| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
Wait, we're going to show you an earlier discussion from our own Washington Journal. | |
| Welcome to today's Washington Journal. | ||
| Let's start with the Washington Post headline about those court rulings. | ||
| It says the Trump administration must release billions in SNAP funds. | ||
| Judge says officials must act, quote, as soon as possible to avoid prolonged interruption. | ||
| A federal judge in Rhode Island said a Massachusetts judge also told the administration to consider contingency funds. | ||
| Now, President Trump did respond to that on Truth Social yesterday evening, and he said this in part: Our government lawyers do not think we have the legal authority to pay SNAP with certain monies we have available. | ||
| And now, two courts have issued conflicting opinions on what we can and cannot do. | ||
| I do not want Americans to go hungry just because the Radical Democrats refuse to do the right thing and reopen the government. | ||
| Therefore, I have instructed our lawyers to ask the court to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible. | ||
| He continues, but let's take a look at what Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said yesterday. | ||
| So, this would be before the ruling about those contingency funds. | ||
| The fact that the Democrats are saying, but wait, USDA has money in their accounts. | ||
| Why it is really their fault? | ||
| I've seen it over and over and over from some of their leaders, is absolute false and it is a lie. | ||
| We have been saying on October 10th, we sent messages out, on October 24th, we sent messages out. | ||
| These benefits end on November 1st. | ||
| Now, let me get down into a little bit of the details on that to better explain. | ||
| So, there is a contingency fund at USDA, but that contingency fund, by the way, doesn't even cover, I think, half of the $9.2 billion that would be required for November SNAP, but it is only allowed to flow if the underlying program is funded. | ||
| It's called a contingency fund. | ||
| And by law, contingency funds can only flow when the underlying fund is flowing. | ||
| So, for example, if the underflow, if today the Democrats say, oh, never mind, sorry, we'll open the government, and SNAP flows, Hurricane Melissa or one of the hurricanes hits, that's the contingency fund that we would use to send more money into the vulnerable communities that are harmed by a specific event like a hurricane. | ||
| But it is a contingency fund that can only flow if the underlying appropriation is approved. | ||
| And listen, even if it could flow, it doesn't even cover half of the month of November. | ||
| So, here we are again in two weeks having the exact same conversation. | ||
| That was Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins. | ||
| The Ag Department is the one that administers the SNAP program. | ||
| And we'll go to phones now. | ||
| Ralph in Manoa, New York. | ||
| Democrat, good morning, Ralph. | ||
| What's your top news story of the week? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Well, this week, one of the discussions is eliminating Senate Rule 22, the filibuster, and that would really be a bad idea because if that happens, the Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate would pass a national right-to-work law that would decimate 80 million American workers that are covered under the National Labor Relations Act. | ||
| Now, although under the other major labor law, the Railway Labor Act, Railway Labor Act, where the Teamsters are covered under, there's no right to work division provision in it. | ||
| Also, the Republican lawmakers would start to privatize Social Security. | ||
| That would give them the votes. | ||
| That's what they really want to do: turn Social Security part of it over their private sector and decimate Medicare. | ||
| So, to eliminate Senate Rule 22 would be a very bad idea, and I thank you for your time. | ||
| All right, Ralph, and this is Joe in Bitterford, Maine, Independent. | ||
| Good morning, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I'm just jealous. | ||
| Ralph beat me on the line here this morning. | ||
| I thought I'd be first. | ||
| I'm kidding. | ||
| But thank you for taking my call. | ||
| My point I'd like to make is it's pretty obvious now that the Republicans have nothing but lies if we discuss the shutdown. | ||
| What the original go back to January in the big beautiful bill. | ||
| The Republicans promised you they weren't going to touch Medicaid, I guess, except for the $800 million that they took right out of it. | ||
| They lied to you, told you that they wouldn't. | ||
| It's obviously now that Medicaid is going to be cut. | ||
| No question about it. | ||
| Republicans told you that Elon Musk and Doge was going to save you, I think it was $2 trillion jumping up and down with their chainsaw. | ||
| Wasn't that fabulous? | ||
| Turns out now, I'm absolutely positive, but I don't know the amount it's going to cost the American taxpayers are going to have to pay. | ||
| All that money they said they're going to save never occurred. | ||
| They never saved the money from Medicare. | ||
| They never showed the fraud that they promised you they had. | ||
| They never showed you Mike Johnson telling you there's some fat guy sitting on a couch getting everything, Medicaid, everything from, you know, handouts to holy what. | ||
| And Elon Musk just signed a contract yesterday with SpaceX that gives him $2 billion. | ||
| So, you know, let's cut the clumpets here. | ||
| So, Joe, I just wanted to correct something. | ||
| You said $800 million cut from Medicaid for the One Big Beautiful bill is actually $900 billion with a B, and that's over 10 years. | ||
| So, just a quick correction there. | ||
