| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
Once again, to the great democracies. | |
| American democracy is bigger than any one person. | ||
| Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We are still at our core a democracy. | |
| This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom. | ||
| Welcome back to Washington Journal. | ||
| We are in open forum, so we will get to your call shortly. | ||
| You can keep calling in, but hold the line because we've got Eleanor Mueller in. | ||
| She's a congressional reporter from Semaphore. | ||
| We're going to talk about what's going on in Congress. | ||
| Eleanor, welcome. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having me. | |
| So what's going on? | ||
| We had the Senate in session last night and they advanced a bill that would that we're moving towards reopening the government. | ||
| So refresh us on what happened. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I was there for about 12 hours yesterday on a Sunday, good times. | |
| And the senators had a big breakthrough on this bipartisan deal. | ||
| It's the same bipartisan deal that we've been talking about for weeks, but I think that there was a group of eight senators who caucused with Democrats, Angus King, an independent is one of them, who decided that this has gone on long enough and that this is something that they need to accept. | ||
| They got a few additional wins. | ||
| You know, Senator Kaine of Virginia negotiated some protections for federal workers who were laid off as part of this continuing resolution. | ||
| And then that's what wound up advancing late last night. | ||
| So exactly eight Democrats, exactly the number that they need. | ||
| And we'll take the rest of the votes at some point this week. | ||
| And what did they say about why they switched now? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They, Senator Shaheen, who was one of the key architects of this deal, you know, she's retiring after this term. | |
| She said last night while the vote was still open, they saw this as the only deal on the table. | ||
| You know, they're taking a lot of heat from other Democrats in the Senate, other Democrats in the House, Democrats on the campaign trail. | ||
| But her point was we weren't going to get anything else out of Republicans, out of President Trump. | ||
| And so we have to just move forward with what we feel is what's up for offer right now. | ||
| Now, the narrative before this was that the election on Tuesday was giving a lot of momentum to Democrats and that this gave them the impetus to hold on and to keep waiting for a better deal on the ACA. | ||
| They did not get that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We heard that last night a lot from some of these progressives who are upset about the deal. | |
| You know, Senator Bernie Sanders said repeatedly Tuesday was about Americans wanting us to push back on Trumpism. | ||
| Agreeing to this deal is doing the opposite. | ||
| It's greenlighting Trump. | ||
| It's greenlighting his agenda. | ||
| And we've seen similar arguments now from even House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, you know, really senior leaders who say that it was a mistake to take this deal and walk away with it. | ||
| So what is facing minority leader Schumer now? | ||
| Because it seems that he's, had he kind of gone along with it like he did in March and said, no, we need to be the adult in the room and we need to keep the government open, he would have gotten a lot of pushback and a lot of anger. | ||
| He's getting that anger now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, you kind of can't win if you're Chuck Schumer. | |
| You know, he voted for a bipartisan funding deal earlier this year. | ||
| He took a lot of flag. | ||
| He voted against it this time. | ||
| He's still taking a lot of flag for not, people are saying keeping his caucus aligned. | ||
| There's not a ton he could have done, right? | ||
| I mean, these in the Senate especially members have minds of their own. | ||
| And if these centrists wanted to take it upon themselves to say that enough is enough, we've got the longest government shutdown in history. | ||
| We have a Republican-controlled House, Senate, White House. | ||
| We're not going to be able to push them too far to our side. | ||
| We just have to move on. | ||
| Then there's not a ton that he can do about that. | ||
| So now what happens on the House side? | ||
| Has Speaker Johnson officially called the House members back to Washington? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, this is the million-dollar question at this point. | |
| Johnson has not called members back to Washington yet. | ||
| You know, obviously, we're seeing travel delays across the country, so it's going to take them a while to get here once he does. | ||
| But he did say last night that instead of giving them 48 hours' notice, he's giving them 36 hours' notice. | ||
