Shutdown based on American zip code and political affiliation.
Then, Time politics reporter Nick Popely will preview the week ahead at the White House and other news of the day.
And later, University of Maryland public policy professor Philip Joyce on how the government shutdown has expanded President Trump's power over fiscal and budgetary matters.
It's Monday, October 27th, 2025, day 27 of the government shutdown.
We'll talk about the latest impacts here at home and also discuss President Trump's overseas trip to Asia, where he's meeting today with Japanese officials and also close to signing a new trade deal with China.
And of course, we want to hear from you on phone lines split as usual by political party.
Republicans, it's 202-748-8001.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
And as we've done throughout the shutdown, we've set aside a special line for federal workers.
202-748-8003 is that number.
You can also send us a text or catch up with us on social media.
On X, it's at C-SPANWJ on Facebook.
It's facebook.com/slash C-SPAN.
And a very good Monday morning to you.
You can go ahead and start calling in now.
President Trump is in Tokyo today.
He arrived earlier this morning.
He's meeting with Japan's emperor today and the new Japanese prime minister.
That meeting is set for tomorrow.
But all eyes are looking towards Thursday.
In South Korea, President Trump is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at that Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit that's taking place.
And headlines on that front from the front page of today's Washington Post: trade deal with China now in reach.
The stage is set for that Trump-G meeting.
This is the headline from the Washington Times.
Treasury Secretary Scott Besent says the U.S. and China have reached a framework for their trade agreement.
He talked about that framework on Meet the Press yesterday.
President Trump gave me a great deal of negotiating leverage with the threat of the 100% tariffs on November 1st.
And I believe we've reached a very substantial framework that will avoid that and allow us to discuss many other things with the Chinese.
I think we will be able to discuss them helping us get this terrible fentanyl crisis under control.
I think we are going to be able to discuss substantial soybean and ag purchases for our American farmers.
I think we are going to be able to discuss more balanced trade.
And I'm not going to get ahead of the two leaders, but I think that they will also be discussing President Trump's global peace plan that he's been so successful at, both here in Asia, the Middle East, and now he's looking to Ukraine-Russia.
Treasury Secretary Scott yesterday on Meet the Press much more on trade throughout this week as we get closer to that meeting, again, expected on Thursday in South Korea.
By the way, more speculation about the president's overseas trip.
This from the pages of the New York Times.
Some speculation that Donald Trump may meet with North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, on this trip.
Mr. Trump, who's met with Mr. Kim three times in 2018 and 2019, has repeatedly said that he would like to see Mr. Kim again, they write, boasting of their great relationship.
On Friday, as he boarded Air Force One, he said that he would like to meet with Mr. Kim.
We'll see if that takes place this week.
We're talking about President Trump's overseas trip to Asia, but it's also day 27 of the government shutdown and talking about the impacts here in the United States.
That was also the topic of some of the conversations on the Sunday shows yesterday.
It was on Sunday Morning Futures on Fox News yesterday that Treasury Secretary, that Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, talked about the impacts of the shutdown on U.S. air travel.
Well, it sounds like it's going to be a rough week ahead for travel and it may very well impact some of the holiday travel that we're expecting going into Thanksgiving.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, that was yesterday on the Sunday shows.
Democratic sender is also heading to the Sunday shows yesterday.
It was Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut who was speaking on CNN about the latest on the shutdown.
This is what he had to say.
unidentified
The New York Times reported that the private donor who gave President Trump $130 million to pay U.S. troops during the shutdown, that he is billionaire Timothy Mellon.
Well, I think one of the reasons that President Trump is refusing to negotiate is because he likes the fact that the government is closed, because he thinks he can exercise king-like powers.
He can open up the parts of the government that he wants.
He can pay the employees who are loyal to him.
I mean, this is a leader who is trying to transition our government from a democracy to something much closer to a totalitarian state.
And so this is part of what happens in totalitarian states.
The leader, the regime, only decides what things get funded and what don't, often in coordination with their oligarch friends.
So I just don't want to live in a world in which Donald Trump and a handful of billionaires decide which part of government works and which don't, which is why I would rather have him at the negotiating table tomorrow so that we can reopen the government and it can be a democratically elected Congress that decides what things get funded, not a handful of super rich dudes.
Senator Chris Murphy, yesterday on CNN, in terms of what gets funded and what doesn't get funded, here's an article from today's New York Times: Food banks nationwide are bracing for an overwhelming need as SNAP cutoff looms.
The story noting, with no end in sight to the nearly month-long government shutdown, funding for the nation's largest food assistance program, known as SNAP, will disappear at the start of November, according to the Department of Agriculture.
On Friday, the Trump administration said in a memo that it would not tap into contingency funds to keep payments flowing to states.
That means that roughly 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, may soon have to find other ways to feed themselves and their families.
One of the headlines from day 27 of the government shutdown.
Taking your phone calls on the government shutdown, on the president's trip overseas.
We can talk about either in this first hour of the Washington Journal.
Here's how you get in touch with us.
Democrats, it's 202-748-8000.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
Independents 202-748-8002.
Federal employees, we've been chatting with you throughout the government shutdown.
The number for you to call: 202-748-8003.
We'll start in Oklahoma line for Democrats.
This is Cal.
Good morning.
unidentified
Go ahead, Cal.
Yes.
On the trip to the Far East, I am not encouraged by Treasury Secretary's description of what's coming, which is a framework for a discussion.
That sounds like at least a two-step process before anybody gets serious about resolving the purposes of that trip.
More directly on your other topic about the shutdown, where real people live, even out here in Red Oklahoma, people have a habit of wanting to eat every day, children especially.
What's coming is a real nightmare for 42 million Americans who rely for SNAP for their food.
That's the reality of that.
Secondly, on the issue of the premiums expiring on 31 December, that will affect millions of the most desperate people when it comes to health care.
What I've just said, everybody knows, and here's my prediction: the Congress will finally, because of the numbers now involved, will find a compromise.
It may take another week or two, but there will be a compromise because Republicans cannot live going into 2026 with the kinds of damage that will be done if neither SNAP nor the Medicaid premiums are not addressed.
That's my projection as a longtime observer, and I thank you for taking my call.
So as the clock, Cal, ticks down on the Obamacare subsidies as the headline in the Washington Times front page notes today.
What's your prediction for when this ends?
The open enrollment process begins on November 1st in most states, and many of those states have sent their notices informing consumers that they'll have to pay more out of pocket for their insurance costs.
unidentified
Well, my prediction is that although both parties talk about the abject fear and damage that'll be done to our children and grandchildren with a $37 trillion national debt, neither party really means that.
They look barely past tomorrow, let alone what's going to happen to their children and grandchildren.
So what I predict is a mid-ground, middle ground of the worry the Republicans express of the cost of the premium extensions of $1.5 trillion.
Sounds like a big number.
It is, but they've never hesitated to add dramatically to the national debt.
The Democrats will say, we won, and it's going to be extended for, what, six months, a year, whatever, at a cost of something less than $1.5 trillion.
And then they'll focus on what they really want to focus on, and that's getting the hell home for Thanksgiving.
To West Virginia, Crab Orchard, David, Independent, good morning.
unidentified
next.
Good morning.
Good morning.
Yeah, all these confused people out there that keep saying that this is the Republican and Trump shutdown doesn't understand that the Democrats, all they had to do is give the Republicans eight votes so that they could bring it to a vote where they didn't have to vote for this resolution, the Democrats.
The Republicans would have passed it with 52, 53.
There'd be no shutdown.
Okay.
Also, when they do this eventually and open up the government, into November, this one ends, they'll be shutting it down, Democrats again, because they won't allow it to come to the floor.
They'll shut it down again for the Christmas holidays.
So David, you think we're in a cycle of shutdowns?
unidentified
Of course.
We've been doing that for years.
And so I blame the Republicans too now, after a certain period of time, because they should be forced to do away with a stupid rule, which is actually the Congress's liar insurance that called filibuster 60 votes.
You know, because once they bring it to the floor, Democrats normally do not vote for the issue that the majority party, which is the Republicans, actually pass the legislation.
Okay, so we're playing this game every year.
Republicans need to go ahead, change the rule, open the government, and I blame them now because they need to open the government and because they'll play this again at the end of November.
They'll play it again during Christmas.
They'll play it again during the mid-cycle election.
David, on the filibuster issue that you bring up, supporters of the filibuster say that this is one mechanism that the legislative branch has to force some compromise, to force at least some members to work together, unless, of course, one party has a super majority and has the 60 votes without needing the other side.
unidentified
Sir, that is why we're at 37, almost 38 trillion dollars in debt.
And eventually, we're going to have to go bankrupt because of compromise.
You mentioned the holidays on the length, the expected length of the shutdown.
Congresswoman Ana Paulina Luna, the Republican from Florida, was also on Sunday Morning Futures yesterday saying that this could extend into the holidays.
That's what I'm hearing on back-end conversations, to include with members of the Democrat Party.
So that's kind of the rumor on the hill right now.
And I would prefer to be back.
We have a lot of work that we're unable to do because we're not in session.
Frankly, there's a lot of constituent services that are hard to provide for our residents here, not just here, but across the country, as a result of the government shutdown.
But yeah, that's unfortunately what we're hearing, and I think that that would push us probably to another CR.
Yesterday, it is the Washington Journal this morning.
We're talking about government shutdown day 27 and also President Trump's overseas trip to Asia.
Some movement yesterday on a potential trade deal with China.
All eyes on that meeting between President Trump and Xi Jinping, expected for Thursday this week.
Phone lines, as usual, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, and a special line for federal employees.
Lynn, a federal employee out of Philly, is up next.
Lynn, good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I'm, you know, a retired federal worker, and I hear people talking about, you know, the president needs to get involved, and the Democrats are saying this, the Republicans are saying this.
This is the truth.
The Democrats, and I'm a Democrat, are the ones that actually in the Senate side shut down the government.
You know, they did not vote for a continuing resolution, except for three of them.
One is the senator of Pennsylvania Federal and all.
So they have to get together and stop holding Americans hostage.
We're about to have people without food come, what, November 1st, which is the end of this week.
And that's ridiculous.
It is not worth it.
Plus, the health care companies have already said you're way past the deadline for them to change their costs that they're going to give out to the public for the health care.
So, because November 1st is open season.
So, they need to get together.
I know they keep on saying the president needs to come back, but the power of the purse is with the Congress, not the president.
You all talk about this president being a king, but if you want him to solve this problem, you're making him a king.
This has got to stop in America.
I want the Democrats to fight, but I want them to fight in a negotiating way, like I did when I was a union president, versus sitting up here constantly bickering and the Republicans bickering.
This has got to stop, and America has got to stop accepting it.
Yes, I'm of the opinion that if we don't stop doing behaving the way we are now, we'll be like it was in the French Revolution where the poor people are asking for food, and the rich people, the king and the queen, were saying, let them eat cake.
How can you eat cake if you don't have money to buy cake?
How can you eat cake if you don't have people who produce the flour or sugar?
