instead of being rewarded.
		And politicians like to be rewarded and like to get re-elected.
		And I think that's fundamentally part of the problem.
		The other party goes, how do people get their information?
		Democrats get their information from completely different sources than Republicans.
		People are fed algorithms.
		The in-depth, where do you get in-depth news you can trust?
		Very difficult to sort that out.
		These are business models where newspapers and cable TV, they're all trying to stay alive.
		And so they have to feed their beast every day and feed a certain group to keep their eyeballs and their ears attuned.
		And it's been a very polarizing factor, and very few politicians can rise above that because November doesn't count.
		It's the primaries.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Stephanie is calling from South Carolina on the line for independence.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Stephanie.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yes, I just wanted to say that the shutdown wouldn't ordinarily affect my life.
		I'm retired.
		But now I'm having to open my home to relatives who are affected by the shutdown.
		That might not be a big thing to some people, but it's big to me because I'm retired.
		I'm a veteran.
		I have a disability.
		My home is set up for me.
		It's not a large house.
		But what are you going to do?
		You can't just throw children out into the street.
		Listen, the whole shutdown is about the Epstein files anyway.
		And I can't wait to read Virginia Duffray's memoir, which I've already pre-ordered.
		It comes out on Tuesday, and the title is Nobody's Girl.
		I hope she names names so we can get these pedophiles out of government.
		These people are compromised.
		They can't govern because they're compromised.
		Thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Davis, talking about a completely different issue.
unidentified		Look, there has been some media coverage that Johnson will not swear in the new member from Arizona because that would get 218 votes on a discharge petition to get the Epstein files out.
		But that's not the reason government shut down.
		Government shut down because I think, as Representative Israel said, the only leverage the Democrats feel they have at this point is to shut the government down to get that discussion on extending health care costs.
		The irony in this is that the federal employee unions, who traditionally are for clean resolutions and keeping the government open, are complicit with this.
		They basically said, oh, we care more about health care than keeping the government open right now.
		We'll see how long this goes.
		You can close the government for a few days and a week and basically nobody feels it, but when it goes on for lengths of time, a lot of unintended consequences take place.
		And the federal workers have already been under assault over the last few weeks.
		They've been cut significantly in terms of their jobs.
		We had a lot of early retirements.
		And getting people to come and work for the federal government, we want the best and the brightest.
		We want good people.
		Who's going to work for the federal government if that's the way you're treated?
		And I think you have to worry long term about a bureaucracy that's functioning smoothly with competent people, whether it's cancer research, whether it's ICE agents, whether it's scientists, whatever.
		And I think the federal workforce takes a blow through all this.
		And, you know, shutting down, I never would vote to shut the government down lightly, but I had 50,000 federal employees I represented.
		But I think at this point, The parties, and I blame the Democrats more because they're the ones who voted for clean resolutions 13 straight times until Trump came in and now reversed their position.
		But there's blame, you can look at all sides of this.
		But I think there are going to be some unintended consequences coming out of this thing that hurt our efficiencies in a competitive world, in a dangerous world.
		What do you think our competitors around the world are looking at and our enemies around the world when they see this happen?
		It's just not a good look.
		And you rely on leaders to come to the table and work something out.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Israel, I'll give you a chance to respond to our caller, Stephanie and Congressman Davis.
unidentified		Yeah, well, I would just respond respectfully to Tom.
		Look, Democrats did vote for clean CRs.
		There were no overriding policy issues, imperatives, or criticalities that they needed to negotiate for.
		I will remind everyone that it was President Trump who was willing to shut down the federal government because of an extraneous issue at the time, and that is he wanted a border wall.
		And so he was willing to inject that policy debate into a shutdown.
		Now, for the Democrats, making sure that people, that 4 million people don't lose their insurance immediately, another 10 million people don't look at triple or quadruple premiums.
		That's their imperative.
		And for as long as Republicans need their votes, you bet they're going to fight for their values on those priorities and see if they can use that leverage to help the American people.
		President Trump tried to do it on a border wall.
		Steve, you're right.
		And the parties have switched sides on this argument, basically.
		Yes.
		And I always like to say: if you don't have a high tolerance for hypocrisy, you probably don't belong in Congress.
		The biggest party on Capitol Hills around the country appears to be the Hypocrisy Party, right, Tom?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Marty, who's calling from Pleasington, California, line for Republicans.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Marty.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Yeah, I have a comment.
		First off, before I get to my comment, I'd like to say a couple things.
		One for Mr. Davis and Israel.
		You're right.
		From what I understand, there's only like 22 districts that are toss-up districts when it comes to Congress.
		Everything else is locked in.
		You're a Democrat, you're going to get in.
		You're a Republican to get in.
		So only 22.
		And that's ridiculous because we should have representation across the board.
		And for Mr. Israel, I hear what you're saying about no health care for illegals.
		However, in a debate, the presidential candidates were asked, would you want health care for illegal aliens?
		And every single one of them raised their hand.
		And as the party leader goes, which is the president, that's the way the party is going to go.
		So don't say that they don't want it because eventually that will happen.
		Now, here's my comment to both of you.
		The reason why there's shutdowns is because Congress has no skin in the game.
		If you're a federal employee, you're not going to get paid.
		You'll get paid later on in a month or so, but Congress continues to get paid flat out.
		What I would suggest would be that if there's a shutdown for three weeks, one day, five days, whatever it is, that Congress will not be paid.
		And when the employees come back to work, they're given their pay.
		Congress will not be given their pay.
		And that would stop this because then you would get together because you know that now you have skin in the game because if you shut it down for 30 days, you just lost 30 days' pay.
		And that's my comment.
		And that's the only way I think we'll be able to fix this.
		I understand why we have the shutdowns because the party that is the minority will be able to have some kind of leverage.
		But when you shut down the government for that long, there's really no reason for that.
		And that's my opinion.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Davis, give me a chance to respond to that.
unidentified		Three comments.
		Number one is, with all this gerrymandering going on, the one thing that's different in California, in your state, is they're asking the voters to now be complicit.
		Politicians have used gerrymandering.
		Now, they're asking the voters to be complicit in gerrymandering in California.
		And I think the voters now get their say over whether they don't like this nonsense.
		I recognize the argument that we want to stop Trump and not let Texas move on, but they're asking voters to now get their hands dirty in this thing.
		I think once this starts, I think it's going to be continuing to spiral down.
		I agree that no budget, no pay, I think that makes a lot of sense, but we have something called the 27th Amendment.
		It says you can't alter a member's pay during their time period, and you run into some problems when you start implementing that.
		There are some members, though, who have pledged they will not take pay during this period.
		And I think you should look to your member and say, are they setting an example because of their activities?
		The rest of federal employees can't get paid.
		Are you taking your paycheck or are you not going to take your paycheck?
		And they have that right, and I think members can be held accountable on that basis.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Israel.
unidentified		Thank you.
		I agree with Tom on whether members should accept pay or not.
		I do want to say, look, what California is doing, a referendum on whether there should be redistricting, is a direct response to an awful decision by Texas to rig the game, to do mid-decade redistricting.
		Why?
		Because they know that it's looking bleak right now for the Republicans, just based on historic precedent, to retain the majority.
		And so they've got to fight for every seat and sometimes fight unfairly.
		And so Texas decides on its own, fine, we'll just try and pick up five seats for the Republicans in Texas with mid-decade redistricting.
		What California has done is say, well, you know, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
		If you're going to take five seats away from us, then we're going to try and equalize.
		You know, we'll see you and raise you.
		You take five seats away from us in mid-decade, we're going to do it as well.
		And then that spills over to other states that are now considering whether to join that horrible party, in my view.
		This is not good for democracy.
		It's going to divide Congress even further.
		We ought to go back to a fundamental respect for the Constitution and the census and not use gerrymandering as a political tool, as a weaponized tool to win seats, but simply to establish how many constituents each member of Congress has.
		If it were up to me, we would outlaw, we would prohibit any kind of partisan redistricting anywhere.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Davis, you were both nodding and shaking your hands.
unidentified		No, I mean, Steve and I were both campaign committee chairman.
		We get the joke on this kind of thing.
		I mean, the one thing in California is they're asking now the voters to be complicit in this.
		Voters like to think that they're not part of this partisan gerrymandering, but I recognize the intensity out there, the amount of money being spent on the referendum and the like.