| Well, that 36 has not started yet. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Has not started. | |
| And we don't know when it's going to start. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We don't know when it's going to start. | |
| They're having a call this morning at 11 a.m., so I think we'll hear more then. | ||
| He's also doing a press conference at 10. | ||
| So, both of those things should give us a little more insight into what the game plan is. | ||
| The holdup is that we don't have a time agreement yet in the Senate. | ||
| So, it could take them a day, it could take them several days, depending on whether or not some senator, whether a Democrat or Rand Paul, who has issues with some of the hemp provisions, decides to hold things up. | ||
| Now, explain that part as far as holding things up. | ||
| How does a senator do that and how long can they go? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, to secure expedited consideration of something in the Senate, you need every single senator to implicitly be okay with it because just one of them can object and then force them to move through the entire lengthy Senate process of considering a bill. | |
| So, they'd get there eventually, and that's what could it take? | ||
| It could take, I think, four days, if I'm not mistaken, is how long it could take. | ||
| So, the earliest we're looking at is about Wednesday with that 36-hour notice. | ||
| Latest could be, you know, this weekend into next week. | ||
| But again, I think that a lot of the senators, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was saying this last night, accept that this, even though they don't like it, is the inevitable outcome. | ||
| And so, at that point, are you really going to withhold federal workers' paychecks, you know, children's food aid benefits, or are you just going to say, you know, we're going to do what we can from now on and move on? | ||
| No, once the House gets back into session, you know, the critics of Speaker Johnson have said that he's trying to hold the House out of session so that he doesn't have to swear in Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, thereby triggering the discharge petition on the Epstein files. | ||
| So, what happens with that now that the House has to come back? | ||
|
unidentified
|
He said repeatedly that when they are back, he will swear in, repelect Grijalva. | |
| So, he'll have to do that as soon as they come back to Washington this week. | ||
| That will then almost immediately trigger that discharge petition. | ||
| Now, House Republican leaders do have the option to change the House rules to still prevent that bill from getting a vote on the floor despite the discharge petition. | ||
| Johnson has signaled at least that he's not going to do that. | ||
| I think this week we find out whether or not he means it. | ||
| And the CR will go to the end of January. | ||
| What happens at the end of January? | ||
| Could this all happen all over again? | ||
| And the government shut down again. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, the deal is three full-year bipartisan appropriations bills, one extension of all other funding levels through January 30th. | |
| That's that continuing resolution. | ||
| That's what includes the protections for federal workers. | ||
| And then, separately, this promise of a vote by mid-December on a bill that the Democrats have approved on these enhanced health care subsidies. | ||
| That was what we saw some of the Democrats who helped craft this deal say last night: hey, January 30th, if we don't have what we want from Republicans on health care, we'll have the option to do this again. | ||
| Of course, the impact will be restricted because they'll have these full years' appropriation bills in place, but they could still press them in the same way that they have been for the last month or so. | ||
| Do you know anything about where you think the vote's going to go, that the ACA extension vote in the Senate? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think that that's that is, yeah, it's a fantastic question. | |
| I mean, we don't even know what the compromise is. | ||
| I think a lot of Republicans have said they take issue with extending the subsidies in their current form. | ||
| They want to see some changes to maybe an income limit, maybe the amount of the benefit, maybe the way that Americans get to control where it goes. | ||
| And so even from the Democrats who voted against the deal last night, they were saying just being able to put Republicans on record on something that we could make particularly painful for them by now addressing all of the concerns that they've raised over the last month and a half is maybe a win in and of itself. | ||
| I think the question is maybe whether or not that vote actually happens and whether it happens in the House where Speaker Mike Johnson has not said that he plans to make any such concession. | ||
| And then the president would have to sign it in any case, which is a whole other issue. | ||
