| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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Join host, Dasha Burns. | |
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| Coming up this morning on Washington Journal, along with your calls and comments live, we'll talk about this week's election results and Campaign 2026 with Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg. | ||
| And then former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield will discuss his new book, Redfield's Warning, What I Learned But Couldn't Tell You Might Save Your Life. | ||
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| C-SPAN's Washington Journal is next. | ||
| Join the conversation. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| It's Thursday, November 6th. | ||
| The FAA has ordered a 10% reduction in flight traffic in markets across the country starting tomorrow as the government shutdown enters its 37th day. | ||
| President Trump met with Republican senators yesterday morning and urged them again to end the filibuster and fund the government without Democratic votes. | ||
| We'll take your calls this morning on the ongoing government shutdown. | ||
| Here's how to reach us. | ||
| Democrats 202748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| We have a line for federal workers. | ||
| You can call us on 202-748-8003. | ||
| That's the same number you can use to text us. | ||
| Include your first name in your city-state. | ||
| And we're on social media, facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Welcome to today's Washington Journal. | ||
| We'll start with CBS News and get an overview of what's happening with the shutdown. | ||
| It says this, President Trump pressured Republican senators to bring an end to the government shutdown following the Democratic sweep in key elections on Tuesday, saying at a breakfast at the White House, quote, we must get the government back open soon and really immediately. | ||
| President renewed his calls for GOP senators to scrap the filibuster. | ||
| Doing so would allow Republicans to fund the government and pass other legislation without Democratic votes. | ||
| Majority Leader Thune said later in the morning that the votes aren't there to change the filibuster rule. | ||
| Federal officials announced plans to slash airline capacity by 10% in dozens of high-volume areas due to air traffic controller shortages. | ||
| Cuts are expected to be phased in starting tomorrow, and the shutdown is now the longest in U.S. history. | ||
| The Senate is not currently scheduled to vote on a House-passed measure to reopen the government today after it failed to advance for the 14th time on Tuesday. | ||
| And the contours of a deal to end the stalemate began emerging Tuesday, and senators expressed cautious optimism that a resolution remains possible this week. | ||
| Let's take a look at what President Trump said at that breakfast with GOP senators yesterday. | ||
| I thought we'd have a discussion after the press leaves about what last night represented and what we should do about it and also about the shutdown and how that relates to last night. | ||
| I think if you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans. | ||
| And that was a big factor. | ||
| And they say that I wasn't on the ballot was the biggest factor. | ||
| But I don't know about that, but I was honored that they said that. | ||
| It's time for Republicans to do what they have to do, and that's terminate the filibuster. | ||
| It's the only way you can do it. | ||
| And if you don't terminate the filibuster, you'll be in bad shape. | ||
| We won't pass any legislation. | ||
| There'll be no legislation passed for three and a quarter. | ||
| We have three and a quarter years, so it's a long time. | ||
| But when they can't do an extension, and John, I think they've done an extension every single time they've ever been asked forever. | ||
| This is the first time they haven't done an extension. | ||
| Extensions are supposed to be easy, but if they won't do an extension, they won't do any bill, even a simple bill. | ||
| And we should do our own bills. | ||
| We should get out. | ||
| We should do our own bills. | ||
| We should open up. | ||
| We should start tonight with the country's open congratulations. | ||
| Then we should pass voter ID. | ||
| We should pass no mail-in voting. | ||
| We should pass all the things that we wanted to pass to make our election secure and safe because California is a disaster. | ||
| Many of the states are disasters. | ||
| And Axios says, the headline in Axios says, inside Trump's, quote, uncomfortable breakfast with Republican senators, it says the room was, quote, eerily silent and uncomfortable Wednesday morning as President Trump cajoled Republican senators to end the filibuster. | ||
| Multiple attendees told Axios Trump warned that the party would get killed and be viewed as do-nothing Republicans if they don't change the Senate rules. | ||
| He said, quote, if you don't terminate the filibuster, you'll be in bad shape. | ||
| And it says that he went even further after the press was instructed to leave. | ||
| Getting your calls on that, we'll start with Joe, New Orleans, Louisiana, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| We all know that the president is following the agenda of Project 2025. | ||
| I have a suggestion in educating the electorate of what to expect and what the agenda is. | ||
| I'm suggesting that CSAN have one of their segments to educate us as to what to expect in the future as far as the president's agenda in following Project 2025. | ||
| Is that a possibility? | ||
| Well, we definitely appreciate that suggestion, Joe. | ||
| And this is Arthur in Florida, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Arthur. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| This entire shutdown is a very tragic thing. | ||
| I'll agree on that. | ||
| I'll agree that Republicans and Democrats need to sit down together and try to find a solution to this. | ||
| Maybe it's time we also look at cutting a lot of our foreign aid so we can take care of America first. | ||
| I thank you, you call me. | ||
| All right, Arthur, and let's talk to Mike next in Independent in Norwalk, Ohio. | ||
| Good morning, Mike. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning. | |
| I'm telling you. | ||
| You know, the government shut down, but yet we're still chugging along. | ||
| Imagine that. | ||
| What happened to the skies falling? | ||
| What happened to the stock market crash? | ||
| Everything that Trump's done has seemed to be improving little by little compared to what the Democrats have thrown into the mix, which is nothing. | ||
| They've done nothing but fought against us. | ||
| What's going on? | ||
| I mean, people, that last woman, Project 20, 20, 25. | ||
| Are you kidding me? | ||
| He's not following that. | ||
| He's not a politician. | ||
| He's a businessman. | ||
| He's running our country like it should be running a business. | ||
| And I feel for the people of New York City and Minnesota. | ||
| You just wait and see what happens. | ||
| Go to Dearborn, Michigan. | ||
| Try to walk around with a dog. | ||
| The whole place is infested. | ||
| The people that are coming over here are not assimilating with us. | ||
| They're turning our country into their country that they feel it should have been. | ||
| Wake up, people. | ||
| In staying in Ohio, this time in Newark, Republican Thomas, you're on the air. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I want to say a few things also about Medicare, if I can. | |
| The reason Medicare had to come up with Plan D, which will cost all Americans co-pays and a higher cost to our seniors, is the result of Joe and Kamala's warm invitation to 20 million illegal immigrants to enter our country with free health care to gain perpetual control of our constitutional republic. | ||
| So getting back to the shutdown, Thomas, regarding the shutdown. | ||
| Yeah, so the central fight is about the Affordable Care Act subsidies. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, if we don't get the filibuster taken away, we can't get anything done. | |
| And you know for a fact that Democrats, if they get control again, they're going to use it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And they're going to make Puerto Rico a state. | |
| They're going to make Washington, D.C. a state just to gain control of this country. | ||
| The whole party just wants to have control of the United States of America. | ||
| So you are against getting rid of the filibuster rule? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I want it to be destroyed. | |
| It's a joke. | ||
| They use it as a tool. | ||
| OK, so but but then you said that once Democrats take over, they would do all these things that I'm assuming you're opposed to. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well. | |
| Well, let me put some more information on that. | ||
| If the Democrats get in control, they will cancel the filibuster. | ||
| Oh, I see. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Got it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Immediately. | |
| Immediately. | ||
| So let's hear from a Democrat. | ||
| This is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer talking about Tuesday's election results. | ||
| Here he is. | ||
| Last night should make it clear to Republicans that they simply cannot continue to ignore not only us, but the American people for the good of the whole country. | ||
| So again, Leader Jeffries and I this morning demanded that Donald Trump sit down and meet with us to address the health care crisis. | ||
| Anytime, anywhere, any place. | ||
| We're ready to meet with him. | ||
| It's time to sit down and negotiate with Democrats to bring this Republican shutdown to an end and address the health care crisis. | ||
| But if Donald, if Donald, because if Donald Trump were smart, he'd recognize the election results for what they are. | ||
| And at least this quote indicates he may. | ||
| What are they? | ||
| What are these election results? | ||
| They're a bolt of lightning and a wake-up call to Donald Trump to start working with us to end this crisis. | ||
| The takeaway from last night was unmistakable. | ||
| Democrats swept in states across the country, red and blue alike. | ||
| Democrats won in New Jersey by an astounding margin. | ||
| In Virginia, in Mississippi, in New York, in Pennsylvania, in Florida. | ||
| In statewide elections, in citywide elections, and in local elections. | ||
| From school boards to state houses, voters sided with the party that's fighting for them, the Democratic Party. | ||
| Let last night ring like a siren in Republican ears. | ||
| The American people are tired of Donald Trump in his willy-nilly policies, raising their costs and just helping his very wealthy friends. | ||
| The American people are tired of Donald Trump raising health care premiums, ignoring working people. | ||
| So the way forward is simple. | ||
| To Donald Trump and the Republicans, work with Democrats. | ||
| Work to end your shutdown by meeting with us and addressing the health care crisis. | ||
| We are taking your calls this morning on day 37 of the government shutdown. | ||
| Our phone lines are Democrats 2027-8,000, Republicans 202-748-8001, and Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| This is ABC News with the headline, Thune says ending filibuster, quote, not happening. | ||
| Despite Trump's demands, Tumer and Jeffries are calling for a meeting with Trump and GOP to negotiate. | ||
| And this is Judy calling us from North Carolina. | ||
| Democrat, hi, Judy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| I am a Democrat, and I'm calling because the Democrats need to reopen the government now. | ||
| People are hurting. | ||
| How would they like it? | ||
| How would the people in Congress like it if they had no money coming in for over a month? | ||
| People need to pay their bills. | ||
| Reopen the government, negotiate, negotiate with the Republicans. | ||
| And hopefully something good will happen. | ||
| So, Judy, what would you like to see happen? | ||
| You want it open first and then they can negotiate on the Affordable Care Act subsidies? | ||
| Or do you think they should get something first and then reopen the government? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't think they're going to get anything. | |
| I don't think they're going to get anything. | ||
| And people are hurting. | ||
| You know, I am really concerned that they need to reopen the government, then negotiate, and then if the Republicans want, then make it an issue at the midterm election. | ||
| But please reopen the government. | ||
| People are hurting. | ||
| All right, Judy. | ||
| Here's Dan, Louisville, Kentucky, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Dan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I appreciate you giving me enough time to talk. | |
| Today's my birthday, and I'm giving myself a birthday gift as calling in. | ||
| You know, for all the Democrats who've been calling for the last two, three weeks, they've been listening, crying about, you know, the shutdown. | ||
| Well, they just, some people calling in don't even know what they're talking about. | ||
| I know Trump, you know, he has all three branches of government, but people don't understand. | ||
| It takes 60 votes in the Senate, and Republicans only have 53. | ||
| I don't know why these Democrat and independents don't understand that, how the government works. | ||
| And, you know, as far as the election, I hope these people really see the regret they're going to have when the days ahead really comes hard on them. | ||
| And I just, you know, just pretty sad how some people just, you know, want to cry about this and that, you know, about their snap benefits taking away. | ||
| You know, if they just trust in God, God will take care of them. | ||
| And I'm going to be praying for all the Democrats, independents, and what Republicans are not on board with Trump. | ||
| He's one of the greatest presidents in our time I've ever seen. | ||
| I always said a business fan run, he'd get my vote. | ||
| I'll be praying for y'all. | ||
| And Dan, how? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'll be praying for y'all at least fan too. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| And how old are you today, Dan? | ||
|
unidentified
|
67. | |
| All right. | ||
| Happy birthday. | ||
| Glad you called in on your birthday. | ||
| Vicki, Homewood, Illinois, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'm a Democrat and I'm calling in. | ||
| First of all, what happened to negotiation? | ||
| I mean, the Republicans have not been, the House has not been there in a month. | ||
| Who works like that? | ||
| I work every day, and I don't appreciate them not working. | ||
| They're not negotiating. | ||
| They're not talking. | ||
| Just lie after lie. | ||
| There are people, real people, hurting. | ||
| And everybody deserves to eat, to have a job, to pay their bills. | ||
| So now, Vicki, this is what the Republicans are saying in respond to this. | ||
| They're saying, we did our job. | ||
| We passed a clean CR. | ||
| We can negotiate after the government is opened. | ||
| We have nothing else to do. | ||
| What do you think of that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The next CR ends November 21st. | |
| They still have to negotiate. | ||
| They have not done anything. | ||
| And it's just sad to have, I have never seen such weak Republicans. | ||
| Never in my life what I thought. | ||
| In 2025, I would see these weak Republicans. | ||
| And that's all I have to say on it. | ||
| All right, Vicki. | ||
| And let's talk to Joel in Mountain Home, Arkansas Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Joel. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you doing, ma'am? | ||
| Good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I just got something for everybody needs to think about. | |
| And it's going to cost you taxes. | ||
| That's how they get money. | ||
| They get money from taxes, not these people that got a check coming each month from the federal government. | ||
| I'm talking about, oh, well, I can't think too. | ||
| Well, I better stick to my notes. | ||
| We got 42 million people. | ||
| What do you call it? | ||
| Snap. | ||
| 42 million people are on SNAP. | ||
| That's the food aid program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's one-sixth or one-seventh of our country. | |
| Now, that's almost a trillion dollars right now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So we need to look at that list really good. | |
| Then we got people on Social Security. | ||
| It's not supposed to be on there. | ||
| They got fake number. | ||
| But so much on that. | ||
| Let me get to my main point. | ||
| ACA Affordable Care Act was passed. | ||
| And the way they got it passed a few years ago, they got the people to agree that come October 25, it would expire. | ||
| And that's how I think it was Obama at that time was put. | ||
| Yeah, so that's December 31, the end of this year. | ||
| Yes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So Schumann, so Schumann has done this. | |
| Oh, I want to say our debt today is $38 trillion. | ||
| I don't know what the interest payment is at, but I'm sure it's over $100,000 a month or maybe more. | ||
| But our interest payment is going to come pretty soon. | ||
| Now, so Schuman wants $1.5 trillion, and that's why he went out on there for health care for the illegal, the heck with the American citizen that works here, pay taxes and everything. | ||
| Now, his next catch is he wants another, number two, he wants another $3 trillion when the new budget is passed. | ||
| So that will be four, let me see, three in the, yeah, that will be $4.5 trillion added to the $38 trillion we owe. | ||
| Yeah, so Joel, you know, the 1.5 is over 10 years. | ||
| But yes, that's. | ||
| Yeah, and Democrats dispute that number. | ||
| They say that it's not going to be like that. | ||
| But anyway, yes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's not using it properly. | |
| It's not health care for illegal. | ||
| So now that's going to be $42.5 trillion. | ||
| Now, what's the interest payment going to be that and everything? | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, got your point, Joel. | ||
| And this is Sean in Cheryl's Ford, North Carolina, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, ma'am. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| The whole problem is everybody is listening to their part of their parties. | ||
| The real thing is about everything is our Republican Party has changed. | ||
| I mean, I'm a Democrat, but I vote for good Republicans. | ||
| I vote for any good politician. | ||
| The problem is the Republican Party has turned into a billionaires' club. | ||
| You might as well call it a billionaires' club for communism. | ||
| It's so bad. | ||
| And the Democrat Party moderates are no different. | ||
| I would take Jesus is Christ Beatitudes, which if you read the Bible, we're supposed to be Mr. Christian Nation. | ||
| The Beatitudes are as close as socialism as you could ever believe. | ||
| Don't listen to me. | ||
| Read the Beatitudes. | ||
| Look at what's happening in our country. | ||
| We call ourselves a Christian nation. | ||
| What did Jesus say about welcoming strangers into your home? | ||
| What's wrong with all of our Americans? | ||
| I would give, I serve my country, I would give my life for any American. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What's happened to you all? | |
| You're all fighting because you're Democrats and Republicans. | ||
| What about being Americans for a change? | ||
| What about worrying about your neighbor who don't have food, who can't feed his kids? | ||
| Don't tell me about programs when people are starving in this rich country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The reason they're starving is the Republican Party has changed. | |
| The moderate Democrats have changed. | ||
| And they're all giving it away to the communist billionaires. | ||
| It is what it is. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Have a great day. | ||
| And Robin and Maryland, Republican, you're on the air, Robin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much for taking my call. | |
| So I am, I don't understand why anybody in Congress says Trump needs to negotiate. | ||
| It is not Trump's fault. | ||
| It's Congress's job to balance the budget, to have budgets. | ||
| Trump has the right to accept or reject it, and the senators know what Trump is going to accept or not. | ||
| This is not Trump needs to negotiate. | ||
| This is Congress needs to open the government, come up with a plan, send it to the president. | ||
| The negotiations have to be done after the government is open. | ||
| And anybody who calls in and says, let the suffering continue, let the suffering continue. | ||
| It's our only leverage. | ||
| It's got to go on. | ||
| It's cruel. | ||
| It's inhuman. | ||
| We need to open the government. | ||
| And it's Congress that has to do it. | ||
| It is not the president who has to do it. | ||
| What the president's doing to lower costs is he lowered drugs. | ||
| He's negotiated a deal to get best nation status on drugs. | ||
| We need to figure out a way to provide excellent, first-class health care at a lower cost. | ||
| That's what this is all about. | ||
| And I thank you very much for taking it. | ||
| All right, Robin. | ||
| And this is the Hill with this headline. | ||
| Pennsylvania Democrat interrupts Speaker Johnson's shutdown press conference. | ||
| That Pennsylvania Democrat was Representative Chrissy Houlihan. | ||
| And here is that portion from X. I'm asking you in question if you're ready to have a conversation with the other side. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You represent all of us. | |
| You are the speaker for all of us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You have an obligation not just to speak to the American people. | |