You can't do things unless you have a united front.
And if you don't have a united front, like this country doesn't have at this time, we will be doing something in a place where we are like the French Revolution and most revolutions go.
The rich get richer and have disdain for the poor.
The poor need to get something else, and they have disdain for the rich.
And there has to be a middle ground.
People are dying.
People are hungry.
People need to have something to look forward to.
And that's not that ballroom at the White House.
And it's not the, what you call it, Big Bill.
It's the people in the United States who are suffering.
All colors.
I don't care what you look like, where you live, if you are not rich or in a powerful position, you will have to eat cake that you can't buy and can't find stuff to make it with.
Some additional news on the president's trip to Asia.
This is from the New York Post story on it.
The U.S. and China have also finalized a deal to transfer the American version of TikTok to new owners.
Scott Bassent also announcing that on Sunday, President Trump was asked about that and the trade deal with China when he was on Air Force One earlier today.
No, I don't want to tell you what the understanding is because what we understood yesterday or two days ago or even today is not going to be necessarily what it's going to be in two days.
I mean, we're going to have a great talk.
I have a lot of respect for President Xi.
I like him a lot.
He likes me a lot, I believe, and respects me, and I think he respects our country a lot.
And we're going to have, I think we're going to have a successful transaction for both countries.
Speaking about both of today's subjects, one, the government shut down.
Unfortunately, we are in a time period where I think that Americans really need to educate themselves and understand what the underlying issues are with the idea of a single-payer health care system, which is what the Affordable Care Act, quote-unquote, Obamacare, was really pushing us in the direction of.
And when you see single-payer systems like, let's say, in the U.K, for example, with the NHS, the level and degree and the amount of taxes that people pay in order to have such a system is the equivalent of what we're going to see with the rise and spike in premiums for health care costs,
because there is the unfortunate effect of this system called the death spiral, where government provided health care for poor people, for sicker people, causes the cost per person to rise individually.
And so what we're seeing now is the government working to try and remove private workers from their own private employers' health care system.
Have you tried to go through the federal system and find a plan there?
unidentified
Absolutely.
And it's not financially feasible.
That's a decision I think that people continue to have to make, especially in a scenario like mine of self-employment where you don't get the subsidies or the assistance of an employer.
And as premium cost and expenses have continued to rise, it's cheaper to essentially pay for health care costs and things out of pocket to cover simple prescription costs and things like that.
I mean, I don't like it as I get older every year.
I become more and more concerned about this model for my life because as we do get older, then our need for access to health care certainly increases.
But as I said, the feasibility and the way that the finances work out is just not possible at this particular moment in time.
Paying, say, $350 a month for health care insurance versus approximately $150 a month in what it costs for me to be able to visit my primary care position.
But this is a particular situation where paying $150, something like that a month for me to be able to visit my primary care position versus about $350 a month for health care premium costs once you add in deductible payments.
It just doesn't work out.
And that's, like I said, an unfortunate side effect of the idea of having a government-funded government option where I absolutely believe that health care is a human right.
People should have access and the ability to be able to get health care.
But we can't.
It's so hard to deal with when, especially if we're bringing in illegal immigrants and other folks who are getting access to it that aren't paying into the system through taxes.
So, Brian, what is the ideal system in your mind then?
So, you're talking about a private market system, but it's still too expensive for you.
So, how do you get, if you get government completely out of it, how do you make this affordable for you?
unidentified
Like I said, John, it's a very unfortunate scenario that I don't know.
There is a, I don't know that there is a perfect answer to it because, as I said, when you take and include, if you put every single person in the United States into one healthcare system, what are people that are healthier, people that have less money, people that don't visit the doctor as much or don't have prescription costs built into their monthly budgets?
What are they going to do?
They're going to get out of the system because they make the same decision that I'm currently making, which is it's more expensive for me to pay health care premium costs than it is to just exist outside of the system.
But if you remove someone like myself that doesn't visit doctors as much, doesn't use prescription drugs as much, doesn't take access or need access to emergency care physicians or regular specialist doctor visits,
because when you remove someone like me from the system and you take out healthier individuals, then that only drives up the cost of the system per person because every person now is collectively less healthy.
And, like I said, John, I don't know that I have a particular answer for it at the moment, but, like I said, it's something that I believe that Americans need to educate themselves specifically about and understand the difficulties of trying to implement and adapt the American health care system from what it strictly was before the American Affordable Care Act,
as a totally private insurance system, to this more open kind of public option, availability, Brian, thanks for call from West Point, Georgia.
Okay, the only reason why Donald Trump and the Republicans would not come to the table with the Democrats, and this is for the lady from Pennsylvania, is Obamacare.
If it had been any other insurance that they wanted to come to agreements with, it wouldn't be a shutdown.
Trump has been trying to get rid of Obamacare since he came down the escalator.
American people don't be dude.
It's because Obamacare.
And if the Democrats mess around and go back in there and negotiate with these Republicans, and which they have, and they've been mad to, guess what?
Obamacare is not coming back up again.
And the thing that would be so nice is the first four years Trump was in there, he got a big, beautiful insurance plan.
He's back again.
Where's the insurance plan?
You don't get rid of something that millions and millions of people need if you don't have nothing to replace it.
Nothing to replace it, and you want to get rid of it.
And another reason why the government is not a shutdown is people not getting paid.
Because they're still working.
It's the Epstein files.
But later with that, but the main thing is, please, America, please don't be fooled about this insurance because it'll be sad when you lose your health coverage because one man is so envious of another man.
He doesn't want President Obama to go down in history as even being existed.
Senator Ruben Gallego, that was yesterday on Meet the Press on the cost of goods right now.
The business section of the New York Times took a look at the impact of tariffs imposed under the second Trump administration.
They note that since the Trump administration started imposing steep tariffs on goods from the rest of the world, the Treasury Department has been taking in about $30 billion a month from customs dues on paper.
American companies pay those bills when their products enter the country.
But figuring out who ultimately absorbs the costs is more complicated.
Inflation data had shown limited effects for consumers through the summer.
Corporate earnings calls in recent weeks, though, suggest that that is changing, and new data was released on Friday.
Companies, they note, have passed along about 37% of new tariffs onto consumers.
They forced 9% onto their suppliers, and companies have absorbed 51% through August, according to a report from Goldman Sachs.
That's a big hit to shoppers' wallets.
The New York Times writes enough to reverse inflation's fall, but it's milder than it would have been if companies were charging consumers as much as they had at the same point of the last burst of tariffs during President Trump's first term.
Mostly, it's because the tariffs are much higher and more widespread than in 2018, making them too difficult for consumers to digest all at once.
Corporate profit margins are also healthier.
Consumers are more exhausted by price increases over the past several years, and companies suspect that the White House may back down from these tariffs eventually.
That's the first couple of graphs from that story today.
If you want to read the full story, it is in today's New York Times.
About 20 minutes left here in the first hour of the Washington Journal, taking your phone calls on government shutdown day 27 and President Trump's trip to Asia this week.
This is Stephen out of Lexington, Kentucky, Independent.
Good morning.
unidentified
Yes, good morning.
Happy Monday to everybody.
As happy as you can be on a Monday.
Yeah, it's a terrible, terrible thing that this shutdown is occurring.
It's affecting literally everybody.
Any state that you're in, any kind of industry that you're in, it's getting affected negatively.
Now, what I really want to bring up is it's still affected by the government shutdown.
We aren't getting any pictures from NASA during this shutdown for an interstellar object that's flying through our solar system.
And right now it's behind the sun.
And we could easily get pictures of this.
However, with the shutdown, NASA doesn't want to release photos.
And this is a very strange object because it's not like an asteroid we've ever seen in the past.
It has very odd anomalies.
And on October 29th, when we're actually going to be able to see it move past the sun, if that object moves in any way radically, stops, changes direction.
We know we're not alone.
And at the point that right now, the government isn't allowing us to see this, the International Asteroid Warning Society has been deployed.
That's a NASA, that's a NASA organization.
They quietly initiated and triggered the Asteroid Warning Society to start looking at this object.
It's been designed to be shut down so we don't get to see this object.
unidentified
It's designed to stop the U.S. from, or at least the people in the U.S., to be able to react to anything, not just the space objects, but to threats coming internally.
It's a power grab, really.
Because what if something does come towards us and then the president just decides to enact all the power towards him just because we have a threat coming from the outside?
Why We Don't Discriminate00:15:38
unidentified
It's too easy for him to be able to just pull this lever of total power.
And we're all in the dark about it.
It's the wildest situation right now that we're all just sitting here like ducks and we're all just at the will of this government that clearly doesn't care about the regular Joe, the regular Stephen, the regular Elizabeth out there.
When do you think the last time was that we had a government that cared about the regular Stephen out there?
unidentified
I'm a millennial, so honestly, I've been through everything.
You guys, like all the boomers and Gen Xers, you guys have just whiplashed us back and forth.
So honestly, there hasn't been a time.
I love the 90s.
That was a great time, me growing up.
But after that, it's been terrible.
You know, between going to college and getting all these student loans, you know, between the housing market, between, you know, this government, it's the wildest 36 years of my freaking life.
The life, the life that we have now, us millennials, is way more complicated than our parents had.
You know, we're working harder and we're making less, and we're supposed to do more with nothing.
It's wild.
And then we have all these baby boomers just collecting Social Security.
Like my parents right now are traveling around Europe.
Actually, I think they're in Dubai right now.
You know, so like they're living it up.
I mean, good for them.
But honestly, you guys, baby boomers, they ruined this economy for us.
They gave us drugs.
They like, I blame it all on you guys.
So, hey, long story short, if this object behind three eye Atlas, if it is NHI, not human intelligence, or something we don't even know about, and if it actually does come towards us, it's all Trump's fault.
Hey, Barbara, you should stick around for our nine o'clock hour this morning on the Washington Journal because the topics that you bring up, Philip Joyce, University of Maryland School of Public Policy professor, wrote about those topics, his recent piece from government executive, how the president expanded his power without a government, without a legislative branch, creating a vacuum for the executive branch to expand its powers.
That's the thesis of his piece, and we're going to go through it starting at 9:15 a.m.
So the questions you ask, the topics you bring up, it's literally the last 45 minutes of the show.
Taking calls from you got small business owners that think they're Superman and they'll never need to go to a doctor and never need to go to an emergency room.
And you got other people not concerned about 43 million people losing their supplemental food assistance and they're worried about aliens.
I have insurance through my employer, and I care about people who don't.
And that's what I care about.
So to just go over the history of what's going on, you have a continuing resolution that was done by the Democrats, and the Republicans just want to pass that.
That's great.
The Republicans didn't redo anything.
They just want to pass that.
That's fine.
But this other program is running out.
So why not renew that?
And I mean, I have patients that have letters being mailed to them that their insurance is going from $363 a month to $1,000 a month.
So, I mean, that's horrible.
So, you're taking that away from 20 million people, that'll affect.
And then, on top of that, with the SNAP benefits being taken from 43 million people, I mean, Trump's all fit to pay the military.