| That's Eleanor Mueller, congressional reporter for Semaphore. | ||
| You can find her work at semaphore.com. | ||
| Thanks so much for joining us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having me. | |
| And we'll get back to your calls. | ||
| It's open forum. | ||
| So whatever you would like to talk about, the numbers are on the screen and the lines are open. | ||
| We'll start with Edie in New York, line for Democrats. | ||
| go ahead, Edie. | ||
| Edie, are you there? | ||
| Let's go to Wiley in Concord, North Carolina, Republican line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I have been listening to C-SPAN for a couple of years now, and I'm amazed at how the electorate does not know what's actually going on. | ||
| They get all their information from off of the media, and it's just unbelievable what they're saying. | ||
| But I'd like to speak about the ACA. | ||
| This shutdown has been taking place and was going to happen. | ||
| It started two years ago with the Democrats. | ||
| They got it voted through, and not a single Republican voted for it, but they said where it would end this year. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And so they play the long game just like the Chinese do. | |
| They've got it on a calendar. | ||
| And this ACA, it never has worked. | ||
| If you've got to put subsidies to a program to keep it afloat, then it's a bad deal. | ||
| It's really bad. | ||
| And the ACC, the ACA was given during the COVID shutdowns, and I don't have a problem with that. | ||
| But now, when you start giving money away to people, giving money away to the insurance companies, which is the villain in this, that it's hard to take the money back. | ||
| And so I think that when the ACA was voted on, and even in the shutdown, we don't have but 53 senator Republicans in the Senate, 47 Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We know that it has to pass with 60 votes. | |
| The Republicans cannot increase their votes. | ||
| They only have 53. | ||
| So it was going to take Democrats to come alongside and vote for it. | ||
| The Democrats shut the government down. | ||
| It was their plan all along to shut it down and to bring this false flag of the ACA back up to be voted on. | ||
| The taxpayer is tired. | ||
| We have been overtaxed, and we're not being represented either by both houses, the House and the Senate. | ||
| They're only in session. | ||
| I kept hearing them say, well, we just need a little bit more time. | ||
| How much time do you need? | ||
| The Senate and the House wasn't in but about 217 days. | ||
| 217 days. | ||
| Got it, Wiley. | ||
| Let's talk to Stephen in Maryland. | ||
| Democrat, go ahead, Stephen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| This was more for Mr. Goodman, who was previously on. | ||
| But anyway, I'm in my late 20s, but I do remember what insurance was like before the ACA. | ||
| But even better, I see the replacement options from the Republicans today. | ||
| And it seems to me, at least, that they're always in a race to naturalize the brutality of the market. | ||
| Well, Democrats can't seem to do much more than build Rube Goldberg-style public-private hybrids. | ||
| And they can't really mitigate the suffering without confronting any of the for-profit logic you'd think. | ||
| But if I can continue, let's just focus on Republicans because when they shut down the ACA extensions, something the OBBA or OBBA already wants, they need a new plan. | ||
| But those plans, even when in neutral language, they're structurally social Darwinist. | ||
| Only the healthy, employed, financially solvent control and navigate the market while sick people are sorted out, priced out, or pushed into uncertain safety nets. | ||
| And a lot of nonpartisan evaluations of Republican health care plans, including Trump's 2016 plan, the repeal and replace bills, and now the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is fundamentally a health care platform for the Republicans, in my opinion. | ||
| Well, those nonpartisan evaluations found only more market choice for healthy and affluent people, less regulation for insurers, more uninsured people, and higher cost burdens for low and middle income people with real medical needs. | ||
| But that's just what's been on my mind lately. | ||
| All right, Stephen. | ||
| And stay in the line. | ||
| If you are already on the line, we will come back to calls. | ||
| But we're going to talk now to Notice Reporter Violet Jyra joining us from in front of the White House. | ||
| Good morning, Violet. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| What was President Trump's reaction to the Senate deal last night? | ||
|
unidentified
|
President Trump spent the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, and before it looked like this deal was in the works, he was tweeting a lot or truthing a lot about how the shutdown needed to be over, the filibuster needed to be MOOCed to that end. | |