		And I know your state of New York did a midterm redistricting the last time, and that's what?
		You picked up three seats.
		So I hope, Steve, this isn't the new normal.
		Yeah, actually, New York, Tom, they tried to do redistricting and couldn't do it.
		The Democrats couldn't do it.
		It ended up going to a court.
		The courts actually made districts more compact and actually limited.
		In a Democratic state, the courts actually limited potential Democratic pickup opportunities.
		This is why New York, believe it or not, has one of the most moderate delegations because there are just more centrist districts in the state.
		I wish that was the model throughout the rest of the country.
		But they did come back in a midterm, I mean, in a mid-cycle and redistricted for 2020, 2024.
		Well, yes, in response to what was happening in Texas.
		No, I agree.
		You know, I don't know who started this.
		I don't know who started this.
		But I think we can agree this has just gotten way out of hand, and it undermines the pillars of democracy and people's respect when they see the rules being picked.
		And they're just basically the November vote doesn't count for anything.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		And we're talking about gerrymandering this mid-decade congressional redistricting.
		Something that you just said, Congressman Israel, moderates.
		You're talking about the moderates in New York.
		There are fewer political moderates in Congress right now.
		Why?
unidentified		Well, I would say, and Tom and I have had extensive discussions on this.
		I would say for several reasons.
		Number one, because of gerrymandering, because districts are drawn against moderates.
		They're drawn to protect an incumbent, which means you need more base voters from your party in those districts, which pulls the districts further to the left and the right and creates a political disincentive for a member of Congress to compromise and an incentive to reflect the passions of the base.
		Also, residential sorting patterns.
		We're so divided in America right now that we're choosing to live based on ideology.
		And then finally, I'll just give you this quick data point.
		When I was elected to Congress in 2020, I'm sorry, in 2000, there were about, you could argue, 75 to 125 fairly moderate districts where members campaigned on bipartisanship, where they campaigned on crossing the aisle.
		Today, there are 13 House districts represented by Democrats that voted for Donald Trump, and three House districts represented by Republicans that voted for Kamala Harris.
		Those are the pure toss-up districts.
		Out of 435, 16 are kind of crossover districts.
		Now, I would add another 10, 15 to that, based on the environment, but certainly in my view, no more than 30 low 30s House districts where if you talk about compromise and moderation, you actually get re-elected.
		All the others, those words are just curse words in congressional campaigns.
		Yeah, in other words, if you compromise, you get punished.
		You don't get rewarded for most of these members who make up the caucuses that elect the leaders of those caucuses.
		So it's kind of this never-ending cycle that just moves politics further and further apart.
		Compromise becomes something that you pay a price at the ballot box for sitting down and compromising.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Some states have moved to primaries that drive away from a political center things like ranked choice voting.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that that would have any impact if more states adopted that type of well I think jungle primaries have helped on the margins?
unidentified		Alaska has it, Washington State has it, California has it, Louisiana did.
		I'm not sure if they still do.
		I think the jury is still out in terms of what ranked choice voting does at this point.
		I think actually ranked choice voting, you get more extreme candidates in there because they're not disrupting things.
		They can make their statement and not jeopardize the partisan balance of the thing because their votes get a second.
		They can still vote for their party.
		But I think the jury's still out in terms of how all this works at this point.
		And Steve's right, residential sorting patterns, people like to live around people like themselves.
		It's hard to find and draw a Republican district in a major metropolitan area today.
		These are just heavy blue balls, bright blue bulbs coming out.
		I like to look into my neighborhood out in Fairfax County.
		If you put up a Trump sign, it's like a hate crime.
		And we had a neighbor who put one up and people went and said, would you take it down?
		We find it offensive.
		You go out 50 miles, people are putting up their own Trump signs, putting up, it's a sign of who they are.
		Very polarized in those cases, and the districts reflect that.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Let's hear from Max, who's calling from San Antonio, Texas, on the line for Democrats.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Max.
unidentified		Good morning and good morning, gentlemen.
		Thank you for your service.
		Normally, when we get to an impasse like this, the log jam is broken one of three ways.
		Either the president calls members of both parties to the House and drives a solution there, or the leadership drives a solution in Congress.
		But there have been times where there have been a third way, and members who are moderates on both sides of the aisle have gotten together and they proposed a third solution.
		And that puts pressure on the system to resolve things.
		Now, even if we had a situation where someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene and AOC, people who are not necessarily moderates, proposed a third solution, wouldn't that be better?
		And are there other ways to break the log jam?
		How do we handle this?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Israel, would you like to answer first?
unidentified		Sure.
		So, Max, you're entirely right.
		There are several ways to end the gridlock.
		One is that a critical mass of members seeks some alternative.
		Now, there was a bill that was introduced by several moderate House Democrats recently that would extend the Affordable Care Act premium credits one year and reopen the government.
		So that's out there.
		And my guess is that they put it out there just to signal and to alert other members that there may be an alternative here and to see if it gets traction.
		Ultimately, every shutdown that I lived through as chair of GripleC and as a backbencher ultimately followed this pattern.
		One party thought that they were enjoying all the benefits of the shutdown.
		That tended to wear off within several weeks.
		Americans begin blaming both parties.
		Members come back from competitive districts and say to their leadership, this is turning against us.
		We need to find a way out.
		On the Senate, I think that Leader Schumer, you know, he needs to keep his Democrats together.
		And he's got, you know, there are several very competitive Senate races.
		And so at the point that those senators in those competitive districts feel that this is turning against them, they're going to argue to Senator Schumer or to Leader Schumer that he needs to begin thinking about a way out.
		At the same time, Republican senators are going to argue to Thune that this needs to end, and they're going to call the president and say, you need to break this log jam.
		So this is not going to be a forever shutdown because the cost benefits change and they're constantly reevaluated and calculated by both parties.
		But Steve, would you agree?
		I think both sides think they're winning right now because with their bases, their bases love what they're doing.
		Yeah, the voters as a whole.
		Yeah, but Tommy, you know, it tends to wear off.
		And look, this is the problem right now.
		Neither side sees an incentive to cave in right now.
		And it's wearing on both at this point as you take a look at the polling.
		And Democrats may see a diminution in turnout that might have been theirs from federal workers who just say a pox on both your houses.
		But this is only going to be broken, in my opinion, in the Senate.
		The House has passed what they are capable of passing right now.
		The Senate will have to pass something and ping pong it back to the House.
		And I think that's where the action is, which is the reason I think Speaker Johnson hasn't called the House back into session that.
		And I don't think he wants to open up some other matters as well.
		That doesn't mean negotiations have ceased on these other appropriation bills.
		I think there is some discussions going on.
		Steve was an appropriator and may have different information on that.
		But the Senate has got to come to some conclusion.
		And to do that, you're going to need at least eight Democratic votes in the Senate.
		And right now, you have three.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Larry is calling from Arkansas on the line for independence.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Larry.
unidentified		Good morning, Tammy.
		I just got a couple of statements.
		The Democrat gentleman, if he would play on News Nation last Wednesday what the senator from Pennsylvania had to say about the shutdown, the only honest Democrat has talked lately.
		It was planned.
		The Democrats got themselves voted into a box, and they got all these people that are chasing after them.
		to do something because Affordable Care Act is not affordable.
		The second thing is gerrymandering.
		That started in Massachusetts.
		If you look at gerrymandering, Massachusetts has 10 or 11 representatives to go to the House of Representatives.
		Zero Republicans.
		California has 52.
		40% of the people vote Republican.
		They only have nine that goes there.
		You talk about where the gerrymandering comes from.
		Thank you very much.
		Thank you.
		Let me just note.
		California is a commission state.
		It's not a Democratic gerrymander.
		The way the numbers, as Steve and I voted with residential sorting patterns, you just have where Republicans live in places, Democrats live in places, or a handful of competitive seats out there.
		But that's not strictly a gerrymander, at least right now.
		This is done by a commission, as is Washington State and a number of other states where commissions draw these lines.
		But look, again, the incentives are for people to stay in their box.
		If you go outside that party coalition, you get ambushed in a primary.
		And by the way, we don't talk about campaign finance laws, but some super PAC can come in and ambush you at that point and spend tremendous amounts of money if you cross one of the party coalitions in a primary.
		So every incentive for members is to stay within that party coalition and you stay together.
		I think eventually this log jam gets broken.
		We'll just have to see what the long-term damage is.