I don't understand why he can't release the already allocated funds for the SNAP programs.
It seems like this administration has no problem with hurting the poor, the sick, and the people who want to get health insurance.
I don't have anything against that guy who didn't want to buy health insurance.
It wasn't feasible for him.
But he doesn't put himself in other people's shoes who said, it benefits me to go out and have medical coverage for my family.
I'm glad to have the Affordable Care Act.
If they pay $400 a month, they're paying probably $3,500 a year.
They can go to the doctor.
They don't have to worry about getting a sports injury.
People get injured.
That has to do with your health care, too.
So even when you're trying to keep yourself fit, you can still hurt yourself and sprain an ankle or break a bone or fall off your bicycle.
And then what do you do?
Then you're paying out of pocket.
I've had stories of people who, you know, they've used the emergency room.
I work in a trauma center that is in a low-income area.
These people use the emergency room as their doctors, and they're left with huge bills when accidents happen.
So they employ paramedics in the emergency department.
So I basically triage anyone who comes in and has any cardiac issues or I do their EKG and draw labs and then I whisk them up to the cardiac cath lab if they're having a heart attack or anything like this.
When you do that, when somebody comes in in an emergency situation, what do you try to find out about that person?
Do you try to find out anything about the person?
There's been discussions about illegal immigrants using emergency rooms for health care and concern that that is a form of health insurance that people who are not citizens of this country make use of and that they are they're getting around the system that way.
What are your thoughts on that debate?
unidentified
So, I mean, I know when they come in, they give their information when they put their flips in at the triage greet where they come into the emergency room, unless they're brought in by ambulance.
But in my experience, we don't treat anybody differently.
I just, I know that their information is taken prior to me seeing them.
So I try to treat, and others I work with try to treat the patients like they're our family members.
And I treat everyone like I treat my mother.
Like that, you come through.
I don't care if you're black, white, brown, Muslim, Christian, none of that matters.
Everybody gets sick and people that think differently, it's just not based in reality.
You're going to get sick.
You're going to get hurt one day.
And that's it.
As far as their insurance or whether they're illegal or not, I never thought about it.
You don't think about it at all of how is this person going to pay for this?
unidentified
Yeah, I mean, you know, the ER is going to treat you no matter what, whether you can pay or not.
It's not like we're going to say, you know, you have to get out of here.
I think it's a law.
It's just moral to me.
If you're going to come in and you're hurt, we're going to take care of you.
But there are stories of people who, you know, they don't know how they're going to pay.
They're not aware of how much it's going to be.
Some of our doctors, they try to do the, you know, the cheapest treatment.
They could do a million-dollar cardiac workup on you.
But they're not going to do that to somebody that appears to be, you know, out on their luck and they try to get them through quickly and affordably, I guess is what I'm trying to say.
I mean, we, yeah, I mean, like I said, we treat everybody, but I know some doctors talk about other doctors who, you know, don't pay attention to that and will do an extensive workup on somebody when they're pretty sure that the person doesn't have insurance.
I mean, I've heard people ask, you know, do you have a prescription plan?
Because they'll have certain medications are cheaper and one might be more financially feasible for the patient.
So we take that into consideration.
But I don't really hear a whole lot of people ask if the patient has insurance.
You know, I think asking that question would indicate to the patient that you're going to be treated one way if you have insurance and another way if you don't.
So I think that's why we don't do it.
I just don't do it because it just doesn't matter to me.
Like, you know, if I was the patient and someone asked me, do I have insurance, I'm going to feel a certain way.
Like, why, if I don't, are you going to treat me worse than someone that did?
Edna, you, to that question and your description of it, here is today's front page of the Wall Street Journal.
And you may be interested in this article, how Donald Trump barreled through the red tape to get his ballroom.
Just the crux of it, I'll give to you.
The story starts in July, they write, with a terse email from the White House to three members of the 12-person planning board who were appointed by former President Joe Biden.
On behalf of President Donald Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as commissioner on the National Capital Planning Commission is terminated effective immediately.
Thank you for your service.
And in their place, President Trump installed his own panel of loyalists, they write, including senior White House officials, giving Republicans control over a little-known body that has an outsized influence on the historic White House complex.
The National Capital Planning Commission has raised no public objections to his plan to remodel the most famous residents in the world.
And if you want to dive more into it, that story is a front page story in the Wall Street Journal today.
Rachel, Florida, Republican, you're next.
Just about a minute and a half left here.
unidentified
Yes, hello.
I just don't understand people calling and say, just throw the money at this shutdown.
Pay this trillion dollars so we can get this shutdown over.
We are $37 trillion in debt, which that doesn't mean we got that money in the bank.
That means we are minus $37 trillion.
We don't have any money.
You know, basically, we have no money.
I don't understand why people say, oh, yeah, let's just keep throwing this money so we can get the shutdown over.
And you know what?
And you know who has done this to us?
Congress.
They have put us $37 trillion in debt.
And you know who else is the cause of this?
Us.
We're the people who voted these people in, and we keep voting the same people in.
It's ridiculous.
It's about our grandchildren that we're selling out.
It's us.
We're going to be the ones that go the way of Venezuela.
We're going to have to have a whole barrel full of money to pay for a carton of milk.
That's Gordon in Maryland, our last caller in this first segment of the Washington Journal.
Stick around, plenty more to talk about.
Later this morning, we will talk to the University of Maryland public policy professor Philip Joyce about how the government shutdown has been used to expand executive branch power over budgetary matters.
But next, after the break, it's government executive staff reporter Sean Michael Newhouse will look at the disparate impacts of the government shutdown based on Americans' zip codes and political affiliations.
Stick around for that conversation right after the break.
unidentified
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold new original series.
This Sunday with our guest Pulitzer Prize winner, Stacey Schiff, author of biographies, including Ben Franklin, Samuel Adams, and Cleopatra.
She joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubenstein.
So writing a second book on Franklin, you must admire him.
The book is called Breakneck, China's Quest to Engineer the Future.
Author Dan Wong was born in China in 1992.
His parents moved to Canada when he was seven.
In 2014, he graduated from the University of Rochester in New York.
Then in 2018, Dan Wong went to live in China until he returned to the U.S. in 2023.
He then went to the offices of the Yale Law School and wrote about his comparison of China and the United States.
He writes in his intro, quote, a strain of materialism, often crass, runs through both countries, sometimes producing variations of successful entrepreneurs, sometimes creating displays of extraordinary tastelessness, but overall contributing to a spirit of vigorous competition.
unidentified
Author Dan Wong with his book, Breakneck, China's Quest to Engineer the Future, on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
A focus now on who is and isn't being impacted by the government shutdown.
Sean Michael Newhouse is a staff reporter for government executive.
He's combed through several recent reports on that topic.
And one of the key findings, Sean Newhouse, is that political party affiliation plays a big role in whether people perceive that they've been impacted by the shutdown or not.
Explain that.
48% Impact On Communities00:15:27
unidentified
Absolutely.
So let's start with the organization who conducted the survey.
The Partnership for Public Service is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, good government group.
And as part of their duties, they conduct surveys regularly on how the public perceives government.
So shutdown is happening.
They did a survey on it.
And I should note this was in the second week of the shutdown.
We're now in the fourth.
But what they found, they asked the respondents if the shutdown impacted people in your community.
And 48% total of respondents said that their community was impacted by the shutdown.
Big partisan difference.
So we've got 69% of Democrats agree with that statement compared with 27% of Republicans and then 38% of Independents in the middle.
And we could put those numbers on the screen for our visual learners out there.
You mentioned that's the second week of the shutdown.
Is government executive following up on that?
How do they expect when we have these kind of surveys?
You get a better understanding when you see them move over time.
So is there a follow-up survey coming on this?
unidentified
Yeah, that is a very good question that I will probably have to ask the organization after this interview ends.
But I did, when they first released this survey, you know, I saw this big partisan split and I had a couple thoughts on why that might be, but I asked them, you know, why do you think this happened?
And the research manager responded to me and said, basically, that personal politics impact how you perceive government.
So he pointed me to another recent report that the organization did and that I cover.
Every year they look at trust in government.
So 2024 compared to 2025, 2024, last year of Biden, 10% of Republicans said they trusted the government.
2025, first year of Trump, that number has increased to 42%.
There's been a similar then decrease with Democrats.
This is not an exclusive one-party phenomenon.
So again, how one's politics perceives how you impact the government.
And also one zip code perceives how much you've been impacted by the shutdown.
Wallet Hub with another report on that topic.
What did Wallet Hub find?
unidentified
Yes, and I thought their methodology was really clever.
So they looked at to determine which states were most impacted by the shutdown.
They looked at the percentage of workers in that state who were federal workers, and they looked at federal contract dollars spend per capita in the state, which made a lot of sense to me.
But they looked at some other factors that I didn't initially consider that I thought was rather clever.
They looked at the percentage of individuals in the state who rely on SNAP food stamps.
We know that that benefit is set to expire at the end of the month.
They looked at real estate as a percentage of the state's gross economy.
The shutdown affects any housing agency.
Their operations might be completely shut down.
Or at the very least, it's probably just that their work has been slow.
So they looked at that.
And they also looked at the number of national parks in the state because whether a park is closed varies park by park.
At the very least, most of their operations have been affected by the shutdown.
And you mentioned the SNAP news, the administration announcing that there wasn't going to be additional money for that when those benefits run out.
We'll see if that holds.
But I think the number is something like 47 million Americans who make use of SNAP.
Here's from Wallet Hub: the percentage of families in each state that receive SNAP benefits.
The states with the highest percentage of families receiving SNAP benefits, New Mexico, the District of Columbia, Louisiana, West Virginia, and Oregon, the states with the lowest percentage of families receiving SNAP benefits, Kansas, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Utah, and Wyoming.
New Mexico comes up as one of those states that if you live there, you're feeling this government shutdown more.
What are some of the other states?
unidentified
Yes, so unsurprisingly, D.C. was the state that, well, not state, city, Wallet Hub determined was the most impacted because D.C. has the highest percentage of workers who work for the government, also the highest amount of federal contract dollars per capita.
You mentioned New Mexico, they determined that was the third most affected.
It is the state with the highest percentage of its residents who are SNAP participants.
Also, it has one of the highest numbers, federal contract dollars per capita, New Mexico.
And then number two, you might think Maryland or Virginia would be number two, number three, but actually Hawaii was number two.
That's because they have a relatively high percentage of workers in Hawaii work for the federal government.
Fourth of its economy relies on real estate.
And then unsurprisingly, Hawaii has a lot of national parks.
What's your read on why New Hampshire, Nebraska, Indiana, Iowa, and Minnesota are the states with the lowest level of impact, at least according to this set of statistics?
unidentified
Yes, I wouldn't say I have any particular read.
I did notice looking at the states that were least impacted, they did tend to be in the Midwest, but it's just because of the factors that Wallet Hub determined to use, determine which states had the most impact.
Federal contract dollars per capita is another one of those factors that Wallet Hub used here.