| But once it became clear that Republicans and Democrats were nearing some sort of compromise, we really haven't heard much from the president. | ||
| Last night after the Commanders Game, he told the reporters that he thinks we're nearing a deal, but we haven't really heard any full-throated response or opinion from the president. | ||
| It's been reported that this deal has the blessing of the White House, and we had some reporting in the Notice Newsletter this morning, which stated from a White House source that the president just wants the shutdown to be over. | ||
| So we're going to be seeing if that happens this week. | ||
| So the proposed CR does include funding for SNAP and WIC for a year. | ||
| To what extent is President Trump on board with that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think the President is ready to see SNAP and WIC funded. | |
| I think his main objection to funding it during the shutdown was tapping into those contingency funds. | ||
| And we've seen the Trump administration try to fight that battle in court. | ||
| And that battle is ongoing. | ||
| And all eyes will be back on that case if for some reason this push to fund the government this week fails. | ||
| But I think the president is so far fully in support of funding the government at regular levels through the continuing resolution. | ||
| Now, we did hear this weekend that the administration had told states that were funding WIC, SNAP, to undo what they had done for funding or risk penalty from the federal government. | ||
| What can you tell us about that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| That is part of what the Trump administration had argued in court. | ||
| And Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson on Friday issued a Supreme Court ruling, essentially putting that on pause while the Trump administration's appeal was considered. | ||
| Sort of, like I said a few minutes ago, if the government ends up being funded this Thursday, then all of that sort of flies out the window because the government bill will fund SNAP for the entire fiscal year of 2026. | ||
| No, he had, President Trump had put on True Social on the 8th about, he said that I'm recommending to Senate Republicans that the hundreds of billions of dollars currently being sent to money-sucking insurance companies be sent directly to the people so that they can purchase their own much better deal for health care. | ||
| What do you know about that, Violet, as far as is that a plan to change the ACA to replace it? | ||
| What do you know about that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The president has never been in support of Obamacare of the Affordable Care Act, so it's not surprising to hear him say something like this. | |
| However, I think Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett said after Trump made that true social post that there were no formal plans in the work and the works for that to happen. | ||
| So we'll see. | ||
| We were also asked by a caller today about President Trump's posting about a $2,000 tariff rebate check to people excluding very high earners. | ||
| What do you know about that and how that is that an actual proposal or is that going to happen or is it not? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The president did make a true social post to that effect suggesting that tariff revenue will be used to pay back Americans excluding high earners, sort of similar to the stimulus checks that we saw during the pandemic. | |
| However, once again, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett said that there were no formal plans in the works for that and that we that Americans might see tax dividends or something to that effect instead of actual $2,000 payments. | ||
| And what do you know about the president's schedule for this week and what you'll be following? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think one of the biggest things on Trump's schedule this week is a meeting today at the White House with the Syrian president. | |
| This is the first time that a Syrian president has been to Washington since I think 1946 and it's the first formal state visit for a Syrian president. | ||
| In December, the autocratic Syrian regime was toppled and replaced by this current president who has really made an effort to sort of reintegrate Syria into the world economy. | ||
| We're expecting President Trump and this new president to sign a deal where he's part of an ISIS, a coalition to defeat ISIS, a U.S.-led coalition to defeat ISIS, in addition to a host of other things. | ||
| So I think that's probably one of the more interesting things happening this week. | ||
| All right, Violet Jira, reporter for Notice, that she's at notice.org. | ||
| If you'd like to follow her reporting, thanks so much, Violet, for joining us today. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having me. | |
| And it's open forum, so we are taking your calls. | ||
| Ricky, Detroit, Michigan, Independent Line, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'd like to say that today is the 50th anniversary of an event that many in Michigan will be remembering, many across the Great Lakes region. | ||