| You have an obligation. | ||
| You have to call the leadership of both parties and bring us together and solve this problem together. | ||
| Okay, let's talk about it. | ||
| I've been doing that. | ||
| We did that before the shutdown began. | ||
| We went to the White House. | ||
| We went and sat in front of the resolute desk. | ||
| We brought Leader Jeffries and Leader Schumer in, and we had a discussion. | ||
| The president said, please don't shut the government down. | ||
| It would cause all this pain to the American people. | ||
| This has never happened before. | ||
| It's a clean, nonpartisan CR that every Democrat, including you, voted no on in September 19th. | ||
| You voted to shut down the government. | ||
| You voted to stop SNAP benefits. | ||
| You voted to not pay the troops, not pay TSA Border Patrol. | ||
| You may regret it now, but that's your vote and it's on the record. | ||
| So the president had his man and they didn't want to have a dialogue or debate. | ||
| They thumbed their nose in it at him and he had to do it. | ||
| Appreciate it. | ||
| Thanks for your input. | ||
| Somebody give me a question. | ||
| It's real. | ||
| And this is Calvin in New York, New York, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi, Calvin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good afternoon. | |
| I'd like to address the gentleman that called from Ohio. | ||
| He says every immigrant gets health care. | ||
| That's not true. | ||
| The only immigrants that get health care are the ones that come into the emergency room. | ||
| And that's not so, you know, only if you go to an emergency room, you can receive health care. | ||
| And second, if you talk about immigrants, who runs Tesla? | ||
| Who runs Microsoft? | ||
| These people are all immigrants. | ||
| But, Calvin, the issue is not immigrants, it's illegal immigrants. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you're saying, but only those who get health care, they only can get health care if they go to an emergency room. | |
| That's right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No further. | |
| For undocumented immigrants are not eligible for the ACA or for Medicaid. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Correct. | |
| Right. | ||
| None of that. | ||
| Because they keep saying it. | ||
| Maybe it's coming off Fox News. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| But that's where they get it from. | ||
| You can go or I can go to an emergency room and get health care. | ||
| After that, that ended if I don't have health insurance. | ||
| So I wish they stopped saying it. | ||
| All the immigrants can get health care. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I appreciate it. | ||
| Here's Jose in Texas, line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I agree with that last gentleman. | ||
| I don't know why they keep saying that immigrants, illegal immigrants, are getting all these government health subsidies. | ||
| That's not true. | ||
| I just want to talk about the government shutdown. | ||
| This is Trump's shutdown. | ||
| I know everyone wants to blame the Democrats, but I don't see how you can blame the Democrats when they're not the leaders in power. | ||
| The leader in power is the Republican Party. | ||
| And the problem with today's Republican Party, where they're not like they were in my dad's day, is that they are all not just unified behind Trump. | ||
| They're willing to do whatever he says. | ||
| If he says shut the Congress down, it's shut down. | ||
| And why would he do that? | ||
| So he doesn't have a check on his power. | ||
| It's one less check on his power. | ||
| The Supreme Court's not checking him. | ||
| Congress is closed. | ||
| I don't even have representation in government right now. | ||
| I mean, the president is an electoral. | ||
| He's brought in through the Electoral College. | ||
| My direct representative, my senator and my congressman, are not at work right now. | ||
| So I'm still being taxed, and I don't have any representation. | ||
| So, Jose, the president has said, end the filibuster and reopen the government. | ||
| And the Senate has so far refused to do that. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, that's another point that I wanted to make. | |
| Sure. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Like, look at what this president's doing. | |
| He goes out and he goes on 60 minutes and he says he will not meet with the Democrats. | ||
| What kind of leader of a company who has something that they need to get done doesn't sit down and meet just because it's difficult? | ||
| That's not good leadership. | ||
| On top of that, he just got his butt kicked in this last election. | ||
| And rather than saying, hey, Republican Party, let's sit down and figure out how we can woo these voters back to our side. | ||
| He's saying, hey, let's end the filibuster so we can manipulate the government to control the people better. | ||
| That's not American. | ||
| That's not Democratic. | ||
| It's disgusting. | ||
| He's the worst president in our lifetime. | ||
| And here's Joey in Mountain Home, Arkansas Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Joey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, hello. | |
| Wow. | ||
| Anyways, the ACA was basically defunded when they did away with the individual mandate. | ||
| So after 2020, when they passed the enhanced advanced premium tax credits that were set to expire on December 31st, you know, it basically said a president that the premium would be artificially reduced. | ||
| And I am seeing that the premium is basically returning back to normal. | ||
| So we're mainly concerned about the ACA and the shutdown over the ACA. | ||
| This thing was many, many years ago set to fail. | ||
| And so when people talk about illegal immigrants with the ability to go to the emergency room, they have to understand that funding comes from the government. | ||
| And I'm not saying... | ||
| Correct. | ||
| That is the MTALA law signed by Ronald Reagan in 1986. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Correct. | |
| So here's my question, Joey, about those enhanced subsidies and the premiums going back up. | ||
| What happens to those people that can't afford that increase in their premiums? | ||
| Do you think that, I mean, it's let the market do what it does and those people shouldn't get health care since they can't afford it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, there are so many options available in the ACA. | |
| You can change deductible. | ||
| You can go from a silver plan to a bronze plan. | ||
| I mean, they can afford it. | ||
| They might not get the same benefits as they had before, but the options are very wide. | ||
| Most people are just looking at their current premium. | ||
| I'm saying, hey, I was paying, you know, $135, now I'm paying $435. | ||
| But they're not looking at all the details. | ||
| They're not looking at you can get a bronze plan now for about the same prices you were paying before. | ||
| Most of these plans have very low co-pays. | ||
| Have you looked at those plans and those premiums, Joey? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I have in great detail. | |
| Are you on the ACA or you have private insurance or what do you want? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I am on a grandfather plan, but every year I go on and I look in comparable to my grandfather plan. | |
| What's a grandfather plan? | ||
|
unidentified
|
A plan before 2010. | |
| So I've had health insurance with the same company since 2020. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Oh, sorry. | ||
| This is B in New Jersey Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Bea, are you there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I am. | |
| Hi. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
In reference to the shutdown, one way or another, I believe that we have representatives that are not representing. | |
| So that's why the government is shut down. | ||
| They need to go to work. | ||
| They're getting paid to work. | ||
| We are here waiting for them to come back so that they can do their job and that we can get people paid. | ||
| We have never had military that wasn't being paid. | ||
| We've got air traffic controllers that are exhausted and were going to be cut down by 10% tomorrow as far as police. | ||
| We have no representation from the ones that are not in Washington working, and they haven't been working for over a month or more. | ||
| So it's time for them to get back to work so that the state of America can get to roll it. | ||
| We are sitting back waiting. | ||
| I'm talking about the constituents. | ||
| We are waiting with bated breath. | ||
| So every time we have someone who medically is unable to be cared for, I'm not speaking about immigrants. | ||
| I'm talking about American citizens. | ||
| We have the largest baby boomer population. | ||
| We, I'm a baby boomer. | ||
| I expect to be able to have coverage. | ||
| The Republican Party has not come up with a plan as an alternative. | ||
| I heard the young man prior to me talking about a grandfather plan. | ||
| That's wonderful. | ||
| But how about the millions that have nothing other than the Affordable Care Act? | ||
| And with that, if the Republicans have come in and have something to offer, we haven't had anything offered as an alternative for the average person, and especially for the baby boomers, because we are the ones that paid into this system. | ||
| So I think that the Republicans need to get back into Congress, back into Senate, and I'm talking about the Republicans, okay? | ||
| Let's get their jobs on the line. | ||
| If you don't want to work for us, then why should we work for you? | ||
| That's my thoughts. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And Beauty, regarding what you said about the FAA and flights, here's Reuters. | ||
| U.S. orders 10% flights cut at major U.S. airports due to shutdown. | ||
| It says that the FAA may take further steps if air traffic issues persist. | ||
| Shutdown causes staffing shortages, flight delays, and longer security wait times. | ||
| Airlines scramble to adjust schedules amid flight cuts. | ||
| The FAA exempts international flights from capacity reductions. | ||
| Here is Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy responding to reporters' questions. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What will this mean practically for air travel? | |
| Is this going to lead to more flight delays, more cancellations? | ||
| Well, I think it's going to lead to more cancellations. | ||
| We're going to work with the airlines to do this in a systematic way. | ||
| And again, we had a conversation about that. | ||
| I'm concerned about disrupting people's travel. | ||
| We're coming into a weekend. | ||
| That doesn't, listen, I travel. | ||
| I travel a lot. | ||
| We are concerned about that. | ||
| But we had to have a gut check of what is our job. | ||
| Is it to make sure there's minimal delays or minimal cancellations? | ||
| Or is our job to make sure we make the hard decisions to continue to keep the airspace safe? | ||
| That is our job, is safety. | ||
| And so, again, when we see pressure, we are going to get ahead of it and make sure that you get to where you're going, point A to point B. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And how long will these restrictions stay in place until the government reopens? | |
| And are you any closer to closing parts of the U.S. airspace? | ||
| So we're going to, and the FAA and the administrator are going to continue to do this with me as well. | ||
| We are going to use data. | ||
| The data will dictate what we do. | ||
| Again, if the data goes in the wrong direction, could you see additional restrictions? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| If the data goes in the right direction, we will roll this back. | ||
| But it's going to be data-driven, safety-driven. | ||
| Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy. | ||
| This is Taylor, Asheville, North Carolina, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I would like to begin with a quote. | ||
| A government shutdown falls on the president's lack of leadership. | ||
| I mean, problems start from the top, and they have to get solved from the top. | ||
| A shutdown means the president is weak. | ||
| That is a quote from a one, Donald J. Trump. | ||
| These people keep talking about how he's the best deal maker. | ||
| He makes all these deals. | ||
| He's awesome. | ||
| If he's making deals and he's going to make these deals, then why, on the day that people get kicked off of their food stamps and military members are being told how to visit food banks, is he at Mar-a-Lago celebrating an opulent, big 1920s themed party with champagne and showgirls and caviar while people are starving when he should be making deals. | ||
| He should be behind that resolute desk with the members of Congress in front of him and making these deals. | ||
| It is his fault. | ||
| He said so. | ||
| Instead, he's pulling a Marie Antoinette and saying, well, if the people don't have bread, let them eat cake. | ||
| And I think we should solve it the same way we solve Marie Antoinette. | ||
| All right, let's go to Beverly in Louisiana, federal worker. | ||
| Hi, Beverly. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I am a retired federal worker that has gone through a shutdown, and I know that it can be very cumbersome on us. | ||
| However, it is something that really needs to be done at this time. | ||
| But my question is: we look at the president and we see that he is one of the greatest con audits they've ever had, we've ever had, I should say. | ||
| However, he's not very intelligent when it comes to the law and what the things that he's doing. | ||
| I mean, tearing down the White House for one thing. | ||
| However, that isn't my point. | ||
| My question is: is it possible by Donald Trump being such a good con audit, he's not only fooling the public, but he's giving kickbacks to the Congress members and the Senate so that they will support all of his endeavors and they may be ruining our country. | ||
| You believe that the lawmakers are being paid off? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, yes. | |
| Oh, yes. | ||
| I don't believe that they're that dumb that they can't see what's actually going on with Mr. Trump. | ||
| He and his family are enriching themselves. | ||
| We all know that. | ||
| And I don't see how even the average second grader can't see that. | ||
| He is enriching themselves and he's probably paying them off. | ||
| All right, Beverly. | ||
| Let's go to the Republican line, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. | ||
| Frank, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I am a lifelong Republican, but I can differentiate that between being a supporter of MAGA. | ||
| I guess I would characterize myself as a financial conservative, but I'm much more liberal when it comes to social programs. | ||
| One in eight kids are going to bed hungry in this country because of SNAP, not taking SNAP programs. | ||
| We have taken away free and reduced lunches from many of our public schools because there's no negotiation. | ||
| The Republicans have basically said, open the government and we will negotiate. | ||
| Quite frankly, that is a lie. | ||
| My federal representative from Federal District 10 of Pennsylvania, Scott Perry, has made many promises. | ||
| One of the promises, he said, I'll open town halls so people can come in and submit questions. | ||
| He hasn't had a town hall since 2017. | ||
| Now, if you want to talk to my congressman, you have to do it by telephone, teleconference. | ||
| You have to pre-submit your questions, and you can never make a follow-up question. | ||
| So, do I trust the Republicans that they would negotiate after we open the government, the Democratic Party? | ||
| Absolutely not. | ||
| One more very quick idea that you might want to know what this is. | ||
| During the last telephone conference, Town Hall that Scott Perry ran, he said, I don't believe in all of our Constitution, but both as a military man and member of Congress, I have to swear an oath to it. | ||
| Wouldn't it have been good if I could follow up with questions? | ||
| Representative, what do you disagree with and why? | ||
| But you can't follow up. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, I appreciate you sharing that with us, Frank. | ||
| This is the Washington Post headline: After election wins, Democrats split on how to end government shutdown. | ||
| It says a band of moderates has been talking about reopening the government in exchange for a vote on health care subsidies. | ||
| Here is Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who disagrees with that sentiment. | ||
| I know that there is some discussion about bipartisan negotiations. | ||
| And I want to be very clear: if these negotiations say that we're going to pass legislation that will extend the credits, tax credits for the Affordable Care Act, count me in, that's great. | ||
| But there has to be a commitment that the Speaker of the House is on board. | ||
| There has to be a commitment that the President of the United States is prepared to sign the bill. | ||
| Bottom line is: we need to be successful in protecting the health care of the American people. | ||
| And if it's just a piece of legislation that passes the Senate with either 50 votes or 60 votes, so what? | ||
| Where does it go? | ||
| Then it becomes just a meaningless gesture. | ||
| You can go home. | ||
| Oh, I voted for a piece. | ||
| That's good. | ||
| But the real truth is, will we protect the health care of the American people? | ||
| That is what this whole shutdown is about. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| Here's Mary, West Palm Beach, Florida, Democrat. | ||
| Hi, Mary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning to you. | |
| I'm going to make some points from my perspective. | ||
| The House is controlled by our leaders. | ||
| Our government, we are supposed to be one of the most well-thought-after, looked at, richest country out of all of the other countries. | ||
| And we have one leader, one leader that seems as if everybody bows to that one leader and gives in to one leader that has so disrupted our society till it makes us all look bad. | ||
| Where is the man that stands up and says, enough is enough? | ||
| Sure, we can be agreeable as well as disagreeable, but that leadership with those Republicans, I agree with the last speaker here. | ||
| No, they're not going to give in because they are so used to the less fortunate throwing in the tower while they continuously get rich off of the poor. | ||
| They allowed our president to tear down the most historic building in our country. | ||
| Nobody stood up to challenge him. | ||
| This is the same way here with the shutdown. | ||
| Keep the shutdown. | ||
| Keep the shutdown. | ||
| All right, Mary, let's talk to Michael, New Jersey, Independent Line. | ||
| Go ahead, Michael. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| My biggest issue with all of this nonsense is that everyone out there right now, every senator, every journalist is spouting out their own personal agendas. | ||
| No one is giving any proof of anything. | ||
| You don't see a piece of paper, any data. | ||
| All you hear is that this is the problem and this is what's going on. | ||
| But no one can tell for real. | ||
| Secondly, I think that maybe some people should stop realizing that Donald Trump has a lot of very rich people that are his friends, and they are already rich. | ||
| How about all the senators who made tons of money who aren't Donald Trump's friends? | ||
| I mean, it's a ridiculous situation. | ||
| I own a company. | ||
| If my company went on strike, they would be out of jobs. | ||
| We are just sitting here and watching these people pontificate and move their own agenda forward. | ||
| Now, quite honestly, everyone that is involved in the Congress and the Senate and politics in general is an employee of the country. | ||
| I'm really pretty upset with the fact that I used to think Mr. Schumer was a great man, but he has been a sniveling little bunny rabbit since he couldn't be Nancy Pelosi's lapdog anymore. | ||
| So, Michael, since you're in New Jersey, just want to ask you real quick about the election for governor. | ||
| How did you vote? | ||
| How did you feel about the results? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Actually, I wasn't able to vote at all because I'm in the hospital right now. | |
| Oh, okay. | ||
| Sorry to hear that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But my opinion is very simple. | |
| I think New Jersey's going to get another eight years of Murphy, Phil Murphy. | ||
| I don't think anything is going to change very much. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And here's Robert in the Bronx, federal worker. | ||
| Hi, Robert. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you doing? | ||
| Good. | ||
| I mean, history tells everything just from the last shutdown where the TSA workers went on strike. | ||
| And that's what we need this time. | ||
| We need someone to stand up and, you know, actually protest this and get the government back to work and get people to open up their eyes because that's the only thing they understand is when like Sean Duffy now says that he's going to cut down the workforce 10% more. | ||
| He's taking away the power from the people. | ||
| They cut down the flights, the number of flights, not the workforce. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Same difference. | |
| Number of flights reduces the same number of people working, you know, but it's just another way for them to cut our legs out from under us. | ||
| The power is within the people. | ||
| We need to stand up. | ||
| All the federal workers need to stand up and take action. | ||
| And Robert, you're on the federal worker line. | ||
| Are you working? | ||
| Are you furloughed? | ||