		I'll just add federal employees have just gone through a very difficult time once you get through Doge, once you get through some of the layoffs, the voluntary retirements where we lost some very good people that went to other places and now this.
		And you have to take a look at long-term.
		How does the federal government function when you don't have the best and brightest coming to Washington adding their service?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Chris is calling from Bothwell, Washington on the line for Republicans.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Chris.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I have my ballot in my hand, and it's actually what I've taken some notes on.
		I wanted to say thanks to C-SPAN, first of all.
		I have a question.
		I'd like two responses to.
		I'll keep it just what I put on my notes.
		People are rude.
		I'm also one of the people I'm talking about.
		I'm sometimes rude.
		But there's a difference I want to point out.
		The Republican Party will Photoshop a hat on a Democrat or something like that.
		The Democrat Party will make jokes about killing Republicans or threats.
		I got kicked out of a local bar for heckling when such a joke was made.
		Politics is very messy, but in the spirit of Charlie Kirk, martyred for free speech, I have this question.
		What is plenary authority in the context of the executive branch?
		And I guess how can things go sideways or go correctly?
		And thank you for listening to my question.
		If you look at me first, Steve, let's take a crack at this, okay?
		Look, what has happened over the last 20 years is, as I said before, the minority party no longer considers themselves minority shareholders.
		They operate as the opposition party.
		It starts with voters.
		Voters used to split their tickets.
		Steve ran in a district that had a lot of Republicans in it.
		It had been a Republican district before he took it, turned Republican briefly afterwards.
		I ran in a district where I beat a Democratic incumbent, and it went back to the Democratic Party when I left.
		We were in competitive areas.
		We had to talk to everybody.
		It was like survival for us to make sure that we talked to everybody, not just one party when we went through.
		It no longer operates that way.
		As I said, people, you talk to your party base because of the way that these districts, these districts are drawn.
		And I think that's unfortunate.
		But it starts with voters who no longer vote for the name on the jersey.
		They vote for the color of the jersey.
		And if they're, this is parliamentary elections now, where you have popular governors running, but when they run for the Senate, they're just wearing the wrong jersey and they can't get elected to the Senate.
		Voters now recognize this is about direction of government, and we act like it's a parliamentary system.
		It's not.
		It's a balance of power structure, and this just hasn't worked very, very well.
		And I heard former President Obama the other day say that it ought to be more parliamentary.
		Well, that's certainly been the way it's going.
		I like a balance of power structure.
		It's being tested right now, but not just from President Trump.
		President Biden got overridden over 20 times by courts for using his authority in excess of what executive branch powers were doing.
		Presidents do this basically out of frustration because Congress is no longer a productive branch.
		Everything is, they're sitting there, Republicans versus Democrats.
		You need 60 votes in the Senate.
		It just hasn't worked again.
		I think you need that the leadership needs to recognize that at some point the country as a whole is suffering, and we need to get some things done.
		But that's my intro.
		What do you think, Steve?
		I agree completely.
		As Congress becomes less functional, presidents tend to decide that they're going to exert their own authorities.
		I think there's a real problem.
		Look, I'm not a lawyer, much to my mother's shame, but I've read the Constitution many times.
		Article 1 of the Constitution has 4,000 words.
		Article 2 has about 1,000 words.
		Most power is derived from the Congress, the people's House, the Senate.
		Those powers are invested in the Congress because Congress is a representative of the people.
		I don't care whether it's a Democratic president or a Republican president.
		When that power begins to seep, migrate, or is hijacked from a president, it's bad for America.
		We're about to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of America, which began with our Constitution, and our founders made a decision that they didn't want tyrants in the presidency.
		They didn't want presidents who would declare war without Congress's consent, that would engage in policies without congressional consultations or approval.
		And we're in a situation right now where Congress has very much ceded their powers to a president who has an impulse to exceed the constitutional norms and the guardrails that have existed since the founding of our Constitution, since the founding of the country.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Israel, you left Congress in 2017.
		Since then, you've written a couple books.
		You have a new one coming out next month.
		Really quickly, 30 seconds.
		Pitch your book and see if you can get Congressman Davis to read it.
unidentified		Congressman Davis is not only reading it, but he's hosting a book launch at Politics and Pros in Washington on January 9th.
		It's a historic spy thriller based on actual events, Nazis attempting to do harm to Albert Einstein, while Albert Einstein is trying to warn President Roosevelt that Adolf Hitler is developing an atomic bomb.
		These things happened, and I spin it in a fast-paced historic spy thriller that even Tom Davis is going to read and enjoy.
		I look forward to it.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		How far are you into the book?
unidentified		I haven't seen it yet, but I've got, I'm there at the sponsor, and I will have read it, and I'll have a lot of questions for Steve on that night.
unidentified		I'm sure.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We appreciate you both being here, Congressman, former Congressman Steve Israel, Democrat of New York, and Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We appreciate you both being here.
unidentified		Thank you for having us.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Later this morning on Washington Journal, International Crisis Group U.S. program senior advisor Brian Fanuku discusses recent Trump administration actions using the U.S. military to combat the drug trade.
		But up next, more of your calls and comments in our open forum.
		You can start calling in now.
		The lines there on your screen, Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		We'll be right back.
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tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We are in open forum for the next 20 minutes or so.
		We'll start with Tony, who's calling from Charlotte, North Carolina, on the line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Tony.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Hi, I just wanted to say one thing.
		I wanted to put this to the Congress men, but however, they're gone, so I understand that.
		This is the deal.
		We need to stop playing with the American people.
		Number one, the filibuster rule can be easily overturned with a 51-majority vote.
		It doesn't need a a supermajority.
		If the Republicans wanted to pass this bill, all they have to do in the Senate, come to the Senate, pass a bill to get rid of the filibuster, 51 votes, boom, and then just go ahead and pass what they have.
		The reason why they're doing the filibuster is because they want to pull the Democrats over the bridge with them so they can run out to the cameras and say this is a bipartisan deal.
		We did this in a bipartisan way.
		That's what I wanted to say.
		So all these arguments that they're coming on here is a moot point.
		The next time someone gets up there talking about it's the Democrats' fault, the Republicans' faults, just tell, let them go to this one point.
		They can get rid of the filibuster, simple majority vote, get rid of the filibuster, and go ahead and pass their legislation.
		That's all I wanted to say.
		I wanted to put that into the conversation because all of this is a moot point.
		Republicans have control of the Senate, the House, and the Presidency, and half of the most of the courts.
		So it's in.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Tony in North Carolina.
		Dave is calling from Lake Bluff, Illinois, on the line for independence.
		Good morning, Dave.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		First, thank you, Tammy, for C-SPAN.
		And thank you to the congressman for coming on and talking.
		You know, I'm a lifelong independent voter.
		I'm a lawyer.
		I've been a lobbyist.
		I appreciate what the congressman said.
		I think they both said this about hypocrisy in politics that sort of some degree is unavoidable.
		But we've been talking on the program and around the country about a breakdown of trust and about polarization that has sprung up in our country and our discourse.
		And, you know, we've been talking about that in terms of the media that folks consume and where they live and things like that.
		So, you know, I think we all need to figure out a way.
		I don't know how, but I think we need to look at the incentive structure and think about if there's any way that as Americans together, we can just promote a media literacy culture where we all agree to go, you know, to go really hard on ideas, but soft on each other as neighbors and fellow Americans.
		And, you know, I think one of the things you just really don't hear enough talked about, I don't think, on either side is the national debt.
		I mean, I'm a 40-year-old, again, independent voter, basically a libertarian, not in any right-wing sense, but just in the sort of old-fashioned liberal sense.
		And, you know, I have two young children.
		And I think in America, what we need to be looking at right now is social breakdown of a kind that some people in poverty already see, some people in other countries already see, but many of us in the United States are not familiar with.
		And if we go down this road where constructive dialogue is impossible, we are all in trouble.
		Our families, our livelihoods, our neighbors.
		So for me, I'm going to stay focused on the big picture and how we can work together on that.
		And thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Dave in Illinois.
		Steve is calling from Indiana, line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Steve.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I got a few things I wanted to talk about about the Democratic Party has lost, has seemed to have lost touch with the American people.
		uh hello steve are you still there are you sure i i i I was getting some feedback there.
		I didn't know what was going on.
		We forgot about, in other words, we're $37 trillion in debt.