| And it's the 50th anniversary of the sinking of a 730-foot-long freighter in 1975 called the Edmund Fitzgerald. | ||
| And 29 sailors passed away on that. | ||
| And it was made famous by a song by the Canadian songwriter Gordon Lightfoot. | ||
| And so it's a big part of history in the Great Lakes region. | ||
| And we're definitely thinking about it today. | ||
| All right, Ricky, here's Kay in Michigan, Republican line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
First of all, I got to say Ricky stole my thunder because I started out with, I wanted to remind everybody today is the 50th anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald sinking. | |
| We all remember that day very well. | ||
| So Kay, I just, before you go on, I want to tell people that it is on the front page of USA Today. | ||
| It's here on your screen, remembering the Edmund Fitzgerald 50 years after freighter's sinking. | ||
| Tragedy still resonates. | ||
| But go ahead with your comments. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But Some of us had friends who had parents or grandparents on that ship. | |
| So it is a very important day for us here in Michigan and across the Great Lakes, of course. | ||
| And what I wanted to say also was with the passing of the bill last night, stayed up late and watched it. | ||
| And I'm just hoping and praying that we've reached a new turning point here in our country. | ||
| And our congressmen are going to maybe hopefully work together to solve some of these big issues like our health care. | ||
| And, you know, for our seniors, it's terrible to see people struggling with health care and food and housing. | ||
| And I'm going to pray that this is a new turning point and we're starting fresh. | ||
| And let's start out new. | ||
| What do you want to see happen on health care, Kay, with the subsidies for the Affordable Care Act? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I really, really, I was working in health care when Obamacare was passed in 2010, and I was one of those people who were eliminated because hospitals had to lay off so many people. | |
| 500 from each of our local hospitals were laid off to make plans for Obamacare, and that's how our letter said due to Obamacare and the future of our hospital, we have to make choices. | ||
| So they laid us all off, and we lost our jobs, and nobody cried about us losing our jobs. | ||
| And the insurance just got worse. | ||
| I used to pay $230 a month for my health care. | ||
| It covered my entire family. | ||
| Right now, my husband pays $900 a month, and it covers just me and him. | ||
| And we're wanting to retire. | ||
| We're 62 years old. | ||
| We'd like to retire, but we can't because we have to pay for this insurance. | ||
| And we'd like to see it go back to what it used to be. | ||
| And I'm hoping with this new plan that the president has in mind and his people, they work together and get it so that the insurance companies can compete for our business. | ||
| I'd love to go outside in my mailbox and get letters from insurance companies trying to give me a better rate on my insurance and let them compete and let the health care or the government and the taxpayers help subsidize us people. | ||
| Our poor senior citizens, we have people with dementia. | ||
| They can't even get into a nursing home. | ||
| It's not covered. | ||
| They have to lose everything they have. | ||
| They can't have more than $3,000 to get Medicaid. | ||
| And then God knows what's going to happen to them in health care. | ||
| And this is Ray, North Carolina, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Ray. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I really wanted to talk to the few people you had up there. | ||
| But anyway, I think this was a brilliant move by Chuck Schumer. | ||
| Now, he's given this insurance thing a chance for them to send these letters out, and these people start getting these huge bills by the end of what, January, and they don't see. | ||
| And another thing, I wanted to talk to the lady, too. | ||
| She set up that and let him get away with saying this Kennedy guy, the guy ahead of the EPR, whatever he's head of, the medical HHS, yes. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| RFK Jr. helped help give the rural hospitals $50 billion. | ||
| My goodness, it was $145 billion. | ||
| They slashed off almost $100 billion. | ||
| And she let him get away with that. | ||
| That's about all. | ||
| Hansel in Central Islip, New York, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| My name is Hansel, and I'm retired, and I also depend on SNAP benefits. | ||
| And I am willing to hold out. | ||
| I'm willing to go on food pantries. | ||
| I just wish the Democrats had enough guts to hold out on this assault on working class people. | ||
| Chuck Schumer, he needs to go. | ||
| He cannot even hold his caucus together for a simple thing as holding the line for ordinary people. | ||