The states with the most per capita, the District of Columbia, unsurprisingly, number one, Virginia and Maryland, right around the federal government capital, New Mexico and Connecticut, the states with the lowest federal contract dollars per capita, Nebraska, Arkansas, Oregon, Minnesota, there it is, and Delaware.
Asking you, our viewers, this morning, are you being impacted by the government shutdown?
Give us a call.
Sean Newhouse joins us for this conversation.
He's been following some of these different reports on it.
Here's how you can join the conversation.
Republicans, it's 202-748-8001.
Democrats, 202-748-8000.
And Independents, 202748-8002.
As people are calling in on that, switch gears for me.
Another topic that you've been following, agencies, inspectors general.
For folks who haven't been tracking it, what's been happening to the executive branch core of inspectors general in the second Trump administration?
unidentified
Absolutely.
So let's start with what inspectors general are.
So several agencies have inspectors general, and they lead offices of offices of staff ranging from dozens of employees to hundreds.
And their job is to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in the agencies.
So they issue reports that look at the effectiveness of agency programs.
Individuals can submit whistleblower complaints.
They may investigate those.
And I covered Congress before this current job, and it was very rare that you would watch a congressional markup where a member of Congress, either side, would not bring up information referenced by an inspector general.
They were really heralded as kind of the pinnacle of nonpartisanship.
And what has been happening to your second question?
So the first Friday of Trump's second term, he fired 17 agency inspectors general.
The month after in February, he removed the Inspector General for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
That's an agency that has been effectively eliminated.
It's been folded into the State Department.
That Inspector General had warned that the layoffs at that agency were going to make it harder to perform oversight of foreign aid after that memo was issued.
They were removed.
And then just two weeks ago, the Inspector General for the Export Import Bank was fired by the President.
So is he saying what the president did is illegal?
unidentified
Well, that's a question that I actually just covered in the Inspector General confirmation hearing last week, and the senator asked nominees that question.
So, well, let's start with what the requirement is.
So in 2008, Congress required the president, so the president can remove the inspector general.
Let's just be clear about that.
But in 2008, Congress required that the president had to give Congress 30-day notice before removing an inspector general.
And then in 2002, they expanded that requirement to say the president had to provide the substantive rationale for the removal.
So it wasn't enough to just say, hey, I'm firing this guy in a month.
I imagine it's Congress sort of protecting the legislative branch powers, but how?
unidentified
Absolutely.
Well, I think it gets to controversy.
So agency inspectors general are political appointees, but they're not political appointees in the classical sense.
They are, well, legally required, but also kind of traditionally expected to have some independence from the administration.
They perform oversight on the administration, so the expectation is that if something critical or bad would come out about the administration, that they would still report that information fairly and accurately.
So when it gets to if inspector general removed, then a lot of questions is, okay, why were they removed?
You know, what might the administration be trying to cover up?
What has been President Trump's reaction to criticism?
Is that a fair way to describe from Chuck Grassley?
unidentified
I would say it goes beyond Chuck Grassley.
Certainly most Congressional Democrats, many good government groups, you know, every time I write on Inspectors General, I have to reach out to the White House for comment.
And I mentioned that Inspectors General used to be heralded as these kind of pinnacles of nonpartisanship.
The Trump administration, this term, has called them partisan, corrupt, said they lied to the public.
So certainly a rhetorical shift on the part of the Trump administration.
What do we know about the appointed or nominated inspectors general for the departments of defense, labor, and the small business administration?
unidentified
Yes, so that was actually the hearing last week that I covered.
I think the most notable is the nominee for the Labor Department Inspector General.
That's former Representative Diaz Bosito.
He was a New York Republican one term, lost his re-election race.
So just the fact that he is a former congressman is surprising because again, it is expected that inspectors general are not political figures.
Historically, they have served across terms.
If a Democrat's next president, if Diaz Posito is concerned and if a Democrat is the next president, I have a hard time seeing him staying under that administration.
But also, Diaz Posito had accused of an ethical lapse when he was a congressman.
The New York Times reported that he allegedly hired his fiancé's daughter and also a woman with whom he was having an affair.
So both his political history and that kind of ethical scandal definitely played a role in that hearing.
Well, my comment is on the impact of the government shutdown.
And it seems to me it's a political move just to take care of the Obamacare situation, possible increase.
Now, I'm a retired 81-year-old, and my wife is 79.
We do live on a fixed income, but we pay for our own insurance, and it costs us over $12,000 a year out of pocket for a supplemental program and for ABCD, I'm sorry, for D, for pharmaceuticals.
So I'm paying a lot of money with no supplement from the United States government.
My son at one time was on Obamacare and found it totally, totally inadequate to take care of him.
Fortunately, he's a younger person and didn't have any health issues.
My point here is, why are they holding us hostage for $1.5, $1.7 trillion, whatever the figure may be, to support a program provided by people who give donations to politicians?
And I feel that's what it's all about.
If they would only remove the boundaries from states and make the health care companies compete with each other for my dollar, we'd be better off.
That's my point.
Now we shut down the government because one side wants to keep their little boondoggle going because they're supported by health care companies.
Georgie, are you feeling the government shutdowns impacts where you are?
What is it?
Bogota, New Jersey?
Am I saying it correctly?
unidentified
Yes, yes.
I see it.
I see my neighbors.
I have two neighbors who are air traffic controllers.
They're not going to be paid.
They did tell me they're going to go to work, but they say their colleagues are up in the air whether they should report in, whether they should call sick.
And air traffic control is a critical thing for this country.
We live near Peterborough Airport.
I have aircraft flying over my home all the time.
That's the backbone of industry.
That's keeping people working.
All those airline employees that are going to be affected by reduced schedules, the airport employees that are going to be affected by reduced schedules because they'll all be furloughed.
From New Jersey, George, I want to let Sean Newhouse jump in.
Have you covered much on air traffic controllers and kind of where, what happens in the next couple weeks if this goes another couple weeks?
Uh, on that front with the shutdown?
unidentified
Yes, so I haven't, but my uh colleagues have, and there was a detail and a story.
It was about how federal employees are and government executive we cover federal employees.
This is our bread and butter.
It was how federal employees are responding to this financially, uh, not getting paid, many of them.
And uh, my colleague interviewed an air traffic controller and he said, some of his colleagues they're working six days a week.
Again, they're not getting paid for this work at the moment because of the shutdown, and then on their day off they're ubering.
Uh, you know they're driving for uber, so that's definitely not a situation you want people to be in.
Shutdown Controversies00:11:02
unidentified
Uh, I know in the 2019 shutdown it's been widely I believe it was 2019 shutdown it's been widely said that uh, when air traffic controllers started not showing up for work in greater numbers, that kind of prompted Congress to come to a resolution.
So yes, air traffic controllers have definitely historically been one group of federal employees who are looked at as far as the consequences of the shutdown 2018 to 2019.
We had a caller earlier today who was very concerned about the idea of of a universal health care system, of a single-payer system, of the government running health care you talk about.
Why can't it be a universal price?
How much uh, how concerned are you about that?
Is that something that you would support?
No, we lost Ted.
He hung up.
Uh, but something you cover much at all or no health care?
unidentified
No, I do relate personally to the small print at the bottom of health care forms.
But uh yes, like the previous caller said, I think his assessment is correct.
The affordable, the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies are the main cause of the shutdown.
I wouldn't say that's the only reason.
Uh, Democrats so far haven't provided the votes.
Uh, to pass the Go P-backed continuing resolution.
But uh again, Wallet Hub's analysis didn't look at health care coverage.
But if these subsidies for Affordable Care Act do expire, I think that would be another factor as far as determining which states are most affected by affected by the shutdown or the consequences of the shutdown.
Taking your phone calls for another couple minutes with Sean New House OF Government Executive, UH, to hear from you about the impact of the government shutdown or, if you have questions about inspectors general, a good guy To ask those questions too.
He's been covering it rather extensively during the second Trump administration.
202-748-8000 for Democrats.
Republicans, 202-748-8001.
Independents, 202-748-8002.
As people keep calling in, what are you working on this week at GovExec?
unidentified
Sure.
What am I working on this week?
Well, I think with the shutdown, it is a day-by-day, you know, whatever the president announces obviously warrants coverage.
More of Trump's Inspector General, Inspector's General nominees are getting through the confirmation process, so I'll be looking at those.
Also, last week there was a deregulatory memo.
I don't want to bring up a completely new topic to your audience.
With regulation, whenever this would come up in the past, this act that has been around for a long time, I think it's called the Rains Act.
Regulations that have an economic impact, I think it was over $100 million.
There was a law proposed that Congress would have to vote on those individual regulations.
What's the status of that?
Has that come back up in the second Trump administration?
unidentified
I was about to say I don't know what you're talking about, but as you're talking, I'm like, this is ringing a bell.
And this was an act, you said, so not allowed yet.
Actually, I don't think I have, I would, you'd think if that was introduced, I'd get a press release about it.
I haven't yet, but I'll have to look into that if that has been introduced.
With Republican Congress, that I don't know if it probably wouldn't get past filibuster in the Senate, but that you'd think that might be a bill that Congressional Republicans would be spotlighting.
Certainly one that we have talked about in years past here on the Washington Journal, but it might be time for another segment on it.
This is Linwood out of Beltsville, Maryland, Independent.
Linwood, good morning.
You're on with Sean Newhouse.
unidentified
Good morning to speak to you all.
I have a comment in regards to Inspector General's, the Inspector General for the Department of Justice.
Is there one in place at this point in time?
As well as I have a comment, I've been reaching out to the United States Attorney for Washington, D.C., Pirro, as well as I would think she would pipe my information over to the Department of Justice because there's an employee with the Department of Justice for whom fraudulently used government funds on an absurd amount of occasions for which I propose to terminate.
And she's an attorney with the United States Attorney's Office out at D.C.
And in that particular regard, and unfortunately, I was terminated because I proposed her termination and I was retaliated against as a whistleblower.
So just reaching out and just trying to navigate the system is how difficult it is to just seek justice and particularly desperate impacts in this particular season, for which I'm actively pursuing.
Yes, and I didn't immediately review this, but if my memory is correct, I forget his first name, but Horowitz was the Inspector General at the Justice Department.
He is no longer there.
The deputy then became the acting inspector general.
Trump then put a different person in the acting inspector general position.
That has been a separate controversy.
However, in this case, I do not believe I'm relying on a Bloomberg article here, so cite my sources, but I don't believe there was anything particularly controversial about the current acting Inspector General at the Justice Department.
That process that the viewer was talking about in terms of whistleblowers and when and why they would go to an inspector general versus other routes.
Just how much can you tell us about the process of inspectors general and their interaction with individual federal employees?
unidentified
Absolutely.
So I can't speak too much about the process, but I'm still really glad you asked that question.
So as I mentioned, inspectors general traditionally and also by law are supposed to have some degree of independence from the agencies they work at or the agencies that they audit.
So a whistleblower might be more inclined to go to an inspector general because of that independence.