		And in another 10 years, we're going, we're going to be At least $40 trillion, $45 trillion in debt.
		And the Democratic Party seems to forget about, it's all the Republicans have been fighting the Democrats on every dime of this money for the past 10 years.
		The whole through Biden's whole administration, the Republican Party has fought them on every bit of this money that they can't.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Steve, I'm sorry, we're going to have to end it there because you're dropping in and out.
		Give us a call back if you can.
		Andrea is in Buffalo, New York.
		Line for Democrats.
		Hi, Andrea.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		In regards to the gentleman that called from, I believe it was Illinois, he was an independent, I totally agree with you.
		We really have to get to a point where we have more civil dialogue.
		And in regards to Democrats being too far left, I think we as Americans need to stop thinking about left, right, Democrat, Republican, and just get back down to the Constitution.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Andrea in New York.
		Mark is calling from Durango, Colorado, Line for Independence.
		Good morning, Mark.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		I'm a licensed insurance health insurance broker in Colorado, and every year I get recertified for Connect for Health Colorado, and that's our state's version of the Affordable Care Act.
		And so going on there, you can absolutely sign up undocumented.
		And so I wish we would have got a hold of that congressman before.
		So you can go on there and it's called OmniSalad, O-M-N-I Salad.
		And I can go on there and sign undocumented people for free health insurance.
		So I'm not sure what the number was last year, but since the Inflation Reduction Act is sunsetting, they're going to allow 7,600 undocumented to get on the silver plan, which ends up being a free plan.
		So they do get free health insurance, undocumented.
		And so I can go on Connect for Health Colorado, and then there's a secure platform which I can go on, and their information cannot be found by the feds.
		And it's a secure site.
		And look it up.
		It's real easy.
		You can pull up OmniSalad.
		And that's all.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Mark in Colorado.
		We are on day 19 of a government shutdown.
		And a programming note we want to share is this week's ceasefire.
		Republican Governor Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma and Democratic Governor Wes Moore of Maryland, chair and vice chair of the National Governors Association.
		Join host Dasha Burns for a conversation about how policies in Washington are impacting the states among the thorniest issues.
		President Trump's threats to deploy the National Guard to several states in his ongoing crackdown on crime.
kevin stitt ▲ ● ▼		Agree with Governor Moore on is the President of the United States has the authority to federalize the troops in that state.
		And so President Trump has a tough decision to make because when he sees ICE agents being attacked in a certain city, even though it might be over the objection of the local governor, the President of the United States has that right to do that.
		And there's case law there.
		President Eisenhower, over the objection of the opposite party governor in Arkansas to desegregate schools, called in the National Guard.
		And so there's case law where that happens.
		And when the President of the United States wants to federalize those troops, we all agree that he has the authority to do it.
		Should he work with the governors?
		100%.
		But then the question is: when there's a disagreement, when he calls Governor Newsom and says, hey, I'm going to send him in to protect a federal building, and Newsom says no, then who has the authority?
		Well, it's pretty clear in our Constitution that the President of the United States has that authority, so we support President Trump on it.
		The only thing I caution was: let's not send, let's pit one state against another.
		But I mean, I sent troops to the southern border in support of Governor Abbott, and I'll send them to Pritzker if he wants me to do something, or I'm going to send them to Memphis if Governor Lee calls me.
wes moore ▲ ● ▼		But that's our statement.
dasha burns ▲ ● ▼		That's the big difference, right?
		Upon the request of those governors.
		It's so interesting to hear you both talk about this because I'm hearing this kind of like flipping of the script of Republican talking points versus Democratic talking points.
		Because Governor Moore, what you're saying is essentially a long-held Republican position around the primacy of states' rights over federal authority here.
		What's your perspective on what you're hearing from your colleague here?
wes moore ▲ ● ▼		Well, no, and actually, and I completely agree with Governor Stitt, that the president has the authority to do it.
		My question is the judgment: whether or not it's the right thing to do.
		And I think about it in context of this, you know, and again, as someone who, you know, I've deployed with soldiers overseas.
		I've worn the uniform of this country.
		I've served with people who are willing to put their life on the line.
		And all of us, each and every one of us, as governors, we serve as commanders-in-chief of our National Guards.
		That is a responsibility that we take very seriously.
		And we owe it to the people who serve in uniform.
		We owe it to their family members to be very, very smart and very sober about how, when, and where we mobilize these remarkable men and women.
		And the point that, you know, the president absolutely has the authority to do it.
		The thing that I would hope for is that don't remember who we are asked, don't forget who we are asking to mobilize.
		These are citizen soldiers.
		These are people who have jobs, people who have families, that we're asking them to leave both of those things because they trust the judgment of the commanders-in-chief.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That's all coming up on this week's ceasefire, Friday nights at 7 and 10 p.m. Eastern with Rhea's Saturday and Sunday morning at 10 a.m. Eastern.
		Back to your calls.
		Let's hear from Beth in Florida, the line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Beth.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I would like to speak on the shutdown and say a word to on the Medicare, or I'm sorry, Medicaid cuts.
		We've got to back up a couple of years here.
		We've been trying to pass a budget, and every time the Republicans have been in charge of the House and the Senate, we've had a problem.
		We haven't actually passed the budget since the 1990s, but we keep having these CRs and we keep pushing it down the road.
		But this time, we are in a shutdown simply because Mike Johnson can't count.
		He knows that he's got to pass a bill in the House that will pass when it gets to the Senate.
		And that in the Senate, currently, he needed 60 votes.
		And this is not a clean CR, as he's trying to put it.
		Clean, that it doesn't have any amendments?
		Yes.
		Clean as to that it relates to the last CR?
		No.
		Because we had a CR back in the spring.
		Then we had the big, beautiful bill, and then we've had a revision.
		And the reason we had the big, beautiful bill, and it was the one big, beautiful bill, is because they put it into, what is it, resolution where they get to vote on everything as long as it's financial.
		So we've had a recess and a recess and a recess.
		I think there's only been, what, 15 days since they passed the big, beautiful bill that the Republican, or that the House has been in session because Mike Johnson has sent everybody home.
		And I was counting down the days there of when they're going to come back from the recess in August.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Beth in Florida.
		Tom is calling from Rochester, New York, line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Tom.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I do thanks C-SPAN for allowing us to have a voice.
		And I would like to, my comment is: with ICE is wearing masks.
		How do we know that these are American servicemen serving our country instead of some commander-in-chief when he kissed up to Putin Chi and Kim John-un?
		How do we know these are actually Americans?
		That's my comment.
		Thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Tom in New York.
		Tim is calling from High Point, Ohio, Line for Independence.
		Good morning, Tom.
		Or Tim.
unidentified		Yes, ma'am.
		Thank you for letting me call in today.
		What I want to talk about is the shutdown.
		These are the questions that I have, and I would hope that some of the Republicans or Trump supporters, people who support this administration, can explain to me.
		During our shutdown, I've just recently heard that $20 to $40 billion has been given to Argentina for what?
		I don't understand it.
		Dodge, when Trump first came in office, doge plan to found billions of fraud, waste, and abuse.
		Tariffs out of Trump's own mouth have brought in trillions out of tariffs.
		I just read this morning that Christy Noam is having two private jets built for $200 million.
		Trump is working on the ballroom.
		Trump has a plan to build the arches by the Arlington Cemetery.
		I just seen a video of him selling his watches.
		Why are we in a shutdown?
		I would like to know if any of the Trump supporters or people who support this administration and see this shutdown and people, the American people are struggling, why are we in a shutdown?
		Especially with this $220 billion sent to Argentina.
		I don't understand why.
		And I just found out, too, that Argentina now is selling their soybeans to China, which we should sell to China.
		And I'm hearing that they're selling metric tons of soya beans.
		So we're losing money.
		So I just want to know if anybody can call in and explain this who supports this type of activity.
		Thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Tim in Ohio.
		This is a headline on the Axios website.
		It says, No Kings protests draw huge crowds across the U.S.
		It says that nearly 7 million protesters gathered across the U.S. on Saturday to take part in rallies against President Trump and his administration.
		It says this latest round of protests comes as the government shutdown approaches its third week in opposition to Trump's military crackdown on Democratic-led cities growth.
		It says more than 2,700 events were planned as part of the protests across 50 states as of Saturday, as well as several internationally, including in London, Paris, Rome, and Lisbon, Portugal.
