| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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Donald Trump is acting like our modern Gilded Age president who combines the corruption of the Grant administration with the racist toe-tapping of the Hayes administration and the foreign policy of the McKinley administration. | |
| I don't think in our modern era we've had a president who has taken us back so far in their demeanor and overall ethics as we have since the like late 1800s. | ||
| But now my question, do you think the Republican Supreme Court will actually go against Donald Trump on tariffs? | ||
| Or do you think they'll just rubber stamp him as they've been doing since most of them are appointees or sycophants? | ||
| That's my question. | ||
| And Matt, stay on the line after we get an answer. | ||
| I want to come back to you for a second. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Well, that was stretching back to some 19th century history. | ||
| I like that. | ||
| There's a couple of different options that the Supreme Court can do here, right? | ||
| They can uphold all the tariffs. | ||
| That would be controversial because on the point, again, as I said earlier, of who has the power to levy tariffs, the Constitution is very, very clear. | ||
| It's in there in black and white. | ||
| However, in talking to sources on this issue for the last couple months, the Supreme Court could give Trump a partial victory. | ||
| They could say, you know, you don't have the power to levy unlimited tariffs on everyone, but you can do it in a more tailored way. | ||
| That could give, and it would depend on exactly what country, what goods, et cetera. | ||
| But they could say, you know, you can't invoke your emergency power indefinitely, but you can against particular countries if you prove that there is a more legitimate national emergency, something like that. | ||
| So there is an opportunity for the Supreme Court to sort of split hairs here a little bit, give Trump a partial victory, allow some of the tariffs to be in place. | ||
| What is less likely, law experts tell me, is that Supreme Court will just summarily throw everything out because historically the president sometimes has had the ability to impose tariffs. | ||
| So 6-3 majority, but we don't really know. | ||
| Matt, since you bring up a trio of 19th century presidents, Grant, McKinley, and Hayes, got to ask you, who's your favorite president? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know what? | |
| I don't really think too much about who my favorite president is because I think instead of looking towards like large figures to be like the pinnacle of what Americans should be, we should look at the little guy who's built up systems to help those big figures. | ||
| So, you know, I think there's some good people who've been president, but I don't have a favorite. | ||
| Matt, thanks for the call from Falls Church. | ||
| Daniela Diaz, let me give you Rhonda from the Keystone State Independent. | ||
| Rhonda, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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Hello. | |
| You're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes. | |
| I just want to ask a question. | ||
| Like, they're saying if Trump has the power to open up SNAP benefits, is that short-term or long-term? | ||
| And also, I heard it's coming out of some kind of disaster fund. | ||
| So what do we do if there's a disaster in our community and we need SNAP? | ||
| And one more question. | ||
| I feel that the Democrats are extorting Republicans because they're saying make costs come down, but they want to keep wasting money. | ||
| Daniella Diaz, do you want to start on the SNAP questions? | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| I mean, what we've seen the administration do is reappropriate funds, adding to the tariff conversation, to a lot of the conversations we're having today. | ||
| It's always been Congress's job to appropriate funds. | ||
| So what we're seeing is the administration try to solve these short-term problems in the hopes that the government will be funded at some point and there will be funding for disasters once they solve the short-term issue of SNAP benefits. | ||
| So that's what we're seeing with this. | ||
| We thought with how Trump found a private donor for military spending to fund the military. | ||
| I mean, it's how the administration is trying to kind of plug the holes while the shutdown is still playing out, but there's still a lot of very affected people that are workers that are not getting paychecks as well. | ||
| For SNAPs in particular, we're talking about $5.5 billion in contingency funds. | ||