And the good government groups have warned that with these firings of inspectors general, it is prob, they say, they argue is going to have a chilling effect on whistleblowers being willing to come forward.
As it relates to Inspector Generals, how do we square $130 billion being given anonymously for our military and also $40 billion being given to Argentina during a government shutdown?
I mean, how do we square that as a government and the people?
So I don't, I think the donor for the military has been revealed.
I believe it's Mellon, but that was anonymous for a time.
But yeah, that is a matter where I could foresee an Inspector General would look into that to make sure that because they weren't providing those millions of dollars, they weren't then receiving any favor from the government.
And this is what the good government groups would say: is that when you have when the president has kind of an adversarial relationship with, or I should say more adversarial relationship with the inspectors general, that might make the people who work in these oversight offices less inclined to pursue those potentially high-profile cases.
And again, I'm not saying that there's anything untoward about what happened just yet, but that I could see that being something an inspector general might look into depending on the circumstances.
But when it comes to a funding issue like that, couldn't Congress always hold hearings and investigations?
They control the purse strings.
Isn't this something that Congress could look into?
It's not the first job of the Inspector General, isn't it, Congress, that that's part of their job as the legislative branch?
unidentified
Yes, that is a great point.
And there's probably a joke here to be made about congressional experts say that Congress doesn't really hold hearings anymore.
That might be too niche of a joke even for a C-SPAN.
But you're absolutely right.
Congress absolutely can do oversight on their own.
That being said, having done this for a couple of years, many members of Congress describe the Inspectors General as their eyes and ears in the agency.
Members of Congress have a lot of responsibilities, not just in their legislative role, but also as politicians, whereas Inspectors General and the teams that they leave are actually in these agencies, have a lot of influence, authority to be able to investigate these matters, and then Congress is able to use that information.
Later this morning on the Washington Journal, we'll talk to University of Maryland public policy professor Philip Joyce about how the government shutdown has expanded executive branch power over budgetary matters.
But next after the break, it's open forum.
Any public policy issue, any political issue that you want to talk about, phone lines are yours.
The numbers are on your screen.
Go ahead and start calling in now and we'll get to those calls right after the break.
The book is called Breakneck, China's Quest to Engineer the Future.
Author Dan Wong was born in China in 1992.
His parents moved to Canada when he was seven.
In 2014, he graduated from the University of Rochester in New York.
Then in 2018, Dan Wong went to live in China until he returned to the U.S. in 2023.
He then went to the offices of the Yale Law School and wrote about his comparison of China and the United States.
He writes in his intro: A strain of materialism, often crass, runs through both countries, sometimes producing variations of successful entrepreneurs, sometimes creating displays of extraordinary tastelessness, but overall contributing to a spirit of vigorous competition.
unidentified
Author Dan Wong with his book Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
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Any public policy issue, any political issue that you want to talk about, now's the time to call in.
Republicans 202-748-8001.
Democrats 202-748-8000.
Independents 202-748-8002.
And on this day 27 of the government shutdown, also a special line for federal employees.
202748-8003 is the number that we've set aside for federal employees.
Happy to talk to you again on this 27th day of the government shutdown.
Here's what's going on today on Capitol Hill, despite the shutdown.
At 10 a.m. Eastern, after this program ends, we are going to go to a press conference by Speaker Mike Johnson.
He will be joined by Small Business Administration Head Kelly Loeffler for that discussion.
You can watch immediately after this program here on C-SPAN, also on c-span.org and the free C-SPAN Now video app.
And later today, two former Justice Department officials discuss whether the DOJ has become too politicized in recent years.
That's conversation happening at 4 p.m. Eastern here on C-SPAN, C-SPAN.org, and the free C-SPAN Now app.
This evening, Maryland Senator Chris Van Holland, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is going to talk about the future of American diplomacy and the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
6:30 p.m. Eastern Time.
Again, here on C-SPAN, C-SPAN.org and C-SPANNOW.
Plenty going on, and there's been plenty happening already today.
President Trump is overseas.
He landed this morning in Tokyo.
He's meeting with Japan's emperor today.
He's set to meet tomorrow with Japan's new prime minister.
And then all eyes later this week will be on his upcoming meeting with President Xi Jinping of China.
That's expected to take place in South Korea at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit that's taking place.
Some news yesterday on that front from the Treasury Secretary on the Sunday shows noting that a trade deal with China is within reach.
The stage has now been set for the Trump G meeting expectations of a trade deal that could avert an additional 100% tariff that President Trump had threatened to impose on imports from China.
As the Washington Post notes, it would be a highly anticipated economic deal between the world's two largest economies.
That's what's going on today.
We're taking your phone calls in open forum.
Samuel is up first out of California, Republican line.
Samuel, good morning.
What's on your mind?
unidentified
Yes, good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
Yeah, I was watching the mayor's race in New York City.
I can't believe how they could put Mandami in there.
I mean, he said he's going to tax the rich.
Everything's going to be free in there and everything.
And, you know, I don't know where he's going to get the money because most of the people there that are multi-billionaires, they're moving down to Florida.
He's not going to find the money.
So I don't know.
I don't understand what's going on.
I don't know why they don't put a good Republican as a mayor in New York City to get it all straightened out and then get more police officers in there.
Policemen Behind Social Workers00:05:55
unidentified
And then he's talking about when people are committing crimes and everything and people have mental problems and everything.
He's going to send people over there to talk to him.
You know, I don't understand what they're trying to do there.
Anyway, you send those people over there, social workers over there, you have to send a policeman behind them because in case those people go crazy, they're going to hurt somebody.
But you have to have a policeman there, and there ain't going to be a policeman there available.
So what I'm thinking of.
Oh, anyways, the government shut down.
That's a terrible thing.
I think that Senator Schumer, yeah, he ought to just retire because it's not AOC trying to chase his job because he screwed up when he made the big, great, big, great New Deal and everything.
You know, that was a, I don't know what was going on, but he signed that bill.
They have not been speaking to and have not been connecting with us.
Except for a few, they are nowhere to be found.
The Republicans will have a talking point and will be everywhere, stating it over and over whether it is true or not, and people come to believe it.
Every elected Democrat should have been and should be out there on a full court press like point guards, touting and drilling information.
The American people need to know.
Congressman Clyburn, he was everywhere and he is still everywhere trying to state the case.
The lady that took his place in leadership, I don't even know what she looks like, but you will when it's time for re-election.
We, the taxpayer, pay those people approximately $14,000 a month.
They should have been and should be holding pressers, town halls every week, every month in their respective localities, even standing on soapboxes at the mall.
By the Democrats being so deficient in messaging, misinformation and disinformation has been allowed to fester.
When that happens, it becomes embedded, and that is hard to undo, if at all possible.
The Democrats' lack of messaging is destructive, and they've failed us.
Here's the story from the New York Times with no end in sight to the nearly month-long federal government shutdown.
Funding for the nation's largest food assistance program, known as SNAP, will disappear at the start of November, according to the Department of Agriculture.
On Friday, the Trump administration said in a memo that it would not tap into contingency funds to keep payments flowing to states.
The Times story noting that means roughly 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, may soon have to find other ways to feed themselves and their families.
Because that's the way most Southerners see Obamacare.
It's a free thing from a colored man to other colored people.
This is the way they see Obamacare.
This is why Trump needs to destroy it.
Plus, he's jealous as hell.
He didn't get a Nobel Prize.
He wants that.
He wants to buy it if he can get it.
And the last thing being that this whole idea of not talking about Epstein, Epstein, the Israeli lobby, the Mossad,
and all of the dirt they've got by hooking guys up with prostitutes and little boys and little girls, they will go to all expense to make sure we never hear the truth of it.
And I can bet today they're still erasing pages and sentences and pictures because when this thing ends, the stuff is really going to hit the fan, isn't it?
I just found out that building the big ballroom isn't going to really happen because they're going to have to arrest all the ICE police are going to arrest the workers there because most of them are immigrants.
I had a roof put on my house a few years ago, and I thought I was dealing with a local company.
And then all of a sudden, it was all Mexican workers that came.
Plenty of articles today on the destruction of the East Wing, the construction of a new ballroom.
This is the Wall Street Journal front page, how Trump barreled through red tape to get his ballroom.
The president realized his longtime dream by remaking a planning board and taking advantage of permitting oddities when it comes to the White House.
This is the Washington Post story, the East Wing's quiet power silence.
The space was called the heart of the nation, and now it is gone.
And this from the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal.
It's Colin Levy, a member of the journal's editorial board, who writes, Vast palaces loom over landscapes in Riyadh, in Oman, and Malaysia, but the scale and grandeur of the building doesn't confer on those nations any gravitas or greatness.
The buildings instead offer wry witness to the reason those countries are not as great as ours.
They have been led by rulers who put their own opulence and comfort over the principles of the nation that they serve.
Of course, the world changes and cities rise and fall, but a great sovereign nation guards certain spaces as monuments to the country's history and singularity.
Colin Levy saying history is important, monuments matter, and the home of the U.S. president isn't just a building to be optimized for function.
It is a symbol of power, a legacy, and national identity, respect for the nation, and all that it has built still matters.
These aren't trivial trifles or overreactions.
They are the foundations that the Republic was built on, and that is worth defending.
Saying the White House isn't private property.
The demolition of the East Wing was unprecedented.
Back to your phone calls.
This is Carolyn out of Missouri Democrat.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I have a question.
I saw the East Wing being demolished.
I was horrified.
I also have this question.
Mr. Trump bought the old post office in D.C.
And he was making a lot of money in that building.
He was also being watched quite closely.
I'm wondering: did he have the East Wing torn down so that he can do that there without giving any explanation who's coming and going and who's paying him?
And he can be secretive, more secretive than he was in the old post office building, hotel that he made.
James, how do you think Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have done as messengers for the Democratic Party during the shutdown?
unidentified
I think they're doing wonderful because for the last couple of years, most people have been interpreting these people as being feckless and effective, like the lady just said a little while ago, that they're doing nothing.
What they're doing is following the rules.
And now that they're actually standing in the doorway and saying no more, people are blaming them for something that they're supposed to do.
I know they're the so-called opposition party, but they're just opposing the things that are not supposed to be done.
And what's wrong with that?
They're doing their job.
That's my answer to that.
I do have a couple other ones.
We need to just listen.
Like I said, we need to listen to the Republicans.
They've had a message now for about 40 years.
Peace through strength.
I don't know how they could keep saying that because next year we're going to celebrate our 250th anniversary.
And the people we beat up on at the time in 1776, they were the superpower of the world.
And they didn't have peace.
We had more strength than the people we've gone to war with.
And praise God, in most of the wars we've had, the moral side won.
But you can't have peace just having because you're not the biggest dick or you're the biggest guy on the street.
You have to have the respect and the cooperation of those around you.
And this president is pissing off our neighbors.
So start reading the Constitution, understand the Constitution, and respect people for doing their job.
Betsy, what do you think about those attacks on those boats?