| We're willing to sacrifice just so it sends a clear message to that king that's in the White House that he cannot get away with these draconian policies against hardworking American people. | ||
| And Hansel, when you say hold out for how long? | ||
| Give me a timeframe. | ||
| How long would you be willing to hold out? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Whatever it takes. | |
| We're behind the Democrats in holding out and sending a message. | ||
| However long it takes, the polls show that the American people, based on the recent elections, the polls show that the American people are with who wants their premiums to go up 50%, 100%. | ||
| That's insane. | ||
| It's jarconian. | ||
| And you have to draw the line in the sand somewhere. | ||
| And Chuck Schumer doesn't have the guts. | ||
| I bet you if it was something concerning funds to Israel or something like that, he would have hold the line. | ||
| We, the ordinary American people, need someone to represent us in those high offices. | ||
| You need to stick together to protect the working class people. | ||
| And on the Republican line in Long Beach, Washington, Jerry, you're on Open Forum. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thank you very much for taking my call, Mimi. | |
| I have a proposal. | ||
| I hear a lot of folks out there talk about term limits, and that includes even some of our people in the government. | ||
| I would like to make a proposal. | ||
| And here's my proposal. | ||
| First of all, in the House, I would like to get a constitutional amendment to change from a two-year term time to a three-year, but a maximum of four. | ||
| That's 12 years. | ||
| In terms of the Senate, it would be still the six years, but they could not be in there more than four terms. | ||
| That's 24 years. | ||
| I would like to also say that they can't run past 72 years old. | ||
| What that means is that the House would have to be finished at 69 and the Senate would have to be at 65. | ||
| I believe that would be. | ||
| And in terms of the presidency, I would want them to not run beyond 75 years old. | ||
| And the last of my proposal would be that in the judiciary, that they all, including the Supreme Court, not be more than 25 years. | ||
| And that's my proposal. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Sandra and Mesquite, Texas, Democrat, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hello. | ||
| Hi. | ||
| Hi. | ||
| My name is Sandra. | ||
| First time calling. | ||
| I have so much I want to say, so I'm going to talk fast. | ||
| First of all, I want to speak about Adam that was on your show. | ||
| Adam, you asked Adam about, they talked about Obamacare, Obamacare, okay, that it's horrible. | ||
| But my thing is this, Mimi, if it's so horrible, Republicans, then come up with something better. | ||
| They constantly talk about it, but they don't come up with anything. | ||
| And I'm sick and I'm tired of it. | ||
| No matter what Trump says, the Republicans fall to his feet. | ||
| They don't disagree with anything this man says. | ||
| They're so afraid of him. | ||
| And they know, they know it's wrong. | ||
| But no matter what he says, no matter what he proposes, they go right along with it. | ||
| And it's so wrong because the American people are suffering. | ||
| None of this bothers me. | ||
| I'm fine, but it hurts me for the American people. | ||
| I am retired. | ||
| I have good insurance, so I'm doing fine. | ||
| But I'm so hurt for my American people. | ||
| Now, these Democrats, they voted to open the government. | ||
| Okay, fine. | ||
| We don't want people suffering, not getting their food stamps or stamps or whatever it is. | ||
| But now you also have people that's sick, that their insurance is going to go sky high, Mimi. | ||
| And it's just not right. | ||
| When will any of these Republicans put on their grown-up clothing and say, hey, Trump may be the president, but a lot he's doing is wrong. | ||
| He's blowing these ships up. | ||
| They know it's not right. | ||
| This man is just, and so many of the people that's suffering, Mimi, they voted for this man, and now they're suffering. | ||
| A lot of them are Republicans that's suffering. | ||
| A lot of them, they get food stamps, that's majority of them. | ||
| Okay, a lot of them lost their jobs. | ||
| Many of them, even before the shutdown, how many of them lost their jobs? | ||
| All right, Sandra. | ||
| And this is Dave San Diego, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Yeah, we're 37 trillion in debt. | ||
| Just as a reminder to everybody, but what I immediately called for was I've been calling C-SPEN for many years complaining about the border. | ||
| And I live on the border in San Diego and have property out in the backcountry. | ||
| And just wanted Americans to know the border is very secure. | ||
| And, you know, Trump, like him or not, I like him on some, dislike him on other issues, but he's done a really good job securing our border. | ||