| And as I understand it, the funds were used to help cover SNAP during that 2018 to 2019 shutdown, but now they're tied up in the courts, right? | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| And the argument from a lot of lawmakers is that this is the first time SNAP has ever been funded. | ||
| I mean, they've been able to fund it even during a shutdown, what we saw happening in Trump's first administration when there were two shutdowns. | ||
| So this is unprecedented. | ||
| And that's why a lot of lawmakers are very, very concerned about what this could mean for Americans in general. | ||
| I mean, millions of people have SAP benefits. | ||
| And then also just adding to the caller earlier who said children will not starve. | ||
| There's 40% of children that take, that are on SNAP benefits as well with their families. | ||
| So this is a major, major issue. | ||
| Roughly one in eight Americans receive SNAP benefits. | ||
| About 42 million Americans get funding in some way from SNAP. | ||
| This is Carrie out of Milwaukee Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| A couple questions about SNAP for your guests. | ||
| The last time that the government was shut down for so long under Trump, for like 30 days or whatever, whenever that was, 2017, 2018 or whatever, was SNAP at risk then of being cut off for folks who need it? | ||
| And if it wasn't, is it an issue this time because SNAP is funded under one of the appropriation bills that had not yet passed in both the House and the Senate? | ||
| And then lastly, how hard would it be to get SNAP funded or under the same category like Medicaid, which would not be affected in a government shutdown? | ||
| So I don't understand exactly why SNAP is funded different from other low-income things like Medicaid. | ||
| And why is it an issue now if it wasn't last time? | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| And Kerry, and I know we just had a SNAP conversation here. | ||
| Maybe this will help. | ||
| This is Treasury Secretary Scott Besant that was being asked about on CNN's State of the Union yesterday about whether these emergency, these contingency funds, the $5.5 billion that we just talked about, would be used to cover SNAP. | ||
| This was his response to Jake Tapper. | ||
| Right, but there is this contingency fund. | ||
| And as recently as September 30th, the Agricultural Department had a memo saying that these funds, the contingency funds, I think it's about $5 or $6 billion, could be used to pay these benefits. | ||
| Now, it would only be two or three weeks, but that's a lot for people who need the food. | ||
| Well, President Trump just, as I said, President Trump just truthed out that he's very anxious to get this done. | ||
| And it's got to go through the courts. | ||
| The courts keep jamming up things. | ||
| Democrats are in the middle of a civil war, and they should just open the government. | ||
| That is the easiest way to do this. | ||
| Is the administration going to appeal the ruling by the judge? | ||
| Is that what you mean by the courts need to weigh in? | ||
| Because the courts have weighed in. | ||
| No, but there's a process that has to be followed, so we've got to figure out what the process is. | ||
| President Trump wants to make sure that people get their food benefits. | ||
| So it could be done by Wednesday. | ||
| Could be. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Could be. | ||
| And five Democratic senators could cross the aisle and open the government by Wednesday. | ||
| Scott Besson there yesterday on CNN. | ||
| Daniel Bush this morning. | ||
| Thoughts on that? | ||
| Well, as we just heard, you know, this $5.5-ish billion dollar pot of money is not unlimited. | ||
| It doesn't mean that SNAP benefits could be funded forever. | ||
| You know, the thought is, well, two or three weeks, maybe, maybe up to a month. | ||
| But to the caller's point, you know, this is not, this money, you know, won't last forever. | ||
| It's not sort of appropriated in a different kind of way where it's always guaranteed to be there. | ||
| This is an issue that Congress revisits. | ||
| And the Trump administration, as we heard from the Treasury Sector right there, is putting it back on Democrats. | ||
| They're saying, if you want SNAP benefits to not be affected, reopen the government. | ||
| And this is, frankly, a difficult issue for Democrats, right? | ||
| Because SNAP benefits are such an important part of the social safety net. | ||
| As you said, one in eight Americans rely on this on this really crucial benefit. | ||
| It's something that Democrats have championed for decades. | ||
| And now all of a sudden, unprecedented, as you said, it goes away. | ||
| This is a difficult issue for Democrats to defend. | ||
| Republicans are putting Democrats on the defensive and saying, yes, you may care about health care. | ||
| This is what you've claimed this whole entire shutdown fight is about. | ||