There's been a lot of controversy surrounding those.
unidentified
Yes.
Well, you can see the police and the Coast Guard, and I'm not sure what the other agencies are, but they're going from, they work with Puerto Rico, and they go from island to island, and you can see what the drug boats look like.
And there are several other ones like contraband.
They also show some of the boats that are being washed up on U.S. shores in the state of Florida.
So on that first point, one of the explanations has been that blowing up the boats is a form of deterrence to send a message to others to don't even try this, that that is the message that the United States is sending, that it's tried the law enforcement side of this, of trying to follow them and dismantle the networks.
This is a deterrence operation.
unidentified
Okay, another thing, if you give more police, If you give cities funds to have more police, what, Will?
Reduce crime.
The other one is, how can a person stop seven walls and can't reopen the government?
I think that would be easier than stopping seven walls.
And the last thing is the last thing is what, Will?
If the U.S. doesn't keep their promises, you know, and protect people who assist us in military campaigns, who's going to believe that they're going to be protected in the future?
It doesn't seem that difficult that either an exception or an exemption could come into place so that these guys can stay in the United States like they were told that they'd be able to.
unidentified
I'm wondering if C-SPAN could even do a story about this.
This is Reuters story on that topic, but it's a couple months old at this point.
But there's a few stories like this.
Massed ICE agents detain a former Afghan interpreter who helped the U.S. military.
That's from July, but we'll look into some more recent stories for you.
But always appreciate topic suggestions for this program.
It's a 365-day a year program and plenty to talk about.
Let me go to Christy in Kansas, Overland Park, Kansas, Line for Democrats.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
I just, I guess, more have a complaint comment.
I don't know.
But I watch a lot of different news stations to try to get different opinions instead of just focusing on the Democratic side and this and that.
And I never hear anyone say, you know, when is the Supreme Court going to step up and say enough is enough with Trump?
It seems like ever since they gave him this presidential immunity, that's all he needed to do, whatever the hell he wants to do.
You know, kidnapping people off the streets.
If people are going to immigration court to get legal, but then you're, you know, kidnapping them outside of it.
And it's supposed to be the worst of the worst and all these other things.
Nothing he ever says is it comes true.
The people that decided that nine, I think it's nine people in the Supreme Court decide for 340 million people for the rest of their lives is utterly ridiculous.
Idiot Tyrant Rant00:00:59
unidentified
And they need to talk about changing that.
I just don't understand why no one is really saying what's really going on in this country.
And now you've got this idiot who's a tyrant that just has a child's ego, spoiled brat, who just wants to do everything for himself and make money for his family, which was supposed to be illegal as well.
Go ahead and keep calling in more of your phone calls in just a couple minutes here, but we want to head now to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, where we're joined by Time Politics Reporter Nick Popely.
Nick Popely, President Trump overseas in Japan today.
We know that there's at least a framework deal in place for a trade deal with China.
What more details can you fill us in on?
What has the White House been saying to you today?
unidentified
Well, thank you for having me.
Both sides appear to have agreed to a framework of a deal, but it's still a little bit unclear what exactly that entails and if this will hold true in a couple of days when the two sides meet in person.
Both sides do appear likely to extend the existing trade tariff truce that has been in place for the last couple of months.
But it remains to be seen just exactly how if both sides will be willing to hold up the so-called framework of a deal.
We know that Treasury Secretary Scott Besant has said that Trump's threat of 100% tariff is likely off the table for now.
And that is a significant development that we'll have to wait and see how it plays out.
But certainly a welcome news for the markets and for American farmers and for consumers here in the United States.
This meeting with Xi Jinping of China expected to take place Thursday in South Korea at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit.
Any more details about who would be in that meeting, where it will take place, sort of the staging of this very big meeting between the leaders of the two largest economies in the world?
unidentified
Well, the most significant aspect of that meeting is that it'll be the first face-to-face meeting between President Xi and President Trump since 2019.
And, you know, the two sides will be talking about fentanyl, they'll be talking about TikTok.
President Trump may also ask for President Xi's support to pressure Russia and President Putin of Russia.
As we know, China has continued to purchase oil and gas from Russia.
And so that may be a part of the discussions as well.
It's possible that Taiwan comes up in those discussions as well.
We know that the United States has remained firm in its stance that it will continue to support and defend Taiwan, but President Xi of China is likely to try to see how far the United States is willing to go on Taiwan.
And as the president is traveling this week overseas, what does that say about expectations for an end this week to a now 27-day old government shutdown?
Is there any likelihood that some negotiation would happen and the president would sign something to end this while he's traveling overseas?
unidentified
It's possible, but it certainly dampens any expectation that they could reach a truce or an agreement on health care and ending this government shutdown while the president is abroad.
It is possible that they could, but given the fact that the president's out of the country, the House still hasn't been in session, they've been out for more than a month.
And the Senate is in town and they could continue to discuss the government shutdown and the funding of the CR.
But it seems there is a pressing deadline coming up, and that's November 1, when the SNAP funding is set to expire.
SNAP is another word for the food stamp program.
And this funding will be cut off on November 1st, and millions of Americans will lose access to food stamps.
So that is a pressure point that we are seeing, and it remains to be seen if that will accelerate these negotiations that you mentioned.
But with the president out of the country, it does appear unlikely that they are able to reach a negotiation or reach an agreement, just given the fact that the president will likely need to sit down with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries of the House.
The President oversees along with several other members of his cabinet, including the Treasury Secretary.
So who this week would be the main White House emissary to Capitol Hill, somebody to watch to see if there is movement?
unidentified
Well, I think Senate Majority Leader John Thune would be one to watch closely.
They regularly hold press conferences with reporters in the Senate and in the House.
So House Speaker Mike Johnson would also be one to watch.
They'll be discussing with reporters any progress that's been made.
And it'll be important to see if their tone has shifted at all, especially given that the SNAP benefits are set to expire, but also military members might not get paid.
Furloughed workers are continuing not to get paid.
So we'll have to see what their messaging is this week.
But certainly we have seen no indication that they're willing to budge.
And we've also seen no indication that the Democrats are willing to budge on their health care demands.
And we'll continue to watch Time magazine, Nick Popola Politics reporter there for new information.
Though before you go, as the leaves are falling behind you on the White House grounds, I did want to ask whether you've been over to see the East Wing demolition, how much access are reporters being given to that construction site, and is that the sound of construction that we hear behind you?
unidentified
I believe it is the sound of construction behind me.
I haven't been over there to see it personally, but I can hear it.
And we've seen pictures and images of the East Wing being demolished.
It remains a challenging, I'd say sort of a thorn in the side of the president a bit, just given all these images circulating.
But the president remains firm in his stance that presidents throughout history have been able to renovate the White House campus as they see fit.
President Nixon turned the White House swimming pool into the White House briefing room as it is today.
So they remain firm that they followed all the proper procedures, that they didn't need a review Of the demolition plan before it was demolished.
And, you know, there's a lawsuit right now against this, hoping to stop the construction.
But as you know, as you can hear behind me, and I'm sure you'll see in some images as well, construction has continued.
Anyway, I have a couple of cultural points I want to make out first.
Teachers Union Concerns00:03:06
unidentified
It used to be dog was man's best friend, but now man is dog's best friend.
And who's man's best friend now?
The cell phone.
But after saying that, I want to just mention in this country about something that really bothers me is the teachers, the teachers' union, in the whole teaching thing.
First of all, I wanted to say if you guys want to help, if the government wants to help, take my advice, my wife's advice.
Drop the interest rate on college loans to 2%, and that would help quite a bit of people.
Secondly, when I was in elementary school, there were two teachers per grade.
There were six grades in my elementary school, 12 cars in the lot.
Now you can't even get in the parking lot.
The teachers' union cares about teachers, not students anymore.
And when you have that many siblings, you know, I don't know if you know, but there's always a couple of black sheep in the family.
And we love our black sheeps as well.
We have no problems.
Our families are very loving.
And I mean, I would get vehement.
I mean, I have vehement arguments with my daughter and my nieces, but the truth of the matter is, our education publicly seems to be failing.
I mean, when they say that, like, there's not 10 people that can read or do math according to their grade, to me, the first year that happens, I would realize I got to get rid of some of these teachers.
Because, I mean, what's going on?
You know, and then during Biden, and he mandates that if you don't have the vaccine, then you're fired.
Well, to me, a teacher should be a very independent thinker.
And when he fired those teachers that refused to get the vaccine, to me, he's firing probably the best teachers he's got.
One caller, John, the medical provider from Philly, who said he works, he has health care, but he thinks about the people who don't have access to health care.
I hope he's listening, John.
I hope he's still listening because I'm with him.
Now, you had another caller.
I can't recall his name, a guy from New Jersey who talked about spending out of pocket $17,000 a year and talked about how why can't we just go back to the free market and let insurance providers compete?
Well, you know what, John?
We had that, and that led to Medicare.
Why?
Because providers refused to care for older people, or they priced it so that people, older people, couldn't afford it.
Why did we have government interventions with the Affordable Care Act?
Insurance providers weren't caring for people who had preexisting conditions.
I feel as if he is in all ways admirable in so many ways, just the essential DNA of America.
His voice is the voice of America, literally.
unidentified
Watch America's Book Club with Stacey Schiff, Sundays at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
America marks 250 years, and C-SPAN is there to commemorate every moment.
From the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the voices shaping our nation's future, we bring you unprecedented all-platform coverage, exploring the stories, sights, and spirit that make up America.
Join us for remarkable coast-to-coast coverage, celebrating our nation's journey like no other network can.
America 250.
Over a year of historic moments, only on the C-SPAN networks.
Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins.
Politico Playbook chief correspondent and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns is host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the aisle into a dialogue.
Ceasefire on the network that doesn't take sides.
Fridays at 7 and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
The book is called Breakneck, China's Quest to Engineer the Future.
Author Dan Wong was born in China in 1992.
His parents moved to Canada when he was seven.
In 2014, he graduated from the University of Rochester in New York.
Then in 2018, Dan Wong went to live in China until he returned to the U.S. in 2023.
He then went to the offices of the Yale Law School and wrote about his comparison of China and the United States.
He writes in his intro: A strain of materialism, often crass, runs through both countries, sometimes producing variations of successful entrepreneurs, sometimes creating displays of extraordinary tastelessness, and overall contributing to a spirit of vigorous competition.
unidentified
Author Dan Wong with his book, Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future, on this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb.
BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app.
A conversation now on the shutdown and presidential powers.
Our guest is University of Maryland School of Public Policy professor Philip Joyce.
And Professor Joyce, in a recent column, you wrote this in Government Executive: When the government shutdown ends, Donald Trump will have succeeded in staging the single biggest expansion of presidential powers in American history because of the single largest shift in the constitutional balance of powers ever.
Well, I think that the first thing to understand is that government shutdowns, as bad as they are, actually confer a great deal of power to the executive branch in making decisions about, for example, who's going to work and who's not going to work, what programs and policies are going to continue and what programs and policies are not going to continue.