		It says that GOP lawmakers condemned the movement as, quote, a hate American rally and cast blame on the protests for the continued government shutdown.
		Just a few minutes left in this open form.
		Antonio is calling from New York on the line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Antonio.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Hi, how are you?
		I think I've got a question now, a couple of things.
		First of all, I don't know if the left knows that there's three years and two months left of Trump.
		It's a long time to be in misery.
		Somebody also mentioned about being civil.
		I saw the protests where I was.
		Every sign, Nazi, anti-American, deplorable, all the signs.
		These are people like me, people that fought in Iraq, people that came home.
		You're calling us Nazis.
		I mean, whatever.
		But the other thing I have to say is about the National Guard.
		I don't know where some of these people live.
		I do see a lot of people that seem to be living in gated near Yankee Stadium that have to walk home from the train station to Grand Concourse.
		They would love the National Guard there.
		I'm from there.
		I know for a fact.
		So if you didn't live there and you don't know how it feels to come home at 10 o'clock at night walking in the streets of New York, then you're in another world.
		Anyway, I hope everything works out for this next three years and a half, but I think the best thing is to work together instead of having what's going on now.
		I appreciate you taking the time to answer and have a great day.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Antonio in New York.
		Manuel is calling from Brighton, Colorado, line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Manuel.
unidentified		Good morning.
		The reason I'm calling, I attended the march yesterday and really felt energized.
		I have really been tired of the way the Republicans have lied to the American people.
		The illegal aliens are not entitled to any benefits under the law.
		And the Republican Party is basically lying to its constituents.
		Secondly, with respect to the funding, the Republican Party gave a tax, major, major tax break to the rich.
		And when you have all of this money no longer available, what's going to happen?
		You're going to have an economic situation that is not good.
		And what's happening is all the lying that the Republican Party is doing is hurting our country.
		We need people who tell the truth, not liars like Donald Trump and all of his followers.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Manuel in Colorado.
		Keith is calling from Minnesota on the line for independence.
		Good morning, Keith.
unidentified		Good morning.
		A couple statements and then something to think about.
		I'm a 30-year-plus veteran professional firefighter that retired due to age.
		It's a young man's game.
		And I had to go get another full-time job just to pay for my health care because I can't afford outright policy.
		Another one would be this GOP shutdown.
		Well, whatever, the Congress shutdown and Johnson sending his house back home.
		They shouldn't be allowed to go and leave until the government's back open.
		So they shouldn't be able to be sent home on vacation.
		Third one would be the Trump retribution campaign that he's got going on using our DOJ to go after his enemies.
		He shouldn't be allowed to use taxpayers' dollars for his personal vendettas.
		There should be some transparency on how much that's costing everyone for them to direct resources towards his enemies.
		And the fourth thing would be, you know, everyone, this is the United States.
		It's not supposed to be us versus them.
		We're on the same team.
		Republicans are the offense right now.
		Democrats have to be the defensive team.
		It's supposed to be us against China, us against Russia, us against North Korea.
		So come on, everybody.
		Wake up.
		We're on the same team.
		Cool down the harshness towards each other.
		Thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		That was Keith in Minnesota.
		And our last call for this open forum segment is Scott in Illinois, line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Scott.
unidentified		Thank you.
		God bless you, Tammy and your family, and God bless America.
		Tammy, I fell two weeks ago.
		I'm having one hell of a year.
		But thanks for calling.
		I got two quick topics.
		The first topic is about us Vietnam veterans.
		World War II greatest generation.
		Korea, forgotten war.
		Vietnam, we came back.
		I was in my dress blues Air Force.
		I got spat upon baby killer.
		A lot of us did.
		A lot of us are drug addicts and alcoholics and homeless.
		They say 20 of us are killing each other every day.
		It's like, it's okay.
		Now, when they say thank you for your service, everybody's saying that to me.
		You can name a street off an Iraqi veteran.
		You can name a post office off of Afghanistan veteran.
		It's okay with me.
		It's fine you say that.
		But please, American people, if you say it to a vet, please mean it from the heart.
		Okay, secondary, I've thought about this a long time.
		I've done studies on death row.
		Okay, these guys and women, not many, but mostly guys, on death row, they've done horrendous, horrendous crimes.
		If anybody studies every state, if you're on death row, it's just not catching your wife in bed with your best friend.
		These guys are brutal.
		I've been around the world three times, and no country in the world puts up with this.
		I say give them 10 years of appeals, have it written, have it televised by a private company like 1 o'clock in the morning, and have whoever rents the movie, rents the pay-per-view, and they can jumble the picture where you can't record it.
		And have a disclaimer where they are responsible.
		No children should watch it.
		But show executions.
		And maybe somebody's creeps that are killing our kids will like, whoa, they're serious about this.
		But I'm just saying, okay, well, God bless you.
		I want to leave on a little levity.
		What did one potato chip say to the other?
		I'm Chesters.
		Are you free to lay?
		Thank you so much.
		Bye-bye.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Scott, hope you're doing well after your fall.
		That was our last call for this open forum segment.
		Up next, International Crisis Group U.S. Program Senior Advisor Brian Bainukun discusses recent Trump administration actions using the military to combat the drug trade.
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		Today, watch the premiere of C-SPAN's bold new original series, America's Book Club, with our guest, John Grisham, former politician, lawyer, and best-selling author, whose books, including A Time to Kill, The Firm, and The Pelican Brief.
unidentified		He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein.
john grisham ▲ ● ▼		We just sold the film much to the firm to Paramount for more money than made in 10 years of praxin law.
david rubenstein ▲ ● ▼		After you heard that, how long after that did you quit the practice of law?
john grisham ▲ ● ▼		15 minutes.
unidentified		Watch America's Book Club with John Grisham today at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
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		Washington Journal continues.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Joining us now to discuss President Trump's actions, administration actions using U.S. military to combat the drug trade is Brian Finucan.
		He is a U.S. Program Senior Advisor for the International Crisis Group.
		Brian, thank you so much for being with us this morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We'll start by having you tell us about your organization.
		What is the mission?
		Who do you work with?
		And how are you funded?
unidentified		So the International Crisis Group is an organization dedicated to preventing and ending deadly conflict.
		We work around the world.
		We talk to and study all relevant conflict actors.
		And in my case, the case of the U.S. program at the International Crisis Group, we are focused on the U.S. government as a conflict actor.
		We are funded by a range of sources, governmental foundations, and individuals.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		And you have been with this organization for several years now.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		What is your background in the area for this U.S. program?
unidentified		So I'm a lawyer by training.
unidentified		I spent a decade working at the State Department as an attorney advisor in the legal office there, advising the U.S. government on a range of legal issues, including and principally focused on the use of military force, counterterrorism, the law of war.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		And you are joining us today.
		We are talking about the Trump administration's efforts and what we're seeing when it comes to working against drug cartels.
		It was earlier this month that the administration declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and pronounced that the U.S. is now in a, quote, armed conflict with them.
		What does the president have the power when it comes to declaring something like that?
unidentified		Well, I think it's important to recognize that an armed conflict, whether it exists, is a question of fact.
		The president of the United States cannot simply declare that armed conflict exists.
		And furthermore, as a matter of U.S. constitutional law, it is, of course, Congress in Article 1 of the Constitution that has the power to declare war, not the U.S. President.
		But what we have going on here is that the Trump administration is asserting that there is an armed conflict with unspecified, quote, designated terrorist organizations in the Caribbean and Latin America, and using that supposed but make-believe armed conflict as a basis to engage in premeditated killing.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		So when it comes to what we're seeing, what power does the president have?
unidentified		Well, the legal power of the executive branch in this space, the actual legal power, is to conduct law enforcement, as the U.S. government has done for decades.
		There's a well-established playbook that the Navy and the Coast Guard have used to stop, interdict, board, search, and we're warranted take into custody individuals aboard vessels suspected of smuggling narcotics.
		This is ongoing in the Pacific as we speak.
		That is the lawful power that the executive branch has here.
		What we are seeing now with these strikes in the Caribbean is an unlawful use of military force.
		This is lethal killing, lethal action outside of the law.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		And members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have condemned the actions of the Trump administration.
		What you're talking about, I don't think you can see it, but we're showing some of the strikes, the unclassified video on our screen right now.
		And there have been efforts to curb actions and what can be done.