| What's your situation? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I am working. | |
| I'd rather not say that. | ||
| I'm in a postal, though, but you know. | ||
| Got it. | ||
| That's all right. | ||
| You don't have to say. | ||
| Later this morning on the Washington Journal, we will talk to former CDC director, Dr. Robert Redfield, about his new book called Redfield's Warning: What I Learned But Couldn't Tell You Might Save Your Life. | ||
| But first, after the break, Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg joins us to discuss this week's election results and campaign 2026. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold new original series, this Sunday with our guest, The Chronicler of Adventures, award-winning, best-selling author David Graham, whose books include The Lost City of Z, Killers of the Flower Moon, and The Wager. | |
| He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein. | ||
| So what about this fact, about this occurrence, made you think this could be something worth your time? | ||
| And I started to realize that this odd little old manuscript contained, you know, the seeds of one of the most extraordinary stories of survival and mayhem I had ever come across. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Watch America's Book Club with David Graham this Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | |
| Join Book TV this weekend for the 30th Annual Texas Book Festival from Austin. | ||
| Our two-day live coverage begins Saturday at 11 a.m. Eastern Time and Sunday at noon. | ||
| Highlights include Eve Ewing with her book Original Sins explores what she sees as systemic racism embedded in the American education system. | ||
| Former NSA analyst Reality Winner shares her story of moral choices from her book, I Am Not Your Enemy. | ||
| Technology guru Tim Wu with his book, The Age of Extraction on the Promises and Reality of the Internet Economy. | ||
| And Andrew Ross Sorkin takes an in-depth look into the most famous stock market crash in his book, 1929. | ||
| Watch the Texas Book Festival live this weekend, Saturday, and Sunday on Book TV on C-SPAN too. | ||
| Also be sure to get the full festival schedule online at booktv.org. | ||
| Friday on C-SPAN's Ceasefire, at a moment of deep division in Washington, former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazil and former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel come together for a bipartisan dialogue on Tuesday's election results, potential impact on the 2026 midterms, and increasing partisanship. | ||
| They join host, Dasha Burns. | ||
| Ceasefire, Bridging the Divide in American Politics. | ||
| Watch Ceasefire Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| We're joined now by Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist. | ||
| Simon, welcome to the program. | ||
| It's great to be here. | ||
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| So in your post-election analysis, you wrote this, quote, 2025 was a blue wave election. | ||
| The country is more Democratic today. | ||
| Democrats not only won the big races, we also won in local races, school board, city council, mayor, county across the country. | ||
| Why do you think that was? | ||
| The election was a clear repudiation of Donald Trump and his first year in office. | ||
| I mean, the country, he's done enormous harm to the country, and people are pissed. | ||
| And they came out and voted in very large numbers against the Republicans all across the country. | ||
| Now, President Trump said Republicans lost because he was not on the ballot. | ||
| Now, he will not be on the ballot anymore. | ||
| Ever again. | ||
| So does that mean Republicans are in trouble? | ||
| The Republicans are in trouble. | ||
| I mean, what's happened if you look at the party ID and what's called a generic ballot, the whole battlefield has shifted between 7 and 12 points towards the Democrats. | ||
| And historically, when that happens in an off-year like this, it means the party has a very good, you know, us, the party that had that kind of shift towards us, would have a very good midterm election. | ||
| And I think that, you know, Trump is now facing both incredible levels of unpopularity, but what's more important for the Republican candidates in the Republican Party is that his agenda is more unpopular than he is. | ||
| And they have to run on that agenda. | ||
| They just tried to run on that agenda all across the country and failed. | ||
| And so I do think the Republicans are in trouble now. | ||
| The agenda being what? | ||
| Well, what he's done as president, the economic agenda that has slowed the economy and raised our prices, the attempt to gut health care, raising electricity prices, throwing people into foreign gulags and trampling our civil rights and civil liberties, the broad agenda that has done enormous harm to the country and to the American people was roundly rejected. | ||
| I will tell you, as somebody who's been doing this a long time, right? | ||
| This is like my 16th or 17th election cycle since I came to Washington. | ||
| The margins of the Democratic wins were shocking. | ||
| I mean, even for us. | ||
| So, Simon, let's put that on the screen, actually, talking about the margins. | ||
| So, looking at New Jersey, and these are not final results. | ||
| Those are still coming in. | ||
| Governor-elect Mikey Sherrill won by 13 points. | ||
| Governor-elect Spanberger by 14 points in Virginia. | ||
| And New York City Mayor broke the 50% margin in a three-way race over Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sleewa. | ||
| And then that prop 50 in California on redistricting was plus 28 points. | ||
| Well, and in Maine, we had a ballot initiative the Republicans brought to limit voting. | ||
| That won by over 20 points. | ||
| The retention races in Pennsylvania for the three Supreme Court justices, which was heavily contested by the Republicans, we won by more than 20 points. | ||
| You know, the candidate in Miami mayor, where we haven't had a Democratic win since the 1990s, you know, won more votes and is leading going into the runoff in December. | ||
| These were huge margins. | ||
| The California vote, right, was over 20 points. | ||
| And you just don't see 20, 25-point victories like that on things where Republicans contested it, right? | ||
| These weren't things that were sort of willy-nilly that they weren't fighting. | ||
| They fought in all these campaigns. | ||
| But these are all blue states. | ||
| And what Speaker Johnson said is Democrats voted for Democrats. | ||
| And what's noteworthy about that? | ||
| Nice try, Speaker Johnson. | ||
| In Virginia, as you know, there was a Republican governor, a Republican Attorney General. | ||
| The Republicans controlled the state in Virginia. | ||
| We flipped all that. | ||
| In Maine, it was a Republican ballot initiative that they brought up. | ||
| In Pennsylvania, they tried to get rid of the three Democratic Supreme Court justices. | ||
| And so wherever there was a contested race, not only did we win, but we won by enormous margins. | ||
| You know, if you had guests on here in the last few weeks, the Republicans thought they had a chance at winning the New Jersey governor's race, right? | ||
| They were very bullish on the Mikey Sherrills. | ||
| They thought it would be closer. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| And it was a blowout. | ||
| And so I think for anybody who is being honest about the data, Democrats performed at the very upper end of what was possible for us in this election, meaning that we didn't just win, but we won big, and it was a clear repudiation of Trump and his policies. | ||
| If you've got a question on the future of the Democratic Party, a question for our guest, Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist, you can start calling in now. | ||
| The lines are by party. | ||
| So Democrats are on 202, 748, 8,000. | ||
| Republicans, 202, 748, 8001, and Independents, 202, 748, 8,002. | ||
| So exit polling, ABC News exit polling in Virginia shows that the most important issue was affordability and cost of living. | ||
| I know you can't speak for Republicans, but do you think that they just missed that, that that is so important to voters and that they didn't emphasize that enough? | ||
| No, I think that, look, the problem they have is that Donald Trump has made things worse for everybody. | ||
| And when I think about, if I were a Republican, they have to defend the indefensible. | ||
| They have to defend the tariffs that have raised our prices and slowed the economy and created large deficits in America. | ||
| They have to defend the health care cuts that are going to make health care more expensive and people are going to lose their care. | ||
| They have to defend raising electricity costs. | ||
| I mean, one of the most interesting polls that I've seen the last few days, a little bit of data, is that when you ask people what costs are rising and what's causing them pain, number one is groceries, but number two is electricity costs. | ||
| I mean, I think this is a much bigger issue that people haven't really settled on. | ||
| And electricity costs are rising because of Republicans and the big, ugly bill that they passed earlier this year. | ||
| So the reason I think that we did so well is that Republicans have actually made the lives of people worse. | ||
| And in the grand scheme of this business, this was not a hard argument to make. | ||
| Things have gotten more expensive because of their policies. | ||
| And Donald Trump, that was his central promise that he betrayed to the American people. | ||
| He said he was going to lower costs. | ||
| They've gone up, and I think they've paid a big price for it. | ||
| If you could just explain how electricity costs, you said electricity costs wouldn't rise. | ||
| They've ended the clean energy subsidies, which have caused energy prices, electricity prices specifically to rise across the country. | ||
| Let's talk about New York City. | ||
| There's a new ad from the GOP Congressional Campaign Committee after Tuesday's Mamdani win. | ||
| Let's go ahead and play that, and then you can talk about it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
A radical left earthquake just hit America. | |
| The epicenter, New York. | ||
| The new socialist mayor, Zorhan Mamdani, built his movement on defunding the police and abolishing ICE. | ||
| Now the socialists are celebrating. | ||
| They call it progress. | ||
| We call it chaos. | ||
| Bureaucrats instead of doctors, social workers instead of cops. | ||
| This is the future House Democrats want. | ||
| And your city could be next. | ||
| Stop socialism, stop Democrats. | ||
| What do you think? | ||
| Good luck with that. | ||
| Why? | ||
| You don't think it's going to resonate? | ||
| No, no, no, he's not going to be on the ballot next year. | ||
| We have Democrats running in individual races just like we had all across the country. | ||
| And voters will be able to make up their mind based on the Democrats and Republicans that are in those races. | ||
| But this ad is saying that the Democratic Party has become socialist. | ||
| It's silly. | ||
| And that that's going to spread. | ||
| Yeah, but why do you think that that's not true? | ||
| Because it's obviously not true, right? | ||
| I mean, look at the agenda that Democrats are pursuing in the House and Senate. | ||
| What Mikey Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger ran on, what our candidates all across the country ran on. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, New York is a very unique place. | ||
| I'm from there. | ||
| I grew up, I was born in New York. | ||
| My family, both of my parents grew up there. | ||
| New York's got its own dynamic. | ||
| And I think what happened in this election is that candidates who fit their districts and fit their states won. | ||
| And I think the diversity of the Democratic Party is our strength. | ||
| I mean, a healthy party is one that has diverse voices and has strong internal debates about the future. | ||
| I think that's what we're having now. | ||
| And I think it's a sign of health for us, not a sign of weakness. | ||
| I want to get to calls, but I want to ask you about the shutdown, the impact the shutdown had on the election, and what impact you think the results will have. | ||
| Well, I agree with Donald Trump that the shutdown had a big impact on what happened. | ||
| And I think it did in two ways. | ||
| I think one is that Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer showed that they were going to fight. | ||
| And I think for Democrats, that fight, the fact that we were fighting Trump more aggressively, was a motivator for us in this election all across the country. | ||
| The second thing is the polling data is very clear. | ||
| I mean, people blame the Republicans much more for the shutdown than the Democrats. | ||
| And so I think that Trump's assessment that the shutdown contributed to their losses was correct. | ||
| All right, let's talk to callers and start with Lance in Sterling, Colorado, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Lance. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, Mamie. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| And I appreciate C-SPAN. | ||
| But Rosenberg, is that your name? | ||
| Anyway, you got that everything bad about Trump. | ||
| This is what I'm saying. | ||
| Democrats are becoming socialists. | ||
| It takes four or five to eight years to get rid of everything Biden and the Democrats did in the past four years. | ||
| Everybody knows that you're an intelligent man. | ||
| And all you can do is blame Trump and say, hey, those are blue states that just nominated communists and Democrats. | ||
| They've been blue states. | ||
| They're Democratic states. | ||
| We don't feel bad. | ||
| I feel bad. | ||
| And all I can say is anybody that voted for socialism, communism is an idiot. | ||
| All right, let's get your response. | ||
| There's a lot in there. | ||
| What can I pick out? | ||
| Yeah, look, we feel good about what happened. | ||
| I mean, we have, this is our best election since 2020. | ||
| You know, we've had some, we had a tough election last year, a year ago. | ||
| We've been on the losing side of these things. | ||
| But, you know, I'll tell you, as somebody who's been involved in these elections for a long time and been on both sides of waves and been on winning presidential campaigns and been on losing ones, is that this was an earthquake election for the Republicans. | ||
| And any attempt to sort of mitigate and to sort of pretend otherwise and sort of look away means that they're not paying attention to what the message the voters just sent them of this discontent against. | ||
| The caller did say socialism a couple of times. | ||
| And I mean, do you agree that New York City has gone towards socialism? | ||
| I mean, a rent freeze, free buses, free childcare is going to be incredibly expensive. | ||
| Let's see what the mayor does. | ||
| Let's give him, you know, obviously he's a dynamic and powerful new figure in our political ecosystem in the country. | ||
| You know, let's see what he does. | ||
| And, you know, he's a young guy. | ||
| New York is a hard place to govern. | ||
| And, you know, I wish him well, but let's see what he does. | ||
| Here's Frank in Staten Island, New York, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi, Frank. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Dim. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| Yes, I voted. | ||
| I live in Staten Island, New York, voted for Cuomo. | ||
| Didn't want Mamdani at all. | ||
| And we think a lot of us feel that he would really wreck the city. | ||
| Talked about like repudiation of Trump's policies. | ||
| Okay, I mean, you know, I'm against the tariffs, too. | ||
| I'm a capitalist and stuff like that. | ||
| But I don't see how a party moving further and further left becomes a repudiation. | ||
| I think it shoots themselves in the foot if you want to use a good metaphor. | ||
| That's what the party does. | ||
| And you can laugh all you want. | ||
| You're hurting the Democratic Party with a candidate like Mandani. | ||
| The voters of New York chose. | ||
| I mean, we are a democracy. | ||
| And, you know, he overcame a lot to win in that election in New York. | ||
| He obviously inspired a lot of people. | ||
| The youth turnout there was pretty spectacular. | ||
| The turnout overall was the highest since the 1960s. | ||
| So he's brought a lot of energy. | ||
| And I think that people, you know, just like with Mikey Sheryl and Abigail Spenberger, they won their elections, but now they have to govern. | ||
| And governing is a lot harder than winning a campaign. | ||
| And so all of them are going to be heavily tested over the next year. | ||
| Here's Lanny and Missouri, Democrat. | ||
| You're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I wanted to make the point that what goes on in one county in one state doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be the same in every county and in all the states. | |
| I think the direction the Democratic Party needs to go is more of a diffuse policy. | ||
| The old saying is, all races are local. | ||
| And I guess I'm making that point. | ||
| And it just, it seems to me like we want to attach too much importance to the outcome of one particular election in one particular place. | ||
| And I think we do that as a country, not only as a party, for that matter. | ||
| Well, and if I can just build on that, you know, going back to New Jersey, which you know the Republicans were very optimistic about. | ||
| Mikey Sherrill not only did much better than Kamala Harris, but Jack Chitterelli did far worse than he did four years ago. | ||
| So, you know, they fell backwards in New Jersey from where they were in 2021. | ||
| This is why it's a blue state. | ||
| But their candidate who they rallied behind, and I think if you're a Republican candidate across the country right now, you have to be worried about 2026 because Donald Trump did not campaign for these candidates. | ||
| He didn't campaign. | ||
| And, you know, he could have gone to various red parts of the country in the last few weeks and been out there making the case. | ||
| They took him off the trail. | ||
| He didn't spend any money on them. | ||
| He abandoned these candidates. | ||
| Why do you think that is? | ||
| Because I think it was a huge mistake for him. | ||
| I think they should have spent, he's got $500 million or whatever it is in a bank account, a political bank account. | ||
| He should have spent $10 million in Virginia and New Jersey to show that he was the leader of the party in fighting for his candidates. | ||
| And what he did is he threw him overboard. | ||
| And so for all these people who are running in 2026 as a Republican, and you're wondering whether or not you can run on this awful agenda that's deeply unpopular, that people fail to be successful all across the country. | ||
| And now you're wondering whether Donald Trump is really going to show up for you because he didn't show up for the Republicans in 2025. | ||
| And as somebody who's been around a long time, I think the White House made an enormous error by not looking like they were trying and that he was out there fighting for Republicans as they went into battle. | ||
| But wouldn't President Trump be really incentivized to campaign in 2026 because he's afraid to lose the House? | ||
| Of course. | ||
| But I think that in this town where people read body language and sort of know things, I think there's probably a big concern about whether or not he's going to take care of me. | ||
| I mean, look what's happened in California, the redistricting that happened in California. | ||
| A bunch of Republican congressmen's political careers are over now because of Donald Trump. | ||
| And so, you know, he's got very small majorities in the House and the Senate. | ||
| And the question is, you know, can they, they can only lose three seats, right, in the Senate on any vote, I mean, three votes. | ||
| They lost the tariff vote three times last week. | ||
| We started seeing enormous cracks in his congressional coalition. | ||
| The cracks in the House are so severe that they've had to keep the House out for most of the last three months because they've lost ideological control of the House. | ||
| And I think now the question of whether or not Donald Trump can maintain this kind of congressional loyalty that he's had, given now that his agenda has proven to be unpopular and Republicans got mowed down all over the country, I think it's going to weaken his control over Congress itself. | ||
| And this is going to be very important for the coming budget negotiations. | ||
| Here is Lee in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Lee. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I hope you guys are all doing well. | ||
| Morning, Lee. | ||
| My question is, now, with Mondani being elected and being a socialist and, you know, how the Democrat Party feels about that. | ||
| Also, the Democrat Party seems to like anything that is anti-Republican. | ||
| As far as Mandani or the New Jersey Attorney General race, look at the, they elected a guy that threatened to kill, wanted, fantasized about killing Republicans and their children. | ||
| Now, to me, that's the Democrat Party gone kind of crazy. | ||
| As a Republican, I would vote for the best person. | ||
| If you're a Democrat and you say the right things and you're going that way and Republicans are not offering it, I'm going to go to Democrat. | ||
| But what I see the Democrats doing now is the juice they have drank has just turned them all, I guess, crazy. | ||
| I mean, one thing that's interesting just from the calls today is that we had Democrats won all over the country, right? | ||
| We won in places like Ohio and Texas. | ||
| We won in Mississippi. | ||
| We won in all across Pennsylvania. | ||
| There were thousands of elections. | ||
| Focusing on one election in a broad, diverse country like this and making it somehow the symbol of the party is absurd on its face. | ||