| Robert, Indiana Republican line. | ||
| Good morning, Robert. | ||
| What's your top news story of the week? | ||
| Our top news story is how much more forward can President Trump be? | ||
|
unidentified
|
He takes his time to come out here and talk to the people. | |
| He holds nothing back. | ||
| How many times did you see Biden? | ||
| Very seldom. | ||
| And they say they're lying, they're lying. | ||
| If they don't get this open back up, yes, there's going to be a lot of people that's going to be hungry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And it's time that the Republicans stand their ground, get these crooked Democrats out of office. | |
| Schrember should be fired right now for insulting two Supreme Court judges. | ||
| He threatened them, and he should be penalized for that. | ||
| It's time this country got back together. | ||
| I'm 89 years old. | ||
| I've worked all my life. | ||
| And to hear these Democrats and independents put this country down, they need to be run out of this country. | ||
| All right, Robert. | ||
| Let's talk to Darrell in Columbus, Georgia, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Darrell. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, Mimi, how are you doing? | |
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good, good. | |
| I just want to say that my big news story for the week is those poor people that's on those food stamps about to get them cut. | ||
| You got 42 million people that rely on that program, and they want to cut it out. | ||
| And here's the big thing is, Mimi, those issues right there, they are in Project 2025. | ||
| It's all in there. | ||
| If people just take the time to read it, they want to cut the food stamps. | ||
| I mean, it's all right there. | ||
| And I mean, now he's saying that the judges told him to go ahead and reinstate it and go ahead and do it. | ||
| But now he's going to come out yesterday and tonight. | ||
| He needs to check with lawyers. | ||
| Well, he doesn't need to check with lawyers or everything else. | ||
| He's doing illegal. | ||
| So, I mean, go ahead and give these folks what they need and get this country back going. | ||
| And he just, he just, he's just terrible. | ||
| And that's all I got, Mimi. | ||
| And one other thing. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| Tell Frank, Matt, Jim, John from Prairie or Perry, Texas, to stop calling in every other day. | ||
| That's all I'm doing. | ||
| All right, Darrell. | ||
| And regarding SNAP, we will have a program. | ||
| We will have a segment right after this one. | ||
| So at 8 o'clock, we'll have a segment dedicated just to SNAP. | ||
| And we'll put on the screen a couple of points for you just for your information. | ||
| There are, according to the USDA, 42.5 million people participating in SNAP. | ||
| That covers 22.7 million households. | ||
| And the average monthly benefit per person, 190.81 cents. | ||
| And then average monthly per household is 356.68 cents. | ||
| Here's Paul in Nampa, Idaho, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Paul. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I think my pick was actually the meeting between President Gi of China and President Trump, the United States of America. | ||
| It was hopeful. | ||
| There were some positive things that came out of it. | ||
| Now, whether or not the Chinese hold on to their end of the bargain that they've discussed, that remains to be seen. | ||
| But there was some shock at the very closing of it that had to do with denuclearization, which means the drawdown of nuclear weapons. | ||
| And just even having that mentioned in the meeting, I thought was very, very helpful. | ||
| So what did you think of President Trump announcing a restart to nuclear testing? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think they have to test the ones that they've got that have been around for 45 years. | |
| Otherwise, they don't know if they're going to work or not. | ||
| If they're not going to work, then you've got to can them. | ||
| You're going to have to. | ||
| All right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You're going to have to. | |
| And here is CBS News with the headline: here's what Trump says he and she agreed to in their meeting, and it's got a couple of headlines. | ||
| So tariff rates on imports from China. | ||
| They talked about rare earth minerals, China to resume buying U.S. soybeans, and no paper deal on TikTok. | ||
| So those are the things that President Trump and on chips said that they did discuss semiconductor chips. | ||
| That's on CBS if you'd like to see that. | ||
| Here is what a minority leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, said on Thursday about that meeting. | ||
| It appears to most reasonable observers that Donald Trump was punked on the world stage by the Chinese Communist Party. | ||
| The notion that Donald Trump has created all of this trouble for the American people, which he has, the Trump tariffs, are raising costs on everyday Americans by thousands of dollars per year. | ||
| And earlier today, I also met with some small business owners and entrepreneurs who made clear to me in very real terms that the Trump tariffs are going to force many of them to shutter their businesses and abandon their dreams. | ||
| Donald Trump created this massive inferno that's spreading all across the country and now wants to pretend as if he's a firefighter by putting out the damage that he has created and returning to what? | ||
| A status quo when you've already increased the expensiveness of life on so many working class Americans and are forcing in real time farmers and small business owners and entrepreneurs to close their businesses. | ||
| It was all a show, as far as we can tell. | ||