| And I just wanted to throw that out there. | ||
| And thank you for letting me talk, Kim. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All right, Davey Two. | ||
| And here's Ron, a Republican, Loosedale, Mississippi. | ||
| Good morning, Ron. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just got a couple of things to say. | ||
| The insurance company profits were like $170 billion. | ||
| They're wanting to take our tax dollars and give it to the insurance company. | ||
| That doesn't make sense. | ||
| So under Obamacare, my insurance went up eight years in a row over eight years in a row, $100 and something a year. | ||
| Now I pay $1,500 to $1,600 a month for health care when I was paying somewhere around $200 to $300 a year. | ||
| And it's really when it comes down to it's about money. | ||
| So follow the money. | ||
| These insurance companies with the profit that they're getting of $170 billion, if you follow the money, I'm sure it goes right back to the same senators that are bickering about this. | ||
| This is not about Democrat or Republican. | ||
| This is an American healthcare crisis. | ||
| And I understand everybody needs health care, but I don't think Obamacare is the answer. | ||
| And insurance companies, CEOs, make between $10 million and $75 million a year in salary. | ||
| That's outrageous for one person to make that much money. | ||
| That don't include the board members. | ||
| And then it's just too much money for one CEO, $170 billion profit, and that needs to be looked at. | ||
|
unidentified
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That needs to be, I think any company that receives taxpayer dollars should fall under a certain guideline rule to where the CEOs are not allowed to make X percent profit or money. | |
| Would you include Elon Musk in that, Ron? | ||
| Because his companies do get federal, Not grants, contracts. | ||
|
unidentified
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Tax dollars. | |
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Anybody who receives tax dollars, I think one person, and I know I'm very conservative, but I just don't believe one person should be making that much money. | ||
| You saw the latest package for Tesla from the board for Elon Musk was $1 trillion. | ||
| Did you see that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's all, but that's all based off the performance of his company. | |
| Correct. | ||
| If you're a private and you do not receive any tax dollars, then you should make whatever you want to make. | ||
| It's a free market. | ||
| I believe in capitalism. | ||
| If I start a company and I'll make a high profit, I can pay myself what I want. | ||
| But if I receive any federal-funded tax dollars, then I should fall under a certain guideline. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Here's Jim in Illinois. | ||
| Democrat. | ||
| Hello, Jim. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, how are you doing? | |
| Good. | ||
| The reason why I was calling is, first I'd like to do a shout out, my president. | ||
| Hey, Joe, another vote MAGA, Joe. | ||
| I'll never vote MAGA. | ||
| As far as what's going on in the country, it's easy to explain if you break it down as a baseball game. | ||
| Our innings will be Grand Hog Day. | ||
| As far as the two teams, you got the home team, welfare of the rich, we'll call them the Republicans. | ||
| As far as the visiting team, we'll call them Democrats, Welfare of the Poor. | ||
| Our umpire will be the Supreme Court. | ||
| And what will happen here is the Democrats just protested the game. | ||
| And that's what the conflict is about right now. | ||
| The game is just basically under protest by the Democrats because they feel that the umpire is making home phone calls, and that's what's causing the whole issue. | ||
| That's my opinion. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| In Pennsylvania, on the line for independence, Carlos, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for having me. | ||
| I just wanted to talk about something that was said before. | ||
| It's the fact that these senators on both sides of the aisle, they forego their payment. | ||
| Some of them have foregone their payment during this time of government shutdown. | ||
| That's an empty gesture. | ||
| These guys, they have so much money. | ||
| They live in a fine, their finances are totally different from the American people, most of the American people out there. | ||
| What should be done, and as you mentioned, it would take an amendment, but they should lose all their benefits, pay, tuition for their children, and most important, most important of all, they should lose their security detail. | ||
| They need to feel the anguish, the anguish, the anxiety that the American people feel when they can't get health care, when they can't get those that depend on SNAP benefits, they can't get it. | ||
| They need to feel that because as a unit, they have failed to do their job in Washington. |