		Remind our audience what power or role Congress plays when it comes to this issue.
unidentified		Well, as I mentioned a moment ago, it is Congress that has the constitutional authority to declare war and other associated war powers, not the president.
		It is not the president who can decide unilaterally by himself who the country is at war with.
		And moreover, it is Congress that passes and enacts U.S. criminal statutes.
		And there are criminal statutes implicated by these premeditated killings in the Caribbean, including one that makes it a crime to commit murder on the high seas, okay?
		And another statute that makes it a crime to conspire to engage in murder outside the United States.
		And that's in addition to Article 118 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which service members are subject to, which also makes murder a crime.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		And as these stories play out, as people may read, they will likely see both the War Powers Act and an AUMF.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Remind our audience what those are.
unidentified		Okay, so the War Powers Resolution of 1973 is a framework statute enacted by Congress over President Nixon's veto towards the end of the Vietnam War.
		And the intent was to restore the constitutional balance between Congress and the executive with respect to war powers.
		The War Powers Resolution imposes certain notification requirements when the president uses military force without prior congressional authorization.
		It also imposes a 60-day clock for the termination of any such unauthorized military operations.
		And in this case, that 60-day clock is ticking in the Caribbean.
		And it also provides for expedited procedures for members force a vote on terminating unauthorized military operations.
		And so we've already seen one such vote a few weeks ago with respect to the strikes in the Caribbean in a resolution introduced by Senators Schiff and Kane that got bipartisan support.
		Senator Kane has introduced a new resolution with respect to potential military action in Venezuela.
		Now, with respect to an AUMF, when Congress acts to authorize the use of force, it can do so in two principal ways.
		The first is declaration of war.
		Of course, Congress has not issued a declaration of war since the Second World War.
		But the other mechanism, which has been used more recently, is an authorization for the use of military force.
		And this, for example, is how Congress authorized the use of military force following the 9-11 attacks in the 2001 AMF.
		It is also how Congress authorized the invasion of Iraq in the 2002 AMF.
		There is no authorization for the use of military force for the ongoing U.S. military operations, the ongoing strikes in the Caribbean.
		There is a draft being circulated, reportedly introduced by, or being drafted by Representative Corey Mills in the House.
		It is not clear whether the administration supports that AOMF, and it's far from clear how much support it would actually gather within Congress if it were to be formally introduced.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Brian Finoukin is a U.S. program senior advisor at the International Crisis Group.
		He is with us for the next 30 minutes or so for a discussion about President Trump's, the administration's action using U.S. military to combat drug trade.
		If you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in now the lines, Republicans 202-748-8001, Democrats 202-748-8000, and Independents 202-748-8002.
		Brian, the U.S. military has carried out several strikes on boats now in the Caribbean, killing more than two dozen people.
		The most recent strike left a couple of survivors, which the U.S. detained and then released just, I believe it was yesterday.
		Explain the legal basis there for detention, their detention, and is the U.S. responsible for any injuries, long-term impacts to those survivors.
unidentified		Well, there may not have been a legal basis for the detention, which is likely why the administration repatriated these individuals reportedly to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia.
		As I said a moment ago, despite the Trump administration pretending or claiming that there is an armed conflict in the Caribbean, that's false.
		There is no armed conflict.
		The U.S. is using military force, using lethal force outside of armed conflict.
		That means not only that these killings are illegal, but it also means that the law of war doesn't apply and doesn't provide a basis to detain these individuals or anyone captured.
		So this is very different than, say, the U.S. war on terror, the U.S. conflict with al-Qaeda, in which there was legal authorization under the law of war to kill people and to detain people.
		That's not the case here.
		So there was no law of war basis to detain these individuals.
		And it's not clear, frankly, whether there was a basis in using law enforcement authorities to detain these people prior to trial.
		It's not clear whether there was probable cause to arrest these individuals.
		It's not clear whether the administration had sufficient legal basis to put them on trial.
		And so I think the administration was faced with a range of bad options.
		And I think the least worst option from its perspective was simply to repatriate them because any sort of legal process in the courts, whether it was a habeas litigation challenging their detention or criminal prosecution, would have been politically inconvenient.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		We have callers waiting to talk with you.
		We'll start with Bob, who's calling from Ohio on the line for Democrats.
		Good morning, Bob.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		I believe that the Supreme Court that gave Trump immunity while he was in office should be tried right along with Trump for murder.
		Trump is killing these people without any justification.
		And he is blowing up these boats.
		He doesn't have no idea what's on the boat.
		And if they had any drugs on the boat, they would be at the bottom of the ocean and there's no way to prove it.
		Why in the world aren't we trying this man and getting him out of office?
		This is the worst man that I've ever seen.
		He's evil.
		He's nothing but evil.
		Him and Miller and his justice, she's as evil as he is, plus she's stupid as a log.
		I don't understand what is going on in this country no more.
		I'm 74 years old.
		I'm an old veteran.
		This would have never come about, even in Nixon's days.
		And Nixon was one of the most corrupt presidents I've ever seen in my lifetime until I seen Trump.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Brian.
unidentified		So I think it's certainly true that the Supreme Court's immunity decision has eroded the legal guardrails on the executive.
		And I also want to note that I advised on counterterrorism operations under presidents of both parties, including in the first Trump administration.
		And I talked to dozens of other former U.S. government lawyers, both judge advocate generals, military lawyers, and also civilians who similarly advised on U.S. counterterrorism operations.
		None of them are defending these actions in the Caribbean.
		The universal response has been shock.
		And what I hear from within the U.S. government is the same for career lawyers who are still in the government.
		There is no legal basis for these killings.
		I think your caller is correct that murder is the term we use for premeditated killing outside of armed conflict.
		And that's what's at stake here.
		The President of the United States is asserting a license to kill outside the law.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Donald is calling from Greensboro, North Carolina, line for independence.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Donald.
unidentified		Hi, I'm excited.
		This is my first time calling in.
		I believe a lot of people have it wrong.
		I'm an American, and there's a place in Washington called the war room.
		Okay, we have to have faith in our president and the people that are in the war room because conversations there do not get out to the media, okay?
		To think that Americans would be killing innocent people on boats, I mean, come on now.
		That's just propaganda from the Democrat side.
		I'm an independent, but what's said in the war room and for people to come on and talk on your show about we're killing innocent people, Trump doesn't know what he's doing or who's on the boats, is absurd.
		Just talk to anybody in the military.
		They know what's going on in the war room.
		Have faith in America that we are doing the right thing and we're not killing innocent people.
		They probably know the names of each person on those boats.
		Believe me, have faith in America.
		Stop being anti-Trump haters.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Donald, we'll get a response from Brian.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Brian.
unidentified		So I took part in deliberations over the use of lethal force in counterterrorism and other contexts, including under the first Trump administration.
		Okay.
		And so I'm very familiar with the processes that take place here.
		There is no war room as such, but there is a constitutional provision that gives Congress, Congress, not the president, Congress, the power to declare war.
		Congress has not done that here.
		And yes, what we are in fact seeing here is the president engaged in premeditated killing of the law.
		As whether these people are innocent, well, they have not been charged, much less convicted of any crime.
		We have a justice system that handles that.
		There's been no due process provided here.
		Instead, we have simply premeditated killing.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		I think we lost Brian.
		We will work to get that reconnected, but continue to take your calls until we do.
		Let's hear from John.
		Oh, I believe Brian's back.
		Brian, are you there?
unidentified		I'm here.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Thought we lost you.
		Go ahead, continue where you left off.
unidentified		No, I was saying that, you know, what we're seeing in the Caribbean is very much premeditated killing outside the law.
		There's been no due process.
		Okay.
		We have a justice system to handle accusations of criminality that's not been used here.
		We have a well-established law enforcement playbook that I mentioned earlier, whereby the Coast Guard and Navy stop and interdict vessels, take people into custody if there's probable cause, and then people prosecute in the U.S. criminal justice system.
		That's not taking place here.
		Instead, we just have the president killing people outside the law.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		And Brian, you've talked about U.S. law and what's in place and what's not.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		What has been the reaction from the international community and what kind of international laws could we be dealing with here?
unidentified		Well, the reaction internationally has been mixed.
		I will say that the legal experts around the globe have almost universally condemned these strikes, including experts at the United Nations, who have characterized these as a violation of the right to life under human rights law, characterized these as extradition killings, extradition executions, and compared them, frankly,
		to the extradition killings that the former Philippine president Duterte engaged in when he's in power.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		John is calling from Pennsylvania on the line for Democrats.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, John.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Whatever happened to the Monroe Doctrine?