| I'm just going to say this, right? | ||
| It was a single election. | ||
| We had moderate centrist candidates win in New Jersey and in Virginia by much bigger margins than Mamdani won in New York, for example. | ||
| And so this attempt to sort of paint us with a brush from a single candidate, I think, is incredibly dishonest and is not going to fly with voters. | ||
| People are going to make up their own minds, as the caller just said, about each individual candidate running in their district. | ||
| And I think the second thing I just wanted to say is that, you know, I'm very proud that in the last few weeks, Democrats have actually worked with Republicans. | ||
| I mean, we had a big moment last week where Democrats and Republicans came together in the Senate to repeal and voted three times to repeal Trump's terrible tariffs, as I call them. | ||
| So we're not always attacking Republicans. | ||
| We can work with Republicans. | ||
| The other way we worked with Republicans recently is that we voted to release the Epstein files in the House at the end of July, right? | ||
| There was a bipartisan effort to release the Epstein files. | ||
| The Department of Justice has continued to not follow through the vote that happened and not produce the information they're required by law to produce to the House. | ||
| So Democrats can work with Republicans, and I hope that we can work together, for example, in the next few weeks to restore the ACA subsidy cut. | ||
| That's what I wanted to ask you. | ||
| There's this kind of negotiations happening now to say, look, let's go ahead and open the government, and then the Senate's going to promise a vote on the ACA. | ||
| That's the Republican offer. | ||
| Okay, that's the Republican offer. | ||
| Do you think the Democrats should take it? | ||
| No, I think we are in negotiations now. | ||
| I think that's not the Democratic position. | ||
| The Democratic position is we want to actually pass the ACA subsidy, you know, restore the ACA subsidies before the government gets opened. | ||
| So the Republicans won't, I mean, so far, they're not doing that. | ||
| You say to keep it closed? | ||
| But Donald Trump told the Republican Party yesterday they lost the elections because they've mishandled the government shutdown, which I think is actually true. | ||
| And so I think that we are in negotiations now. | ||
| Look, Republicans control Washington. | ||
| This notion that somehow Democrats shut the government down is absurd. | ||
| And I mean, they're not. | ||
| But if the Democrats vote in the Senate, they can reopen the government. | ||
| Right. | ||
| But the Republicans can also reopen the government without the Democrats. | ||
| And so they can do it tomorrow. | ||
| They can do it this afternoon. | ||
| You mean without the filibuster? | ||
| Yeah, of course. | ||
| They can do that in a heartbeat. | ||
| They have the power to do that. | ||
| Donald Trump has done all sorts of illegal and unconstitutional things as chief executive, including the tariffs. | ||
| You know, this is something they can do legally. | ||
| I don't know if he can do illegal things. | ||
| Why can't he do legal things? | ||
| This is just, it's whining from them. | ||
| I mean, they're whining because they're losing all the big arguments about health care, about the government shutdown. | ||
| They just lost the election. | ||
| They're at a very weakened and diminished position. | ||
| And so we, I think, should be pushing even harder for our agenda in the coming weeks. | ||
| Here's Ernest in Exeter, Rhode Island Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Ernest. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| Good morning, Ernest. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Christian friend, thank you. | |
| First and foremost, let's understand that the Republicans passed a big, beautiful bill by themselves. | ||
| And Donald Trump has refused to even let go of funds that were already authorized. | ||
| So we're dealing with a liar to begin with. | ||
| And there's no assurance that he won't continue to withhold funds. | ||
| But my call is more concerned about what's happening in the school board elections. | ||
| In Bucks County, Pennsylvania, considered ground zero for right-wing groups, okay, Democrats flipped control of both boards in 2023. | ||
| And on Tuesday, they ousted every Republican from both of these boards except for one. | ||
| The Pennbridge School Board is now eight to one with Democratic members in control. | ||
| The Central Buck School Board is nine to zero. | ||
| In Washington State, all four conservatives on the Douglas County School Board were up for reelection, and progressive candidates were leading in all these races. | ||
| And Ernest, what do you think that means? | ||
| Well, to think that this is just a little bit of a tremor for the Republican Party is outrageous. | ||
| All right, let's hear from Simon. | ||
| Yeah, I agree with the caller. | ||
| I mean, I think that it's been hard, I think, in the aftermath of this election to sort of see the total scope of the victory. | ||
| But anecdotally, and from friends of mine around the country, there were these kinds of school board races and mayor's races and local city council races all across the country. | ||
| And Democrats routed Republicans in Republican areas. | ||
| I mean, this is the point. | ||
| Republicans were unseated. | ||
| This wasn't just Democrats electing more Democrats. | ||
| And the way that we flipped the Virginia governor's race and the Attorney General race, there were lots of flips all over the country. | ||
| I mean, in Texas, we flipped a bunch of, we won a bunch of seats we didn't think we were going to win. | ||
| So this was a wave. | ||
| And as you know from other guests you've had on and through history, that when a political party in this first year after the presidential election goes through a wave election like this, usually what happens next is another wave that happens and comes in the next one against them. | ||
| And, you know, if the election has shifted, if the electorate has shifted seven to 12 points towards the Democrats, that means there are a lot of Republican candidates who thought they were going to be safe that are now going to have to be in competitive races. | ||
| It means the Senate is actually, I think, going to be in play for us. | ||
| I'm not going to tell you we're going to win it, but I think it's certainly going to be competitive. | ||
| And the chance of us winning the House back has grown very dramatically in the last few weeks. | ||
| Here's Joe, Cantonsville, Maryland, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning, Joe. | ||
| Hey, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Pardon me if this is a little long-winded. | ||
| I'm trying to figure it out. | ||
| So I grew up Christian, and a caller mentioned earlier about Beatitudes basically being socialism being the closest thing economically that we have to the Beatitudes. | ||
| And if you look at a lot of the people who brandy their Christianity, it seems like they don't want anything for the poor. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It seems like it's a love of money and Bitcoins and golden cast stuff. | |
| And pardon me if I sound apocalyptic. | ||
| It's metaphorical language. | ||
| Go for it. | ||
| But the Democrats, like Chuck Schumer around there, a lot of the centrist main Democrats were mom on Mamdani, even though he's like the most popular, not popular necessarily, but fairly popular and very big story in the national news, even though it's just New York. | ||
| But you mentioned that somebody asked you if the Democrats are going socialist or you brought that up. | ||
| And well, like, should they be? | ||
| What should the position be? | ||
| Like, if we're a Christian nation and we, or, you know, maybe you are, maybe you're not. | ||
| But we got the question. | ||
| No, it was a great, great question. | ||
| And I think that I think the point he's making is that, you know, doing things to help people get ahead in their lives, you can put all sorts of labels on that. | ||
| But the thing that's unifying the Democratic Party right now is that we're fighting hard for working people to make sure their lives are better. | ||
| We want them to have good health care and good jobs and good schools and opportunities in their lives and to lower their costs when things are going up. | ||
| These are not very controversial things. | ||
| And the thing is, the Republicans have abandoned the playing field. | ||
| I mean, part of what happened in this election is that, you know, they've literally the Republican Party right now is for higher prices, for you losing health care and paying higher health care costs. | ||
| They want your electricity prices to go up. | ||
| They want, you know, they've slowed the economy down. | ||
| The deficit has gone through the roof. | ||
| These are all things the Republican Party has done. | ||
| And so we are saying we don't want higher prices. | ||
| We want good health care, affordable health care. | ||
| We don't want higher electricity prices. | ||
| We don't want soaring deficits. | ||
| We don't want all of this. | ||
| And the American people seem to be on our side in this fight right now. | ||
| Here's David in Englewood, New Jersey, Republican. | ||
| Hi, David. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I just want to say a couple of things. | |
| First of all, this fellow here is so smug. | ||
| He's typical of most Democrats nowadays. | ||
| I grew up in Chicago. | ||
| I was a Democrat. | ||
| And the party is so elitist. | ||
| All these nuts from San Francisco to New York City, and they just think they can speak down to people that people are not aware. | ||
| Anything, tell me one country, one city that's done well under socialism. | ||
| And Mamdani now has come out and started saying what he really truly feels. | ||
| He is a socialist. | ||
| Hakeem Jeffries is a socialist. | ||
| He hid behind and waited to the last minute to endorse this guy. | ||
| Chuck Schumer is a coward. | ||
| He did not come out and endorse him. | ||
| And yet, I bet you he voted for him. | ||
| So don't, you know, yep, we got it, David. | ||
| Go ahead, Simon. | ||
| Listen, we're a big tenth party. | ||
| And I think that, listen, what I'm honestly excited about about what's happening right now in the Democratic Party is that, you know, we are moving beyond the era of the Bidens and the Clintons and the Pelosis to a new era. | ||
| I mean, we saw new faces emerge in 2025, new tactics, new strategies. | ||
| We not only had Mamdani's incredible use of political communications and the internet and sort of pioneering a new style, so is Gavin Newsom. | ||
| I mean, Gavin has done a remarkable job in California in creating new ways of us challenging Trump and speaking to the American people. | ||
| And so I think you're seeing a new post-Biden, post-Clinton, post-Pelosi Democratic Party emerge. | ||
| And that's what we needed. | ||
| We lost the last election. | ||
| We lost the majority. | ||
| We couldn't stand Pat. | ||
| We needed to do new things. | ||
| And we are, this is a different Democratic Party than you would have seen a year and a half ago. | ||
| You also saw former President Obama coming out on the campaign trail. | ||
| And some people have commented that, you know, the Democrats don't have a leader. | ||
| And they're having to reach all the way back to Obama to get some leadership. | ||
| What do you think of that? | ||
| I think we are in a period of transition. | ||
| I think we're moving into a new era in the Democratic Party. | ||
| And there is going to be, and what you've seen is new leaders are emerging. | ||
| Gavin Newsom and J.B. Pritzker and AOC and Chris Murphy and Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer. | ||
| I think it's an exciting time for us to do this. | ||
| You would include Chuck Schumer in the future of the Democratic Party. | ||
| He's the Senate leader and he's, you know, he's leading us in the Senate. | ||
| And so I think that we, you know, listen, what I just laid out is a very diverse set of people, right? | ||
| Older people, younger people, people from different parts of the country, different ideologies. | ||
| I think that diversity is our strength and not a weakness for us. | ||
| All right, that's Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist. | ||
| He has a sub stack at Simon WDC. | ||
| And thank you so much for joining us. | ||
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| Later this morning on the Washington Journal, we'll talk with former CDC director Robert Redfield. | ||
| He wrote a book called Redfield's Warning: What I Learned But Couldn't Tell You Might Save Your Life. | ||
| But next, after the break, it's open forum. | ||
| You can start calling in now. | ||
| The lines are Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| It's 202-748-8001 for Republicans and 202-748-8002 for Independents. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold new original series, this Sunday with our guest, The Chronicler of Adventures, award-winning, best-selling author David Graham, whose books include The Lost City of Z, Killers of the Flower Moon, and The Wager. | |
| He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein. | ||
| So, what about this fact, about this occurrence, made you think this could be something worth your time? | ||
| And I started to realize that this odd little old manuscript contained, you know, the seeds of one of the most extraordinary stories of survival and mayhem I had ever come across. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Watch America's Book Club with David Graham this Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN. | |
| Join Book TV this weekend for the 30th Annual Texas Book Festival from Austin. | ||
| Our two-day live coverage begins Saturday at 11 a.m. Eastern Time and Sunday at noon. | ||
| Highlights include: Eve Ewing, with her book Original Sins, explores what she sees as systemic racism embedded in the American education system. | ||
| Former NSA analyst Reality Winner shares her story of moral choices from her book, I Am Not Your Enemy. | ||
| Technology guru Tim Wu with his book, The Age of Extraction on the Promises and Reality of the Internet Economy. | ||
| And Andrew Ross Sorkin takes an in-depth look into the most famous stock market crash in his book, 1929. | ||
| Watch the Texas Book Festival live this weekend, Saturday and Sunday on Book TV on C-SPAN too. | ||
| Also, be sure to get the full festival schedule online at booktv.org. | ||
| Friday, on C-SPAN's Ceasefire, at a moment of deep division in Washington, former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazil and former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel come together for a bipartisan dialogue on Tuesday's election results, potential impact on the 2026 midterms, and increasing partisanship. | ||
| They join host Dasha Burns. | ||
| Ceasefire, Bridging the Divide in American Politics. | ||
| Watch Ceasefire Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 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. | ||
| Have been watching C-SPAN Washington Journal for over 10 years now. | ||
| This is a great format that C-SPAN offers. | ||
| You're doing a great job. | ||
| I enjoy hearing everybody's opinion. | ||
| I'm a huge C-SPAN fan. | ||
| I listen every morning on the way to work. | ||
| I think C-SPAN should be required viewing for all three branches of government. | ||
| First of all, if you say hello to C-SPAN and how you all covered the hearings. | ||
| Thank you, everyone at C-SPAN, for allowing this interaction with everyday citizens. | ||
| It's an amazing show to get real opinions from real people. | ||
| Appreciate you guys' non-biased coverage. | ||
| I love politics and I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices. | ||
| You and C-SPAN show the truth. | ||
| Back to the yearverse for C-SPAN. | ||
| It's the one essential news network. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| We are in open forum and looking forward to taking your calls on whatever's on your mind regarding public policy. | ||
| A couple of things for your schedule. | ||
| At 9:30, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmed Oz and FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty McCary will address a summit on the future of healthcare services in the U.S. We'll have live coverage of that at 9.30 a.m. Eastern over on C-SPAN 2. | ||
| Then at 1 p.m. this afternoon, a Senate panel discusses the Affordable Care Act and the pending expiration of COVID-era tax credits for the program. | ||
| We'll have live coverage of that Government Affairs Subcommittee hearing on C-SPAN at 1 p.m. Eastern today. | ||
| You can see that on our app, C-SPANNOW and online at c-SPAN.org. | ||
| By the way, President Trump will be making an announcement at 11 a.m. this morning Eastern time from the White House. | ||
| You'll look for live coverage of that here on C-SPAN. | ||
| And we have this information about what we're expecting from that announcement. | ||
| This is Jennifer Jacobs, a reporter at CBS on X. Trump announcement on weight loss drugs scheduled for 11 a.m. today. | ||
| The deal with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk officials is expected to decrease the drug price to less than $150 a month in certain cases. | ||
| That's those weight loss drugs from those two pharmaceutical companies. | ||
| We'll go to some information here from the newspapers. | ||
| This is the Washington Post. | ||
| Left is lifted by verdict of voters. | ||
| It says New York Mayor-elect Zorhan Mamdani attends a news conference Wednesday in Queens. | ||
| He's a Democratic socialist, city's first Muslim mayor, ran on such policies as rent control, free buses, and universal child care. | ||
| Also on the Washington Post front page is about that Supreme Court case on tariffs that oral arguments were heard yesterday. | ||
| Here's some information on that. | ||
| Justices question legality of new tariffs. | ||
| Court seems skeptical of Trump's authority to levy vast array of import taxes. | ||
| We'll be following that, obviously, bring you news if we get a decision from the Supreme Court on that. | ||
| To the calls now to Aylman in Texas, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| I'm calling in regards to the remark that Jay Johnson made regarding his opponent. | ||
| I think that's indespicable. | ||
| That doesn't come under freedom of speech. | ||
| I would have never said anything about that about my opponent. | ||
| You're talking about Jay Jones, the Attorney General-elect in Virginia. | ||
| Yep. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Okay. | ||
| Here is Mary in Potomac, Maryland, Independent. | ||
| Hi, Mary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, hi. | |
| I have wanted to talk about two things. | ||
| One is socialism. | ||
| I think people confuse socialism with communism. | ||
| It is not. | ||
| Countries in Europe like Sweden, Denmark, England have been socialistic, democratic, socialistic. | ||
| And you have to understand the difference between the two systems. | ||
| Next, I want to say, with AI coming on as a force in this country, we are going to want socialism because socialism ensures that people have the basic needs that they need, such as health care, schools, whatever, because AI is going to take away all your jobs. | ||
| And so that is my comment. | ||
| All right, Mary, and let's hear from New York City Mayor-elect Zoran Momdani speaking about what he thought President Trump should learn from Tuesday's Democratic wins. | ||
| Take a look. | ||
| I think the lesson for the president is that it's not enough to diagnose the crisis in working class Americans' lives. | ||
| You have to deliver on addressing that crisis. | ||
| This is a president who ran a campaign on the promise of cheaper groceries and now, as was said by one of our co-chairs, has gone so far as to cut snap benefits for close to 2 million New Yorkers. | ||
| Someone who is literally making it harder to afford those same groceries whose price he was decrying not that long ago. | ||
| And what scares Republicans across the country is the fact that we will actually deliver on this agenda. | ||
| And the contrast is something that they cannot bear to witness. | ||
| And I try to keep my focus similar to that cover on The New Yorker where the world ends at New Jersey and thinking about what this means for our city instead of for our nation. | ||
| And I will tell you that for our city, what left me with such great hope last night were the stories from so many New Yorkers who had never voted before, who had lost hope in politics years ago. | ||
| And to stand here before you, having received over a million votes in an election that saw turnout the likes of which we haven't seen since 1969, it shows that politics once again is offering more than just a settling for the crumbs that are not able to meet the needs of so many families across the city. | ||
| We are finally offering a vision that can meet the scale of the crisis in working class New Yorkers' lives. | ||
| That's the mayor-elect of New York City, Zorhan Mamdani. | ||
| And just to circle back on that election, the announcement by President Trump at 11 a.m. Eastern, we're going to have coverage of that on C-SPAN 3. | ||
| If you're interested in looking at that, it's expected to be about weight loss drugs and the price of those. | ||
| Here's Harry in Oakland, Maryland, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Harry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Listening to that last little speech. | ||
| I'm getting my boots out because it's really getting deep. | ||
| Look, the states that this happened, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, whatever, you know, if it was Texas and West Virginia, you'd hear nothing about it. | ||
| They'd say, well, they're just nothing but a bunch of old rednecks. | ||
| You know, they're all Republican rednecks. | ||
| No. | ||