But you go beyond that, you know, he has really taken this opportunity to try to do many of the things that he wanted to do anyway.
And so he's done something that no other president has ever done, which is to use this as an excuse to lay off employees, for example.
And then, you know, the particular, in my own view, the sort of particular thing that sort of caused me, gave me pause, I would say, is when he decided to pay the troops using an appropriation that was not for that purpose.
I have no qualms about paying the troops.
I think troops should be paid.
I think everyone should be paid.
But what he did was took funds that had been made available for one purpose and used them for a completely different purpose.
So once you have that kind of control over the budget, it's very hard to sort of see where that ends.
Well, I should say first, I'm not a constitutional scholar, but I'm not sure.
I don't play one on television, but I will say that, you know, Clause 7 of Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution says, and I'm going to read this, no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequences of appropriations made by law.
And when the legislative branch makes appropriations, it doesn't just give the president or even the Department of Defense a big lump sum and say, spend it however you want.
There are more than 1,000 appropriation accounts in the federal budget, and those appropriation accounts are first and foremost, sort of limits on what can be spent for any particular item.
And what the Trump administration did in this case was they took an appropriation that was for research and development in the Department of Defense, and they used that appropriation to make payments for military personnel.
And that's not the purpose for which that appropriation was made.
And so once the President can decide that he wants to take any pot of money and spend it for anything he wants to, that does sort of great damage to the power of the purse.
And the founders were very concerned that the Congress possessed the power of the purse at the risk of reading another quote.
I'm going to do it anyway.
Madison in Federalist 58 said the power of the purse may in fact be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any Constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people.
There's a reason that the founders thought that the power of the purse should rest in the Congress.
And part of the power of the purse resting in the Congress means that Congress should get to decide, of course, with the President's agreement, when the President signs appropriation bills, what money can be spent for.
But once that's happened, then the President should be bound to spend money in that way.
Is this just a function of the President's party controlling both the House and the Senate and that if and when it happens that one party, the opposition party, gains control of one chamber, then Congress will reassert itself.
I guess that's possible, but you have to ask yourself the question whether the horse is out of the barn at that point.
And what we don't know is we don't know what the courts are going to rule on this.
I've been very careful to not just declare that something is unconstitutional because what's constitutional is dependent on what ultimately the Supreme Court says is constitutional.
So if there's a challenge to this at some point and the Supreme Court says it's okay, that's the point at which we are saying that this could be a permanent shift of power from the Congress to the executive.
This sort of thing did not happen under Lyndon Johnson.
As far as I'm aware, this kind of thing has not happened under any other president.
This is one of the things that makes shutdowns end is that people are not able to be paid.
And in the case of the military, there has always been legal provision made for the military to be paid.
And so the difference here is that because the House hasn't been in session for more than a month, in part, there was not any legal way to get the, in my opinion, there's not any legal way independent of the Congress acting to get the military paid, which is why they turned to what I think arguably is a sort of extra-legal way to do this.
The Anti-Deficiency Act was a law that was created in 1870, and it was created in response to the fact that federal agencies had the habit of spending more money than they had and then coming to the Congress and saying, well, make us whole now.
And so what the Anti-Deficiency Act did is it said, not only are you not allowed to spend money that you don't have, but you're not allowed to spend money on things that that money was not provided for.
And so when the Trump administration took the research and development funding and used it to pay the troops, you know, people who have studied this more carefully and in a more detailed way than I have argued that that is a clear violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act.
Now, I have read the talking points from the administration about why they think this is legal, and I should be clear that they do think this is legal.
I should also be clear that I'm not persuaded by their argument.
The Empoundment Control Act of 1974 is almost the reverse of the Anti-Deficiency Act.
What the Empoundment Control Act of 1974 says is that a president cannot refuse to spend money that has been appropriated by Congress just because the president doesn't agree with the thing that is being funded.
And so a lot of the things that, and this, by the way, was passed in response to President Richard Nixon's actions in the late 60s and early 1970s when President Nixon would do exactly that.
What he would do is he would sign appropriation bills that had been passed by the Congress, and then he would say, well, I don't really like this program, so I'm not going to spend money on it.
And so the courts stepped in initially to say that there's nothing in the Constitution that permits a president to unilaterally cancel funds or appropriations that have been passed by Congress.
So what the Empowerment Control Act did was it actually set up a procedure where the President could come in and request that the Congress cancel an appropriation that had been passed.
But importantly, the Empowerment Control Act says that if the Congress has not acted in response to that within 45 days, then the money has to be sort of freed for obligation.
So a lot of the things that the administration did sort of early in its term, which including things like shutting down the Agency for International Development, are arguably violations not only of the law, but also of the Empowerment Control Act.
I think that the horse is out of the barn in part because the Congress has not asserted itself.
And so waiting for the courts, courts take a long time to act.
And I think the Congress has not really asserted itself.
And I think you can sort of understand that Democrats have not been pleased by this, but Democrats don't control either House of Congress.
I think the fact that the Republicans have not responded to this, in my view, is particularly short-sighted because this is not just a transfer of power from the Congress to President Trump.
This is a transfer of power from the Congress to the executive.
And I think that he has expressed a willingness to kind of find every loophole that he can find in order to try to get the things done that he wants to get done.
I think what I would say is that he does not feel very bound by the norms that have sort of dictated relationships between the Congress and the President over time.
I mean, he said in particular that he thought the appropriations process was too bipartisan.
And of course, as your viewers know, because of the Senate filibuster, they need some Democratic votes in order to either end the shutdown or pass the appropriation bills to begin with.
He didn't want to have appropriation bills where he was negotiating with Democrats.
And so I think if you go all the way back to Project 2025 that he was one of the important authors of, none of this is a surprise in terms of this was sort of well documented that this was the plan.
Of course, it didn't include when there's a government shutdown, we will do X, Y, and Z, but it definitely included a lot of information on exactly how they would approach the job.
And in particular, this sort of embracing of what is referred to as unitary executive theory, which essentially says that when the president says that he's going to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, it gives the president the authority to do lots of things that other presidents have not thought they had the authority to do.
I think the legislative filibuster can be the only way to sort of protect minority rights sort of in any way, because the minority in the House really has very little power.
And it is already the case because of budget reconciliation, which we won't get into a long discussion of that unless you want to.
But because of budget reconciliation, it is already the case that very significant things can be done in the Senate without having to get any votes from the minority party.
Now, there are limits to budget reconciliation, including the fact that it has to be something that's sort of related to the budget.
But to kind of expand that to say that there's nothing that you don't need minority support in the Senate for in order to get something passed, you have to kind of remember that the founders, I always tell my students that the system in the Constitution was set up not to promote good things happening, but to prevent bad things from happening.
And so what the filibuster does is it does put a break on legislation as it goes through the Congress.
Is protecting political minority rights in Congress getting in the way of the legislative branch rights, projecting its power, as it were, against a creeping executive branch?
But again, the concern is that if Congress is too weak, dump the filibuster, make Congress stronger, and then maybe they'll be on more equal footing with the president.
I mean, I think you have to think about all possible situations.
And in a situation where the presidency and the Congress are both controlled by the same political party, then what it does is it removes any breaks that might be on the president.
Professor Philip Joyce is our guest of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.
You can see the School of Public Policy's work, spp.umd.edu.
His recent piece, and the focus of this conversation, ran in government executive, the headline, how the president expanded his power without a government.
Well, I started, I've been studying public policy probably since I got my PhD, which started in 1986, and then I eventually went to work for five years for the Congressional Budget Office, which frankly was where I sort of got immersed into it.
I mean, I thought I knew what I was doing until I got there.
And then I discovered, you know, day by day that there were lots of nuances that I was not aware of.
And since then, I've been sort of teaching and writing, especially about the federal budget, which is both an interesting and depressing way to spend my life.
I would say not very much, and certainly not during a shutdown, because what the Congressional Budget Office mostly does is responds to legislation that is being considered by the Congress.
And, you know, as we said, the House has not been in session for more than a month.
And so, you know, really the Congressional Budget Office exists to provide information to the Congress.
And the Congress can then choose what it wants to do with that information.
And in particular, the Congressional Budget Office has been telling the Congress for a long time that the deficit is big and the debt is big and even presenting the Congress with information on how it is that they might take action in order to reduce the debt.
But in the end, they have no power to do anything other than provide information.
And they have in past shutdowns communicated to the Congress, for example, what kind of damage the shutdown is doing to the economy.
And I have not seen them do that in this particular case, but I assume that they will at some point.
How does the Congressional Budget Office stay independent?
They're often called the nonpartisan scorekeepers.
But when you get down to a budgeting fight, one or the other side will often, when the Congressional Budget Office puts out some numbers that they don't like, will say, well, they're partisan.
Well, a former director of CBO told me once that he knew he was doing a good job if he had as many Republicans screaming at him as Democrats screaming at him.
No, in particular case, this was Bob Reischauer, who was the director that I mostly worked for.
But part of that goes all the way back to Alice Rublin, who was the first director of CBO, who really, she set up the agency from scratch.
There was no sort of playbook for how you would set up this agency.
And she decided very early on that they would not make recommendations.
Somebody once said to me, if you ask CBO how much something costs, we'll tell you how much it costs.
If you ask us if it's a good idea, we'll tell you how much it costs.
And so future directors have sort of followed that path.
And I think they're very concerned that they not sort of appear to lean too far to one side or the other.
But it's always going to be the case that if they come out with an estimate of a cost and one or the other side doesn't like it, then they're going to be accused of being partisan.
I mean, my experience, I wrote a book about CBO, so it's a very dangerous question to ask me, but my experience and also everything that I've sort of observed suggests to me that they try very hard to sort of play it right down the middle.
Legislative Branch Power, Executive Branch Power, Budgeting Issues, all topics we can chat about with Professor Philip Joyce with us for about another 25 minutes this morning.
Phone lines for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, you know the numbers.
Go ahead and call us in, and we will start on the Republican line.
Luis Fredericksburg, Virginia, good morning.
You're on with Professor Joyce.
unidentified
Good morning.
The president at one time used to propose a budget.
They would send a budget to the Congress, and the Congress went through the budget and either gave the president what he asked for or didn't.
Now it seems that Congress is writing their budget.
They're tearing up the president's budget, who is elected by all the people, the executive.
And it seemed to me as if the past 30 years or more, I don't know, I've been watching it for forever, 40 years or more.
And it seems as if the Congress wants the power of the budget, not just the purse.
They want to create their own way of governing.
And they're not elected by the whole country.
So how do we go back to where the president submits a budget and the Congress then takes up his budget or her budget, whichever, and then sends it to the president.
And any extra things that the Congress wants, they should be negotiating with the executive to see if they can work out a compromise on what each side wants.
So I'm going to resist giving my federal budgeting course in five minutes.
But I love this question, and partly I love this question because I think we should be clear that the president does submit a budget.
The president is supposed to submit a budget proposal by the first Monday in February every year, and then the Congress has eight months, roughly, if the president submits the budget on time.