| That was from Thursday, and we're asking for your top news story of the week. | ||
| And we'll talk to Frank in New York Independent Line. | ||
| Hi, Frank. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I'm thrilled and delighted that I got through. | ||
| My question is this: I'm a vet, and I was hospitalized last month for some surgery, and I didn't utilize all of my benefits, SNAP benefits, that is. | ||
| What I'd like to know is if you can possibly get an answer to the following question: Is the money that is presently on my card from last month and any other month that remained? | ||
| Even though there's a stop in new payments, is that money still available? | ||
| Or is everything gone like Trump's mind? | ||
| So, here's what I have on that: just a quick search that it says, yes, unused SNAP benefits roll over to the next month, but they do expire eventually if the account becomes inactive. | ||
| So, it does look like you can, but you should probably check that. | ||
| This is Forbes saying that SNAP benefits don't expire at first. | ||
| Unused SNAP benefits from the month automatically roll over to the next month. | ||
| So, that's on Forbes, Frank. | ||
| So, you should be okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The question: if you have enough patience, is this: How do you manage to keep a straight face with some of the callers? | |
| I've been doing it a long time. | ||
| That's how, Frank. | ||
| Here's Otis, Orange Park, Florida, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Otis. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| There are so many stories that could be number one, but the number one and number two story in mind for me is that the cancellation snap benefits and the terrorist. | ||
| I think they go hand in hand. | ||
| The snap benefits is for the poorest peoples in America who can't use it. | ||
| So, you must have some type of plan to help the poor when you actually say that you want a Nobel Peace Prize. | ||
| And when your Nobel Peace Prize is geared for helping people, how can you say you want one? | ||
| Then, the second one is the terrorists. | ||
| And he got so many deals that's going on that we got a deal here and a deal there. | ||
| But what you never see is the verification of the deals. | ||
| Show me the paperwork. | ||
| Let's see the details. | ||
| He can never tell us about what's let us see what's in the details. | ||
| Always say is there. | ||
| So, the American people, stop, stop. | ||
| He always gave his guy a reason. | ||
| I got a saying when I was in the army. | ||
| The maximum effective range of an excuse is always zero. | ||
| And you notice Donald Trump and the Republican Party always have an excuse of why something can't happen. | ||
| Blame it. | ||
| Everybody said themselves. | ||
| So, Otis, did you follow the Senate vote on rescinding those emergency tariffs? | ||
| Did you hear about that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I did. | |
| It was, I think, 53, 47. | ||
| I think four Democrats pulled 5140 or something. | ||
| Four Republicans came over and agreed with the Democrats just to get rid of the terrorists. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Because they see it's not working. | |
| So let's go ahead and watch that, a portion of that. | ||
| So Senator Rand Paul, he's a Republican of Kentucky, was explaining why he co-sponsored that bill to rescind some of those tariffs. | ||
| Well, there's two categories of arguments here. | ||
| One is the economic effect of tariffs, whether they're good or bad. | ||
| And I think that's a big deal because it used to be known and the knowledge has somehow been lost, but it used to be known that trade was proportional to prosperity, that trade was a good thing, not a bad thing. | ||
| It was pretty well generally known, and that knowledge is being lost. | ||
| The second argument, though, is whether or not one individual should be able to do this through emergencies. | ||
| And when I heard there were emergencies, I thought, oh, you mean war or a tornado or a famine? | ||
| I didn't realize that trade policy with over 120 some odd countries is an emergency. | ||
| So it's a misuse of emergencies. | ||
| And then built into that is yet another debate, and that's over whether or not we should allow emergencies to occur that can only be stopped by a supermajority. | ||
| So we won yesterday, we won today, but if we were to win in the House, he would veto it, and then it would take a supermajority. | ||
| It would take two-thirds to stop an emergency. | ||
| So I actually have a bill that reforms the emergencies and says if a president declares an emergency, it would actually take an affirmative vote by us to continue beyond 30 days. | ||
| Then we would reverse this, and a presidential veto wouldn't have to be overcome. | ||
| Senator Rand Paul from Wednesday. | ||
| And any of those events, if you'd like to see them in their entirety, just visit our website, cspan.org. | ||
| Do a search in the search bar, and that should come up. | ||
| Bob is in New York in a Republican. | ||
| Bob, how do you pronounce your city there in New York? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Kachog. | |
| Kachog. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Kachog, after the Indians. | |
| We have many Indian names on Long Island. | ||
| All right, go ahead. | ||
| You're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So a guy from New York called a while ago about the filibuster. | |
| A little education on the filibuster started in 1917. | ||
| Before that, one senator could have stopped anything. | ||
| Okay, so basically what goes around comes around. | ||
| One time, one senator could have stopped anything. | ||
| They put the filibuster in. | ||
| At that time, it was, I think it was two-thirds of the Senate had to agree. |