| But what happens now when we, as we were talking about earlier, right, Trump said he was going to go after Democratic priorities. | ||
| SNAP is off the table. | ||
| What are you going to do now? | ||
| And it puts Democrats in a very, very difficult place because the longer this goes on, there will be lines at food banks and food pantries, right? | ||
| There will be people who will be very, very hurt by this. | ||
| And at what point do Democrats say enough is enough? | ||
| You know, it could be days, but it could be weeks. | ||
| And that's going to be very difficult politically if it drags on. | ||
| Just like we're seeing the endless footage of lines at airports already, it'll be endless footage of cars lining up at food banks. | ||
| Something like that. | ||
| And then the question is, who is to blame? | ||
| And I do want to say that we have seen some polls coming out in the last week or so saying that increasingly a majority of Americans are not happy with the Trump administration for handling this. | ||
| And it is interesting because typically the party in power does get the blame from voters. | ||
| For the first couple of weeks, this shutdown seems to be sort of 50-50. | ||
| The public didn't seem to love the position the Democrats were taking. | ||
| But as this goes on, it would be an anomaly if the party in power doesn't end up getting more of the blame, right? | ||
| That's what typically happens. | ||
| And that is also pressure that the White House is feeling. | ||
| They're looking ahead to 2026. | ||
| Trump is very focused on these midterms. | ||
| He does not want to lose control of Congress. | ||
| And we know one thing, the White House follows polls very, very closely. | ||
| If these sort of polls continue to come out, if this doesn't end in a week or two, that might be a pressure point on the Democrat, excuse me, on the Republican side, on the White House side to say, we need to come to the table. | ||
| We head to Arlington, Texas. | ||
| Independent line, Lisa, thank you for waiting. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just want to know how do the Republicans or anybody or Congress expect for air traffic controllers to go to work without pay and then to come back and say when the shutdown is over, you're still not going to get paid. | ||
| But they want them to come to work and be happy to be there without getting paid. | ||
| But I'm going to tell you what they're doing. | ||
| They're getting jobs so that they can support their families. | ||
| So they're going to go to the job that's going to pay them. | ||
| Why don't they have something that will pay the air traffic controllers, TSA, those people that are essential and have to go to work? | ||
| I don't think it's fair for them to have to go to work and not get paid. | ||
| And for Republicans to think that the shutdown is just on the Democrats, keep calling them the left and whatever, it's not the Democrats. | ||
| They're going to get blamed also, is what I'm really trying to say. | ||
| And to say that you're going after programs that are just Democrats, there's no program that you can mess with that's not going to affect the Republicans too. | ||
| It's not a Democrat-Republican thing. | ||
| It's an American people thing. | ||
| Lisa, thanks for the call from Texas on the snap question. | ||
| We showed Scott Besant on the air traffic control question. | ||
| Maybe a good time to show Sean Duffy, Transportation Secretary. | ||
| He was on ABC's this week yesterday. | ||
| This is about a minute of that. | ||
|
unidentified
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How close are we to this point where you might have to close airspace or airports as we watch air traffic controllers calling in sick? | |
| Well, so first off, if you look at other shutdowns, our air traffic controllers, God bless them, they've been coming to work. | ||
| They're frustrated, but by and large, they've come. | ||
|
unidentified
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They're not getting paid. | |
| And so I can't predict, Martha, what's going to happen in the future. | ||
| But as each day goes on, and again, it's not you miss a paycheck, but every day you have expenses, food and gas, and then bills come in, whether it's Netflix or your YouTube TV. | ||
| The expenses continue to roll and the pressure continues to grow. | ||
| And the problem is these controllers, a lot of them are new controllers or they're trainee controllers. | ||
| They don't make a lot of money. | ||
|
unidentified
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And so they may be the only person that is bringing money into the household. | |
| They have to make a decision, do I go to work and not get a paycheck and not put food on the table? | ||
|
unidentified
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Or do I drive for Uber or DoorDash or wait tables? | |