		I thought we weren't allowed to do this, what Trump's doing.
		And also, why do the military people say no to the president whenever he's doing something illegal like this?
		I don't understand that.
		Just it's following orders blindly like that.
		I can't understand that.
		So would you answer my question about the Monroe Doctrine?
		And my understanding of it is we can't attack another country in this hemisphere for no reason at all.
		And especially going on their land, he wants to go now they send forces on Venezuela land.
		And also, one other thing, how does he get the right to give $20 billion to Argentina?
		I'll hang up and listen to your answer.
		So the Monroe Doctrine is a foreign policy doctrine of the U.S. government, typically characterized for the 19th century by excluding European powers from the Western hemisphere.
		So that's not really a play here, although you do occasionally hear it invoked with respect to Russian or Chinese support for Venezuela.
		In terms of why the military is implementing these orders, it's a very good question.
		I think there's a few responses.
		One, these are directives coming from the President of the United States himself.
		So it can be a high bar for JAGS or service members to push back against that on the grounds that the orders themselves are illegal or patently unlawful.
		And there's also reportedly secret, we haven't seen it, but reportedly a legal memorandum from the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice.
		The Office of Legal Counsel functions like a Supreme Court within the executive branch.
		But this memorandum supposedly blesses these strikes in the Caribbean.
		And so it's very difficult for lawyers within the executive branch, including in the military, to push back against such a legal permission slip.
		And this is very actually reminiscent of the torture fiasco of the Bush administration, where you also had an Office of Legal Counsel memo blessing torture in that case.
		In this case, we have a murder memo instead of a torture memo.
		This murder memo has not been publicly disclosed.
		Members of Congress have requested it, but it's something that the administration should share with Congress and should share with the American public.
		This murder memo is the president's de facto license to kill.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Kenny is calling from Sitka, Kentucky, on the line for Republicans.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Kenny.
unidentified		Morning.
unidentified		You all having a great day.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		So far, so good, Kenny.
shane connor ▲ ● ▼		Okay, my question is: I mean, we got the DEA goes into all these other countries, and they go into Mexico, and they got Chopa, and they brought him to New York and prosecuted him.
unidentified		And why?
		They know these boats is loaded down with cocaine.
		So would it be okay if there's a DEA drone hitting them?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Brian, did you hear Kenny's question?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
unidentified		Yeah.
		So, Kenny, I think you make an important point there, which is that the U.S. has established law enforcement tools for addressing narcotics smuggling.
		It's working with the Mexican government to prosecute, extradite, and handle transfers of cartel leaders.
		And I also think it's notable that these strikes are not taking place in Mexico.
		Okay.
		The president, other members of the administration have claimed that there's fentanyl aboard the vessels that they're striking in the Caribbean.
		President asserted that yesterday with respect to the most recent strike on the semi-submersible.
		That's simply false.
		The fentanyl coming into the United States is coming from Mexico.
		But the United States is not doing strikes in Mexico because it would be catastrophic for U.S.-Mexican bilateral relations, including with respect to law enforcement cooperation, sort of cooperation we see with the extradition or transfer of cartel leaders or cooperation on migration.
		And so the strikes in the Caribbean are something of a consolation prize where the administration can posture as being tough on drugs or tough on the cartels, but not actually rupture U.S. relations with Mexico or some of the other countries in the region.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		And Brian, the caller mentioning the work of the DEA there.
		It was last week that President Trump acknowledged that he had authorized CIA covert operations in Venezuela.
		Talk about how that comes into play, and is it unusual for a president to announce such operations?
unidentified		It's very unusual.
		But I think it's necessary to take a step back and put these strikes in the Caribbean and this alleged CIA covert action finding in broader context.
		We have a massive had since August a massive military buildup in the Caribbean.
		We have saber rattling by the administration against the leader of Venezuela.
		And U.S. policy is currently being driven by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has made no secret of his desire for regime change in Caracas.
		And so these strikes in the Caribbean also function as coercive signaling against the Maduro government.
		The administration has not just labeled people aboard these boats as, quote, narco-terrorists.
		It's also labeled Maduro as a narco-terrorist.
		The administration has also been talking about potentially taking strikes on land, including in President Trump's post yesterday.
		And so these strikes, the disclosure, and then the president's confirmation of this covert action finding, these are all intended to put pressure on Maduro.
		I think the desire or calculation by the Trump administration is that they will coerce Maduro either into stepping down or potentially embolden figures in his government to topple him.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		John is calling from Manning, North Dakota on the line for independence.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, John.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Brian, you seem to know what you're talking about.
		You are the expert.
		I was wondering how, why is Trump doing this besides for entertainment purposes?
		And, you know, you sit around at a bar and watch this stuff on TV.
		Everybody goes crazy.
		Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're showing them now.
		Why is he doing this?
		And how do we stop him?
		Well, as for why the president is doing this, I want to say this as a descriptive matter, not as a normative matter.
		The president enjoys dramatic performative uses of military force, particularly strikes on supposed terrorists, broadly defined.
		You know, this is true in his first term in office.
		Okay.
		It's also true in this term.
		And we see this with him posting these videos on social media of these strikes.
		Okay.
		So the president enjoys these performances.
		As to how to stop him, Congress has tools available to halt this unauthorized military action, to halt these unlawful killings.
		One of the principal tools is legislation under the War Powers Resolution.
		As I mentioned earlier, there was an attempt a few weeks ago in the Senate to move such a resolution.
		Now a new resolution has been introduced under the War Powers Resolution from Senator Kaine to bar military action in Venezuela.
		And so it's really Congress's role to push back against this and Congress's role to assert its constitutional prerogatives here.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Linda is calling from Orange, Connecticut, on the line for Democrats.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Linda.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for the C-Stand crew for working 365 days a year.
		My question is, I find it curious that just this last week, the Senate unanimously voted to repeal the 2002 Iraq war resolution.
		It's curious for lots of reasons, but why now?
		Do you see a tie-in with the actions in the Caribbean with the Senate almost taking like a preventative measure removing the Iraq war resolution?
		Thank you, everyone.
		Have a good day.
		It's a great question.
		I think what we saw last week with this vote on the 2002 Iraq authorization for use of military force is a culmination of years of bipartisan effort to take that zombie war authorization off the books, the effort led in large part by Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia.
		It's good constitutional hygiene.
		It's good for Congress to reassert its prerogatives in war and peace.
		It's good to have this zombie war authorization off the books so it can't be misused.
		That was an authorization, of course, to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein two decades ago.
		Those purposes are long past being relevant here.
		So it's a great move by the Senate to move to repeal it.
		And hopefully the Congress will, the House will fall suit.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Paul is calling from Palm Harbor, Florida, line for Republicans.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Paul.
unidentified		Hello, good morning.
		Well, I have at least a couple of questions.
		One question is, does the military tell these people, stop or I'll shoot?
		And also, I want to know that.
		And also, if you're bringing drugs and killing people in here, what are we supposed to do?
		Let you kill millions of people?
		That's a message.
		Supreme Court probably will judge on this one way or the other.
		Is it legal or not?
		But would you answer?
		Is the military following the telling these people, stop or I'll shoot?
		Can you please answer that?
		We have no indication there's any prior warning provided to the vessels being targeted.
		I think the only indications are that there's not been any warning given prior to the strikes on these vessels.
		And I want to say that that differs from the normal manner in which the U.S. has handled drug smuggling at sea, which is that, you know, there are law enforcement interdictions, interdictions conducted by the Coast Guard and Navy working jointly in a law enforcement paradigm where the vessels are stopped, boarded, searched, and if there's probable cause, individuals aboard the vessels will be taken into custody and then prosecuted in the U.S. criminal justice system.
		Now, in the course of those law enforcement interdictions, there will sometimes be a warning fire, okay, or even fire, disabling fire against the engines to stop the vessels.
		But only if there is an immediate threat of serious injury or threat to life will lethal force be used.
		Okay, that's what's different about what's going on here.
		Lethal force is being used in the first instance, and it's being used outside the law.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Tim is calling from Arkansas on the line for independence.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Tim.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Well, yeah, it'd be nice if this was Star Trek and we could just, oh, target their engines and put them down.
		But there's drugs are killing people, and they've already been declared a terrorist organization.