| I mean, it goes back and forth, but my goodness, they had blue states where the blue candidates won. | ||
| Whoopee-doo. | ||
| You know, it's just, and as far as socialism, socialism is wonderful to the last guy runs out of money. | ||
| And look what it's done for Venezuela. | ||
| Is that what we want? | ||
| This guy here is just, and I'm just going to say 12%. | ||
| 12%. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| They spit in the ocean. | ||
| Big deal. | ||
| What's 12%, Harry? | ||
| What do you mean? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm saying this gentleman got 12% of the popular of the vote. | |
| In New York City? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| No, he went over 50% of the vote. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, no, no. | |
| I'm saying the actual voters. | ||
| The actual voting pool, the number of people that are eligible to vote? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay, got it. | ||
| Sharon in Hanover, Pennsylvania, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, thank you. | |
| I would say what is so egregiously leftist about concepts like rationality, mercy, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and so on. | ||
| The greatest thing about Tuesday is all of the young people who came out, who had worked so hard to elect good candidates and so enthusiastic. | ||
| My own senator, John Fetterman, may as well be a Republican. | ||
| He pulled a bait and switch on us, unfortunately. | ||
| And lastly, I am a boomer. | ||
| My message to fellow boomers is you will not turn back the clock of history. | ||
| You will see that young people are the future. | ||
| We need to support them. | ||
| We need to help them. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| All right, Sharon. | ||
| Let's talk to Ken next in Tampa, Florida, Independent. | ||
| Hi, Ken. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mimi. | |
| First off, I want to thank you for what you do. | ||
| And you're the first individual on C-Stand that when people will call in and denigrate people by calling them illegal aliens to where you were like, well, what is an alien? | ||
| It has baffled me that these people display the racist term to denigrate people. | ||
| What's wrong with this saying undocumented people or they cross the border illegally? | ||
| But anyway, back to what I was saying is that in America, America, two things that has America bogged down, and that's racism and lying. | ||
| Long as this country continue to display the racism and continue to lie, we are never going to grow as a country. | ||
| The Democrats always trying to reach out and, oh, can we just get along while the Republicans will get a hammer and smash them right on the hand? | ||
| I just think that we just need to just be Americans and get away from the racist and all of the lying, and we should be okay. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Let's talk to George, Fremont, Ohio, Republican line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning, Mimi. | |
| Just really quick, two quick points. | ||
| One is that this recent election shows that if you don't understand social media, you're not going to make it. | ||
| Mondani in New York showed this perfectly. | ||
| Their understanding of the social media brought out all these young people that we are talking about, these record turnouts. | ||
| So from dog catcher all the way up to president, you're not going to make it if you don't understand social media and how to reach people. | ||
| And two is for both sides, for both sides, they're missing the plot here. | ||
| They talk about how the president had raised prices or the president failed to lower prices. | ||
| The president doesn't have the power to raise or lower prices of things. | ||
| He can enact policies that make more or less eggs or more or less cows, but he can't raise or lower prices. | ||
| So these people running on this issue, they're just kind of missing it, and it's going to bite them. | ||
| I saw some response. | ||
| So, George, I just want to say something about that. | ||
| And that is, in the last administration, President Biden was blamed for high inflation and high prices. | ||
| There's also the argument about tariffs raising prices. | ||
| So, what do you say to those two things? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, those are two great points. | |
| It wasn't Biden's fault. | ||
| Inflation, believe it or not, I am dark MAGA, and the inflation was not Biden's fault. | ||
| Inflation is caused by the raising or lowering of the money supply by printing money. | ||
| That's our problem, and that's what's going to end up killing America: is that we are about to print money like no one has ever seen in this last hundred years. | ||
| And people are just sort of oblivious to it. | ||
| They're like, oh, wow, my prices are getting high. | ||
| Well, we're printing money. | ||
| People better wake up. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Here's James in Dinwiddie, Virginia. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Good. | ||
| Go right ahead, James. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Very good. | |
| But I think if they get to the root of this, if they go back to Donald Trump and the Epstein file things, that number one, he met his wife through Epstein's photographer, and he is hooked up in a lot of that stuff. | ||
| That way, they won't release the files. | ||
| And number two, we have Donald Trump out there with his children and his son-in-law, matter of fact, went overseas and came back with $2 billion. | ||
| What happened with that? | ||
| So it's all about money and making his thronies rich. | ||
| He don't care about the working people or the American people. | ||
| He only cares about himself. | ||
| Somebody needs to read his niece's book, and that would explain where he came from. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Bye. | ||
| On the independent line in Claremont, California, Billy, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I would like to address all of these knuckleheads. | |
| And when I say knuckleheads, who I'm referring to is the white supremacist that's calling in, speaking down against Mondani. | ||
| Mondani would do a great job. | ||
| And then let me tell you, white supremacists, something. | ||
| What do you want? | ||
| You want the people of America to suffer and things to remain like they was during the days of Jim Crow and slavery? | ||
| What we need to do is throw all of you white supremacists in prison and melt the key. | ||
| So I'm just letting you know, America will never be great. | ||
| It's never been great because of white supremacy against a black man and the black race who built this damn country. | ||
| And Mimi, you're wearing the wrong color dress, lady. | ||
| You need to have on a blue dress instead of a damn red dress or a green dress. | ||
| My wardrobe choices do not reflect any political party. | ||
| Ray, Old Hickory, Tennessee, line for Republicans, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| I want to be short here, but I just want to say what's causing the Republican Democratic Party to be fighting all the time is because of the salaries and things. | ||
| I don't think the Democrats or Republicans should be paid at all for work that's not being done. | ||
| They should be on the line just like every other American right now that's unemployed or not have a job. | ||
| They should not be getting paid or they should have their salary not reimbursed even after they go back to work because they're the problem as far as salaries go. | ||
| But I did want to say we do have a Lord, our Jesus Christ, is one that is controlled of this country right now. | ||
| And no matter what takes place, we're supposed to love one another as we love ourselves. | ||
| And that being said, God bless each and every one of you. | ||
| And may times be changing. | ||
| And Warren in Connecticut, Independent Line, you're on the air, Warren. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, hi. | |
| Thank you for having me. | ||
| I want to get back to the shutdown. | ||
| We need to remind ourselves that it was Donald Trump that said we need to, he blamed the president for the shutdown, and we need to keep that in mind. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He is the United in Chief. | |
| He needs to be bringing people together. | ||
| So we need to keep reminding American people that's Republicans, Independents, and Democrats that it starts with the president on down. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that's all I have to say. | |
| Let's talk to Neil in Silver Spring, Maryland, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Neil. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mimi. | |
| I just want to first of all say I really appreciate you. | ||
| I love your format. | ||
| I love what you do. | ||
| You're pretty fair, allowing viewers to call us to speak their opinion or views on certain issues. | ||
| So I just want to say I appreciate you. | ||
| I just want to say the Democrats winning the governorship in Virginia and New Jersey and also the Maryland race in New York and across the board. | ||
| It just proved that Democrats have a big tent. | ||
| We have our differences, but we all can fit under one tent and win elections by organizing. | ||
| However, going forward, I think Democrats, in order to win the House of Representatives and the Senate next year, we have to just focus on four issues this time. | ||
| What the public is saying what they care about. | ||
| And to me, I think it's ACH amenities, inflation, jobs, cost of living. | ||
| And I think the fourth piece, we got to stick with this, I think, is we do have to make sure we control the borders. | ||
| We have to put that in there. | ||
| And I think that should be the Democrats, I guess you want to say, Project 2026. | ||
| And we need to have a Project 2028 to win the presidency. | ||
| We need to stick with that. | ||
| One thing I give, I don't give too much credit to the Republicans. | ||
| What they do, they pay, I have to give them credit. | ||
| They put their poker face on on issues that the people want to hear. | ||
| And then when they get in office, they flip that poker face and go with any issues that they want to put on the agenda. | ||
| Democrats got to take that play and start doing that. | ||
| And that's just my opinion. | ||
| Thank you, Mimi. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And here is Matt in North Carolina, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, this is Matt here in Wilmington, North Carolina. | |
| I just, I usually call once in a while just to just remind everybody that a trillion dollars is a thousand billions. | ||
| And nobody ever talks about that. | ||
| I hate the word trillion. | ||
| And then the other thing I want to tell you about is that I check my ACA. | ||
| Normally, I do the Obamacare and get the ACA subsidies. | ||
| And my And nobody talked about this this morning, but my new health care costs with Blue Cross Blue Shield went from $335,000 a month with subsidies to $1,278.05 a month with no subsidies because I make more than the minimum or the maximum $62,000 a year. | ||
| I make $65,000 a year. | ||
| So I'm going to be hit with a huge increase. | ||
| And that's what the Democrats are fighting for right now to make sure that those subsidies are in play. | ||
| And if you don't want the subsidies in play as a Republican, then what is your idea for health care? | ||
| Because we need affordable health care in the United States. | ||
| Trump ran on lowering costs, and he's not doing that, number one. | ||
| Number two, that's what the Democrats are going to win on in 26 is lowering costs because we've got monopolies with our food. | ||
| And so that's why, and shareholders want good profit, and that's the problem with the United States. | ||
| It's always about profit, not about quality of life. | ||
| So, Matt, what are you going to do about health care? | ||
| Are you going to absorb that increase? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, here's the funny thing. | |
| I'm not. | ||
| I can't. | ||
| I can't afford to. | ||
| So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to be 65 in May 2027. | ||
| So, I'm going to do no health care and just do out-of-pocket for my health care for this next year. | ||
| Hope for the best until you can get on top and jump on Medicare assuming it's there in 2027. | ||
| All right, Matt. | ||
| Let's talk to Tom Chester, Massachusetts Independent Line. | ||
| Go ahead, Tom. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| This is Tom Sowers, and I can't understand any decision that was made from the Trump administration. | ||
| I don't agree with any single decision that was made. | ||
| I can't see anything that was positive for this country. | ||
| Never mind the world. | ||
| And I just wish there was a more competent officials in the Trump administration. | ||
| I think that Kennedy, he didn't have, he hasn't got any experience. | ||
| I think he's making wrong decisions all the time. | ||
| I think the Trump terms for himself is doing a lot of things that are legal, including raising of a large portion of the White House. | ||
| I think it was very attractive as it stood previously. | ||
| And now he's knocking a portion with no authority. | ||
| I was wondering what your callers thought of that. | ||
| And these terrorists that he's implementing, it's my understanding that he never had a lot of authority on what they're supposed to absorb and not absorb. | ||
| That whole administration doesn't seem to have any competence, level of competency. | ||
| All right, Tom, let's talk to Cynthia Knacks, Democrat in Waynesville, North Carolina. | ||
| Good morning, Cynthia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I was thinking about the socialism, And I think most people would really rather keep democracy the way that it is in its present form. | ||
| But perhaps what has happened is that the Republicans have wanted to take away and have actually taken away so many programs and so much assistance that, of course, people would look toward socialism because they don't want to lose their health care. | ||
| They don't want to lose assistance. | ||
| And we're coming up on a time when they're going to lose a lot of those benefits and already have. | ||
| So if we're arguing about socialism versus keeping a Democratic government, then of course it makes sense that there's a lot of threats from the Republicans about loss, but I think the Democrats understand the heart of the country. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And let's talk to Susan in Casper, Wyoming, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Susan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I've been wanting to call for weeks, and I finally decided I would. | ||
| I was a lifelong Democrat, college-educated, professional woman, until Obama. | ||
| And all I can think about and all I want the Democrats to hear is one of the best Democratic presidents in our history was John Kennedy. | ||
| And he said, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. | ||
| Period. | ||
| Get over it. | ||
| Okay, Susan. | ||
| Later this morning on the Washington Journal, we'll talk to Representative-elect Adelita Grajalva of Arizona. | ||
| She'll discuss the delay in her being sworn in to Congress and the government shutdown and Democratic strategies. | ||
| But next, after the break, former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield discusses his new book, Redfield's Warning, What I Learned But Couldn't Tell You Might Save Your Life. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Friday on C-SPAN Ceasefire, at a moment of deep division in Washington, former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile and former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel come together for a bipartisan dialogue on Tuesday's election results. | |
| potential impact on the 2026 midterms, and increasing partisanship. | ||
| They join host, Dasha Burns. | ||
| Ceasefire, Bridging the Divide in American Politics. | ||
| Watch Ceasefire Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 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 join book tv this weekend for the 30th annual texas book festival from austin Our two-day live coverage begins Saturday at 11 a.m. Eastern Time and Sunday at noon. | ||
| Highlights include Eve Ewing with her book Original Sins explores what she sees as systemic racism embedded in the American education system. | ||
| Former NSA analyst Reality Winner shares her story of moral choices from her book, I Am Not Your Enemy. | ||
| Technology guru Tim Wu with his book, The Age of Extraction on the Promises and Reality of the Internet Economy. | ||
| And Andrew Ross Sorkin takes an in-depth look into the most famous stock market crash in his book, 1929. | ||
| Watch the Texas Book Festival live this weekend, Saturday and Sunday on Book TV on C-SPAN2. | ||
| Also be sure to get the full festival schedule online at booktv.org. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| Joining us to talk about the nation's public health is Dr. Robert Redfield. | ||
| He was former CDC director under the Trump administration. | ||
| He's also written a book called Redfield's Warning, What I Learned But Couldn't Tell You Might Save Your Life. | ||
| Dr. Redfield, welcome to the program. | ||
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| Glad to be here. | ||
| Explain the title of your book. | ||
| Well, it's a warning. | ||
| I'm of the point of view that biosecurity is one of the more critical national security threats that our nation has. | ||
| And we learned a little bit during the COVID pandemic, the potential for a new pathogen to cause a change in life in America. | ||
| But the reality is it was, in my view, a minor pandemic compared to the pandemic that's coming, which is going to be a bird flu pandemic. | ||
| How do you know that? | ||
| Well, it's just my own perspective. | ||
| In 2019, bird flu came into our chickens and turkeys, and we now have over 100 million infected birds in America. | ||
| Then it's expanded now to over 50 different mammals, including bears and bobcats and dolphins and seals, dogs and cats. | ||
| And one thing that this virus has is that it hasn't learned how to go mammal to mammal. | ||
| It goes bird to bird. | ||
| But it's not that different than COVID. | ||
| When COVID came in, you know, as the original, say, SARS and MERS, they went from a bat to an intermediate host to man, but it never learned how to go efficiently man to man. | ||
| And that's why, even as of today, we've had less than 10,000 cases of SARS and 10,000 cases of MERS. | ||
| But when COVID-19 came, it was immediately probably the second most infectious virus for humans of any virus we've ever had. | ||
| This is why I believe, and there's strong evidence to support my belief, that this virus was manipulated in the laboratory to basically learn how to and teach it how to infect humans and go human to human. | ||
| We will talk about the COVID vaccine, but I want to ask you about the next pandemic, and that is, are we prepared for this next pandemic? | ||
| We're not prepared, and that's why I encourage people to read the book, because that's really the purpose of the book, is to get people to realize that biosecurity is a big deal. | ||
| We ought to have a public response proportional to the threat. | ||
| And I propose that to do that, we need to have a program not that dissimilar to what we have for the Defense Department and the traditional threats, where we have a lot of private sector contractors that help us with our missiles and bullets and airplanes, et cetera, submarines. | ||
| We need the same type of infrastructure for antiviral drug development, vaccines, diagnostics, countermeasures, certain medical devices. | ||
| Many people forget when the COVID pandemic started back in 2020, we didn't have ventilators in this country. | ||
| Mike Pence went up to Ford in Michigan and he asked the Ford company to shut down their car line to basically turn it over to make ventilators, and they agreed to do that. | ||
| We were not prepared for a respiratory pandemic in this country. | ||
| And the truth is, in 2025, we're not prepared. | ||
| Are you confident in this administration and the health secretary to get us prepared for the next pandemic? | ||
| I have a lot of confidence in Bobby Kennedy. | ||
| I think he's going to be the most consequential health secretary we've ever had. | ||
| That said, it's really up to more than just the president and the secretary. | ||
| It's up to Congress that people see the threat. | ||
| I used to work with Senator Alexander and Senator Blunt when we were in the COVID pandemic, and both of them told me the same thing, that the Congress will respond to this at the time of the pandemic, but as soon as the pandemic wanes, they're going to forget all about it. | ||
| So part of the purpose of my book, part of the warning, is to try to get people to wake up that we need to prepare for a significant pandemic that these threats have. | ||
| And some of its nature, but I don't really think the bird flu is going to probably evolve by nature and cause us the problem. | ||
| I think like COVID-19, it's going to evolve because of gain of function research in the laboratory, and science will unfortunately accelerate the production of a bird flu that can go human to human. | ||
| Now, you were head of the CDC during the COVID-19 pandemic, and you just said that you believe that the COVID virus was intentionally manipulated to become more contagious. | ||
| Yeah, the COVID virus was in the laboratory, was modified so that it could infect human tissue. | ||
| And the people in the Wuhan lab actually published this in 2014, that they succeeded in teaching the COVID virus how to attach and infect humanized mice. | ||
| And although the pandemic happened until 2019, they intentionally did that. | ||
| And how they did that is they inserted a cleavage site in the virus that we call the furion cleavage site. | ||