Now, I should say this year, President Trump did not submit a full budget.
President Trump basically just submitted the numbers for the appropriations bills that he wanted the appropriations committees to work with.
The caller is correct that the president used to have significantly more power in the budget than he does now.
What really changed that was the 1974 Budget and Empoundment Control Act.
This conversation we were having earlier about impoundment, that was sort of the proximate cause of the Congress wanting to reassert its power in the budget process.
But at the same time, they also set up this device called the budget resolution and they set up budget committees.
And for the specific reason of the Congress being able to respond to the President's budget, I think this sort of notion of whether we think that the Congress is a more democratic body or the President is sort of more democratic, it is true that the President is supposed to represent the whole country, but members of Congress represent 435 congressional districts in 50 states.
And so a lot of people would say, well, that's really a reflection of democracy.
I think it is absolutely the case that we have really fallen down in terms of what the caller mentions about negotiation between the president and the Congress.
I mean, why are we in this situation we're in right now?
It's not because the Democrats haven't voted for the continuing resolution.
That's not the initial cause.
The initial cause is all the appropriation bills weren't passed and signed into law prior to the beginning of the fiscal year.
And oh, by the way, that hasn't happened in almost 30 years.
And so neither side is bathed in glory here.
And I think that we need to sort of recognize that when we say we want to return to a system that's more functional, that would be a system where the president submitted a budget and then the Congress engaged with the president and ultimately everything was passed by the beginning of the fiscal year.
Since the modern budgeting process has been set up, Congress has passed all its required appropriations measures, all 12, on time four times in 1977, 89, 95, and 97.
Has this, and this is the chart from the Pew Research Center showing the four times that Congress has passed all of its budget appropriations bills on time.
Is this leading to the original problem that we talked about at the beginning of this conversation?
Is this as much a part of it of an expanding executive branch as anything else?
And if the Congress fails, you know, power abhors a vacuum, right?
And if Congress fails, then what do you think is going to happen?
You know, what's going to happen is that power is going to shift to the executive branch.
Now, you know, I don't want to suggest that there aren't cases in here where the unwillingness of a president to negotiate with the Congress is not also part of the, you know, right.
Professor Joyce, taking your phone calls, Dee is waiting in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Independent Line D. Good morning.
unidentified
Hi, good morning, C-SPAN.
Thank you for your work.
Our choices now are between a silverback and a grizzly.
It's no easy way to deal with things.
It's going to be hurt no matter which way you turn.
The thing of it is fundamentally the system is just broken at the bottom.
So if it's broken at the bottom, and the people that have the power, in Trump's case, to take advantage and make the rules as he pleases, you have to blame both parties that they have allowed the country to come to this.
I blame both of them.
And this is the result of it.
We need to move to the middle.
We need some strong moderates coming into the arena to straighten this country out.
You have really good callers with really good questions.
So this, you know, I could not agree more.
You know, I'm not a political scientist, just like I'm not a constitutional lawyer, but I will say that the work that political scientists have done suggests that exactly what the caller says, which is that we don't have any moderates anymore.
That essentially we have gone to the extremes.
And there used to be when things worked better, there were these people called moderate, even conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans.
And they weren't the majority, but they were important because they would sort of swing back and forth and kind of help to get things done.
And now we increasingly just have votes that are wholly partisan.
Every Democrat says one thing and every Republican says something else.
And that looks more like a parliamentary system, right?
That's not sort of the way our system, I think, was set up or sort of functions well.
And it's not making things better when we have this kind of rampant redistricting because what redistricting tends to do is it tends to eliminate these moderate districts.
It tends to eliminate the districts where sometimes a Republican will get elected and sometimes a Democrat will get elected.
And again, I think those people were very important in terms of the ability to get things done even though they were not in the majority.
Well, if you define modern as, I don't know, the last 75 years, I would say Lynn Johnson.
You know, when he was the when he was the majority leader of the United States Senate, you know, now he had pretty healthy majorities in part of that time.
But, you know, but even when we're talking about the budget, I was just at a conference recently where there was a discussion of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, which came directly before we had four years of budget surpluses.
That was largely negotiated between John Spratt, who at that point was the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee.
South Carolina, I think.
From South Carolina, thank you.
And Pete Domenici, a Republican from New Mexico, who was the budget, the chair of the budget committee in the Senate.
And they got together and they basically said, we've got to do something about this.
And the this was the federal deficit.
You know, now you don't have people from different parties that are initiating those conversations.
They didn't agree with each other on how it was that they would do this.
But what they did say is this is a problem and something needs to be done about it.
We've got good folks who follow along on social media every day as well.
Politically homeless Tony, here's his question for you.
If the executive has outsized power, it isn't it because the Congress has strayed from the original rationale for a federal government and tried to do too much.
Coincidentally, this has led to $38 trillion and rising debt.
I think, well, there's a couple ways to look at that.
One way is the way he's describing that, which is essentially the federal government now does more than it sort of did initially.
And then you get this sort of question, what's the proper role of the federal government?
That's a reasonable conversation to have.
But another way to look at that, at the debt, is that the debt is the cumulative effect of the fact that we have more government than we have been willing to pay for.
Now, you can go after that in either direction.
You can say, well, we should do less, and that would reduce the debt.
Or you can say, well, if we really want to have all of these programs, we need to pay for them.
And that the big, you know, I think one of the real sort of problems here, even in this kind of shutdown debate, is that the focus is on the portion of the budget that is not growing.
So basically, appropriated spending accounts for about 25% of the budget.
The other 75% of the budget, which is, by the way, not affected by the shutdown, is interest on the debt and so-called mandatory spending programs.
And those mandatory spending programs are Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security primarily.
And what those programs have in common is that we have said that there are particular people who are eligible to receive funds for those programs.
And as long as they continue to meet those eligibility requirements, they will continue to get money from the federal government.
Because we have an aging population, because people are living longer, great for them that they're living longer, not great for the federal budget, right?
Those programs just sort of continue and they continue to grow.
And we are facing a point in time when we are not going to have enough money in the Social Security Trust funds in order to make all the payments that have been promised, which to me is just sort of a microcosm of the larger problem that I was describing, which is that we have decided that we want to provide benefits sort of in excess of the revenues that come in to pay for them.
Yeah, I wrote down all the dates that I had heard and why.
And, you know, so I'll give you all of them, right?
I mean, one is that I heard your conversation just before I came on with the Times White House reporter or the Time White House reporter.
You know, one is, you know, October 31st is another date for a military payday.
It's not entirely clear whether they can, you know, quote, find the money to make that payment.
The November 1st sort of snap deadline, another date I've heard as well, not until after the elections in Virginia and New Jersey to kind of see what happens coming out of those.
Maybe it makes one side or the other feel like that, you know, they want to compromise.
Or the existing CR, you know, ironically, the existing CR that there's been a discussion that the Democrats and Senate should just vote for this, it expires on November 21st, right?
And so, you know, so let's say they, let's say they voted for it, you know, tomorrow.
There's still then another looming deadline on November the 21st.
And so that suggests to me that, you know, this problem needs to be solved not just between now and November 21st, but sort of in the long run.
So the other date I heard is Thanksgiving.
I don't know why Thanksgiving.
Maybe, you know, people don't want to be here, you know, talking about the shutdown over Thanksgiving.
Holidays do have a way of moving things sometimes around here.
Right.
Time for a couple more calls with Professor Philip Joyce of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.
By the way, if you stick around here after 10 a.m., it's probably usually a couple minutes after three or four, Speaker Mike Johnson is expected to come out for his Monday press conference.
Reporters are already gathering in the room.
So we're going to take you there when he does, and we're going to stick with Professor Joyce until then.
And we're going to hear from Clayton out of Philadelphia, Democrat.
Good morning.
unidentified
Good morning.
Two questions.
First question would be, how does the destruction of government property, namely the destruction of the East Wing, how does that affect the budget?
And two, what would an Everett Dirksen have to say about the budget as we speak?
Well, let me talk about Everett Dirksen first, because that would actually have been a good answer to your previous question about when it was that we actually had leaders that actually led.
And so I think Senator Dirkson is a great example.
I was not in the Congress when Senator Dirksen was in the Congress, but I did sort of watch prior to that.
And I think he's a great example of someone who is sort of willing to work across the aisle.
And I think, first, I think he would be appalled at the Congress ceding its power to the president in this way.
But secondly, I think that he'd be kind of on the front lines of trying to say, well, look, let's get something done.
In terms of the White House, I have not, I will admit, I have not looked into what it is.
What I've heard is that there's private money that's coming in that's sort of paying for this.
That to me is sort of not sufficient in the sense that private money coming into the government still normally would have to be appropriated by the Congress.
That it's quite fine for somebody to decide.
Maybe you would even consider it patriotic for somebody to decide that they want to give money to the government.
But that doesn't change clause seven of Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution that says no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequences of appropriations made by law.
By the way, this is the same issue with the $130 million that's allegedly going to be given to pay the troops.
It's just fine for somebody to decide to take their money and give it to the government.
But what they can't really do is say, and you can only spend it for this, right?
When I pay my taxes, I don't say, well, I'm going to pay my taxes, but I really only want my tax money to be used for sort of X, Y, or Z.
It goes into the Treasury, and then the Congress appropriates the money.
So it feels to me like, again, not having looked at this in great detail, it feels to me like if this ultimately is going to have no effect on the federal budget, that the way that should happen is that the donation should be made and then there should be an appropriation made in order to do whatever renovations are going to be done to the White House.
I think that I think when you basically said that anybody could just sort of come in and privately fund whatever kind of activity they wanted, then in the end, what that means is that you have something that you think the government should be doing that's going to benefit you in some way, and you just sort of come in and you say, well, I'm going to set this money aside.
It's not that the Congress, that there isn't money that is set aside that can only be used for a particular purpose.
For example, if you pay a fee to go into a national park, all of that money goes to offset the cost of the National Park Service.
But that's because the law says that.
That's because the Congress has sort of permitted that to happen.
So the Congress also could make a sort of blanket permission for money like that to be used for that purpose without having to kind of go through the process of appropriating the money.
But again, that would start with the Congress having said it could be done in that way.
It doesn't just happen because someone woke up one morning and decided they wanted to give money.
Well, again, my understanding is that there are rules around gifts.
And again, I haven't looked at this in detail, but I think what all of these things have in common is that there are established processes, and those established processes should be followed.
So, first, I was in Astoria last spring, and it's beautiful.
So, congratulations for living there.
I've never been there.
I think that the, you know, I think that it is largely sort of correct that we have to ask the question: what should we, as the public, do if we don't like what our elected officials are doing?
And we do have, you know, we do have the ability to sort of vote them out of office.
You know, it would be hard to get into a long sort of discussion of term limits, but I do think that there's a reasonable point of view out there that says that maybe part of the problem is that we have sort of people who are career politicians who may be sort of disconnected from what the public sort of wants.
But on the other hand, there are people who say we have term limits, they're called elections.
If you don't like the people who are in office, you can vote them out.