| Those are the real thoughts and conversations these controllers are having. | ||
| So as I look forward, I hope Democrats are going to come to their senses and open the government back up. | ||
| But I would just tell you, as bad as it is, the numbers you just gave, we will look back. | ||
| If the government doesn't open in the next week or two, we'll look back as these were the good days, not the bad days. | ||
| Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy yesterday on ABC's This Week, Daniela Diaz, on Congress and air traffic controllers. | ||
| I mean, it's a real issue. | ||
| We were just talking, I was talking with Daniel before this. | ||
| This is clearly could be what adds the real pressure for them to negotiate the end of the shutdown. | ||
| I mean, it's what happened in the last shutdown that went on for 35 days. | ||
| Air traffic controllers were starting to call out sickness around the holidays. | ||
| It really affected holiday travel. | ||
| But I think the more important thing that I really feel when we talk about the shutdown is that it has real consequences on real people who are working, trying to feed their families, just trying to manage day to day. | ||
| There are hundreds of thousands of people that have not gotten a paycheck in the last month. | ||
| I mean, this is going to have massive consequences on the economy. | ||
| Maybe we're not seeing it right now, but we will see it soon. | ||
| It was the same in the holiday season. | ||
| It's the same thing we saw last time as well, the last shutdown. | ||
| And what's different about that last shutdown, we're about to pass that 35-day marker tomorrow that will main this one will actually be the longest shutdown ever, is that was always a partial shutdown, what happened in 2019. | ||
| There were still parts of the federal government that were being funded. | ||
| This is a full shutdown that we're in currently. | ||
| We're no part of the federal government, unless it's the Trump administration finding appropriations for certain parts, as we just discussed. | ||
| Most people are not being funded. | ||
| Most agencies are not being funded. | ||
| People are not getting paychecks. | ||
| On that point, Daniel Bush, there was an editorial in the, I think it was the Washington Post. | ||
| It was fairly early on in the shutdown, arguing that shutdowns should be more painful, that there are too many aspects of the federal government that remain open because people are considered essential employees. | ||
| And that if a shutdown were to happen and no air traffic controllers were allowed to work and the airports were completely shut down, then Congress wouldn't dare take this step of shutting down the government. | ||
| I wonder your thoughts on that, on efforts to kind of limit the impact of the shutdown as much as possible, making these shutdowns happen more often. | ||
| Well, that's been an argument for years, right? | ||
| Make it as painful as possible, as quickly as possible, and that will bring Congress and both parties to their senses. | ||
| No one will want air traffic to ground to a halt. | ||
| No one will want people immediately to be on lines at food pantries, right? | ||
| That is an argument. | ||
| It typically is not the way that it works. | ||
| Obviously, Democrats push back against that, and even Republicans as well. | ||
| it would create, were it to happen, you know, very difficult political circumstances for both parties. | ||
| It's something they want to avoid. | ||
| But also, you know, if you take a step back again for a second, this is a function of how polarized these parties are. | ||
| Because even if you could very swiftly somehow shut everything down in one day, would that really bring Republicans and Democrats together? | ||
| 20 years ago, maybe, 40 years ago, yes. | ||
| Not even that today? | ||
| But not even that today, I don't think. | ||
| And that's why this shutdown, to your point, is so different. | ||
| I've covered these shutdowns now going back to Obama's second term, and they follow a particular pattern, right? | ||
| First couple days, first week, both parties dig in, they make their arguments, they message, they blame the other side, then they sit back for a couple days and wait for the first polls to come out. | ||
| They get a sense, gauge where the public is, and then that gives them their leverage points going forward to negotiate. | ||
| But after that first couple days of messaging, both parties behind the scenes. | ||
|
unidentified
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You can watch the rest of this online at cspan.org. | |
| We go live now to Northern Virginia for a campaign event with Republican gubernatorial candidate Lieutenant Governor Winsom Earl Sears, one of several events on this final day before Election Day. | ||
| I'm really so thankful that you were here tonight. |