| And what that cleavage site does is it changes the orientation of the virus. | ||
| So normally the virus binds to a receptor in the bat, and that's how it infects the bat. | ||
| But when you've had the furion cleavage site, it changes the orientation of that receptor so it no longer binds to the bat receptor, but now it binds to the human receptor. | ||
| And so they actually taught it how to infect human tissue. | ||
| And unfortunately, that virus obviously didn't stay contained in the laboratory. | ||
| And did you know all this as director of the CDC? | ||
| Well, it was postulated as an individual virologist, which I am. | ||
| I had studied SARS and I'd studied MERS, and I know that they never learned how to go human to human. | ||
| And all of a sudden COVID comes and people are saying it's SARS-like, but it's the second most infectious virus I've ever seen. | ||
| And then when you look at the literature, you find out this lab published in 2018, I mean 2014, that they had succeeded in teaching this virus how to bind to human tissue. | ||
| I think that was the conclusion. | ||
| I can't get into all the information I knew because some of it unfortunately is still classified, even though the Congress has asked that all of it be declassified. | ||
| Why would public health information be classified? | ||
| Well, I think the issue is the relationship between the Chinese scientist and this work. | ||
| And it was classified. | ||
| Why, I'm not certain, you know, what role the intelligence community had in this. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| But I will say that a lot of this work, unfortunately, is still classified. | ||
| Dr. Robert Redfield is in the studio with us. | ||
| If you've got a question for him, he was the director of the CDC during the first Trump administration. | ||
| You can give us a call by party. | ||
| Democrats are on 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| I want to ask about the COVID vaccine. | ||
| Your thoughts on the efficacy of that COVID vaccine and if you believe it saved lives. | ||
| So first thing is I was part of Operation Warp Speed. | ||
| I was on the board. | ||
| And at one point, we were losing about 3,000 lives a day. | ||
| It was a pretty serious pandemic in the United States, as you know. | ||
| And I do think Operation Warp Speed was an enormous success in the fact that we were able to develop multiple vaccines in less than a year. | ||
| That said, I think there was an enormous government overreach on the vaccine. | ||
| The vaccine should have never been mandated. | ||
| The vaccine should have been targeted for individuals that were highly vulnerable to hospitalization and death. | ||
| And that's people that are over the age of 65, that have diabetes or hypertension or obese. | ||
| The vaccine should have never been mandated for the general population. | ||
| And I personally don't believe it should have been used for people under the age of 50, children, et cetera, et cetera. | ||
| The vaccine did not prevent infection. | ||
| And that's an important thing for the American people to understand, because I think they, in truth, were misled when certain people, I remember when President Biden said, and Tony Fauci said, you know, get your children vaccinated so they don't infect grandma. | ||
| Well, that wasn't a true statement because the vaccine didn't interrupt transmission. | ||
| It didn't prevent the infection. | ||
| It prevented serious illness and death. | ||
| And so if you weren't at risk for serious illness and death, then the vaccine probably had little benefit to you. | ||
| And so we now know, and I agree with Secretary Kennedy and what CDC has recently done, they've refocused the COVID vaccine to recommend it for people over the age of 65 that are vulnerable to serious illness and death. | ||
| And Doctor, when you say we now know, we have the benefit of hindsight at this point. | ||
| Did we make, do you believe that the people that were in charge, and you're one of them, made the right decision based on the information they had at the time? | ||
| I don't think there was adequate debate about the role. | ||
| I was part of Operation Warp Speed. | ||
| The vaccine came out, I think, on December 10th, 11th, or 12th. | ||
| I was out of office on January 20th. | ||
| So I wasn't really involved in the actual policies that were made to how to use the vaccine. | ||
| And one of the policies that became very aggressive, as you know, was mandating the vaccine to the military, to healthcare workers, to be able to travel. | ||
| I think that was a mistake. | ||
| That was overreach. | ||
| I think there was not enough transparency to the American public to let them understand that the vaccine did not prevent transmission. | ||
| I also didn't like the term that they used initially. | ||
| If you remember when you got vaccinated, it was a two-shot series, and they said when you got to two shots, you were completely vaccinated. | ||
| Well, the vaccines were non-durable. | ||
| They only protected you probably for three months to six months. | ||
| So I think all of that was led by a bias that some people had that getting the entire American public vaccinated was a goal. | ||
| Some of those people felt, and I disagreed with them, that there was this concept of what they called herd immunity. | ||
| And when 30% or 50% of the population became immune either from infection or vaccine, the pandemic would disappear. | ||
| As a virologist, I tried to argue that there is no herd immunity for coronaviruses. | ||
| There are different kinds of virus. | ||
| Yes, there's herd immunity for polio. | ||
| Yes, there's herd immunity for measles. | ||
| But there's not herd immunity for the coronaviruses. | ||
| And so it was a false premise that there'd be herd immunity. | ||
| And unfortunately, these individuals, I think, dominated the public policy that was rolled out in 2021, 2022. | ||
| And I think finally, Kennedy's bringing it back to where it needs to be, was this is an important vaccine for vulnerable people. | ||
| Those of us that are like myself over 65 that have type 2 diabetes and hypertension, we're at risk for bad outcome. | ||
| Many people don't know this, but COVID is not a lung disease. | ||
| It's a blood vessel disease. | ||
| And those of us that have blood vessels that are not very resilient because we're old, we're the ones at risk for microcoagulation and these negative consequences. | ||
| Doctor, why did COVID largely disappear? | ||
| Obviously, it's still an issue, but it's not a pandemic, if not for herd immunity. | ||
| Well, it didn't disappear. | ||
| And the fact is 50 to 100 people a day are still dying from COVID. | ||
| But it's not a pandemic. | ||
| It's not a pandemic. | ||
| It's endemic. | ||
| I mean, it's here. | ||
| We have it for the rest of time. | ||
| And two things have happened, and this is normal. | ||
| A virus, when it enters the human species, it gradually attenuates itself. | ||
| So when you looked at the Wuhan strain, that was not a good virus. | ||
| It replicated in the lower lung, caused a lot of respiratory insufficiency and death. | ||
| Then Delta was also a pretty bad virus. | ||
| When Omicron came, the virus changed so much that it no longer replicates in the lower lung. | ||
| It replicates up in the upper throat. | ||
| And now it causes a very attenuated disease. | ||
| You feel like you have a cold or a sore throat or a little, you know, rough throat, but it's still very capable of causing premature death in vulnerable people. | ||
| All right? | ||
| And this is the group. | ||
| I mean, the over 65, over 75, over 85, these individuals still are at risk for bad outcome. | ||
| So the virus is attenuated. | ||
| Now, some people think that's a good thing, period. | ||
| I'm actually a little concerned about it because my clinical practice now is largely long COVID, which is a long-term consequence of COVID, where people have cognitive dysfunction, autonomic dysfunction. | ||
| They can have quite severe debilitating consequences. | ||
| And probably 5 to 20% of people who get COVID get long COVID. | ||
| And my own hypothesis as a virologist is viruses that become more attenuated in the human body have a greater propensity if they have the potential to cause after disease to have more after disease. | ||
| So in Alaska back in the 80s, a gentleman did a study where he looked for people with hepatitis B. | ||
| And if they diagnosed hepatitis B clinically during the study, 3% became chronic carriers for hepatitis B, chronically infected. | ||
| If the people in the study didn't get diagnosed clinically but got diagnosed by the blood test, so they had asymptomatic infection, 14% became chronic carriers. | ||
| So viruses have a tendency to cause more chronicity when they're less pathogenic. | ||
| So I'm concerned. | ||
| So you know, I actually want to ask you, because this was printed in today's Wall Street Journal in the opinion section with the headline, Operation Warp Speed Aimed at COVID and Hit Cancer. | ||
| It says that melanoma patients who got an mRNA vaccine for the virus saw median survival times double. | ||
| I want to ask you about cancer research in today's health department and do you feel like we are doing enough or that some of the cuts to the health department have hit cancer research? | ||
| I don't have any evidence of that. | ||
| I mean, I have a lot of respect for Jay Bhattacharya, who's the new head of NIH. | ||
| And, you know, I'm anxious for the government to get out of shutdown because the Congress did give Bhattacharya, I think, a $48 billion budget. | ||
| So his budget did not get cut, despite all the news that it got cut. | ||
| He got about an $400 million increase, but we've got to get the government open. | ||
| And I have a lot of confidence in Marty McCary, who's the head of FDA. | ||
| So I don't think that's likely to be reality. | ||
| Obviously. | ||
| But as far as future research. | ||
| No, I think they have the, I mean, like I said, the NIH budget went up. | ||
| They got to be able to disperse it because the government's got to open. | ||
| And I have a lot of confidence in the private sector that's very invested in developing new therapeutics for cancer. | ||
| You saw in the Wall Street Journal in that op-ed, which was the observation, as you said, that people that got the mRNA vaccines for COVID seemed to have an improvement in cancer survival. | ||
| And that's very interesting because the mRNA vaccines do cause a lot of changes in what we call the cytokine male within the body. | ||
| So it does suggest that there was some manipulation of the cytokines that had some impact on responsiveness to the cancer therapy. | ||
| And I think you're going to see more research in that direction to try to understand that more. | ||
| I want to read to you a portion of a New York Times op-ed by former CDC directors and acting directors. | ||
| This doesn't include you, but I want you to respond to it. | ||
| And it says this. | ||
| Mr. Kennedy has fired thousands of federal health workers and severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury, violence, and more. | ||
| Amid the largest measles outbreak in the U.S. in a generation, he's focused on unproven treatments while downplaying vaccines. | ||
| He's canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill-prepared for future health emergencies. | ||
| He replaced experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals. | ||
| It continues, but I want to, you get the idea. | ||
| What do you think of that? | ||
| Well, there's a reason I didn't sign it because I don't agree with it. | ||
| I actually believe that Secretary Kennedy will be the most consequential health secretary out there. | ||
| Well, because I think he's beginning to take on the reality and tell the truth in a transparent way. | ||
| When his uncle was president, we had about 3% of the American public had a chronic disease. | ||
| Now we're looking at it's well over 40%. | ||
| When his uncle was president and when I got my military medical exam in the 70s, very few people didn't pass the military medical exam. | ||
| Now 70%, 77% of young people can't pass the medical exam because of obesity and chronic disease, drug use disorder. | ||
| So you appreciate that he's talking about the right things. | ||
| Well, that's going about it. | ||
| Yeah, I think he's making moves. | ||
| I mean, I think the first move that I know when I was CDC director, I tried to get the cereal and food industry to help me and the beverage industry to help me because we were seeing lots of people with diabetes. | ||
| And I didn't think having sugar-frosted flakes was the key for children. | ||
| And yet they always wanted them. | ||
| They didn't want the bland, you know, cornflakes, okay? | ||
| So I wanted them to help me. | ||
| And the same thing with the sodas. | ||
| Who would believe we spent $10 billion last year for students at schools K through 12 so they could have a soda, all right? | ||
| So Kennedy's recognized very astutely that the processing of our food is one of the reasons that we have an obesity problem and he's gone and worked with the commercial sector to begin to try to change that. | ||
| He's also recognized that there are dyes and toxins in our food that are problematic. | ||
| He's going to change. | ||
| He's changing that. | ||
| And he is getting the cooperation. | ||
| And that's not easy. | ||
| I know how hard it was when I tried. | ||
| I failed. | ||
| I couldn't get the beverage industry to work with me or the cigarette, the cereal industry to work with me. | ||
| So he's doing that. | ||
| I think he's committed to another big area that I happen to have a lot of personal interest in, which is drug use disorder. | ||
| You know, he's very open about the fact that he had drug dependency in his earlier years. | ||
| And we need to have better effective therapy for people with drug use disorder. | ||
| He's going after obesity, I think, with the processed food. | ||
| Now, Kennedy is not anti-vaccine, and I really upset with some of my colleagues that I don't think are truthful in their characterization of Kennedy. | ||
| What Kennedy wants is transparency and honesty about vaccines. | ||
| So someone like me that would say, tell me about vaccine side effects, people would immediately say, oh, you're anti-vaccine. | ||
| I said, no, I'm not anti-vaccine. | ||
| Just let's talk about the side effects of the vaccine. | ||
| Because the truth is, the mRNA vaccines do cause vaccine injury. | ||
| And Dr. Rexie, let's get to callers because there's a lot of people that want to talk to you, but we'll continue our conversation. | ||
| John in Massachusetts, Independent Line, you're on with Dr. Redfield. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Hi, thank you, Doctor. | ||
| It's obvious that the world elite are the ones that are paying for this, right? | ||
| I want people to look up Agenda 21. | ||
| This is when the world elites in Wuhan and also in Ukraine, funded by our taxes, are starting up labs. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| That's why Cuomo sent all those people to those old folks' homes so they can die. | ||
| What's happening is that our world elite globalists through the IMF and the World Health Organization, that's why you had immigrants coming over here overseas. | ||
| Got it, John. | ||
| Your reaction to the IMF, the World Health Organization, is the World Health Organization still relevant? | ||
| Does it have a role in global health? | ||
| Yeah, the problem with it, and I know them well, I worked with them well, and I had over 20, over 30 of my lead scientists I detailed to WHO in Geneva. | ||
| I will tell you the problem is it's become a very political organization. | ||
| So when the COVID pandemic, for example, started, I called Tedros because I wanted to go in and help the Chinese figure this out. | ||
| Is it human to human transmissible? | ||
| Is there asymptomatic infection? | ||
| I wanted to figure that all out in early January. | ||
| And the WHO got involved very politically and decided to ask the Chinese what they wanted. | ||
| And ultimately, the team that went in to investigate the outbreak were all hand-selected by the Chinese and agreed to by the WHO. | ||
| So I think they've, and the other problem that WHO had, and this is why I'm not disappointed that we've left WHO, is the WHO had no ability to enforce the international health regulation. | ||
| So when it says we're supposed to be able to go in within 48 hours and start to figure things out as a world, and China says, no, you're not coming in and figuring anything out as a world, the WHO says, well, what do you mean? | ||
| Please, will you let me in? | ||
| And so I think the organization's become non-effective, in my view. | ||
| Let's talk to Joe in Texas, Line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Dr. Robbins. | |
| I got something to say to you. | ||
| I'm not an educated man, and you are. | ||
| But why did you get on TV and you print down the first thing you come out your mouth that the COVID started in 2020 when COVID started in 2019 on President Trump? | ||
| And he denied it for years, for me, for a while, not years. | ||
| And when his people that he had in that COVID. | ||
| They couldn't open his mouth because he was standing right there beside it. | ||
| And he said everything was a hoax. | ||
| He had people talking about shooting bleach in the arm, sunlight. | ||
| And he did do warp speed, which is good. | ||
| But you sit there and live and say that this started on Joe Biden 2021 or 2019, which you're not telling the truth about. | ||
| I don't think Dr. Redfield said that. | ||
| I didn't say that. | ||
| And I'm sorry if you misunderstood me because I was the CDC director in 2019 in the discussions with the Chinese CDC director when the epidemic was recognized. | ||
| And actually, the epidemic started probably in August, September of 2019. | ||
| That's when the epidemic started. | ||
| And now that you don't work for President Trump anymore, what do you think of how he handled it? | ||
| And what could he have done different? | ||
| Again, with the benefit of hindsight? | ||
| Yeah, I think he could have, I think he understood how serious it was. | ||
| I don't think he related that effectively to the American people. | ||
| January 31st, 2020, I went into the Oval Office and I told him we had to shut down all air travel to and from China. | ||
| We had 14 cases in the United States, all right? | ||
| Or even at that time, we had fewer. | ||
| And he listened to my argument and without calling people on the phone and asking them what they thought, he made a decision within 20 to 30 minutes to shut down all air travel to and from China. | ||
| That's a pretty serious decision. | ||
| But I do think he tried to let the American public not be concerned about this. | ||
| And I don't think he hit the right balance, okay? | ||
| Because this was a very serious issue. | ||
| I do think he did a good thing with Operation Warp Speed. | ||
| Most people wouldn't have accomplished that. | ||
| I do think the caller is right. | ||
| I think it was unfortunate that he made the comments about bleach. | ||
| I wish I had been on stage with him because I would have told everyone, Mr. President, make sure you tell people you're just joking. | ||
| You're not serious about people taking bleach, because I really do think he was joking. | ||
| He mused about, I wonder, since it works on the outside of the body, I wonder if we're saying that. | ||
| And the reason he did that, right before he went on to that press conference, we had a press meeting with the leadership in the military who described the use of bleach, the use of sunlight, the use of all these different environmental techniques that were used to kill the COVID virus. | ||
| So that was in the back of his mind. | ||
| But he should have not said that. | ||
| And I wish Debbie Burks had said, you know, Mr. President, I know you're joking. | ||
| Can you tell the American people you're joking? | ||
| So a reporter asked him, Mr. President, are you suggesting that people should inject themselves? | ||
| And the doctors responded, no, no, no, he's not saying that. | ||
| Yeah, and unfortunately, the next day, I had to put out a health alert, though, because some people in the United States actually drank bleach, and we had some real problems. | ||
| In order to kill the virus. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wow. | |
| Carolyn Wilmington, Illinois, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Carolyn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Oh, I wanted to ask Dr. Redfield. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Went a long time without being vaccinated. | ||
| And then I finally got vaccinated. | ||
| I don't remember the exact month, but it was maybe within 30 days or so that I ended up with COVID. | ||
| At which time I brought it home to my unvaccinated husband, and he passed away. | ||
| So that was January of 21. | ||
| Well, I'm sorry for your loss. | ||
| I just came out with a book on Tuesday and my book, I dedicated my book to the memory of all the men and women and children who died from HIV, which I worked on a lot, and COVID, and for all the suffering the long COVID and post-COVID vaccine mRNA injury patients have. | ||
| I hope science will refocus its energy to develop effective therapy for both. | ||
| That was the dedication of the book. | ||
| The reality is you highlight something that's very important that I don't think many people really understood, and that is the COVID vaccine does not prevent infection. | ||
| I've been vaccinated eight times, and I've had COVID three times. | ||
| The COVID vaccine, all it really does, which is important, is it can prevent hospitalization and death, severity of illness, in people at high risk for severe illness. | ||
| So if you're 22 years old, you're not at high risk for severe illness. | ||
| I don't think there's a benefit from the COVID vaccine for you. | ||
| But if you're like me, 74, and you have type 2 diabetes and some bad hypertension, there's probably a benefit for me to try to stay vaccinated. | ||