		But I seem to hear a tinge of hypocrisy because you had a comment about the SCOTUS talking about immunity, but I'm old enough to remember that Barack Obama sold traded guns, was it fast and furious, illegally, and managed to get border patrol killed.
		I seem to remember Joe Biden just happened to stop enforcing the border and let 20 million cross the border illegally.
		Now, even if 95% of them people are great, you got a million killers and thieves and drug dealers.
		I don't know, there's a slight bit of hypocrisy.
		We want safety in this hemisphere, not to have foreign governments sending in their private security, drug-running soldiers supplied by Chinese fentanyl coming over here.
		I'm fine with taking out a couple of speed boats.
		I guess it'd be nice if you could shout down to them from the airplane, hey, stop there.
		But, you know, thank you.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Brian, your response?
unidentified		Well, as I mentioned earlier, there is an established playbook whereby the Coast Guard working with the Navy will stop and interdict vessels suspected of smuggling drugs.
		And where necessary, use disabling fire.
		Okay.
		That's, of course, not what's taking place here.
		Again, there is no evidence that fentanyl is aboard these vessels.
		Fentanyl is entering the United States from Mexico, not northern South America.
		There was a good exchange on this subject at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing a week or so ago with Senator Reed, the ranking member, asking an administration official about this.
		Well, fentanyl is coming to the United States from Mexico.
		Why are you bombing these vessels in the Caribbean?
		And there was no response.
		The administration officials simply said, well, the president direct is to do so.
		So the fentanyl card is a distraction.
		It is a red herring.
		Fentanyl is not aboard these vessels.
		I would also note that it is significant that President, this administration has designated a variety of criminal organizations and narcos in Latin America as, quote, terrorists or foreign terrorist organizations.
		They started doing so in February.
		That's unprecedented and baseless.
		Criminal organizations, Trinidad Agua and other entities in Latin America are not terrorists.
		Terrorism implies the use of violence against civilians for political, religious, or ideological ends.
		That's different from crime.
		And so the administration is very intentionally, though, trying to use the rhetoric, framing, tools, and tropes of terrorism and counterterrorism and repurpose those to new ends to label Cartels and criminal organizations, Latin America, as terrorists, but also domestic political opponents as terrorists and immigrants generally as terrorists.
		And I think your caller reflected that to some degree, sort of lumping them all together, the immigrants, you know, narcos as terrorists.
		That's a misapplication of that label, but it is dangerous because this administration is in the Caribbean claiming the prerogative to kill, quote, terrorists outside the law based solely on the president's own say-so.
		And the question is: you know, where else will that license to kill be used?
		Where else will this administration use this supposed prerogative to kill terrorists?
		Will it use that at home in the United States against domestic political opponents it labels terrorists?
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Brian John from Asheville, North Carolina, sent us this text.
		It says, regardless of their legality, are these boat strikes considered, quote, official acts?
		If so, Trump would be immune from any prosecution.
		What levers could be pulled to hold him accountable for murder under these circumstances?
unidentified		Well, the institutional actor that he needs to push back is the U.S. Congress.
		As I mentioned earlier, there are tools available under the War Powers Resolution.
		There are other mechanisms that Congress could use, such as defunding these military operations to bring them to a halt.
		But fundamentally, it is Congress's job to rein in an executive that is acting lawlessly.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Joe is calling from Mitchellville, Iowa, on the line for Democrats.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Joe.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Great subject.
		Thank you.
		I'm trying to formulate my question.
		I really am enjoying your guest.
		I'm a farmer in Iowa that's really trying to make decisions where we're headed.
		I don't like what the Trump administration is doing.
		So, my question: when we look back at history, for example, any regime changes or anything that's gone on in the past, where are we headed?
		Because there's a lot of details in our conversation this morning, but how long should we expect the Trump administration to just run without any check and balances?
		I feel like our country is offset and not being checked and balanced.
		And do you, with all your knowledge, Brian, see how long this is going to take?
		I mean, we're going to have to go into a full civil war to get back to the check and balances.
		And I appreciate your comments this morning.
		Great day to everybody.
		And thank you for all the people that showed up to the No Kings Acts protests this weekend or get-togethers.
		Thank you.
		Well, good question.
		I think the key point here is that the future is not already determined.
		I don't think people should give in to defeatism or fatalism.
		The American public has agency here.
		And they should expect their elected representatives in Congress to push back against these lawless killings in the Caribbean, push back against other abuses of power.
		That is the role of Congress in our constitutional scheme.
		Our Constitution is not self-executing.
		It relies on constitutional actors and it relies on the American public to make it work.
		And so it's the responsibility of our elected members of Congress and the responsibility of the American public to rein in these abuses.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Ken is calling from Arizona, line for Republicans.
		Ken, we only have a couple of minutes left.
		Do you have a quick question?
unidentified		Yeah, just a statement.
		I worked previously in the NDEA and that, and I can guarantee you that these drugs boats that are coming out of Venezuela and into the international waters are being tracked by DEA or CIA from the time they leave the coast and get into international waters.
		I think Trump has every right to blow him out of the water.
		They're domestic terrorists, and I think most American people are right there with him.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Brian, your response.
unidentified		Well, it's certainly true that the administration has acknowledged that it had the option, at least with respect to the first strike, to stop and interdict the vessel, as has been typically done in a law enforcement paradigm for death to.
		It chose instead to engage in premeditated killing.
		As I said at the outset, we have a term for premeditated killing outside of armed conflict, and that term is murder.
		Now, again, the administration simply designating an individual or an entity as a terrorist and using that as a basis to kill them, that should be deeply troubling to your viewers here because it's not clear where that asserted prerogative, that sort of license to kill, ends.
		The administration has identified no living principles licensed to kill people it calls terrorists, and it could well be applied here at home in the United States.
tammy thueringer ▲ ● ▼		Brian Finukin is a U.S. program senior advisor for the International Crisis Group.
		You can find his work online at crisisgroup.org.
		Brian, thank you so much for being with us this morning.
unidentified		Thank you.
		It was a real pleasure.
		Here's a look at our schedule today on C-SPAN.
		President Trump addresses the Israeli Knesset as a peace deal between Israel and the Hamas militant group in Gaza began to take hold, and the remaining living Israeli hostages from Hamas's October 7th, 2023 attack on Israel were returned.
		Then an interview on what to expect from C-SPAN's new series, America's Book Club, which debuts this evening at 6 and 9 p.m. Eastern.
		Later, the Supreme Court oral argument in a case looking at whether Louisiana's creation of a second majority black congressional district violated the 14th or 15th Amendments.
		Today, watch the premiere of C-SPAN's bold new original series, America's Book Club, with our guest, John Grisham, former politician, lawyer, and best-selling author, whose books, including A Time to Kill, The Firm, and The Pelican Brief.
		He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein.
john grisham ▲ ● ▼		We just sold the filmmarks to the firm to Paramount for more money than made in 10 years of praxising law.
david rubenstein ▲ ● ▼		After you heard that, how long after that did you quit the practice of law?
john grisham ▲ ● ▼		15 minutes.
unidentified		Watch America's Book Club with John Grisham today at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		The names are almost all known nationally.
		Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani, David Denkins, Al Sharpton, Larry Crammer, and Donald Trump.
		These are people who were first in the news in the 1980s.
		Their early public lives are now featured in Jonathan Mahler's book, The Gods of New York.
		The book is divided into four large chapters, titled 1986, 87, 1988, 1989.
		Mr. Mahler, a feature writer for the New York Times magazine, closes his book with this last paragraph.
		The existential questions that New York faced as it entered 1986 were answered.
		The great working-class city was gone, and so was any realistic expectation that it might ever be bound by a single culture.
unidentified		Rich, poor, very rich, very poor.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		For better and for worse, everyone would now live in their own New York.
unidentified		Author Jonathan Mahler, with his book, The Gods of New York, Egoists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City, 1986 to 1990.
		This episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
		Book Notes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
		All in 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.
		Consider interviewing topical experts and explore a variety of viewpoints around your chosen issue.
		Students should also include clips of related C-SPAN footage, which are easy to download on our website, studentcam.org.
		C-SPAN's Student Cam competition awards $100,000 in total cash prizes to students and teachers and $5,000 for the grand prize winner.
		Entries must be received before January 20th, 2026.
		For competition rules, tips, or just how to get started, visit our website at studentcam.org.
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