| But to stay vaccinated, I need to be vaccinated probably two to three times a year. | ||
| The alternative is to diagnose myself if I get COVID and get treated with Paxlovit or Mulmopinavir, which is an acceptable alternative. | ||
| I'm sorry for your husband's loss. | ||
| I'm sorry for, in a way, the whole way we handled COVID during the beginning of the pandemic in 2018 and 19 and 2020. | ||
| You know, all of the patients that really died alone in the hospital because we sort of limited our engagement with people with COVID. | ||
| All of these things I think were unfortunate and we can't take back. | ||
| So I'm sorry for your loss. | ||
| Osmont is in New York, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I have a message for Dr. Redfield. | ||
| My concern is I'm 60 years old. | ||
| I've gotten a total of five COVID vaccine Moderna shots. | ||
| I'm 60 years old. | ||
| What do we need to expect as we get older from having these vaccines? | ||
| I've never had COVID and I'm pretty active and healthy. | ||
| Yeah, it's a very good question. | ||
| I don't know the total answer to your question. | ||
| So what I'm going to tell you is what I believe is one of the challenges I have with the mRNA vaccines now is that when I give you an mRNA vaccine like Moderna or Pfizer, I actually turn your body into a spike protein factory. | ||
| And your body actually makes the vaccine. | ||
| I don't give you the vaccine, I give you mRNA, then your body makes the vaccine. | ||
| And the spike protein is a very immunotoxic protein. | ||
| It's not a good protein for the human body. | ||
| And the problem is with the mRNA vaccine is I don't know how much you're going to make. | ||
| And I don't know how long you're going to make it. | ||
| Some people used to say you're not going to make much and it's only going to be a couple days. | ||
| Well, that's not true. | ||
| We now know some people are still making the spike protein a month later, two months later, six months later. | ||
| So I'm an advocate of using what we call a killed protein vaccine. | ||
| It's made by Novavax. | ||
| Because when I give you that protein, it induces antibody to spike protein. | ||
| But your body doesn't become a spike protein factory. | ||
| Your body basically degrades the remnants of the protein vaccine, and that's it. | ||
| So I do think there's still a valuable role for the vaccine for those of us who are getting older, particularly as we get over 65. | ||
| But I do think there are Unknown consequences of these mRNA vaccines. | ||
| One of them might be pretty good, as you read in the Wall Street Journal today. | ||
| One of the consequences was it looked like people who got the mRNA vaccines had a better response to their cancer therapy, which is probably related to how they affect the body's what we call cytokine systems. | ||
| So I think there's a lot we don't know. | ||
| And I do think, but I do think there's an advantage in the protein vaccine. | ||
| I also think there's an advantage in early diagnosis of COVID if you get it in treatment with Paxlovid or Mulropenvir. | ||
| Dr. Redfield, autism rates are increasing. | ||
| The administration recently announced that it was because, or a reason for that could be the use of Tylenol during pregnancy. | ||
| Do you believe that to be the case? | ||
| So what the data, what they presented actually, was that there was an association, not a causation. | ||
| So that individuals that use Tylenol, there was an association with autism. | ||
| And when you looked at the studies, it was using Tylenol for more than 30 days during pregnancy. | ||
| Like using it every day for a month? | ||
| It's just more than 30 days, okay? | ||
| Over the course of the pregnancy. | ||
| So I don't think that Tylenol causes autisms. | ||
| I don't think the administration is trying to say that Tylenol causes autism. | ||
| It's an association. | ||
| I do think Jay Bhartacharya at NIH is aggressively putting out proposals for research of multiple different hypotheses of how autism is what's causing autism. | ||
| And so we can eventually get a better understanding of the cause of autism. | ||
| But you would recommend pregnant women not take Tylenol? | ||
| No, I would say that there was an association. | ||
| I wouldn't be afraid of taking Tylenol if I took it like I had a fever and I took it for two or three days. | ||
| I wouldn't take it every day during my pregnancy. | ||
| But I don't think pregnant women should take any medication every day. | ||
| All right, let's talk to Lenny in Huntington, New York. | ||
| Democrat, good morning, Lenny. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you? | ||
| Good. | ||
| Dr. Redfield, I'm an old guy, older than you. | ||
| Vaccines were coming out at a rapid pace in the 40s and 50s when I was growing up. | ||
| And we looked at vaccines and they were sector sanct in terms of being wonderful things. | ||
| They worked. | ||
| And do we have a problem with what we name things? | ||
| Or don't I understand what a vaccine is versus shot? | ||
| Because we get a shot every year for flu, because it changes all the time. | ||
| Should we be calling the COVID vaccine a COVID shot and get it away from being in the vaccine class? | ||
| Dr. Redfield. | ||
| You raise a good point because I told you that it doesn't really prevent disease, COVID. | ||
| And most people, when you hear the word vaccine, they think it prevents infection, like polio or measles, mumps, tetanus. | ||
| And I will say, just to go on record, that I believe vaccines, vaccines, the way you use the term vaccines, are the most important gift of science to modern medicine. | ||
| That said, you have to know how to use them properly in the population, and you have to know what they do and what they don't do. | ||
| And I think you're very astute in saying the COVID vaccine really doesn't function as a vaccine. | ||
| What it does is modify disease in certain people. | ||
| And now it is true, as a purist, many vaccines, actually, that's what they do. | ||
| They modify disease. | ||
| They don't prevent infection. | ||
| But most of the American public, when we think of a vaccine, we think it prevents infection. | ||
| You take the measles vaccine, you don't get measles. | ||
| You take the polio vaccine, you don't get polio. | ||
| So I think you are right. | ||
| We should be careful how we use the words. | ||
| And it really is a shot medication that we take to modify disease if you happen to get infected. | ||
| So Dr. Redfield, what are your thoughts on Governor DeSantis in Florida announcing that his state would scrap all public school vaccine mandates? | ||
| So this would be for all diseases. | ||
| I think we made the wrong decision a long time ago to mandate vaccines. | ||
| When I became CDC director, I was very bothered by the fact that 350,000 people in the last 10 years from when I became CDC director had died from flu. | ||
| Flu is a bad disease. | ||
| And then when I looked at it, I found that rarely more than 50% of the American public took the flu vaccine. | ||
| And then when I looked at it, the flu vaccine actually didn't work very well. | ||
| Some years it was a flip of the coin, and some years, the year I was CDC director, only 25% of the time did it actually work in preventing flu. | ||
| And I was upset that there were so many people that didn't get the flu vaccine. | ||
| In my first year, we had more deaths in children from flu than any other year in our country. | ||
| And what they had in common is they weren't vaccinated because, again, it modifies the disease. | ||
| If your children were vaccinated and they got flu, they didn't die. | ||
| All right? | ||
| So I went on a campaign to try to change the mindset of the American public. | ||
| The vaccine, vaccinate with confidence, not this vaccine hesitancy. | ||
| I think the mistake we made is we should be spending time educating the individual about the advantage of the vaccine so that the individuals will choose to vaccinate. | ||
| If you choose to get human papilloma, I mean, how many people don't vaccinate their adolescents to human papilloma? | ||
| If I said, would you like a vaccine to prevent your child from getting cancer? | ||
| Everybody would raise their hand. | ||
| But when I said, did you get your child vaccinated for human papilloma? | ||
| No, we didn't get that because I don't want that vaccine. | ||
| So I think because they've been taught that, you know, a vaccine can kill you. | ||
| A vaccine can make you sick. | ||
| I don't think we've taken the time to educate the American public. | ||
| And as a physician, I used to say when a patient would come to me and they'd, you know, recommend a vaccine and they say they don't want it. | ||
| And what most doctors will do is just, that's it. | ||
| Okay, fine, you don't want it. | ||
| Boom. | ||
| No, why don't you want it? | ||
| And then they'd explain, well, I don't want to make a mistake for my child. | ||
| I'm worried I might harm them. | ||
| Well, why do you think that? | ||
| And then explain to them the data we have about the safety. | ||
| And, you know, go think about it, read about it, come back in a month and we'll talk about it again. | ||
| Or if they come back with some argument that's just wrong, go ahead and tell them, hey, I know you said that, but that's not correct. | ||
| This vaccine doesn't put a chip in your body so the government can follow you. | ||
| That's not what this vaccine does. | ||
| So I think the medical community has not spent the time. | ||
| So you would put that on the medical community, not on the state. | ||
| If your child wants to come to public school, they have to be vaccinated for it. | ||
| I think the medical community needs to take the responsibility to help educate their patients to make the right health decisions. | ||
| But it's their decision. | ||
| Well, let's talk to a caller in Florida, St. Augustine, Republican Line. | ||
| Sean, you're on the air. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Hi, Doctor. | ||
| I sold pharmaceuticals for years, and the pharmacy business is nothing but a racket. | ||
| So to get off that, why was the VARS data hidden? | ||
| And why is cancer on the rise? | ||
| Autoimmune is on the rise. | ||
| Why was Dr. Fauci pardoned? | ||
| Why is it classified and why was Randesivir used and ventilators to kill patients in hospitals? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| What was the first question? | ||
| Why was the what? | ||
| VARS data, what was it? | ||
| Oh, yeah, the VARS safety data, the safety data, the safety data. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. | ||
| There should be greater transparency with the safety data. | ||
| All right. | ||
| I'm not a popular person because I also don't believe the pharmaceutical industry should be shielded from lawsuits for vaccines. | ||
| I think they should be subject like any other product. | ||
| Radesivir, and a lot of the truth is when the COVID pandemic first started, the truth is we didn't really know how to use these drugs as well as we should have. | ||
| We started Radesivir for people that were seriously sick. | ||
| We obviously put a lot of these people on ventilators way too soon. | ||
| In retrospect, we learned that we want to use the ventilator early, not late. | ||
| And we later learned that we want to use Rodesivir early, not late. | ||
| So I would say a lot of it was a learning curve and that we didn't really know how to manage this disease. | ||
| Luckily for us, the virus has changed. | ||
| So it's not as pathogenic to humans as it was in 2019, 2020. | ||
| So, and you know, Fauci is a friend of mine, a colleague. | ||
| We've worked for years. | ||
| I disagree with him on a lot of things, including the origin of COVID, and I disagree with him on COVID vaccine mandates. | ||
| But I will say in his defense that he, like me, made decisions that he thought were in the best interest of the American people. | ||
| I just feel a number of his decisions were incorrect. | ||
| Tom is a Democrat in Virginia. | ||
| Good morning, Tom. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Your comments about the Chinese developing this virus to be transferable to humans, I never heard anything like that in the media. | ||
| And I'm just wondering, number one, does that infer that this was some biological weapon research? | ||
|
unidentified
|
And number two, why would it have been unleashed in China? | |
| Why wouldn't it have been brought to the United States to be released? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yeah, and I talk about this in my book because it's really important. | ||
| There was two hypotheses for the emergence of COVID. | ||
| One was it came from nature, and you heard a lot about the wet market, similar to SARS and MERS, and the other was that it came from the laboratory. | ||
| I happened to have been the advocate that it came from the laboratory for a number of reasons. | ||
| 2014, this laboratory in Wuhan actually published that they had figured out how to change the COVID virus so that it could now bind and infect human tissue, humanized mice. | ||
| So they actually intentionally tried to teach it how to infect human tissue. | ||
| So that was in the record books. | ||
| When this virus came out into humans, it was immediately one of the most infectious viruses in the history of the world. | ||
| Whereas the other viruses, SARS and MERS, even after today, you know, now 20 years later, still have a difficult time infecting humans, less than 10,000 cases. | ||
| So I think it was part of, in my own view, it wasn't intentional that they were trying to make a bioweapon. | ||
| That's my own personal opinion. | ||
| I think they were working in the laboratory to try to make what I call a vaccine vector. | ||
| That is something that could help vaccinate the Chinese military and the Chinese people and maybe the world. | ||
| And in order to do that, they had to do a few things. | ||
| One is they had to make it transmissible by aerosol and infectious for human to human, and that's how they changed the receptor by putting in a fear and cleavage site that changed the orientation of the COVID virus so it now bound to humans and infect human tissue. | ||
| But it's ironic, if you look at COVID-19 right now, and this is where I argued with Fauci pretty aggressively when he said it, you know, it came from nature and the bats brought it into the wet market. | ||
| It turns out that when you change that cleavage site with the fear and cleavage site, the COVID-19 no longer can infect bats very efficiently. | ||
| So it affects humans. | ||
| And that's just inconsistent with it being involved from bats in the first place. | ||
| I think you'll find at least the Energy Department, the FBI, and now the CIA and the Army and Defense Intelligence all now have analyzed the data with the classified data that they have access to too and concluded that this virus came from the Wuhan lab. | ||
| That's Dr. Robert Redfield. | ||
| His book is called Redfield's Warning. | ||
| What I Learned But Couldn't Tell You Might Save Your Life. | ||
| He was also CDC director under the first Trump administration. | ||
| Thanks so much for coming in today. | ||
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| It was great. | ||
| We're wrapping up today's Washington Journal with another round of open forum. | ||
| You can start calling in now. | ||
| Democrats are on 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| And we'll talk with Representative-elect Adelita Grajalva of Arizona about the delay in her being sworn in to Congress, the government shutdown, and Democratic strategies. | ||
| Stay with us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Friday, on C-SPAN Ceasefire, at a moment of deep division in Washington, former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazil and former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel come together for a bipartisan dialogue on Tuesday's election results, potential impact on the 2026 midterms, and increasing partisanship. | |
| They join host, Dasha Burns. | ||
| Ceasefire, Bridging the Divide in American Politics. | ||
| Watch Ceasefire Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold new original series this Sunday with our guest, the Chronicler of Adventures, award-winning best-selling author David Graham, whose books include The Lost City of Z, Killers of the Flower Moon, and The Wager. | ||
| He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein. | ||
| So what about this fact, about this occurrence, made you think this could be something worth your time? | ||
| And I started to realize that this odd little old manuscript contained the seeds of one of the most extraordinary stories of survival and mayhem I had ever come across. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Watch America's Book Club with David Graham this Sunday 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, sites, 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. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| We are in open forum. | ||
| You can go ahead and start calling in now and share your thoughts. | ||
| We will be talking to Representative-elect Grahalva of Arizona later by phone. | ||
| And some political news for you. | ||
| This is the New York Times headlines. | ||
| Pelosi plans to retire in 2027 after 39 years in Congress. | ||
| Representative Nancy Pelosi, the only female House Speaker, said she will not run for re-election. | ||
| She wielded immense power and became a Democratic icon while she was demonized by conservatives. | ||
| And while you're calling in, I want to show you a portion of U.S. Senators Jim Risch and Senator Mark Warner. | ||
| They talked to the press following a classified briefing on U.S. military strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific. | ||
| Here's what they said. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Look, I've been aware of this for some time on a time basis. | |
| I'm the senior Republican on the Intelligence Committee. | ||
| The administration's kept me, other members fully advised, fully satisfied with what they're doing. | ||
| They've got good legal justification for what they're doing. | ||
| The president really ought to be congratulated for saving the lives of young American people. | ||
| He should be thanked by the many parents who won't even know that they won't have to bury kids prematurely. | ||
| They're doing good work. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're doing it lawfully. | |
| And I encourage them to keep it up. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All drug traffickers are bad guys. | ||
| And the threat they pose to America in terms of undermining Americans' health is serious. | ||
| And also in terms of Venezuela, Maduro is a bad government. | ||
| And I frankly think the Biden administration didn't go far enough after the Venezuelan people voted overwhelmingly to get rid of Maduro. | ||
| Remember, our government still doesn't recognize the Maduro government. | ||
| But the notion on the kinetic strikes without actually interdicting and demonstrating to the American public that these are carrying drugs and they're full of bad guys, I think is a huge mistake. | ||
| And I think it undermines the confidence in the administration's actions. | ||
| And the final comment I'll make is just that nothing in the legal opinion even mentions Venezuela. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I'll leave it at that. | |
| And we will get to your calls now in open forum. | ||
| Nivity is in Florida. | ||
| Republican line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, CeaseFan. | |
| Good morning, America. | ||
| I wanted to say thank you all. | ||
| I'm a registered Republican. | ||
| I'm a black man, and I am mad as heck. | ||
| I'm an attorney looking at the beautiful skyline in downtown Tampa. | ||
| And I wanted to say God bless Donald J. Trump because Donald J. Trump aided me in mobilizing my group of people with the assistance of Stacey Abrams and other individuals to ensure the newly elected mayor of New York, the new gubernatorial candidate for Virginia, and the new gubernatorial candidate for New Jersey. | ||
| All in the sound of my voice, this is the rally cry. | ||
| Please go vote. | ||
| We're doing it like we did in the 60s. | ||
| We vote through whispers. | ||
| I will never give my name because, madam, I've already surrendered my bar license for medical reasons. | ||
| I have stage three cancer. | ||
| I'm mad as hell, and I refuse to let Donald J. Trump erode all that my ancestors have done in this great nation. | ||
| Listen up, baby boppers, because if you are so ignorant that you cannot see that you are being fleeced, well, thank God my law firm has secured $12 billion of future congressional information because this is the most corrupt administration since the Grant administration. | ||
| I attended Florida Atlantic University where I got my bachelor's in political science. | ||
| I went to George Washington School of Law, and then I got an MBA from theirs, too. | ||
| I am mad as hell, and I am so happy that we have Donald J. Trump to give us praise and thanks to Daddy Trump. | ||
| Let's get him elected for a third time, everybody, because we do give it. | ||
| Got it. | ||
| Karen, Washington, D.C., line for Democrats. | ||
| Go ahead, Karen. | ||
| Karen, you there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Yes, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm here. | |
| Hello. | ||
| Yes, I just wanted to say that I do understand that vaccinations do not prevent people from getting COVID, but they do save people like me's life. | ||
| I had COVID in December 2019. | ||
| My husband was stationed at RF Lake and Heath, and I got COVID from someone who was in Japan who had transferred it to me. | ||
| So if people could please get vaccinated from the COVID vaccine, it could save my life, my family's life, and everyone around me. | ||
| So please, please, please do this for me. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| Have a good one. | ||
| Bye-bye. | ||
| Here's Jacob in Astorio, New York, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yeah, I just wanted to say how I am independent, and this role of America first being the rallying cry of this administration, but then playing this madman role in the world stage where we're striking boats off the coast in the Caribbean, too, and we're just playing to the winds of dictators. | ||
| Like, do we, is this going to be another Iraqi freedom thing? | ||
| Like, do we really believe that the U.S. government cares about the freedom of the Venezuelan people? | ||
| No, this is just another power grab for the Trump administration. | ||
| And I just hope that people will see through this and, if need be, even withhold taxes. | ||
| That's what Newsom has advocated for. | ||
| And I believe that's what New York and any other donor state should be doing. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And Jacob, some more news from overseas. | ||
| This is on the front page of the Washington Times. | ||
| It says Saudi-backed Syria seeks U.S. legitimacy. | ||
| This is a picture of the Syrian leader here and the Saudi crown prince with President Trump in the background. | ||
| It says, less than 12 months after ousting the Assad regime, Syrian President Ahmed Al-Shara, backed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, will have a White House reception next week. | ||
| Syria's transition from war has been declared complete. | ||
| We'll have more information for you as those visits to the White House take place. | ||
| Here's Mark, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Morning, Mimi. | |
| Maybe this, I'll be brief, like I wish the other callers would be who ramble on. | ||
| There's an article today by Senator Lankford on the internet regarding federal employees' health benefit plan. | ||
| Unknowns to me, it is a trust fund. | ||
| And apparently, the federal employees' health benefit plan is running out of money. | ||
| So, like, talk about piling on the misery here. | ||
| We have 2 million plus federal employees who aren't paying their premiums to FHAB. | ||
| And now it looks as though the trust fund to pay the health benefits of federal employees may in fact be running out. | ||
| And this is going under the radar, Mimi. | ||
| I don't know if you have time to research this, but to the federal employees out there in Washington Journal land, not only do you lose your paychecks, you may lose your health insurance. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And we do have that information for you on Senator Lankford's Senate page. | ||
| So this, if you go to lankford.senate.gov, you'll find it here. | ||
| It says Lankford sounds alarm as Democrats shut down threatens health benefits for federal workers. | ||
| You can read more about that here and see the text here that he sent to Scott Kapoor, who's the director of the Office of Personnel Management. | ||
| And this is Alex in Pico Rivera, California, Republican. | ||
| Go ahead, Alex. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, while I recognize the significance of Nancy Pelosi's departure from office, I must say I am relieved to see the new chapter begin. | |
| Erlong, Tinor has left a deep mark on American politics, both good and bad, but I believe it's time for a new leadership and fresh perspective. | ||
| After time, I'm genuinely disappointed that California voted yes on Prop 50. | ||
| Come on, California, get it together. | ||
| The intention behind it may sound appealing on the surface, but I believe a long-term consequence will provide counterproductive and harmful to the state direction. | ||
| On the latter note, I'll admit that there's a bit of irony in losing access to Pelosi's stock discussion and disclosures. | ||
| Following her trades, it was practically a masterclass in market timing. | ||
| Thank you guys. | ||
| Have a great day. | ||
| And if you're on the line for Open Forum, please do stay with us. | ||
| Just hold the line because we are going to be joined now by Adelita Grajalva. | ||
| She's Representative Elect, a Democrat of Arizona. | ||
| Congresswoman Elect, welcome to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much. | |
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| Well, we'll just start with the obvious. | ||
| Why the delay in your swearing in? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You would have to ask Speaker Johnson. | |
| I mean, his excuses really run the gamut of her race wasn't certified. | ||
| You know, we don't swear people in during a shutdown. | ||
| We don't swear people in during pro forma. | ||
| All of those things have been debunked because he's actually done two of them. | ||
| But really, I think that it has to do with the Ebstein files. | ||
| You know, holding the nation hostage and not opening up the House to negotiate with the Senate on a resolution that we can all agree to is detrimental to our nation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And we have people that are really suffering because of his inaction. | |
| And you are, in fact, suing the Speaker of the House. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, we are, along with our Attorney General Chris Mays. | |
| We're suing because I'm going to use every avenue possible in order to get Southern Arizona the representation that they deserve. | ||
| And are you, I mean, do you have offices open in your district? | ||
| Are you communicating with constituents? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We don't have a budget. | |
| We can't open up offices. | ||
| I can't contractually obligate federal funds to sign a lease. | ||
| And respectfully, until I am sworn in, I don't have constituents. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have people that supported me. | |
| I have almost 813,000 Southern Arizonans that need a voice and are demanding representation. | ||
| But until I am sworn in, I am not a member of Congress. | ||
| And what's the status of that lawsuit? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's been assigned to a judge, and we are just kind of awaiting the process. | |
| Yeah, so that's the latest update is that it has been assigned. | ||
| And can you tell us a little bit about your background and the election that you won, the special election that you won in September 23? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, my dad is Congressman Dal Grijalva. | |
| He was in Congress for 22 years, 11 terms, served this community of Southern Arizona for 50 years total. | ||
| I served as a school board member for Tucson Unified School District, Arizona's second largest school district for 20 years. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I was on the board of supervisors, Pima County Board of Supervisors for four years, was just recently re-elected to my second term when I sworn in January, resigned in April after the passing of my dad, Congressman Al Guijalva, in March, in order to run for this special election. | |
| And I ran a juvenile diversion program for 26 years, which was designed to break the school to prison pipeline. | ||
| So I'm very invested in this community. | ||
| And the voters here overwhelmingly elected me to this position with almost 70% of the vote. | ||
| You have, I just want to show viewers that you do have an opinion piece in today's USA Today with the headline, I was elected six weeks ago. | ||
| Speaker Mike Johnson refuses to swear me in. | ||
| It says it's time for House Speaker Mike Johnson to end his vacation and get back to work that the American people elected us to do. | ||
| If he's watching right now, what do you say to him, Congresswoman Elect? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It is unconscionable that members of Congress have voted, have worked 19 days in four months. | |
| I mean, literally look at the calendar. | ||
| You know, we need to get back to the negotiating table in order to end this Republican shutdown and open up the House, open up Congress, get back to work, and start working for our American people. | ||
| And you are the first Latina to represent Arizona in Congress. | ||
| What are your goals? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, so many. | |
| We have, I really, we were elected with a platform that was very progressive with environmental protections, protecting our public education, protecting our democracy. | ||
| We, it's Arizona CD7 have the three ports of entry with Mexico. | ||
| Immigration is a big issue. | ||
| Tribal sovereignty is a big issue. | ||
| You know, 58,000 federal workers in Arizona. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We have to protect this community and our future for future generations. | |
| I have three children and I am very concerned that the America that I am raising them in is looking, you know, I don't recognize it. | ||
| And that's what I want to get back to, making sure that people have individual rights, that we have are surrounded by people in federal government that are looking to the Constitution for guidance, not to Trump on how to align with him. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We have a lot of politicians in office and we need a lot more public servants. | |
| All right, that's Adelita Grajalva, Representative-elect Democrat of Arizona. | ||
| You can find more on her at adelitaforcongress.com. | ||
| Thanks so much for joining us today. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for having me. | |
| We'll get back to open forum and your calls until the end of the program. | ||
| Alina is in Highland Park, Illinois, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yes. | ||
| Well, it's a set day for California and New York. | ||
| Prop 50 in California is going to drive people away, and Mandami Kani is going to drive people away out of New York. | ||
| So it's going to be a hard lesson. | ||
| They're going to learn the hard way. | ||
| Alina, tell me more about your opposition to Prop 50 in California when you say it's going to drive people away. | ||
| What do you mean? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Republicans, that is, or decent people, thinking people, that is, you know, because it's all politics. | |
| It's got enough. | ||
| California's got, what, 53 representatives are Democrat, and it's gonna, they're trying to make it 100% Democrat. | ||
| So it's not gonna be representative of California. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Got it. | ||
| Shelly, Springfield, Virginia, Democrat. | ||
| Go ahead, Shelly. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, can you hear me? | |
| Yes, we can. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, great. | |
| Thanks. | ||
| I worked for my entire career in the federal government until this year because of the cuts. | ||
| And I was a little bit concerned when you had Dr. Redfield on that he said we are prepared for the next pandemic. | ||
| I see what they've been doing to... | ||
| No, he actually said we're not prepared, Shelley. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, because that's honestly, that is really what's going on here. | |
| They've cut so many people, so many programs. | ||
| I'm shocked. | ||
| I've never seen anything like this in my lifetime. | ||
| And then it concerns me. | ||
| I'm a mathematical statistician with a background in epidemiology. | ||
| I had no problem getting the vaccines for COVID. | ||
| And I only got COVID one time during this entire pandemic, right? | ||
| And I think I did things the right way. | ||
| I wasn't like super careful, but I did get the vaccines. | ||
| And so I think, yes, the public does need to be informed better as to how these things work. | ||
| And that the fact that that COVID vaccine is not a sterilizing vaccine, it will not prevent you from getting COVID. | ||
| It just lessens the effects. | ||
| You know, things like this do need to be explained to the public, but I don't know how you can do that with a demoralized public service. | ||
| You know, the civilian that work for the government and we dedicate our lives to public service have been severely, morally demoralized, basically. | ||
| You know, people don't even want to come to work, and that's what Russ Boat wanted. | ||
| He wanted us to hate our jobs. | ||
| And that doesn't give you good policy. | ||
| It doesn't give you good service. | ||
| And that's my biggest concern. | ||
| And Shelly, did you leave the federal government voluntarily earlier this year or were you cut? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I had to take what's called a DSR, which is a discontinued service retirement. | |
| That means I retired involuntarily. | ||
| And I was going to work another, say, four years and transfer my duties to a younger person. | ||
| And that's not going to happen now. | ||
| A, there's not going to be any younger people that want to work for the government. | ||
| And B, I can't even transfer my knowledge. | ||
| All that stuff was just cut and lost. | ||
| And we're talking decades, decades of work. | ||
| And I have a lot of education to do what I did. | ||
| And it's all been wasted as far as I can see. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Thanks for sharing that with us. | ||
| And Stephen is in Wilmington, Illinois. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for taking my call. | |
| And my question is, Trump has said repeatedly that he's not accepting the salary for the president. | ||
| And I don't see him leaving that kind of money on the table. | ||
| So is there some way we can fact check that statement? | ||
| Yeah, that's I believe that's at like $400,000 is the salary, the set salary for a president. | ||
| I would have to check that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I knew what the number was. | |
| I just don't believe he's not taking it. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| We can take a look at that, Stephen. | ||
| Here's Patty in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, hello there. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| I just wanted to share my thoughts on a couple things and see what other people think about it. | ||
| My thoughts on the government shutdown? | ||
| Well, it seems to me that every time Mike Johnson cancels congressional session workdays and orders his people not to show up, to me, that kind of seems like what we used to call a wildcat strike. | ||
|
unidentified
|
A wildcat strike different than regular strike. | |
| Wildcat strike is when a group of people refuse to even sit at the bargaining table and work out a resolution. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So it seems to me that's exactly what he's doing. | |
| A wildcat strike. | ||
| And then, too, when Trump told the nation that if New York elected Mamdani and he won, he was going to withhold federal funding that they're entitled to. | ||
| And to me, that sounds like extortion. | ||
| You know, you do what I want or I'm going to hurt you in the worst possible way. | ||
| We've always referred to that as extortion. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And then the last thing is the Prop 50 in California. | |
| I don't really see anything wrong with what Gavin Newsom did because he asked the people what they wanted. | ||
| Whereas in the Texas and other places, they're having the changing of the maps thrust upon them without their consent. | ||
| Gavin Newsom told the people, you tell me what you want. | ||
| And that's what I think about all those things. | ||
| All right, Patty, and here's Lewis, Salisbury, North Carolina, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Lewis. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, C-SPAN, and good morning, Mimi. | |
| You're looking lovely this morning, too, by the way. | ||
| Look, you know, you hear a lot of people talking about that, and please, if I pronounce his name wrong, y'all don't hold it against me, but Madan de New York, they make it seem as though he's the first man who says something about giving someone something free, but it's not. | ||
| During any campaign of a Democrat person, like Kamala Harrison, she told the American people that she's going to make sure first-time entrepreneurs receive $50,000, $3,600 for tax credit for your child, $6,000 if you have a baby and need some help. | ||
| That didn't stop them. | ||
| But socialism is another name that I know that there's a man who fed 5,000 people and didn't ask for nothing from them. | ||
| It was free. | ||
| I know a man who took a blind man and made him see again. | ||
| It didn't charge him no ophthalmologist prices. | ||
| So they talking about socialism. | ||
| You know what it sounds like to me when they say that? | ||
| It's Antichrist. | ||
| Because everything that Jesus did, the Democrat is also trying to do for the people. | ||
| Give you something free sometimes instead of giving it to all these rich people who already got it. | ||
| They worrying about a person getting help from a hospital. | ||
| Please, people, you're setting yourself up to go right straight to hell. | ||
| All right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Lewis. | ||
| And a few things for you. | ||
| This is from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation about salaries from members of Congress, the Supreme Court justices, and the president. | ||
| I know this isn't what the caller was asking. | ||
| He was asking about if indeed the president was donating his salary, but just so you know, as of January 2025, the president makes $400,000, the Vice President, $235,100,000. | ||
| Speaker of the House at $223,500. | ||
| The House and Senate majority and minority leaders, 193. | ||
| And then House and Senate members and delegates make $174,000. | ||
| Chief Justice, Supreme Court, 317,500, and Associate Justices, 303-6. | ||
| And that is just for your information. | ||
| Here's Thomas, Ohio, Independent Line. | ||
| Thomas, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much for taking my call. | |
| On the government shutdown, there's plenty of blame to go around, both Republicans and Democrats. | ||
| But what I don't understand, and please correct me if I'm wrong, the Senate is holding votes, but they're also holding hearings and votes for Trump's appointees or whatever. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So they're doing their job. | |
| The House, on the other hand, is completely shut down, even though they've only passed, I believe, three out of the 12 budget bills. | ||
| So why is the House not in session voting or working on the other budget bills? | ||
| I just don't understand. | ||
| All right, Thomas. | ||
| And speaking of that, we will actually have coverage right after this program, starting momentarily of a Senate Commerce Committee hearing to approve the nominees for the National Transportation Safety Board. | ||
| They will be appearing before the Senate Commerce Committee. | ||
| That is set to, there's the room right there as it fills up. | ||
| And as it gets underway, we'll go to that. | ||
| But in the meantime, we'll talk to Wilbert in Culpeper, Virginia. | ||
| Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Mimi. | |
| I'd just like to thank the voters here in the town of Culpeper, Virginia. | ||
| They re-elected Frank Reed as the first African-American mayor in the town of Culpeper. | ||
| And I just want to thank all the voters who came out and voted to re-elect it, Frank Reed. | ||
| And I've been a longtime supporter of C-SPAN when I was sitting up in the gallery. | ||
| I just worked on Capitol Hill when they brought C-SPAN into existence. | ||
| And I was sitting in the gallery with Tip O'Neill when the first C-SPAN came along. | ||
| So I just want to say congratulations to Brian Lamb and the C-FAN staff. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| Thanks, Wilbert. | ||
| And Beverly in Louisiana, Republican, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| And I'll thank you, C-SPAN, for all that you do and informing us and allowing us to call in as well. | ||
| But my point is, or I'd like to say, if we have so many of our people in Congress and in elected office that appear to not want to follow the foundational Constitution, everything that our country was founded on, the freedom that we all love so dear. | ||
| If they don't love America and they want to push the socialist agenda, why are they here in the United States of America? | ||
| And I just feel like they've been crushed on what are God-given rights, the rights that we have, the freedom that we experience in the United States. | ||
| And I just wanted to express that. | ||
| And I just, my heart just grieves for the unfounding circumstances that a lot of our Congresspeople and what they try to run on, and also just the foul language and the lies that they express. | ||
| But I thank you. | ||
| All right, Beverly. | ||
| Let's talk to Tim in New York, Independent. | ||
| Go ahead, Tim. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I wanted to ask the Congresswoman, if they open up the Congress to vote on the budget, will they have to first vote on her being accepted and swear her in to the Congress? | |
| So they don't vote on swearing her in. | ||
| That would just be the Speaker of the House doing that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, but the Congress would have. | |
| He's been claiming that the Congress would have to be open for him to do that. | ||
| Yes, no, that's enough. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Congress. | |
| Yes, no, the Speaker is saying that it has to be open, not her. | ||
| Sorry, did you get that, Tim? | ||
| Tim's gone. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, we are going to take you over to that Senate hearing. | ||
| That's the Senate Commerce Committee hearing. | ||
| This is President Trump's NTSB nominees. | ||
| They will be appearing before the Senate. | ||
| That is just getting underway, so we will sign off from here. | ||
| Thanks for watching, everybody. | ||
| We'll be back again tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern for another edition of Washington Journal. | ||
| Thanks for watching. |